Kerbal Space Program

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I assume the nuclear stuff was downloaded. I'm trying to find parts for a nuclear powered sub.

Yes, it's the Interstellar Extended mod. It has plenty of nuclear reactors and engines.

Edit: Upgraded my atomic car. Reconstructed the entire front of the car, to give more of a 1920's race car look. Added a jet engine at the back for an extra speed boost. Mounted an antenna on the fin. Added a fuel cap to the fuel tank, a winch to the front (both thanks to the KAS mod) and a toolbox in the trunk (thanks to the KIS mod).

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All these extra parts brought the weight up to 2500 kg, but it was worth it!

Also, I named the car Automic 1600 and made this poster:

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Started a new game in Scott Manley mode (career mode, no revert flights, no respawning kerbals).

So far I killed four kerbals (Jebediah was the first of the gang to die), but the risk involved in every launch and take off makes the gameplay more rewarding.

Edit: My aerospace engineers are proud to present the Bee II Light Observation Aircraft. The development of this biplane aircraft claimed the lives of three kerbal test pilots and left two traumatized for life (not kidding, they look terrified when they sit in this plane!), but with a final product of this quality I'm sure they'd all agree that it was worth it.

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With a stall speed just below 30 m/s (thoroughly tested...) and a thrust-reversible tail-mounted propeller, this plane has some serious STOL capability, which makes it ideal for island-hopping and for surface sampling. The reinforced main landing gear has a wide track and provides good stability for cross slope landings. The cruise speed is a modest 50 m/s and gives you plenty of time to admire the landscape far (hopefully) below.

Edit 2: Made my first landing from cockpit view!

It was actually easier than in 3rd person view, because you get a better feeling for the motions of the aircraft and the position of the aircraft relative to the runway.

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The old Bee II plane has evolved into the Bee IV B (or as the kerbal pilots use to call it, the "A" (since A comes before B in the alphabet...)).
In this version, the plane has got a cargo bay, two turboprop engines and a retractable landing gear with lights. Thanks to the light and powerful engines, it has a cruise altitude of 8000 meters and a cruise speed of 140 m/s. Top speed is 165 m/s at sea level (but consumes 4x as much fuel as cruise speed at cruise altitude). The stall speed is just below 30 m/s and the range is 2000 - 3000 km (depending on your patience - fuel consumption is increased by 50% during time warp) .

I installed the AtmosphereAutopilot mod, to make long distance flights a little more comfortable. The fly-by-wire system is extremely helpful for landing in the terrain, as you no longer have to micromanage pitch and throttle, so I can certainly recommend that mod.

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Next generation: Bee V. Replaced the spaceplane wings with proper airplane wings from the Airplane Plus mod. The central fuel tank is gone and has been replaced by having most fuel in the wings instead (as it should be). There is also a small external fuel tank attached underneath the fuselage to extend the range. The cargo bay has been moved to the rear of the plane and the tail now has a cargo ramp that can be deployed. In front of the cargo bay there is a passenger module, bringing the capacity up to 1 pilot + 3 passengers. Passengers can enter through the cargo bay or through a new door that has been added between the passenger module and the cockpit.

As the plane was much too heavy for its size (about 60% too heavy) I edited the config files for the cockpit and the passenger module, reducing their mass from 1000 kg to 300 kg, which in my humble opinion is more realistic. The reduced weight allowed me to reduce the power of the engines as well, from 60% to 50%. Now the entire aircraft sits at around 3,500 kg with fuel. Stall speed is still 30 m/s and cruise altitude remains at 8000 m. Not sure if the range remains the same, haven't had a chance to test that yet.

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From the first test flight, exploring stall speed at close to sea level:

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From the second test flight, landed in the terrain at dusk after a 2 hour fuel consumption test:

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Did an epic mission today with the Bee V. The first objective was to deliver a probe to a mountain for a temperature reading. Approached the drop zone low and slow, opened the cargo ramp, delivered the probe by parachute and then quickly powered up and turned away to avoid crashing into the mountain side.

Second objective was to continue eastwards for about 700 kilometers to take a series of atmospheric pressure readings around one of the bigger mountain ranges of Kerbin. Took four pressure readings and then turned back to base - now more than 1300 kilometers away! I was a bit concerned about fuel, since I had used more than half of it already. However, since my plane was significantly lighter now I could climb another 500 meters up to an altitude of 8.5 km to get thinner air, faster ground speed, a better angle of attack and a very reasonable fuel consumption of 0.015 units of fuel per second.

When reaching the base, I had around 30 units of fuel left, or 7% of what I started with.

In total, the flight lasted for 6 hours and 16 minutes.

Below is a screenshot over the mountain range from the second objective:
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Expanding on the probe delivery capacity, here is a quadruple probe deployment system fitted to the cargo bay of the Bee V.
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Deployment of the first test probe. No parachute... Forgot to check the staging!
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Having adjusted the staging, the parachute deployed as it should.
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Returned to base to see the probes descend.
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Attempted to build a high altitude edge-of-space airplane. Didn't get higher than 15500 meters though, which was a bit disappointing. But it managed to do Mach 1.9 and circumnavigate Kerbin, so that's at least something.

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Size comparison with the Bee V turboprop:
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First spaceplane! Works like a charm, although there is no margin for error with the amount of rocket fuel it's carrying - just about 0.5% oxidizer remained after the deorbit burn. Might need to add a drop tank, just to stay on the safe side.

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In orbit:
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Re-entry in cockpit view:
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Sailplane challenge!

I decided to build a sailplane, just to see how well it would work in KSP. The result: Pretty good. Although the glide ratio I could achieve was not more than 10, which is slightly worse than a Boeing 767 with the engines turned off. I think that it has a bit too much drag... But apart from that it flies nicely. At 900 kg it's pretty light by KSP standards (although a bit heavy compared to real sailplanes) and the stall speed is actually very close to the real deal, about 15m/s.

I designed it with a single main landing gear, supplemented with a tail wheel and small wheels at the tip of the wings. Two small jet engines provides thrust for taking off and enough fuel to last for about 20 minutes, and then (depending on what altitude you're on) you can have about 20 minutes of gliding. Taking off is a bit tricky, since you need to compensate for the roll angle of the aircraft, but landing on that single main gear is super easy. It stays well balanced until the aircraft has come to a stop.

Also, entering a forward slip to drop in height without gaining excessive airspeed totally works :D

So, in conclusion: Less drag would be nice, but it's still a lot of fun to fly it.

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Space shuttle challenge!

(How hard can it be?)

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I started a whole new game, and decided to build a space station. And for that it would be nice to have a space shuttle, so that became the first part of the project.

My initial design was a bit of a failure, with a glide ratio of about 1:1 it basically meant that if you could see the runway ahead of you, you would not be able to reach it.



For the next attempt I moved the center of mass forward, added more wing surfaces, a pair of canards at the front and last but not least four afterburner jet engines.

With these changes it actually flies pretty well, with a stall speed of about 100 m/s. It's not powerful enough to reach space (and certainly not to reach orbit), but at least it's now able to return to base at the end of a mission - which is always a good start.
Below are some screenshots from the final approach and landing.

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Next step is to figure out how to get these 60 tons of scrap metal into orbit...

To be continued.


Update: Space flight achieved!* Below is a screenshot of the shuttle at the launch pad. Next to it the highlight of the mission: the short hop into space!.

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(*Although the shuttle actually made it into space, it was only after spending about a minute burning excessive [strike]fat[/strike] fuel on the launch pad... Guess a few more boosters would be nice.)

Update 2: Nearly made it to orbit. I added an extra pair of boosters and repositioned the main engines to get them closer to the center of mass. With these changes, I had much better control of the shuttle during the launch. At 20,000 meters I lost control for half a minute though, which cost me a lot of fuel and speed, so in the end I couldn't achieve a full orbit. Still, it was a big step forward compared to the previous flight.

Below, from left to right: The orbiter nearly in orbit; re-entry and atmospheric braking; landed back at the base.

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Update 3: Orbit achieved! Added a third liquid fuel engine for more thrust and two drop tanks on the back for more fuel and better weight distribution. It's a very low orbit though, just a few kilometers above the atmosphere. A bit more fuel and then it should be perfect!

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Update 4: First payload delivered! It's a satellite scanning the sky for asteroids.

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Re-entry is so awesome!

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This one I call "Moon over the Shuttle".

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Hey, fellow KSP enthusiast here!

looks like you been running the thread all on your lonesome, I'll put some screenshots in if you like:

A good shot of the SP. NART lander leaving the Mun.
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An over-powered rocket disintegrates, the pod escaped but the launch pad is wrecked
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Minmus ScanSAT deploys its resource scanner
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Great pictures! Never got into the whole resources scanning thing yet, but maybe I should try it out :)

I improved my space shuttle design. The previous version could make it to orbit, but the launch was a bit complicated because of asymmetrical thrust and shifting center of mass. Basically, it was perfectly stable at the start of the launch and at the end of the launch, but in between it could go pretty wild from time to time.

So I ditched the external fuel tank and instead I added an extra rocket fuel tank to the orbiter and swapped two liquid fuel tanks for rocket fuel tanks. Additionally, the four solid rocket boosters each carry a fuel tank as well.

The booster rockets are now perfectly balanced around the center of mass, and the orbiter ditched one of its liquid fuel engine, since two of them is enough and they each weigh 4000 kg!

As a result, it's now a lot easier to reach orbit. The drawback is that due to swapping liquid fuel for rocket fuel, the jet powered flight time got reduced from 90 minutes to around 20 minutes, so de-orbiting maneuvers need to be planned a little more carefully than before.

Below, the new shuttle is delivering a science module.

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A second flight to add a power station and a shuttle docking port to the science module. In this flight I discovered a flaw in the shuttle cockpit design. When you place a docking port at the nose, it doesn't navigate properly when you command from it. So docking needs to be done by eyeballing rather than relying on the instruments. It's annoying, but so far two out of two dockings have been a success, so it is doable.

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Got the KIS and KAS mods, since they're pretty much a must for making a big space station. The Kerbals have a funny order of priority though - let's first go into orbit and then we can start reading the manual!

Anyway, I think I've got the hang of it now. First KAS-assembled module is now attached to the space station!

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Meanwhile, on Kerbin, I made two "ILS" trucks and placed them by each end of the runway. So now I can target them to get the vector to the runway, and I can also see how far away the runway actually is (which helps a lot during the approach).

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I made the illustration below to share some technical details of the shuttle.
(Higher resolution here: https://eran0004.deviantart.com/art/Kerbal-Space-Program-Space-Shuttle-Design-718894511)

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Powered by Infernal Robotics, here is an X Wing style jet :D

It flies pretty well, especially given the fact that all wings are at the back of the aircraft and that it doesn't really have a tail! With it's seven afterburner jet engines it's powerful enough to perform a vertical climb at Mach 1. In the turns it can pull around 7 g.

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So two dead Kerbal pilots and I finally manage a successful suborbital flight and landing with an engineer at the controls.

Found out the hard way they can't use SAS and are rubbish pilots, he got it on the ground however.

This is a very silly and utterly brilliant game.
 
I had been considering Elite Dangerous on PS4 for a space flight simulator, not so much for trading or combat and certainly not for its multiplayer element. Maybe I should be considering this instead? I guess I overlooked the NA PS4 launch, but this is actually a new refined version for both markets -- just the first one for you guys on that side of the Atlantic. How does it play with the DS4? That's one of the improvements.

And maybe the thread title deserves an edit, @Scaff. :cheers: I passed on clicking a couple times.
 
@Scaff How far in to the game are you, and what mode are you playing in? Sandbox is easier, but Science and Career offer a drip-fed progression as you earn new parts and reach new places. Also, may I see a picture of your first rockets?
 
I had been considering Elite Dangerous on PS4 for a space flight simulator, not so much for trading or combat and certainly not for its multiplayer element. Maybe I should be considering this instead? I guess I overlooked the NA PS4 launch, but this is actually a new refined version for both markets -- just the first one for you guys on that side of the Atlantic. How does it play with the DS4? That's one of the improvements.
Its OK with a DS4, still quite clearly a PC port and takes a bit of getting used to, but its more than managable.

And maybe the thread title deserves an edit, @Scaff. :cheers: I passed on clicking a couple times.
Done

@Scaff How far in to the game are you, and what mode are you playing in? Sandbox is easier, but Science and Career offer a drip-fed progression as you earn new parts and reach new places. Also, may I see a picture of your first rockets?
I've been running through some of he training missions and also made a start in Career (wanted to earn my parts).

This is my first orbit from the training missions.
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My very first flight, this one didn't even make sub-orbit (Deathtrap 0.5)
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This evolved into Deathtrap 1
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Two dead Kerbals later (it was well named) and I manage to land one alive
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I now have 'Sat On 5' (I believe NASA puns are mandatory)
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Which has reached orbit in an up and down test last night, next goal actually orbit the damn ball of mud!

Oh and yes I am still in the 'pile em high' school of rocket development.
 
Looking forward to picking this up. Really liked a YouTube series from Robbaz playing this. Waited a while for it to come to euro PSN:P
 
I did wonder what had become of the console version of KSP. Now I wonder no longer. :P

Might have to give it another look again.
 
Yeah, Same situation with Cities:Skylines. Years old game but being charged what used to be full price. £24.99 would be way fairer in my opinion.
 
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Started getting more and more interested into the game again, not as much as I was maybe 1 1/2 years ago.

Built 3 geostationary satellites in 1/3rd pattern around Kerbin, with a 4th satellite that revolves around the poles. To get a geostationary orbit in KSP you roughly have to be (IIRC) 4.2m km up, and the polar satellite is only just outside of that to prevent any sort of contact with the others. I've put one on Minmus, Mun, Eve, Duna, and one on either Moho or Dres. Just also finished sending a rover to Duna.

I had plans over a year ago to make a Mun base, those are probably saved in this thread somewhere, which could be fully assembled by a large rover that had suspension that would rise and fall in order to dock with pieces and move them around. Made mock trials on Kerbin first and fully assembled it, but it appears that with the 1.3.1 patch those files were lost. Luckily it was quite simple to make, however to complete what I want to do will take probably 10+ trips to build my envisioned, large scale base. Hopefully I can figure out how to take screenshots again, as for some reason they won't capture anymore either.

Update:

Welp, I guess F1 enables screenshots. Not the greatest quality but still wish to share.
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edit: good thing it has a xenon powerplant because apparently only polar orbits work for finding materials on the planets to be mined.
 
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Yeah, Same situation with Cities:Skylines. Years old game but being charged what used to be full price. £24.99 would be way fairer in my opinion.

Just saw that its on sale on PSN for this, Cant resist. Wanted to get onto this for ages.
 
The turboprop engine of the airplane plus mod is brilliant enough on its own, but for this aircraft I decided to turbocharge it by adding a jet engine (with afterburner) at the back of it, giving it exceptional acceleration and climb ability and a top speed of about 245 m/s in dry mode.

The biplane configuration provides a large wing area while keeping the design compact and suitable for landing in the terrain. The diagonal landing gear gives the main gear a wide wheelbase, improving the balance on the ground.

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Below: Back at base after a test flight to the north pole.
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Edit: Working on an escape pod capable of bringing 4 crew members safely back to Earth from a high orbit. It's a 4-passenger module attached to a drone control unit, some rocket fuel and detachable rocket engines for de-orbiting maneuvers, four air brakes for upper atmosphere deceleration, two drogue chutes for mid-atmospheric braking and two air intakes and a jet engine for the final "suicide burn".

I guess it would have been easier to simply use a crew capsule, a heat shield and a parachute, but what's the fun in that? :P

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My new atmospheric survey aircraft. Designed primarily for low speed take off and for long range, but it's actually fairly quick at up to 1000 km/h at an altitude of 9 km. It's got enough fuel to circumnavigate Kerbin and the maneuverability is simply excellent.

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The wide landing gear provides great stability when landing and taking off. The protruding tail adds stability in the air and provides greater torque for pitch and yaw control. The forward swept main wing places the center of lift closer to the center of mass. The secondary wing placed just behind the cockpit further adjusts the center of lift.
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