What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Bill Zarr]

Why did I take that stupid "take a temperature reading near to your lander" contract? It seemed like it would be easy take a temperature reading next to the old lander, it had just enough fuel to hop to the location. Of course then the contract says it wants another reading done, and the fuel is gone. So I need to actually send a mission to sort this out. Hopper or rover? Well the areas the lander landed were both flat, and a rover would be lightest... 15k funds on a basic rover mission to the Mun. Of course THEN the the next temperature reading is down in a deep crater and then next up a hill, and then I'm wondering just how many of these are there?! Turns out there were 6. I drove that tiny rover so far. For an entirely untested design it worked quite well. It needs a couple more solar panels perhaps, as it has to stop every few km when driving uphill so it can recharge for a minute.

 

After all that excitement I decided to retire to the VAB to work on some ore miner designs, naturally the end result was a spaceplane for launching satellites designed in the SPH.

I was thinking about the earlier post:-

On 19/12/2015 at 3:49 PM, McFarnsworth said:

... but there's no practical way to get any sort of cargo into orbit with an mk1 spaceplane.

And was considering the various methods in which one might launch things on a mk1 spaceplane. I'm not entirely sure how practical this solution is but building it entertained me and it works - at least for small satellites. It would be nice to have a proper mk1 cargo bay though.

Used 2 stack decouplers rather than a separator, so I could dump them just prior to re-entry and avoid leaving debris in orbit. The wee satellite has over 2000m/s ∆v.

[KerrMü]

3 hours ago, kotomikun said:

Had to uninstall EVE and switch back to 32-bit thanks to memory-bloat and constant inexplicable freezing on 64-bit. That 1.1 update can't come soon enough.

On the plus side, my preposterously efficient NFP ion ship (over 40,000 d/v) arrived at Jool, doing a flyby of Tylo before entering orbit of... uh... Tylo. Planning to visit all the Jool moons; this ship has a multi-stage sub-craft for escaping Tylo (the last stage should be able to handle the other airless moons) and a separate ship will hopefully make its way to Laythe with an escape vehicle. Should really bring a spaceplane next time...

NIce

I´m planning a trip with ion engines as well. But my destination will be Duna.

After assembling the XKS Beagle in an 1000km orbit I saved and flew it into the sun, just to see if she has enough delta V.

[Geschosskopf]

Today I put the finishing touches on what I hope is getting enough money to support my Outer Planets habit for some time to come, and can sit back and actually let stuff get all the way out there.instead of interrupting progress every few months to do some silly but lucrative contract.

So here you have 2 ships heading for Eve, 1 for Duna, 1 for Dres, 1 for Jool, 5 for Sarnus, 3 for Urlum, and 1 for Neidon all at once :).  Already have stuff at Eve, Duna, and Dres.  I have a serious addiction to interplanetary missions.

[Triop]

Working on my Dakar project, meet the "Grasshopper"

Build around a Apache cockpit, full electric, tuned the wheels config file to reach a speed over 100 m/s and still be steerable.

 

}
        steeringCurve
        {
            key = 0 25
            key = 10 9
            key = 30 2
        }
        torqueCurve
        {
            key = 0 500 0 50
            key = 200  100 50
            key = 300 14 0 50
            key = 340 0 0 50
        }

 

It can even drive fast under water             Bill and Bob don't seem to like it somehow....

Craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lgqx987gqv2erim/Buggy%20II.craft?dl=0

Edited December 21, 2015 by Triop

[Yuriznikov]

Actually not today but yesterday evening

For our multiplayer career, me and my brother are planning on building a Jool space station to explore all the moons around Jool. Complete with life support systems.
Yesterday i had launched our solar arrays + battery unit into Kerbin orbit.

Edited December 21, 2015 by Yuriznikov

[kotomikun]

Allee Kerman did battle with Tylo, which I've never tried landing on before, and... well.

The plan was to get down there using a sort of backwards staging, slowing down with some extra fuel tanks and ditching them upwards on the way down. But its TWR was much too low (barely above 1 after ditching the fuel tanks), making it impossible to slow down quickly enough from a low orbit. After some experimentation, and squeezing out a bit more d/v from RCS, and boosting with the sepratrons originally intended for getting the loose tanks to a safe distance, Allee managed to land from 60 km up with 2090 d/v left.

But re-orbiting from Tylo requires at least 2270 d/v. After the usual science/flag routine, she took off anyway, and predictably couldn't quite reach orbit. So, time for good old Plan B: bail out, grab the science, and use spacesuit RCS like your life depends on it (because it does). After successfully reaching a mostly-complete orbit, she noticed a mountain coming up, and decided to bump her apoapsis up from 10 to 30 km. This turned out to be a very good decision when she skimmed about 100 meters over the mountain at nearly two kilometers per second! That was probably the closest call I've ever had.

After Allee got to an orbit that definitely wouldn't intersect any more mountain ranges, Urte set up a rendezvous with the mothership; and despite its less-than-one-meter-per-second acceleration, got it parked 200 meters from Allee on her first try. She nudged it over towards the stranded kerbal, who was down to 0.12 units of suit propellant. One very careful jet towards the ship, and Allee grabbed the ladder with ZERO monoprop remaining. So. I'm scoring that Kerbals 1, Tylo 0.99.

 

(Allee actually had a spare monoprop tank, but with the lander pulverized somewhere in the high-gravity wasteland below, they kinda needed to conserve resources. An EVA landing on Vall might be doable with both extra monoprop tanks, or some other shenanigans. She also had a spare set of science parts, so a visit to the asteroids should still be possible, along with Laythe once the single-use lander gets here. Assuming that one works.)

[Cuky]

Through last two days I did my personal R&D trying to find best settings for my graphics card. Most of the time was spent testing different settings in Radeon Software until I have finally found those that keep my card's temperature inside my comfortable zone without hindering performance ingame

[Mikki]

I made a nice Hermes-Shuttle, the Kermes 1 (It is in the spacecraft exchange now).

It flies like its concept was supposed to:

Edited December 21, 2015 by Mikki
format

[McFarnsworth]

12 hours ago, Bill Zarr said:

And was considering the various methods in which one might launch things on a mk1 spaceplane. I'm not entirely sure how practical this solution is but building it entertained me and it works - at least for small satellites. It would be nice to have a proper mk1 cargo bay though.

Used 2 stack decouplers rather than a separator, so I could dump them just prior to re-entry and avoid leaving debris in orbit. The wee satellite has over 2000m/s ∆v.

That's brilliant, I actually hadn't thought of that. I turned mine into a mk1.5 spaceplane. Twice the kerbals, and some actual cargo space.

[MaxwellsDemon]

In my career reboot, Val made the first successful orbital flight after five suborbital precursor missions.

Using Kerbal Construction Time makes the early career phase a significant challenge, I'm finding, though one that is more realistic than the launch-seven-times-the-first-day of non-KCT career!  I'm enjoying it, even though it means it's not an easy ride-- or perhaps because it's not an easy ride?

[Mikki]

And i launched the Kermes interplanetary research vessel (about 6800dV, asteroid ISRU capable), hardly reached orbit... but fully fueled :

Watch Jebediahs face...

Edited December 21, 2015 by Mikki

[Draconiator]

I made a new version of my Laytheflyer, the other one was too unstable and the wings dipped too low.

 

 

The other one is still around Laythe and I may still use it as a landing marker.

[GarrisonChisholm]

On 12/19/2015 at 7:47 PM, KerBlammo said:

Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition! [DRAMATIC CHORD]

 

Thank you, I thought I was going to be left hanging. lol

[Inverurie Jones]

I accidentally dropped Mildie Kerman on to the Mun from a height of 5,000km after exhausting her EVA fuel.

Her condition is...stable.

[Francois424]

Continued mining ore to refuel my mothership in orbit of Moho.  Almost done and in one more landing it is done.
Started work on getting every mods I will need for 1,1 (n/m the fact most will need to be updated) and has gotten many ppl to help me identify the ones I had no Idea of (see my thread in progress on the forum, but almost done).

My next project will be reproducing Youtuber Baconfortress_Live!'s "Scott's Feather" from the video "Kerb-X Interplanetary Space Program Episode 14: Sojourn at Sarnus pt2".
I want to add a set of rugged wheels and airplane wheel (more durable) instead of landing struts to be able to move around... if it works it will be my most advanced rover yet.
But we'll see... Christmas time afterall and time will be short.

I might just continue experimenting with boatplanes instead.

[Triop]

 

Drove up a mountain today...

[Red Shirt]

Completed a several day mission to the Jool System

1. SRB's and Rhino take it most of the way to orbit. 2. Skipper takes it through circularization with 600 m/s left for start of transfer burn. 3. Single LV-N handles the maneuvers at Jool. 4. Making orbit at Pol. 5. Landing on steep slope - no problem. 6. Descent at Bop - more of a spud than Dres ever dreamed of. 7. Bop, not so scary. 8. Vall has awesome views. 9. Vall, so shiny.

I have now landed and returned from every possible stock planet and moon, with the exception of Eve and Tylo. I've landed on Eve but haven't made orbit - yet! Stay tuned. 

[Snarfster]

I made this to try to get a Class E into Kerbin Orbit...

Refuelling it will be a royal pain in the behind.

[ninjacat]

i made a jet booster. they could be even better than regular boosters! i just need to add more of them. i also started using the science jr. intresting stuff

[RocketPilot573]

[SuicidalInsanity]

I did some torus centrifuge artificial gravity experiments today:

(Bilman experiencing about 8 m/s worth of artificial gravity)

I used open mk2 cargobays to build a hollow torus, spun it up, and then EVA'd Bilman into the ring. While the initial gravity test was a success, it resulted in Bilman permanently ragdolling. I had hoped I could have walked him around the ring, but on further thought, I have a suspicion the habit of EVA'd kerbals to orient to the camera would have prevented this even if he hadn't ragdolled. Oh well.

Edited December 22, 2015 by SuicidalInsanity

[cantab]

Took my in-development spaceplane to the edge of space (specifically, about 35 km and 1200 m/s, way short of orbit) then successfully ditched it in the ocean.

screenshot290 by cantab314, on Flickr

I'm pretty happy with the airframe, but clearly need considerably more fuel. I may also add two more thrust engines, I feel that with my low TWR I'm spending fuel just maintaining my speed and taking too long to accelerate.

[livefree75]

I sent a spacecraft to Duna to scan for resources... twice.

After getting the thing into LKO, doing the Hohmann transfer, orbital insertion, and the works, I opened the scanner, and:

"Cannot operate scanner; no comms device on this vessel."

I went back to the VAB, added an antenna, and performed the mission all over again. Although it was more than a little annoying, it's those little things that feed my interest in KSP.

[LaytheDragon]

Yesterday, I landed a kerbal on the mun for the first time in my 1.0.5 career save (it was a first for that specific save; I have been to the Mun many times before)

The views from the mun were beautiful, as I landed on the edge of a cliff and with Kerbin just barely visible over the horizon on the opposite horizon from the cliff (400 meters from the landing site; where the ground starts to slope before the edge of the cliff blocked the view of Kerbin from the actual landing site).

Despite the tipped lander, opening/closing the service bay would push against the ground and bounce the ship just off the ground, so it could thrust away without incident. The problem I had, though, was not enough delta vee left to make it back home. I could barely get 1,000,000 meters above Kerbin when I was lucky before running dry. It took a huge amount of quickloading and minuscule differences in my Mun escape trajectory to finally get the right combination for a perfect 27,000 meter periapsis around Kerbin for reentry.

I also confirmed a hypothesis that Kerbals could be rescued just by stuffing them in a 1.25 meter service bay, the service bay I use in the standard early-game 1.25 meter 1-kerbal return pod I've created in that save. I sent up the same ship I used to land on Minmus in that career save to rendezvous with a kerbal (without maneuver nodes, of course). It does require lots of stopping timewarp and moving the kerbal back near the ship, though, as the kerbal and the rescue ship drift through each other while on-rails (luckily I rescued a kerbal from low orbit, so I didn't need to do much of stopping timewarp). Right before I went below 70 km above Kerbin, I stuffed the kerbal I managed to rescue into the service bay and watched as she survived reentry. She only added a very slight torque to the pod from moving around due to being cramped by the mystery goo. Pictures are in the spoiler.

Spoiler

 

Today, I didn't play KSP, because my gaming computer only loaded/only will load partially, and then went to a black screen with a flashing white line in the top left corner. The line was lower, flashing more often, flashing faster, and flashing for much longer (infinitely) than the usual two seconds of that computer loading screen. I think the issue may be relating to the hard drive, but i don't know if it can be fixed with a windows 7 ultimate (a version of windows that doesn't have windows 10 popups) recovery disk, or if lumps of money need to be spent on a new hard drive.  (Does anyone know about this computer issue? I can't play KSP with clouds on any of my other computers due to lag, so I would like tips on a fix)

Edited December 22, 2015 by LaytheDragon

[LaytheDragon]

4 minutes ago, livefree75 said:

After getting the thing into LKO, doing the Hohmann transfer, orbital insertion, and the works, I opened the scanner, and:

"Cannot operate scanner; no comms device on this vessel."

Something along the lines of that happened when a mothership I sent to Urlum from the Outer Planets Mod dropped a ScannerBot around Polta (one of Urlum's moons), except that I luckily could "borrow" the mothership's antennae before undocking to complete the scan.