What did you do in KSP1 today?

[BananaDealer]

Spent the evening downloading and getting mods again. Ready to get started with a new Career game tonight. Had a few crashes though so maybe some of the mods aren't playing nice.

CKAN is usually your friend in this matter. And if you're on windows- there's a workaround for 64bit compatibility (most mods work with it but some still don't).

[KerrMü]

Today I tried to dock to a spinning station, because i´ve never done that before.

 

 

 

Turned out it´s not that hard as I always thought it to be. But listening to Richard Strauss helped a lot.

 

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

And lately I went through my screenshot folder, to see if some of the pics are worthy to be saved on my Imgur account.

So here is some stuff I did in 1.0.4 that was pretty cool, or fiddely, or just fun, but I never posted here cause of utter laziness.

One of the first things I did in 1.x was building a new Shuttle. Because I´m boring.

 

 

 

By improving it over time it can now haul a full orange tank into an 300km orbit.

 

 

 

Yeah, a bit overpowered...

While doing some research for the shuttle I came across an old space shuttle 2 concept.

 

 

 

Works fine, but has less cargo capacity compared to the first shuttle.

At some point Porkjet released his 1.1 / 1.0.5 preview pics, and I started to plan in advance.

This for example could be a nice little Duna cargo lander if I put the new ramp onto it. I already have got a sleek looking rover to fit into that (I think).

 

 

 

yep, just waiting for the ramp:

 

 

 

This bird did a circumnavigation of kerbin btw. Ok, that was boring.

In my current carrer save I banned nuklear thrusters to make things a bit more interesting. So the following pics show a testrun of an ion-powered Duna mission.

On this version of the "XKS Beagle" there is still a ISRU-unit and all that stuff needed to dock to an asteroid aboard... And only then I realised, that you can´t refine xenon gas with that converter. Don´t get me wrong, I like that, but: DOH! FACEPALM! embarrassing

So the next version of the ship completely ignores space potatos and is ready to do its duty in my career. Pretty expensive though. I burnt over 3 million credits to get it into orbit.

 

 

 

One day a standard crew transporter capsule landed a few kilometers to the east of the runway. It had valuable science data from Minmus on it that I wanted to deliver to my scientists on the Kerbin Space Station, because they got bored. So I had to find a way to get this data to a SSTO waiting on the runway. Surprisingly building something for the task kept me buisy and entertained for a whole evening.

 

 

 

And last: My current career Kerbin Space Staion. Just because I like the pic.

 

 

 

So, this was me playing 1.0.4 so far. As you can see I enjoyed it.

I´m thinking of taking a break now untill 1.0.5, but we´ll see if I can keep my fingers off this game.

Whatever you´re doin, have a great night or day, CHEERS

Edited December 1, 2015 by KerrMü

[Dispatcher]

"2001" was a real kick; I like your station and your version of the Pan Am Clipper.

[Vegvisir]

CKAN is usually your friend in this matter. And if you're on windows- there's a workaround for 64bit compatibility (most mods work with it but some still don't).

Yeah I'm using CKAN, it's a really great tool. Totally simplifies the mod browsing and gathering process. I had it going before but with a fresh install went through CKAN again. Filtered for compatibility to 1.0.4, and one particular mod ("toolbar") even has 1.0.4 in the meta data. Yet version checker reports 1.0.2, and I think the mod's forum thread lists the latest update is for 1.0.2. So I'll remove that and see if I get more stability; I don't think it was a dependent one, just suggested/recommended.

[Guest]

Today I tried to dock to a spinning station, because i´ve never done that before.

http://i.imgur.com/LeDnL2Bl.png

Turned out it´s not that hard as I always thought it to be. But listening to Richard Strauss helped a lot.

http://i.imgur.com/0yk5lZmm.png

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

And lately I went through my screenshot folder, to see if some of the pics are worthy to be saved on my Imgur account.

So here is some stuff I did in 1.0.4 that was pretty cool, or fiddely, or just fun, but I never posted here cause of utter laziness.

One of the first things I did in 1.x was building a new Shuttle. Because I´m boring.

http://i.imgur.com/d3dSoWpl.png

By improving it over time it can now haul a full orange tank into an 300km orbit.

http://i.imgur.com/lX6LKx2l.png

Yeah, a bit overpowered...

While doing some research for the shuttle I came across an old space shuttle 2 concept.

http://i.imgur.com/7KaeKsem.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/fglAypGm.png

Works fine, but has less cargo capacity compared to the first shuttle.

At some point Porkjet released his 1.1 / 1.0.5 preview pics, and I started to plan in advance.

This for example could be a nice little Duna cargo lander if I put the new ramp onto it. I already have got a sleek looking rover to fit into that (I think).

http://i.imgur.com/4cVJDAsm.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/bvY7Jggm.png

yep, just waiting for the ramp:

http://i.imgur.com/IQyuidDl.png

This bird did a circumnavigation of kerbin btw. Ok, that was boring.

In my current carrer save I banned nuklear thrusters to make things a bit more interesting. So the following pics show a testrun of an ion-powered Duna mission.

On this version of the "XKS Beagle" there is still a ISRU-unit and all that stuff needed to dock to an asteroid aboard... And only then I realised, that you can´t refine xenon gas with that converter. Don´t get me wrong, I like that, but: DOH! FACEPALM! embarrassing

So the next version of the ship completely ignores space potatos and is ready to do its duty in my career. Pretty expensive though. I burnt over 3 million credits to get it into orbit.

http://i.imgur.com/u3s20rxl.png

http://i.imgur.com/LRp58uem.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/NdW9PoOm.png

One day a standard crew transporter capsule landed a few kilometers to the east of the runway. It had valuable science data from Minmus on it that I wanted to deliver to my scientists on the Kerbin Space Station, because they got bored. So I had to find a way to get this data to a SSTO waiting on the runway. Surprisingly building something for the task kept me buisy and entertained for a whole evening.

http://i.imgur.com/3IrBaHMl.png

And last: My current career Kerbin Space Staion. Just because I like the pic.

http://i.imgur.com/zPUypX5h.png

So, this was me playing 1.0.4 so far. As you can see I enjoyed it.

I´m thinking of taking a break now untill 1.0.5, but we´ll see if I can keep my fingers off this game.

Whatever you´re doin, have a great night or day, CHEERS

That is AWESOME!

- - - Updated - - -

This wasn't today, but I managed to somehow get to orbit in one of those really old versions...

[Wild Cobra]

OMG...

I sent my Survey Rover 33 days ago. Those poor Kerbals were cooped up in there that long.

Anyway, I drove the rover to my mining operation and let them enter the huge mining lander.

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[capi3101]

Last night began with another check of what science I had done on Mun and Minmus and what I left to do. Found out I had four experiments on the surface of Minmus's Slopes that hadn't been done - not really enough to warrant the expense of another science run out there, methinks. I still have plenty left to do for Mun and Bob is scheduled to arrive in a few hours.

I then began work on the Russet 7, a design to put a Class C in orbit of Minmus. I came to the determination that though I'm close, I don't quite have enough tech to get the design - a 200 tonne, 7 J-64/6 Skipper probe that can be refueled and has full RCS capabilities - into orbit. Mainly, I'm lacking the big engines needed to put that monster into orbit. Puts the kibosh on that tater-capturing mission I wanted to try to fire up.

I suppose I could use the lost art of engine clustering, putting 3-4 Mainsails underneath the 3.5 meter tanks. I'll have to see if it's still possible to attempt a capture of that Class C rock in Kerbin's SOI or not.

In other news, Theogel arrived in Mun's SOI aboard a Wildcat 7 ore-delivery and control craft and had a successful rendezvous and docking at the Munport space station, picking up Verise and transferring what fuel remained at Munport to the Wildcat for landing. Tonight the two of them will descend to the Mun Mosquito site and begin Munar drilling and refinery operations in earnest. A Midas converter lander also finally arrived in Minmus's SOI last night, after weeks of planning, preparation and scraping up enough cash to do it, my mining infrastructure for both moons is finally almost all in place.

I did go ahead and pick up a contract to put a nine-Kerbal base on Minmus paying about √250k. Should be straight-forward enough to do, though the last time I tried to use my nine-person design I had to call Bill for a tow...

[BananaDealer]

So currently loading Galactic Neighbourhood with a couple planet mods in preperation for a new playthrough (which I'm gonna post as the new Cabana-Corp. News Network). Had to apply the 64bit workaround to accomodate all the mods and addons, unfortunately preventing me from using KCT (getting the UNPLAYABLE state) which I wanted as a centerpiece mod... Will link to it once I've got something.

[Terwin]

One day a standard crew transporter capsule landed a few kilometers to the east of the runway. It had valuable science data from Minmus on it that I wanted to deliver to my scientists on the Kerbin Space Station, because they got bored. So I had to find a way to get this data to a SSTO waiting on the runway. Surprisingly building something for the task kept me buisy and entertained for a whole evening.

Seems like a rover with an external seat should be all you need to transport as much data as you like, as Kerbals can carry any amount of data on their persons.

Failing that any rover with 2 pods should be able to hold anything you are able to store in a pod+crew can.

Once you get to the launch pad you can just lift your crewman carrying the data up to a pod on your launcher and transfer it manually...

Personally, I did not get much done, I got tired mining with a 1-star engineer on the Mun, so I brought back my 'rescue Kerbal + pod' with a 6 ton pod to LKO where I swapped out Bob(3 stars) with the pilot I rescued on the deorbiter and used my Minmus Pusher to give them a periapps of 40km(the deorbiter had very little fuel left due to the additional landing can and life support resources. Too bad I forgot to transfer the LS to my pusher as it is down to ~26 days + the 15 day grace period).

I was starting to align with my under-fueled colony transport when I realized I probably did not have enough fuel to safely get to Minmus pushing a ship that weighs more than my pusher, so I went back to Mun to get more fuel(this time with a 3-star engineer).

I landed on a nice rich patch of ore just east of the sunny part of the Mun before realizing I had landed just after the local evening instead of just before local morning... (with roughly 60m/s d-v left when I shut off my engines, nothing to do for it but wait for local morning)

[Sido]

I made a station for Themis :

[Cakeofruit]

I ve tested my SSTO autopilot script

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Edited October 28, 2015 by Cakeofruit
Add image

[Generalstarwars333]

I came up with an idea just now for a money maker in career: a movable miner that has empty fuel tanks so you can detach the fuel tanks when they're full of fuel refined by the ISRU, and then recover the fuel tanks and get the money recovered from the fuel! still have to plan out how it would look and stuff, and still have to actually get on ksp to make it though.

[sal_vager]

I launched a catamaran from the pad, it's too far from the runway.

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[Generalstarwars333]

I launched a catamaran from the pad, it's too far from the runway.

http://imgur.com/a/C16eu

Say, that's a good idea for ships! Oh wait, the steep incline down to the ground might screw some of my ships up...

[sal_vager]

Just need a longer ramp

[Vegvisir]

That's really cool!! Are the intakes along the underside to promote stability? I've had a few contracts for splashed down sciencing, I just slowly and very carefully drove my plane into the water

What did I do...reloaded the game lots because it kept crashing Couldn't even get my Career-start n00b craft 1 to launch. Need to lower some graphics settings or trim mods I guess. I'm only using 30 (I don't think that's excessive?) though they are mostly parts types (Near Future, Kolonization, Pathfinder etc).

[Jovus]

I crashed into the Moon.

On purpose. Whee!

[BananaDealer]

I crashed into the Moon.

On purpose. Whee!

You didn't "crash" you SCIENCE!'d on the Mun.

Why does that sound dirty...

[paul23]

Bill doing some last checks on a future lander. Lander is planned to "get in orbit from flyby", "hop to 4 places" and afterwards return to kerbin.

How much delta-v would be required for this? Currently reserving 5km/s delta-V

[Wild Cobra]

I launched a catamaran from the pad, it's too far from the runway.

http://imgur.com/a/C16eu

You should load the ship in the SPH and launch it from the runway.

[Sido]

Made a station for Ares with a new interesting docking module system :

[ROXunreal]

Completed my most complicated mission to date, though just barely. At one point near the beginning it looked like it was destined to be a fiasco, though after some orbital acrobatics and running on fumes I did in the end manage to get away with a heap of science points and all objectives met. (oh yes, and not leave Jeb in space forever)

The mission:

Land on both the Mun and Minmus, conduct experiments and return samples from landing sites in a single mission, with a crew of one and with a dedicated lander that is detachable from the orbiter.

The spacecraft:

Plethora, an ugly and somewhat overcomplicated two-stages to orbit craft divided into four main parts:

• Lower rocket stage - Three radially mounted LFB KR-1x2 "Twin-Boar" liquid fuel engine boosters, meant to propel the craft beyond Kerbin atmosphere and initiate the burn to stable orbit.
  

• Upper rocket stage - Single Rockomax "Skipper" liquid fuel engine, meant to finalize the burn to stable orbit, conduct transfer burns to Mun and Minmus, refuel the lander module and complete at least part of the return to Kerbin. Also features batteries and basic solar panels.
  
• Mk1 command pod - The smallest section of the spacecraft, it is made up only of the pod itself, two RCS blocks, a small monopropellant tank for the RCS, and an Advanced Inline Stabilizer needed for safe reentry.
  
• Lander module - the core of which is the Mk1 Lander Can mounted on a conical Fuel Tanks Plus liquid fuel tank which also serves as the main body onto which other parts are attached. Eight radially attached 24-77 "Twitch" liquid fuel engines are responsible for propulsion. Two materials bays are prominently attached to the sides, with the rest of the science instruments attached on the back side, along with a battery. Also features basic solar panels, four landing legs, ablative heat shields under the main body and materials bays, and four RealChute parachutes for safe touchdown on mission conclusion.
  

The reason this craft design is imperfect and overcomplicated is twofold:

1) Limited tech was available, most prominently I have not researched large sized fairings yet, so the craft is very thin at the part which houses the fairing base, which impacts its integrity. Hence the lander is attached to the upper stage by means of eight struts, which detach when the lander detaches. Later when the lander re-docked the entire craft was a bit too wobbly, but well within the manageable range. The other problem is that I've not researched the Mk2 pod.

2) Docking galore. This is the complicated part. The Mk1 Lander Can was not made for atmospheric reentry. Even though its fragility is not well implemented in the game and you can reenter the atmosphere with it (contrary to in-game description) I wanted to go with the spirit of its intended use and NOT return to the surface of Kerbin with it. Hence I would need an Mk1 command pod for reentry, but I also had to bring the lander body to the surface to retrieve all the science experiments (storing everything in the pod, while possible, is again somewhat unrealistic and game-breaking for me). So after the upper stage we have the Mk-1 pod with a standard docking ring at the bottom and a small docking ring on the top. The astronaut exits the pod and spacewalks to the lander can. From within the lander can he detaches the small docking ring from the pod and thus also rest of the spacecraft. The lander then rotates, and the large stack decoupler is activated to jettison the diameter adapter from under the lander in a safe direction, as it was only needed for takeoff. When the lander returns it now docks to the spacecraft via small docking ring on the top of the lander can for the second transfer. Now, the lander can is also attached to the lander body by a normal sized docking port. When it's time to land on Kerbin, the pod detaches from the rocket, and the lander can detaches from the lander body. then the pod rotates the pod/lander can segment to get the lander can out of the way, and then detaches from the lander can itself. The pilot is now controlling only the tiny pod segment with limited RCS capabilities. The pod docks to the lander body, and this new lander configuration with the pod replacing the previous lander can is what actually returns to Kerbin in the end. Simple!

Mission summary:

Standard takeoff. Time of day: morning. Properly executed gravity turn. Amount of drag due to large diameter fairing manageable. Once above the atmosphere, about half of the burn to stable orbit completed with lower stage which was then ejected. Upper stage completed burn with 4/5 still fuel left in the tank. Looking good.

Uneventful transfer to low Mun orbit. Jeb goes on EVA and enters the lander. Lander detached and lands on the Mun. Here the major problem becomes apparent - of course I eyeballed the needed fuel capacity, and of course I again got it short. The lander used up half its fuel just to deorbit and land. It had to take off to Mun orbit again AND perform orbital rendezvous and docking with the mothership. Jeb feels cramps in his stomach while conducting experiments and taking samples.

The face of terror upon realizing that he may be stuck in this grey wasteland forever.

But it's a nice view.

When business on the Mun was done, Jeb crossed his fingers and took off. The lander had just barely enough fuel to make it to very low Mun orbit with only a fraction of fuel capacity to spare. Using such skills as precision button pressing and sharp eyeball-gaugeing, Jeb managed to align part of the lander's orbit with the orbit of the mothership. Fuel state was pitiful. Good thing I parked the mothership in pretty low orbit!

Luckily the approach was very close and the relative speed difference small, so even with the amount of fuel it wasn't a problem to stop within sight of the mothership and match speed. Rather than closing the last several hundred meters between the ship and lander in the fuel-starved lander, Jeb exited the lander and used the jetpack to float over to the ship, and then brought the entire ship to the lander instead, just to be safe as the ship still had a lot of fuel. Jeb thought he would go back to the lander and dock it with the ship as it is smaller and much easier to control, but in the end he "didn't feel like standing up again" (in space!?) and managed to dock the ship to the lander instead. A prolonged "whew" was heard in mission control.

Rendezvous orbits, note the fuel state.

Jeb gropes around space until he feels the mothership.

The whew part.

With catastrophe nearly averted, the second phase of the mission commenced - transfer directly from Mun to Minmus orbit, refueling the lander from the main fuel tank, and the much easier landing on the tiny Minmus itself. Jeb later said that "it felt like he was a snowflake" in Minmus' gravity.

Jeb forgot to take a picture of himself on Minmus and wanted to turn around half way back home.

The second orbital rendezvous in Minmus orbit went as planned, even if it's not the easiest thing to dock the lander without RCS. With the lander refueled again the upper stage of the rocket had just enough fuel to launch the spacecraft out of Minmus orbit towards Kerbin.

The complicated multiple docking and undocking sequence commenced. Undock pod and lander can from rocket and lander body respectively, undock lander can from pod, dock pod bottom-side to lander body. The inline stabilizer torque had to be deactivated as it was too overpowered for maneuvering the pod, and used too much electric charge too (this segment had only the pod internal electric charge and no way to generate any itself). The lander can and upper stage are left in high (very high!) Kerbin orbit forever.

All set for deorbiting!

As the orbit around Kerbin was extremely high, it took all the lander's fuel to deorbit it for a reentry of acceptable speed. There is a reason why the inline stabilizer is attached to the pod and as such was brought over to the lander: the lander inevitably tumbles during reentry and ends up pointing top-side down, which makes Jeb dead, tests have shown. The internal reaction wheel of the Mk1 pod cannot even begin to mitigate the forces at play, but the bigger inline stabilizer reaction wheel had no problem keeping the pod oriented properly as in entered the atmosphere at an acceptable 2600km/s. Happy landings achieved at 7.1m/s, thus concluding the mission.

Edited October 28, 2015 by ROXunreal

[Znath]

My jet powered land train ran into a snag... or rather..

Shortly after I reached the north pole I realized there may be areas with no ore! So I added new parts to the design like a dock in back, more batteries, bracing, airbrakes etc

The problem is, the "Around the World" team can't simply abandon their quest, and it's not FAIR to have a new team start again.

The most logical solution is to strap wings to the new train and fly it across the sea, have Bill get out, then have the old team simply take the new improved model over.

Getting this carrier ship right was kinda tricky though.

It did straighten out when the chutes deployed. It landed fine.. now i just have to mine more ore to refill or drop supply boxes.

Edited October 28, 2015 by Znath

[cantab]

I landed a spaceplane on Serran for the first time.

Well, "landed"

[Parallax]

a jet airplane that walks/runs on robot legs instead of wheeled landing gear.