What did you do in KSP1 today?

[Richy teh space man]

Still experimenting with shuttle style launches. refined the first design a bit so it can actually dock with something.

 

Getting to orbit and back has so far been do able. Getting back to the vicinity of the KSC has proven more challenging.

[Geschosskopf]

I built a base at the UFO crash site on Kerbin using OPT Space Plane to get it there and Pathfinder to build it.

 

[AlphaMensae]

Well, the Columbia is on its way to Dres, and now I have been prepping the Endeavour for the Eve mission.  This is a little more complex job, since I have to actually launch the Eve lander with attached utility tug into orbit and dock it to the frontal 2.5m port on the mothership, design and launch a crew retrieval craft to bring Bob back to the ship, and launch and attach the nuke plane and rover.  The utility tug morphed from the simple retro engine used for the HyperEdit into a full-blown automated craft, since I figured there was no point in simply dicarding it when it could be used for other purposes--like sending the crew retriever to Gilly.  That meant the orginal simple craft to dock with the Eve Lander's crew pod also morphed into something bigger, with a science package and dual 2.5m ports so I could attach it to the frontal port on the mothership and then attach the lander package to THAT.  The Endeavour has gotten a bit longer.

Now to design the plane and rover entry packages and launch THEM to the ship.

The sister ship to the Endeavour is the Challenger, and she will be going to Duna, but there's a ways to go before a launch window opens.

The Argo Navis when launched will be going to Moho first (its got the dV for the round trip), then to Jool...sort of my version of the Discovery from 2001.  When that happen, I'll also be sending a station there for a permanent base of operations. Named Colchis (after the place where the Golden Fleece was located), it has 4 labs and lots of fuel storage, and is already launched into Kerbin orbit with its tug, another (smaller) Nuclear Lightbulb ship named Athene.

Pics will come later.

 

[RizzoTheRat]

Started assembling my Mun base, which is intended as a test run before building bases further afield.  This has turned out to be a good plan as I'd be in trouble if I'd got to Ike and had this many problems.

First off I forgot to lock off the rover fuel tank so the lander used its fuel, meaning it can't power the vernors on it's belly which are intended to give it a short range hopping ability, as well as the ability to land softly from big jumps.  That didn't stop Jeb and Bill pretending they were racing in the Dakar though.

Then I landed the habitation module, this is the only one that's upright, so it's trickier to land, and here I discovered that the sky crane design isn't great because the docking port between it at the payload makes for some wobbles.  The module fell over when it was released, but Jeb was able to right it with the spider crane, despite that not being something the crane was designed to do

 

The next module down was the heaviest, the life support/utilities/comms module.  Again the sky crane proved a weak spot with only about 1.6 TWR, and poor piloting (can't even blame Jeb as it's remote controlled from KSC) meant not only did it overshoot the landing area by nearly a km, but it was dropped from too high which has damaged it's legs, plus it's landed on a slope.  The leg damage isn't a problem as Bill should be able fix them, but despite the slope not being that steep, it seems the spider crane doesn't have enough grip to climb it smoothly enough to dock with the module.

So I now need to design a new sky crane, and either a new  spider crane or see if Bill can get his spanner and screwdriver out of the damaged module (can you access a container on a vessel without a probe core or cabin?), take the RCS kit off the rover and refit them to the crane.

Luckily I equipped the rover with a couple of weeks worth of life support, as I've also realised the 2 seat lander in orbit, which would otherwise be their rescue vehicle if it all goes wrong, was built before I started using life support.  So I now have about a week and a half to get a new skycrane and spidercrane out to them.  Now I'm really seeing the benefit of doing this on the Mun rather than on Minmus, and I can see why Kerbal Construction Time would make the game a lot harder.  

Moral of the story, Proper Preparation Prevents liquid Poor Performance

 

[Hotaru]

I've been messing around in my OSX install--pretty much stock, except cosmetics, bug fixes, and KJR--for the past few days, taking a break from career mode, and ended up doing several things I'd never done before. 

 

First, I decided since I'd never done an interplanetary mission without MechJeb before, I'd go to Duna. 

Result:

The whole first stage blew up when the boosters separated, but the rest of the ship still had enough fuel to get to the Mun so I decided to send it there instead. It had plenty of fuel to get home, but I somehow managed to send it off in completely the wrong direction, on a hyperbolic trajectory past Kerbin and out into solar orbit. 

 

So I fixed the booster problem, added a probe core, and sent up another one as a rescue mission, during the course of which I had to rendezvous with a target on a hyperbolic trajectory, which I'd never actually done before, MechJeb or no. (I've retrieved asteroids before, but always ones that had been fortuitously captured into Kerbin orbit.) It turned out not to be all that complicated, but it was still pretty satisfying to get that crew safely back to Kerbin. 

 

Anyway, once I got the crew of the first attempt back I sent up another mission which actually did make it to Duna. It was running a little shorter on fuel than planned once it returned to Duna orbit, so I decided to try departing via an Ike flyby, which was lucky, because even though it only saved about 50 m/s compared to a direct departure, the ship made it back to Kerbin with zero fuel left in the tanks. Probably as close as I've ever cut a mission without having to get out and push. 

 

After I got bored with throwing stuff at Duna (this is why I usually play career mode) I sent up a vaguely Mir-inspired space station, which I might expand later if I can think of anything interesting to add to it, and a claw-equipped debris-deorbiter. The deorbiter turned out to be so useful I'm giving some thought to building one in my career save. 

[Evanitis]

Stimpy (my class E pet-rock on LKO) has been mocking me for weeks. I didn't feel myself ready to figure out the best way to land him on KSC. But a craft of another mission casually drifted by so I could save my asteroid-tamer engineers from the thug. I decided to do a test-landing with the rock, just with the rig it already had (that was never meant to land). It didn't burn up and fell surprisingly close to KSC on the first try. My pilot died, but if I could refine the descent profile (and if I could convince Stimpy not to hold the tug into the airflow like a marshmellow), it could work without extra equipment.

Though I have a feeling that no matter how precisely I do the final deorbit burn, I'll need to make a VTOL that can lift ~130t and take Stimpy to it's intended display stand at the Science Center. Sounds fun!

Edited February 11, 2016 by Evanitis

[loch.ness]

Messed around with Vostok attempts:

The Mk 1 is a ungodly assembly of struts and plates which doesn't so much as have an ejector seat as suffers rapid-planned-dissaesmbly to expose the pilot who then rockets off.  Its a Vostok work-alike.

The Mk2 is an attempt at a mostly stock Vostok look-alike.  It makes use of clipping (but turning the chair 180 and then telling the kerbal to sit in it.  It flat out doesn't work.  The kerbal overheats and poofs - the seperations for the ejector seat explodes everything.  Using "Ignore max temp" cheat Val survived a mission being thrown from the wreckage at 17,000 meters and using her RCS to power a landing... but thats not something I'd want to try repeating regularly.

The Mk 3 is from mod part packs I tried installing today.

[Kertech]

Quote

 

Quote

 

I found out that the quote function is really hard to remove from an iPad

I was launching a Laythe probe, it could fly for about half an hour and the wings were retractable behind it's heat shield. Just as I was aerobreaking around Jool my cat jumps on my keyboard (her name is poppet) hitting space, staging my fairing, the whole probe burns up in a matter of seconds leaving a heat shield now in a degrading orbit of jool  try again tomorrow.

[Entropiated]

Sent Valentina to the Mun to fulfill three contracts on a ship that cost me 17k credits to build. She gathered temperature readings and crew reports for 13 days, and in doing so earned the program about 800k credits. It was enough to upgrade my R&D facility to the 500 science level and my launch pad to unlimited weight/dimensions. 

Career mode is a lot of fun, in my opinion.

Oh, I also stayed up way too late testing a new booster for interplanetary missions. Flies like a dream! Bob will use it to head to Minmus later today to fulfill a fly-by contract, then land and gather all the science he can fit into the capsule. 

Edited February 11, 2016 by Entropiated
adding a thought

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

8 hours ago, Laguna said:

The sister ship to the Endeavour is the Challenger, and she will be going to Duna, but there's a ways to go before a launch window opens.

I wouldn't get too confident with the Challenger... I'm not sure it'll be able to make it to Duna  The name has some bad luck assosciated with it.

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 hours ago, Kertech said:

I found out that the quote function is really hard to remove from an iPad

 

You too, eh?

If you tap really carefully you can backspace the old quotes away, but you have to get the cursor on the same line. Going into Settings and clearing the cache/old browsing data works in the extreme too. It's even worse on phones. This forum software does not like iThings™.

[AlphaMensae]

1 hour ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

I wouldn't get too confident with the Challenger... I'm not sure it'll be able to make it to Duna  The name has some bad luck assosciated with it.

As all the shuttles were named after famous ships in history, I can always fall back on the fifth HMS Challenger, the one of the famous expedition.

 

[Spartwo]

Had an aircraft idea.

The carrier would have landed too if there was a probe core onboard

[azander]

I spent the last week building this ship for planet hopping.  Tool a long time due to very low FPS with this large part-count ship.

The separated capsule is the last of the builders leaving.  The station-like shp has a small Duna rated lander, and a moon(s) rated miner attacked.  It was launched in 4 main sections, and then another rocket to deliver the lander and miner.

[Vermil]

Well, my stalwart Danvey, Lealian and Lindra had escaped Kerbin and were ready for the transfer.
...We thought.

Unfortunately, turning up the time acceleration caused different granularity and precision in the physics simulation. Kerbin recaptured my rocket. Yes, an unfortunate property in KSP tried to kill my astronauts. Luckily, Danvey and Mission Control were on their toes and observed that something was wrong before Ikaros_G was flung straight into Kerbin again. Danvey immediately took action to figure out a suitable direction to burn in. Both he and Mission Control were stressed out because of the transfer window. Unfortunately, as Bob soon pointed out to Mission Control, we had already effectively missed it. It would have been more economical to steer for a slingshot off Kerbin to a new escape. As it is, it doesn't matter. Ikaros_G is so awesome it copes anyway. Here a concerned Danvey is burning away from Kerbin.

 

 

It all went well, of course. They had to stay in space for a bit longer, but a new opportunity to burn for a trajectory to Duna emerged eventually. A bit overheating at the end of the long burn, but in control and normal. The team is much happier and more optimistic now.

 

 

Edited February 11, 2016 by Vermil

[Red Shirt]

Spent the last few days tinkering with various designs to fly, land, rover, and flag an anomaly on Kerbin. Now I have a question. I'll continue this in spoiler mode for those who don't want to know this stuff:

Spoiler

The one I have been determined to find is in the mountain just west of KSC. It shows up in Scansat. I crashed several jets on the mountain trying to get close. Ended up having to walk the last couple k. Took forever. When I arrived at X marks the spot... nothing. Managed to get the camera under ground and found it. Tried various terrain settings. Didn't help.  So how many more anomalies on Kerbin aren't really visible any more?

 

[Puggonaut]

Upgraded the Graphics , it was a flipping struggle to get it all sorted , patches for the module manager now number over 28,000 , 4 weeks ago I  has less than 500 , Addictive game this is .

To give yer an idea all the ones with red boxes round them are , just the visual mods....................sheesh...........my brain is now full up

[Alchemist]

17 minutes ago, Red Shirt said:

Spent the last few days tinkering with various designs to fly, land, rover, and flag an anomaly on Kerbin. Now I have a question. I'll continue this in spoiler mode for those who don't want to know this stuff:

  Hide contents

The one I have been determined to find is in the mountain just west of KSC. It shows up in Scansat. I crashed several jets on the mountain trying to get close. Ended up having to walk the last couple k. Took forever. When I arrived at X marks the spot... nothing. Managed to get the camera under ground and found it. Tried various terrain settings. Didn't help.  So how many more anomalies on Kerbin aren't really visible any more?

Yeah, they are notorious for being locked at particular absolute altitude and not following terrain adjustments (which over multiple versions could have significantly shifted. plus the terrain settings issues). What doesn't help in the slightest is that on Kebin most of these particulate ones are in the mountainous areas - resulting in a very high chance of finding them underground or high in the air. (on the other hand, it doesn't take much elevation change, so they can disappear even in rater plain places)

It's been quite a few versions since I hunted for them, but yes, it's been a problem probably since next minor change in terrain system after they were first introduced

Spoiler

there was one north of KSC (like slightly over halfway to the pole) on an mountain ridge slope. An interesting place to land for it, but it then got buried. and last time I checked for it it wasn't even on the map...

 

[Exploro]

Firstly I put Valentina into orbit.

And decided to tinker with a fixed gear jet.

[Fearless Son]

10 hours ago, Kertech said:

I was launching a Laythe probe, it could fly for about half an hour and the wings were retractable behind it's heat shield. Just as I was aerobreaking around Jool my cat jumps on my keyboard (her name is poppet) hitting space, staging my fairing, the whole probe burns up in a matter of seconds leaving a heat shield now in a degrading orbit of jool  try again tomorrow.

Poppet says, "No, don't pay attention to KSP, pay attention to me!"  

[Puggonaut]

Before Upgrade

After Upgrade an a lot of Add On's

Both in game screenshots an untouched by any photo manipulation or whoever you spell it

Bonus Shot coz i miss the Sunshine an its quite cold here

[Gojira1000]

Valentina flew an SSTO to Jool's Moons (but no Tylo landing) in a pre-1.1 farewell to my 1.05 career

 

 

[CAKE99]

Yesterday I installed a bunch of mods and I broke the game 

For the past week I was launching interplanetary missions, being annoyed at Mechjeb for lying about interplanetary nodes, trying to fix the Mun station I accidentally broke using Hyperedit in my graphic novel save 

[Hotaru]

Made a space shuttle! 

 

A little one. 

 

 

It's completely useless, of course, since it can't really do anything an SSTO or a regular old rocket couldn't do better. (Admittedly the same could possibly be said of the real one.) Even a single Vector is really more engine than it needs, but a T45 wasn't enough and those are pretty much the only options in stock. The 24-77s (there's another one on the underside) are OMS engines, since the angled Vector is useless once the ET is gone. 

 

Reentry is a bit hot since it doesn't really have the control authority to keep the nose up properly. Normally I maintain stability during reentry by transferring fuel around, but this thing only has the one tank at the back, so I just keep my finger on "S" all the way down to about 1,000 m/s. 

 

Landing is annoying too, since it handles like a brick and has only has the OMS engines to prolong the subsonic glide (and since I haven't set up my joystick on OSX so had to bring it in with keyboard controls). Still, it all worked and the ship competed a successful one-orbit mission. Might try building a version around Ven's 2.5-meter cryo tanks and 1.25-meter Skipper later. 

[Jeanjvs]

I got bored and started to develop an anti-satellite missile. After a few tries, i finally intercepted my target:

Then things ended in the most boring way possible: the target passed through my missile like it wasn't there.

Apparently, unless i don't mind an excruciating amount of lag, i won't be able to explode anything at those speeds because my Max Physics Delta-Time per Frame is too high.