Kerbal Space Program

Discussion in 'Gaming' started by Kephras, Feb 8, 2015.

  1. Anyone here play KSP? Share your tales / screenshots of your favorite ships, stations, and spectacular explosive failures!
    tuqueque likes this.
  2. I don't have any screenshots on me as I only have it on a computer at school in one of my classes. I still struggle to get to the mun but I should be able to soon, I believe I have enough fuel to do so
    Kephras likes this.
  3. They let you play KSP in school...? :O
    Man, the best we had in my day was "Math Racer."
    You'll have to tell us about it when you get there - that feeling the first time you set down on Mun is just exhilarating.
    tuqueque and ILTG like this.
  4. I've managed to get to and return from Mun, Minmus and Duna with my own builds - with a fuel station in the Kerbin's orbit. Several times I was out of fuel by just a tiny bit, but with enough jet pack fuel, I managed to EVA-push the capsule to a trajectory so that I can use air breaking for a succesfull return :)
    Now I have a new project on EMC again...
    Perhaps in few years we will have some kind of interplanetary travel on MC (I know there are mods...).
    For now it is /smp8 etc.
    Greetings from planet SMP6 :)
    Kephras likes this.
  5. I mainly play it after school when I have extra time or in class when I finish all my projects. It's an engineering class which focuses on mainly CAD projects, which I am pretty good at so I can get through them pretty quickly.
    After school today, I thought I managed to get into a munar orbit (Basically I butchered my orbit around kerbin and ended up having to guess my way to the moon) I ended up orbiting the sun
    Kephras likes this.
  6. My first attempt at an unmanned craft went about like that... I hadn't researched solar panels yet, and thought batteries would work just fine. The Longshot's Stayputnik ran out of juice somewhere around Minmus and ended up hurtling right on into solar orbit. I have no idea where it ended up.

    Some other tales from my early Career Mode can be found on the KSP forums - my favorite is the Centipede Mission, which was an attempt to send a rover the size of a RV to the Mun, and ended up being a three-hundred kilometer road trip.
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  7. So last night, I hit a new milestone of "KSP achievements" - docking without RCS.
    For those that don't know, docking is one of the trickiest, most complicated procedures in KSP. And RCS - a Reaction Control System - is a set of tiny maneuvering jets that let you make precise maneuvers to line up the docking ports.
    Without them, your only option is to use the craft's main engine, which eats up precious fuel (and if you're at the point where you intend to dock with something, you likely don't have a lot left to spare), and worse, means constantly realigning your craft to point the engine in the right direction.

    This is a bit like trying to parallel park without putting the car in reverse.

    I posted this tiny tale of triumph over on the KSP boards already, but I thought I'd share here as well...

    The Munar Orbiter was, quite frankly, overkill.

    Everyone in the Center knew it. The contract they'd picked up to build a Munar orbital station wasn't worth half the funds they were pouring into the Orbiter's construction. But Command refused to be satisfied with the rickety collection of struts and girders that had been the initial (and cost-effective) design. They wanted something with longevity and purpose, and Ker help anyone who tried to say otherwise.
    Jeb, for his part, was pleased. He still remembered the first Orbiter, which had been little more than a span of solar panels above a spine of empty docking ports. The others had taken to calling it "the Jellyfish." He'd spent several months in it, bored out of his mind. This new Orbiter gave him tingles though - certainly Command would not sink half a million into a station only to see it rot.

    Gene Kerman was no accountant, but he did have plans for the Munar Orbiter. Despite the considerable expenses of sending the station skyward, he felt confident it would earn its keep. Three new contractors had come forward during its construction, requesting survey and exploration data. He intended to kill several birds with one rocket. Well, one rocket with a number of much smaller ones attached. Beneath the station's long solar arrays hung three sophisticated satellite pods, and a trio of Cricket rovers. Scientific instruments and other equipment lay secured in the storage lockers at the end of each pylon, easily attached to either satellite or rover as needed. By the time the Orbiter launched, that half-million had already balanced itself out on the ledger - provided its crew could make good.

    Gerbus rode in the jump-seat of the Orbiter's "Lander Can" module, just below the pilot's cupola. Bill Kerman sat to his right, where the controls would have been if the Can was expected to do any Landing. Instead, the veteran kerbonaut poked at monitor controls, keeping a wary eye on the payloads docked above. The satellites and Crickets were holding now, but who knew how much those little Clamp-O-Tron Jr's could hold? The engineers had never used them until now. Hard to put stock in stuff ain't been field-tested. Gerbus himself was an engineer of the most practical sort. Unless he'd used it, worked with it, and tinkered on it personally, it couldn't be trusted.

    The assignment ahead made him very nervous indeed.


    Shortly after the Orbiter had reached its destination and stabilized itself, the engineers found a flaw in the Crickets' design. Though they had ample fuel reserves for deorbit, Mun-roving, and return to the Orbiter, they lacked a key element for the rendezvous: RCS controls. No RCS thrusters or monoprop had been included, making docking a nightmare for the pilots. A secondary module for the Orbiter's lower half was already in the works, though its primary function was to carry karbonite-scanning satellites out for survey purposes. The engineers quickly scrapped together a lightweight RCS tug-drone with a grappling claw, but the module would take another day to reach the Munar Orbiter.

    If there was one thing Gerbus disliked more than untested gear, it was waiting. Moments later, he was suited up and sitting in one of the Crickets' command seats.


    Powered by a tiny-but-efficient Atlas low-profile engine, the Cricket packed nearly 3,000 d/V into its tiny frame. With conservative maneuvering, Gerbus felt certain he could align the craft with the contracted survey points. Passing over them at orbital speed wasn't ideal, but both contractors had requested readings several thousand kilometers above the Mun's surface. On Kerbin, that would've meant a small Recon flyer. In airless space, it meant keeping periapsis above surface level.

    The next few hours were a nerve-wracking blur of wait - burn! - wait - reading - wait - burn! - reading!!! - wait... that threatened to drive him insane. The little lander was amazingly nimble, and several times he wasted fuel correcting a burn that went a few seconds too long, but as he passed over the last of the gravity-scan sites, he realized he still had plenty of fuel to tackle some of the other regions near the northern pole. When the Cricket finally began running low, only one point remained. It'll have to wait. Not getting stranded out here.

    "Stranded," was the immediate concern of both the Orbiter's remaining crew, and Command back at KSC. They determined there was still enough fuel for rendezvous and matching orbit, but without RCS it looked like Gerbus would have to abandon the Cricket. Some suggested he could use his EVA pack and push the lander back into its dock, but that ran the risk of bumping it into (and through) the Orbiter's solar panels or damaging other key components. The better option was to simply leave the Cricket adrift, EVA back to the Orbiter, and let the RCS grappler pick it up when it arrived in a few hours.

    Gerbus wasn't having it, however.


    Less than 200 d/V remained in the tank as he began his slow drift towards the station. Jeb's voice crackled over his headset, urging him to drop the rover. "The Orbiter doesn't have a tenth the impact tolerance of that skiff, Ker damn you! Leave it, the tug will be here in less than two hours!"

    "And who's going to make sure it doesn't hit the station, if no one's piloting? I'm bringing 'er in, son."

    Jeb snorted, not because he was related to Gerbus in any way, but because it sounded exactly like something he would do. Still, it was very risky. The Cricket could easily whack into one of the station's pods, the solar panels, or accidentally detonate the fuel-laden satellite in the dock beside its target. "You've got an OCTO sitting right behind your head. It'll operate remotely just fine."

    "Never trust those newfangled probe cores. Now cut the chatter, need to focus here."

    With a heavier rocket, it would've been madness to even try. The lightweight little lander practically danced under Gerbus' hands, however, sliding neatly along the Orbiter's spine as he lined it up with the empty Clamp-O-Tron Jr. He felt a sudden jerk as the magnetic field took hold, pulling the Cricket solidly into place.
    As much of a joy as it had been to pilot, Gerbus was still very eager to get back inside where there was air pressure. He felt the pumps cycling under the deck as he climbed back into the Orbiter. Filling a Cricket barely put a dent in the reserves the Orbiter had in her tank.

    Bill twisted around in his seat as Gerbus strapped himself in. "You alright there, Ger? You look a bit dazed."

    Gerbus shrugged. "First time I've ever docked," he said vacantly. "RCS really spoils you kids."
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  8. So, I finally started in on a new .90 career mode. Just got done posting Part 4 tonight, and figured I'd share.

    Feel free to leave your feedback here, or post stories of your own. :)
    tuqueque and jacob5089 like this.

  9. Enough said here.
    Kephras likes this.
  10. I see you've learned the value of struts ;)
    This one isn't mine, but posted on the KSP forums a week or so back.

    This is a video for the career log. Finished it around 4am last night and ran out of steam before I could finish the write-up for it, so consider it a kind-of spoiler if you're actually following After The Storm.
    Part 6: Icarus Falling
    tuqueque likes this.
  11. That VTOL part weirded me out
  12. I guess that does bear a little explaining.
    -I have a rule in my current career mode where, unless it lands right within sight of KSC, it can't be "Recovered." Jeb's capsule landed on the other side of that big Korea-looking peninsula east of KSC, out of Recovery range.
    -At that point, the only option was to fly out and pick him up, which one of my other pilots did "by remote" (note the Probodobodyne "OCTO" probe core the antenna is mounted to). So basically, an unmanned VTOL = cockpit empty so Jeb can climb in and fly back home.
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  13. I made a walker... :D
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  14. But the true question, Can It Walk? :p
  15. Yes. But only backwards, for some reason. XD
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  16. Have a video?