Kerbal Space Program

[warpus]

I'm playing stock. Looks like there's only 1 thing to mine. That makes it easier to figure out I guess.

Here's highlights from my Eve mission!

It actually included 3 launches instead of the scheduled 2. The first launch was a test launch and ended up making it all the way to Eve anyway and sort of became a part of the mission. The next 2 launches assembled the Venus Mothership, below seen burning for Eve

It contains 2 relay satellites for the Eve system, responsible for ensuring that the 4 probes are actually able to do their thing. It also contains a science lab bound for orbit around Gilly

The mission was a great success. The interplanetary stage had enough fuel to get to Eve, park in convenient orbits to deploy the relay satellites, then park in a low orbit in order to release the probes. Then it was able to get into orbit around Gilly to deploy the science lab, and will probably have enough fuel to get back home after all the science has been scienced away

One of the probes being released above. All 4 probes landed in different biomes and resulted in respectable amounts of science. And since I was in such a low orbit around Eve to begin with, getting them down on the ground was easy. The relay satellites worked perfectly too, even though one was accidentally launched without any RCS fuel and as a result has a fairly low and circular orbit.

A little while later the Venus Test Ship entered the system and deployed 2 probes, which were supposed to land on Eve. The probes didn't have enough parachutes (as I suspected) and it was all a big failure. But it was just a test ship and was never supposed to be there in the first place, so whatever. I ended up crashing it into the planet for fun.

So now I have 2 science labs, one around Gilly and one on Duna, with a scientist in each. They have a lot of science to go through, but I will bring them home when they are done. Right now I have the whole tech tree unlocked except for 2 things, but it's still fun to do science missions so whatever

Next I accepted a contract to bring in an asteroid and put it around Minmus. I have never done that before, I think.. I might need to put up a space telescope to find one first.. or something. My scientists have been lazy and haven't figured out the details, but I'm going to use this opportunity to figure out how to build a fuel replenishing station, and then try to set up such a thing in the Jool system and then do a set of Jool missions.

 

[warpus]

Anyone know what I'm doing wrong here? I have docked with an asteroid and refuelled. Now I want to move it around. So I right-click on it and select "target centre of mass". This is the result

Spoiler :

Looks good, right? I seem to be perfectly aligned with the centre of mass. But when I start burning the asteroid starts spinning. What am I doing wrong? My ship's engines are perfectly symmetrical. I must be missing something, but what?

When I look around at the asteroid, it doesn't seem that the purple marker is exactly in the centre. But I assume that's because of the internal density of the asteroid or whatever. Or is that a part of my problem somehow? What should I be doing instead?

 

[cardgame]

Your center of thrust might not match the center of mass. Probably because your docking isn't a perfect parallel to the surface?

 

[warpus]

Look at my navball though, my centre of thrust seems to be perfectly aligned with the centre of mass.

You are right though, that isn't a parallel surface. Do I have to find one that is?? And then rotate the asteroid around? I can do that, but I didn't think it was a requirement. I figured that as soon as I lock my claw (as opposed to leaving it in free pivot mode) it all locks in and I can burn

edit: I was able to fix the situation by

1. Docking to a more perpendicular surface. This wasn't easy as the asteroid was very bumpy

2. Autostrutting 4 of my 16 engines to the asteroid. That was the main fix. I didn't even know this was a thing until I asked my question on reddit. Thank god for autostruts!

3. Only burning at 30% of thrust.

It took me 12 minutes of burning to get this thing into orbit around Minmus, and after that it was relatively easy to put it in a nice orbit for things to dock with. I am considering docking an extension to this thing, with lots of SAS modules and rcs thrusters. So it's easier to spin the asteroid around when someone shows up to dock. Cause when I think about it, docking is going to be a pain

edit: some screenshots of all this in action

I do believe you can see Kerbin, the Mun, and Minmus in this image!

 

[warpus]

Excuse the double post but I have another mission report. I'll keep it brief

I accepted a contract to put a D-class asteroid in orbit around Jool. I figured I would turn it into a refuelling base for "unlimited" fuel as part of my plans to send a fleet of motherships to the Jool system. I also wanted to use the contract as an opportunity to test out a new asteroid tug design. (I say unlimited because my experience with the E class asteroid made me think that the ore would last many many many refuellings... turns out this isn't necessarily the case)

Turns out I used up all the ore on the asteroid just getting to Jool. Given my previous experience with the E class asteroid I had no idea that the ore would go so damn fast! When I arrived and was able to put the ship in orbit around Jool, I only had 12,000 units of fuel left and 1,100 units of monopropellant. 0 oxidizer too because the ore running out so quickly caught me by surprise

Anyway, here's the updated tug design putting the asteroid in orbit around Jool (as per the contract)

Earlier I tried to aerobrake to save fuel. I didn't have a great approach vector into the system but I figured I could just hide behind the asteroid and use it as a heat shield.. Nope, totally didn't work.. but for a while it looked pretty cool

So now I have no idea if it's even possible to put an E class asteroid in orbit around Jool and use it as a refuelling base. Seems like I might very well end up using all of the ore again, since the larger the asteroid, the harder it wil l be to ferry it to Jool.... I might have to reconsider and go back to my earlier plans to set up a mining operation on one of the moons.. maybe Vall.. Any tips? Send them my way

The new tug design works a lot better btw. I could burn at 100% thrust as long as I had my RCS on. It also had 3 SAS modules so that helped. The only slight problem was that it was easy for the whole thing to start rotating a bit. It didn't cause any major problems though, but it was a bit annoying. If I end up doing this again, I will have to try to make my engines more symmetrical. I thought they were, but I guess not.

At least now I have an okay amount of fuel orbiting Jool. I will use that as a refuelling base for interplanetary tugs. There's no oxidizer on board so I can't use it as a refuelling base for landers or anything else. The whole thing also acts as a relay, which will help with my next Jool mission. There's also a decent amount of monopropellant on board so there's that

 

[warpus]

Nobody else is playing Kerbal so I figure it's no big deal if I post another mission I did. But if that's not so let me know

My next big mission was the finish of the 30 year or so mission of scientific research on Duna. I did all the science I could from the 2 biomes I landed on/near and so it was time to get the scientist and the pilot home. A mission profile was put together on a Greyhound bus on a phone and this is the result:

Modular interplanetary cruiser Scorpion (assembled using 2 launches)

• The nuclear stage has asparagus staging, capsule space for 2 travellers, and after use converts to a Kerbin re-entry vehicle.
• The middle stage is the Duna lander, which also has room for 2, asparagus staging, plus a landing stage. After use the lander detaches all outside sections and the capsule and becomes a smaller automated lander (for Ike).
• The tip is the new powerful relay (DunaSat 3), which the mission profile called for a high polar insertion around Duna, to help assist with future Jool missions.

The design ended up working perfectly and achieved all mission parameters. First the relay was deployed (perfectly) and then the lander was set down about 19km away from the science base. I wanted to get closer, but it didn't really matter as an earlier mission equipped the science mission with a rover. Getting to the Scorpion lander was pretty easy.

If you look closely at the image below, you will see 3 dots/points of interest. From left to right:

- Scorpion rescue lander landing site
- Duna Science Base Alpha
- Target of science rover mission to nearby biome (about 17km away from science base)

Once the lander docked with the main Scorpion mothership, the two rescued Kerbals were transferred to the interplanetary stage, and it was time to get rid of several unneeded modules

Scorpion then travelled to Ike, got in orbit, and detached the unmanned lander and left it with enough fuel to visit at least 1 biome

Landing on Ike was a tertiary objective (after the rescue and deployment of new relay) but it did end up being a success as well

I made it to one biome, got a bunch of science, then in the dark tried to get to another biome, did some science while flying there, and then crashed. Ah well, back to the main part of the mission

Back home after a 25-30 year science mission on Duna.

Next mission: Bringing home the scientist I have in orbit around Gilly, as she is all scienced out as well.

I also have a mission to Jool in orbit around Kerbin already, it's a SENTINEL that is going to find asteroids near that planet. It is also a new relay that might or might not help in the upcoming Jool missions.

 

[warpus]

And I thought I was doing cool things with the game...

 

[raxo2222]

Do you play it with mods like Real Solar System or KSP Interstellar Extended?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Do you play it with mods like Real Solar System or KSP Interstellar Extended?

He doesn't use mods except hyperedit to check out his designs in situ before a mission.

I don't use the particular mods you mentioned but I do use a few parts mods and Kerbal engineer. KE take all the guesswork out of trajectory planning and I find it essential.

 

[cardgame]

I have no words for how far beyond incredible this is.

 

[cardgame]

Your posts in the screenshot thread have inspired me to get back into the game and I recently launched my first successful cargo delivery from a spaceplane

It's actually really simple now, simpler than it was when I tried in the past. I just put two obscenely powerful ramjets on and throw myself skyward at 40-45 degrees, which brings me to a nice and calm 63km apoapsis at 1km/s orbital velocity. From there, circularizing is quite easy, and the reentry doesn't bring any trouble to the plane either.

Opening the doors...

And like a sacrificial angel the carrier falls away

Mishap while testing performance envelope

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I legit forgot this thread existed - I should have been posting here instead of in screenshots.

Do you have any tips for spaceplanes? I've made a few but they have all been pretty terrible. And of course I really suck at landing in this game but that's a separate problem.

What kind of propulsion does your space plane use? Is the carrier reusable or is it just a ramjet sled that gets dumped on ascent?


I've been putting parachutes on my strap-on boosters in an attempt to save some money on the parts. I have managed to salvage a few boosters this way but the game didn't tell me how much money they were worth so I assume that means they were worth nothing? Not really sure how they calculate salvage value of non-piloted parts.

 

[cardgame]

Well, I use it as a ramjet sled, but I have tested it and it is capable of re-entry and landing. Just tedious to actually land it. And I'm in sandbox, so...

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Well, I use it as a ramjet sled, but I have tested it and it is capable of re-entry and landing. Just tedious to actually land it. And I'm in sandbox, so...

I'd be interested of some more shots of the vehicle and launch sled if you're inclined to share them.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

So last night I hatched a plot to save my stranded tourists on Duna. Their antenna broke and now they sit in an unpilotable vehicle on the surface. There is a docking port at the top of the vehicle but attempting to land directly on top of it is something I do not have the skills or interest in doing.

My plan was to send a rover and a ship with an engineer and a pilot over to Duna. The rover will land first, followed by the ship at which point the rover will go over and pick up the pilot and the engineer and take them to the stranded tourists. The engineer was to fix the antenna and then the pilot would join the tourists to avoid all of the comm blackouts that plagued the tourist ship on the way out. The engineer would go back to his ship which would then go into Duna orbit and complete the original secondary objective of the tourist mission - to rendevouz with the science station in polar orbit and pick up at least on astronaut for return to Kerbin. The tourists then would return to Kerbin with the pilot.

Unfortunately, I just found out that engineers cannot fix antennas which is just stupid. So repairing the ship is no longer feasible but I can (and will) still execute the rest of the plan. The rover has been designed and I am assembling the launch vehicle for it. The ship that will take the spare pilot will be upgraded with better antennas and be given its own dedicated pilot to avoid comm blackouts.

 

[cardgame]

As requested some more detail on my ramjet sled (it feels dishonest to say spaceplane when it only hits 63km)

Here's the SPH with CoM and CoL

Ascent profile

Deployed relay sat burning to achieve orbit

Glamor Shot

6 Antennae, 3 radar dishes, 3 umbrella packages.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Badass! What kind of propulsion system are you using on the satellite? What kind of payload can that take up to 63 km?

 

[cardgame]

I expect anything that will fit in the 1.25 cargo bay will make it. The relay is powered by a half meter nuclear propulsion (10 thrust, 510 ISP)

 

[Lemon Merchant]

You know what I think you boys need?

One of these:

Here's how to build one:

https://hackaday.com/2018/01/23/building-a-better-kerbal-space-program-controller/

Enjoy!

 

[warpus]

Is that a pair of the JX4 Whiplash engines on that space plane? I briefly tried building a space plane that can get into orbit on its own, but I used those RAPIER engines. I read up some tutorial and that's what it said to use.. but my problem was that I could only get up to 1,000m/s and about 15km before starting to lose engine power. In one of my designs I have 1 NERV engine too, so I can try to circularize once I get as high as I can get, but that got me nowhere. I only tried for a couple hours though, then gave up and moved on to something else.

I also now have a huge problem. I can't undock two ships I have that I have been docking and undocking all the time. One is a lander and the other is a tug. I am trying to land on Bop and am in orbit, but when I right-click on the only docking port (out of the 2 that are docked together) that gives me an "undock" option, and click on that, nothing happens. I stay docked and the option to undock disappears. I know that I am still docked, because when I fire up the RCS thrusters, they fire up on both ships. I tried... rebooting. Not sure what else to try, but online it seems to say that it's a bug and that you have to edit your savefile manually and hope for the best. But the last post about this I could find was from 2 years ago, so I was hoping for a better fix.

It's preventing me from continuing project ZEUS. I can now land on the 4th moon of Jool and might have enough fuel to land on the 5th without having to replace my 2nd asteroid. So I can maybe almost finish my mission, but then... this