This is my Kerbal Space Station. it's still small. But it's growing. edit: pictures no longer available...
Not really. It just looks like someone vomited alphabetty spaghetti to me. I need a more of a gateway textbook to help ease my brain into thinking an three dimensions.
Big strides have been made lately by the Kerbal Space Consortium - big strides indeed. However, that's not to say that the achievements have been easily attained. The Kerbal Institute for all Things Spaceworthy (KITS) realised the need for a reusable craft that could ferry equipment and small payloads to the Mün. Thus this vehicle was designed and quickly put together in Jebediah's back yard (He is currently stuck on Duna, so he wasn't there to object to this use of his property). The Dropship is here seen sitting in test-launch configuration. It is not designed to fly in an atmosphere, but it was deemed necessary to test its launch capabilities before committing to the design. However, despite the design features that make this creaft unsuitable for atmospheric flight it does indeed fly. A sister craft sporting four LV-T45s which allows personnel to train in operating the craft albeit from Kerbin's surface. Recruits have taken to nickname the training platform "The Widowmaker". The spacecraft was deemed flightworthy, and work began on configuring a launch platform that could ferry our glorious dropship to orbit. Many configurations was tried, but none were successful. It turned out that the entire spacecraft - ascension stage included - flies about as well as a dead kow towing along a humpback whale. In the end the engineers decided to just "wing it", and used a few sets of Rockomax 24-77s in place of RCS-thrusters in order to keep the spacecraft pointed in the right direction during ascent. Configuration 1: two stage lifter design with tri-coupled ascension stage. Result: Unsatisfactory. Configration 2: Same as above, but with winglets added for atmospheric control surfaces. Result: Unsatisfactory. Configuration 3: Two-stage design. Ascension stage is four stacks of Rockomax tanks With Skipper engines at the bottom. A square ring of LV-T45s serve as helper-boosters. Result: Unsatisfactory. Configration 4: Same as above, but winglets removed and a few more LV-T45s added by using bicouplers. Result: Unsatisfactory. Configuration 5: Same as above, but with SRBs added to the transfer stage and 24-77s added to serve as "RCS"-thrusters during ascent. Result: Wasteful and horrifying, but satisfactory. Finally, and to the glory of the Kerbal Collective, we were able to get the spacecraft into orbit. It should be smooth sailing from here to the Mün. [Also, at this point, you should notice a slight change in the quality of my screenshots. This is due to performing a few Upgrades on the machine I use to play KSP. As soon as this Project is completed I will make a thread about it, because it is quite interesting - at least I think so]. So, orbit achieved and it is time to set a course towards the Mün in order to land our payload and properly test the capabilities of our new dropship. Burning for Münar orbit... Orbit achieved, horizontal speed killed and we're committed for landing. The Kerbal Institute of Electronic Wizardry had recently developed something they called an "auto-pilot", and the administration decided that this was the perfect oportunity to test its capabilities. They called their "auto-pilot" Mechjeb in honor of Our most prolific rocketeer; Jebediah Kerman, but sadly the Device simply could not fathom how to operate the dropship, and every attempt immediately put the craft into an unrecoverable spin. (perhaps the engineer responsible for its installation switched its polarity or something?). In the end the craft had to be flown - and landed - manually. In the end though, landing procedures were textbook and as Close to routine as we can get With an un-tested prototype spacecraft. The dropship has made soft landing, and the payload is intact. Ground Control ran a few systems checks on the payload before greenlighting its release. Loley Kerman: Payload released. Münar rover I is wheels on the ground. Adam Kerman: We see it Loley. Excellent work. You may have your snack now. Loley Kerman: Please inform engineering that the rover's wheelbase is too wide for it to drive out from underneath the dropship. Adam Kerman. Roger that Loley. We advice that you make a slight sideways hop out of the way. The boys over at rover control are eager to try out their new toy. Loley Kerman: Can do... Afterwards Loley decided to stretch his legs a bit, and perhaps scoop out a surface sample to bring along with him. His collection of small glass jars of sand from the various places he has visited is sure to grow substantially following his involvement in the space program. Finally the rover was sent out to explore the Mün. It is the first rover Our proud engineers has ever built, and though it turns out that there is a lot of room for improvement it is quite a nifty little machine. And to end this Public report, we shall include a few of Our less than proudest moments: Mishap 1: Something went wrong and malfunctioned horribly. No-one knows what or why. Mishap 2: The rocket veered off course as the parachutes deployed prematurely. The mission was deemed a partial success as the crew did survive. That's all for now. Tune in next time when we shall have a look at what our kerbal engineers have cooked up in order to open up the deeper solar system for Exploration.
I have uploaded all my ksp screens to my steam picture library, any idear how I share the link to it? I want to show my recent manned trip to duna and probe to eve.
One day Jeb Had a dream........ a rocket-plane capable of powered return...... The Kerbal Space Program made it real: Dream the dream & one day a small green guy in a white coat will try it, just to see if you can
PUBLIC PROGRESS REPORT: Kerbal Collective Space Program Today we are proud to report that our heroic kerbalnauts, and the relentless and enthusiastic efforts by our engineers and eggheads have broken new ground in our Exploration of the kerbiverse. As we work very hard to establish mostly functional launch systems we have been able to cut the ratio of UDEs (Unplanned Disassembly Events) by at least 3%. In other Words; massively enhancing the inherent safety in our launch vehicles for their crew and operators. Introductions are over, time to get on with the juicy stuff ("That's what your momma said!" - Jeb). [But first, a small disclaimer: I have started using a few mods. Yes, MechJeb is among them. My inability to rendezvous and dock (and yes, I did plug away at this for quite some time, and no guides have so far been able to help me) was getting in the way of my enjoyment of the game, and thus I decided to install MJ to help me with this (and to possibly teach me how to do it myself). I will also use MJ for high precision landings when required. Furthermore I have installed Kethane, because it just makes sense and it provides more options for industry and exploration neyond land, get sample, plant flag and so on. And lastly, I do use clipping at times because that too does make a kind of sense (sticking batteries inside nosecones for instance) unless we're talking about hiding LV-Ns inside tanks and such. (Didn't realise that I was this defensive about it, but there you go).] Now, with that out of the way, let's get on with today's report: Our last report told the heroic tale of finally putting our new Dropship into active service. This time we put the dropship to work, but first - as with all good tales - the events leading up to it. Following our highly successful mission to Duna in which we established a retrospectively intentional permanent presence on the planet, the knowledgeable kerbals over in engineering realised the need for a more robust infrastructure in order to explore our corner of the galaxy. So, after much deliberation the administration approved of plans (drawn on a napkin) to mine rocket fuel on the Mün. However, we also realised that it simply would not do to have interplanetary Craft make a stop-over landing on the Mün before heading out into interplanetary Space. Thus we committed to establishing an orbital fuel depot. Here we see the first module parked close to its intended orbit (~300km 0-inclination). The orbit has since degraded a bit (possibly due to bumping into it a tad a few times...) and we will eventually have to haul it a bit higher (around 400km should do, the eggheads tell us). Unfortunately most pictures of these launches where taken during the night, and thus are too dark to appreciate the splendour of it. So we chose to omit them and instead focus on the usable pictures for the sake of documentation. However, here we see the crew transfer vehicle ascending to meet with our infant Space station. The next module to go up was the first four-way docking module. The ship is piloted by Hadvan Kerman - his first flight - and he certainly does take his job seriously. Here we see Hadvan inspecting his work after successfully docking the module to the hub. The next few missions involved hauling double stacks of Rockomax X200-32s fully loaded up to the station. Needless to say this was a bit more of a challenge than the previous launches. The first attempt had interesting results... The next launch showed much more promise... ...but then appeared to be eaten by the Kraken... Ultimately however, we were able to knock together found a launch platform capable of placing 6400L of fuel and oxidizer into orbit. Up next was the small issue of docking this quite ungainly creature with the now growing station. Even running this procedure on auto-pilot ups my heartrate quite a bit, but in the end - successful docking of the first fuel module. Rinse and repeat a few more times with an additional docking module in between... And finally we have a total of 25600L of fuel and oxidizer in LKO. The next step is to establish a mining facility on the Mün, and the first step in this process is to send a Kethane probe to scan the Münar surface. With that done comes the possibly hardest part; designing a Kethane mining and refinery facility and placing it on the surface of the Mün (preferably on top of a Kethane deposit). The first iteration looked like this: It did not work all that well, unless you like explosions, in which case it worked spectacularly. The next version... ...had equally interesting design flaws features: That is all for now, but the next report will include successfully launching - and landing - a Kethane facility on the Mün. Until then; take care and thanks for reading.
No one noticed the minor staging issue till launch, still, meant they could smoke all the worlds salmon supplies while they waited
Hhhhmmm Smoked Salmon In other news: Bill & Jeb Take a Shuttle up to the newly constructed "Kerbal Deepspace Staging & Preperation Station" (Jeb did comment on it not having the catchiest name) still under construction/supply (escape vehicles etc) EDIT: 0.23.5 released..... So I : I grabbed an asteroid & then stuck a space station to it For Science! & landed a base on the Mun & minmus
I saved Krerbin from an E.L.E. Boy did that sucker rock and roll around. (double post bump see post above)
Have been playing and enjoying. It's great to have Contracts in the career mode fot extra objectives and encourages you to experiance things some players may never have done. Squad have also added a 64 bit option, great for mods and performance of particularly large and complex craft.
I'm not sure if I like the contracts bit so far. I tried to make a ship to goto Minmus. and had to scale it down. Instead of visiting many bioms, I was limited to 1 due to fuel. If I had more money, I could have done it. One of the contracts available to me now, wants me to take the large fuel tanks that has engines built into it. and activate it on an escape trajectory from minums. I get a lot of funds for it, but getting the thing into space and not activating it until I get there... I just can't afford a rocket that can do that! currently I'm messing with SSTO. I save a lot of money doing that way when I can land right at KSC.
Anyone still playing this? Ive been faffing with the reuseable craft thing and thus far created several space craft which work amazingly in space but handle like a beached whale in the atmoshpere or Kerbin. So far ive managed on bodged landing partly because i placed some braking chutes on the nose section flipping the craft rather hard into the ground.
Schott Manley on youtube has a lot of Space Planes and SSTO craft in his KSP videos that seem successful, although he uses many of the popular mods, like B9, Fairings, KW rocketry etc. I Still play a few times a month, recently re-creating the Orion module test and delta IV heavy launcher from the recent Nasa Mission. Also been working on an EVE return vehicle that is single launch to orbit, transfer, landing, takeoff and return to Kerbin. I have made it to ever previously and crash-landed a probe, which to my surprise was still functional enough to send back science Although this manned mission is sandbox creative. Eve is easy to land on because it has a very dense atmosphere, parachutes work well. But, you also require a lot of Delta V to launch and return to Kerbin. The Recent KSP 0.25 update added some bigger engine, 3.35m tanks and bigger boosters, so having those launch and orbit stages to get bigger and longer range craft into orbit is actually a little easier than before not easy, just easier and to the games benefit, as previously I had made it to Duna under my own steam but mission to Moho near the sun or far out places like Jool are not a lot more likely for more players. Squad also added destructible space compound buildings, for even cooler moments when your launches go wrong...!
I'm waiting for .90 to come out. which should be by the end of the year I hope, or shortly into the new one. I saw a post that they are trying to improve 64bit stability of the game, which I think is needed. too many mods and you run out of memory pretty quick. Sometimes I do play stock, but I find that the mods add a lot and I miss them when I don't have them. I think i'm at 750 hours in the game. Playing space engineers at the moment though.
I have had no crashes with the 64 bit client yet but I am only using the better planet mod & Mech Jeb and have yet to re-try B9 Aero Space or KW Rocketry or the Fairings Mod on the new 64bit client. I suspect as you say, I may well run into memory issues/crashes when using them all together, especially given the size of the better planets textures
new recruit signing in! I tried kerbal when it was first launched... ( lol ) but really couldnt get into it. I dee it has come along way so gonna give it another go! I am sure there will be many failures ahead!
Had a play last night and managed to take off, orbit and actually land without killing anyone... well, once I got the hang of what I needed to do! I do find building the rockets is a bit hit and miss with accurately placing things. Any tips?
