Go Boldly Forth: Spartan Space Program

[DaMachinator]

Inspired by @Cydonian Monk, I decided to do a mission report series of my own, on a heavily modded career savegame.

Main mods:

TAC-LS
RemoteTech
RealChutes
Deadly Reentry Continued
Engineering Tech Tree
Karbonite
Karbonite Plus
SCANSat

Full modlist

Chapter I: Initium

Chapter II: Where does all the money go?

Chapter III: What's up there?

Chapter IV: Genesis

Edited July 4, 2016 by DaMachinator
Updated modlist, Chapter IV released

[DaMachinator]

Chapter I: Initium

Jeb stared at the sounding rocket on the circle of concrete they called a "launchpad", accompanied by the only other three Kerbals willing to risk their lives for just room and board - Bob, Bill, and Valentina.

 

After counting down to satisfy Bob's concern over some inane concept known as "safety", Jeb hit the launch button...

...and nothing happened...

-ONE HOUR LATER-

Bill and Bob finally realized that the avionics module controlling the sounding rocket did not come with any internal batteries. Jeb gave them some, "from his remote."

Again, Jeb counted down, and hit the launch button.

This time, the results were a bit more satisfactory.

The rocket staged automatically, with a sudden explosion, but the rocket kept sending back telemetry, so this was ignored. When the second stage burnt out, the parachute was automatically ejected, and readings were taken on the various scientific devices used as payload, including several cardboard boxes "stuffed with science".

A few minutes later, the sounding rocket was visible again to the anxious set of kerbals standing on the beach.

Unfortunately, it landed in the water...

and floated just below the surface, which did not seem to impact the quality of the data recovered.

Mortimer suddenly came rushing down to the beach, waving some checks from the Kerbin World-Firsts Record-Keeping Society. "Maybe we won't go bankrupt after all!"

The self-proclaimed astronauts all stared at him. "You mean we're getting paid to launch cardboard tubes into the air?"

Mortimer nodded. "These checks are extra. Apparently we broke some world records, with some not insubstantial rewards for doing so."

And so it began - but there was much more ahead of them if they expected to keep the "space center" running and keep Mortimer happy.

---

 

This is my first foray into KSP writing! Feedback, suggestions, and questions are appreciated.

 

Edited June 3, 2016 by DaMachinator

[RocketSquid]

Seems good, I really have no idea how to make early career interesting. I started post-Mun in a science mode game. You're doing well so far.

[DaMachinator]

10 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

Seems good, I really have no idea how to make early career interesting. I started post-Mun in a science mode game. You're doing well so far.

Contract addon mods help, as do mods like Sounding Rockets - get some extra science to push past those first few nodes.

I'm using Engineering Tech Tree and quite a few difficulty mods and utility mods, which changes it up quite a bit.

I used the Normal preset, with the Sparta flag from a flag pack.

Edited June 3, 2016 by DaMachinator

[DaMachinator]

Had to remove Kerbinside as I suspect it is the root cause of a crash I am experiencing. If the error persists I'll add it back as that means it wasn't Kerbinside.

[DaMachinator]

Chapter 2: Where does all the money go?

The four would-be astronauts hauled the Extra-I out of the water, having named it after the extra cash it brought in by breaking all those records. Surprisingly, though the cardboard parts had been thoroughly soaked, the scrap value of the parts was nearly 100%. The "space agency" now over 75 thousand Kredits the richer, Mortimer never noticed the missing government funding someone had misused to build lighting for the "launchpad".

Kredits: 116,737
Science: 39.2

Wernher and his team of interns used the data from the sounding rocket to develop a number of new technologies, including heavier parachutes to recover heavier things and basic aviation technology, among other things.

Jeb sat on the runway in the new trainer Eta. Powered by the newly-developed Wheesley turbofan, Jeb was now at least a pilot, if not an astronaut. All of the astronauts would be taking this contraption for a spin to gain some experience before manned missions took place. After taking off, he headed towards the island airfield, because someone decided to pay them to walk around there.

Despite being instructed not to do any stunts, he did manage to break the sound barrier (340 m/s at 1 atm) on his way.

He tried to land on the island runway. Unfortunately, the brakes were not strong enough to stop the plane in time, and he hadn't noticed the button labeled "THRUST REVERSER", causing several touch-and-go’s like this one:

...and eventually a Rapid Unplanned Disassembly.

Realizing that none of the Kerbals were qualified to get out of their aircraft to fulfill the requirements of a contract (apparently that airfield HAD to be explored on foot), Mortimer grudgingly allowed the use of 75k of their precious Kredits to upgrade the Astronaut Complex.

Jeb again set off to investigate the island airfield, taking off from the treacherous dirt runway. Fortunately the takeoff speed of the Eta is only 50 m/s. This time, he tried a different approach pattern,

and made full use of the thrust reverser on the Wheesley turbofan powering his trainer.

After an uneventful landing, he taxied to the hanger that the Anomaly Surveyor Group wanted investigated, and took some pictures standing on the wing of his 'plane, which lacked a ladder and thus any way to get back up onto the wing after getting off of it. The Anomaly Surveyor Group didn't care.

Jeb then taxied over to the control tower, and realized that the ledge around the bottom was high enough to climb back up onto his wing from, so...

It was a long way up...

At the top, Jeb investigated the perfectly normal control tower and wondered what made it an anomaly.

He tried planting a flag, and then he realized what was so special about it...

The flag teleported itself onto the roof. "Whatever, you can see it better from there, and no one can take it for a souvenir or anything."

Another company was paying them to get some pressure scans, so Jeb landed on the shores near KSC to gather some data.

Then he flew north to the tundra to take some scans there, and found a tundra biome rather sooner than expected - but he stalled his jet and crashed it into the water trying to land. He survived this one too.

Jeb was now acquiring a reputation for being invincible, if not so much for being a good pilot.

The data from the pressure recordings and Jeb's report of the magical Tundra biome from the air was used to develop a number of new technologies, and Mortimer was quite happy with the proceeds from the contracts, in addition to some checks courtesy of the World Firsts Organization.

Kredits: 119130
Science: 2.5
------------------------------

I haven't experienced the crash since I removed Kerbinside. A pity, since it was a fun mod.

As always, feedback, suggestions, and comments are appreciated!

Edited June 3, 2016 by DaMachinator

[DaMachinator]

In an unfortunate accident involving bugs, timewarp, and the laws of physics and the universe suddenly not applying, Valentina Kerman was killed in a fatal crash. The GUI bugged out and I could not revert, and I had to force close KSP. We shall see if the game managed to save itself before i closed it, because I don't have any backups.

 

Regardless, the space program must continue!

Edited June 3, 2016 by DaMachinator
spelling

[waterlubber]

Send me your persistance.sfs, I'll necromance her

[DaMachinator]

1 hour ago, waterlubber said:

Send me your persistance.sfs, I'll necromance her

I'll live, she's MIA not KIA so someday she may mysteriously show up.

[DaMachinator]

Chapter III coming soon!

Spoiler

Heading a new direction - straight up!

 

Added Field Experience, having removed it previously due to a crash that it turns out it had nothing to do with.

[DaMachinator]

Chapter III: What's up there?

To aid in the eventual Going to Space, a new sounding rocket would be constructed. This sounding rocket would be used to measure the properties of the theorized "upper atmosphere" and whether the atmosphere did in fact get thinner at higher altitudes. The space agency was a little short on Kredits though, so contracts were accepted and missions were done.

Jeb flew out to the mysterious Tundra biome to get the last pressure reading needed to complete a contract.

Bill was specially requested by a group of tourists to give them a "boat" ride along the shoreline of the KSC peninsula.

Mortimer: "Here is your 'boat' you will be ferrying the tourists around in."

Bill muttered something about insane people and penny pinching, but nonetheless consented to pilot the craft along the shoreline of KSC. It was very boring, at least for him. The tourists seemed to like it, though.

Finally, the space agency had enough Kredits to upgrade the Tracking Station with a bigger main building and more powerful dishes.

Jeb: "What is this...thing?"

Bill: "A sounding rocket. Mortimer said we had to use these parachutes, and we had to deploy at least one of them in a very specific way."

Bob: "It has several new features, like spin stabilization and a cool antenna. And a probe core with a fully featured SAS that we won't be using."

Jeb shrugged. His remote piloting skills would not be needed for this launch - he just had to watch the telemetry and make sure the scientific instruments were activated at the right time.

After everyone was a safe distance away from the launchpad, Gene hit the launch button...

The launch happened at night, as is good and proper. The sounding rocket rose to a great height, causing Mortimer to come running in with more checks from the World Firsts society, with the highest altitude reached over 30 kilometers. Nobody knew if the heat shield was necessary, but it made a great place to mount scientific instruments and batteries and such.

The recovery team hurried to the projected landing site, and looked up anxiously.

Wernher was delighted with the new data, definitively proving his theory that air pressure decreases with altitude. Mortimer yelled at Bill and Bob for decoupling the SRB instead of trying to recover it.

Afterwards, there was a boring contract to break 100m/s air speed - Jeb had repeatedly broken the sound barrier, and noone having seen Valentina since she disappeared in an unfortunate space-time discontinuum, he was chosen to fly the contract flight. It was a resounding success, and Jeb once again was reminded how nice thrust reversers on jet engines are.

KREDITS: 138290
REP: 93
SCIENCE: 18.9
 

[max_creative]

Now... 

REP: 94

TAKE MY REP!!! 

[DaMachinator]

49 minutes ago, max_creative said:

Now... 

REP: 94

TAKE MY REP!!! 

Thanks!

(It means the ingame rep meter from career, just in case you didn't realize...)

[DaMachinator]

Val has returned from being eaten by bugs with aero under physics warp!

[max_creative]

2 hours ago, DaMachinator said:

Thanks!

(It means the ingame rep meter from career, just in case you didn't realize...)

Yeah, I know. Just joking. 

MOAR REP TO YOU!!!

[DaMachinator]

Getting serious issues with bugged GUI's trying to play for Ch. 4

[waterlubber]

Who's listening in on your GUIs?

[Cydonian Monk]

On June 3, 2016 at 0:36 PM, DaMachinator said:

Chapter 2: Where does all the money go?

...

Realizing that none of the Kerbals were qualified to get out of their aircraft to fulfill the requirements of a contract (apparently that airfield HAD to be explored on foot), Mortimer grudgingly allowed the use of 75k of their precious Kredits to upgrade the Astronaut Complex.

...

At the top, Jeb investigated the perfectly normal control tower and wondered what made it an anomaly. He tried planting a flag, and then he realized what was so special about it... The flag teleported itself onto the roof. 

Clearly the money goes into developing remote door locks for their spacecraft to prevent random EVAs, and buildings that teleport select contents to their roofs! Gotta love the weird KSP game logic.  

[DaMachinator]

7 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Clearly the money goes into developing remote door locks for their spacecraft to prevent random EVAs, and buildings that teleport select contents to their roofs! Gotta love the weird KSP game logic.  

I actually have a mod installed that keeps you from EVA'ing while under acceleration or something. Somehow it can tell if going EVA would be dangerous and hides the button. (I keep accidentally clicking EVA instead of IVA...)

[DaMachinator]

New chapter coming soon! Writing a kOS script to get a satellite into orbit since we have no comms coverage and none of the infrastructure required for manned missions.

[DaMachinator]

I think the crash that I've been plagued with is an out of memory crash, so I've removed many of the particularly large mods...

Outer Planets, you will be missed.

[Gauga159]

Quote

Outer Planets, you will be missed.

R.I.P OPM 2016-06-03 - 2016-06-15

[DaMachinator]

Ascent guidance script almost done, working on maneuver execution logic.

[DaMachinator]

Real life and figuring out kOS conspired to send this on a far-too-long hiatus.

 

Chapter IV: Genesis

The four astronauts sat together in the Mission Control building looking out towards the launchpad. Jeb proudly displayed his single star, while Mortimer fretted over the 10,000 kredits the space agency would never see again.

Today's attraction: The Genesis rocket. Wernher von Kerman had, through observation of the Mun and the trajectory of the Extra-series sounding rockets, cooked up a revolutionary theory. By accelerating parallel to the ground for long enough, an object could get into a state known as "orbit", where, barring Kraken attacks, collisions, or other mishaps, it would never come down again, but would instead pass overhead in a similar manner to the Mun on a regular basis.

Except for the rest of the staff at the somewhat impoverished space agency, no one believed Wernher. Wernher presented his idea to Bill, who agreed to an inane proposition: Bill would write a control script to be fed to an onboard computer and automatically put it "into orbit." This took Bill a long, long, long time. He had to continually ask Wernher for equations to calculate trajectories and burn times.

And now, the day of the launch was here. Genesis was equipped with the latest and greatest in rocket technology: liquid fueled rockets. The probe core and computer protected from the elements by a sleek white fairing, it sat on the concrete circle affectionately known as a "launchpad".

Lights flickered as the guidance computer booted and automatically pulled files from the mainframe in the basement of the Administration Building.

Bob: I've got the telemetry feed! Darn you and your twisted sense of humor, Bill!

The telemetry terminal displayed a single line:

Bad code brought to you by HydroCorp Inc. Aerospace Division!

Bill smiled. "Wait for it..."

The LV-T45 liquid-fueled rocket engine burst into flame, and the Genesis rose into the air at ever-increasing speed.

Farther away, those who were close enough (mostly nay-sayers and reporters) heard a roar and looked up to see the trail of smoke marking the rocket's path.

The kerbals watched the telemetry stream, and the view from the single fairing-mounted camera:

Bill: "The first stage should be running out of fuel any minute now."

Bob: "The telemetry shows we've got no thrust!"

Bill, who had a more verbose telemetry stream, called out events occuring too fast to watch on the hullcam:

"Interstage fairing jettisoned...Stage separation confirmed...Second stage ignition confirmed."

Bob: "Mort, when this is over, go out in your boat and see if you can find that spent stage. We put pressure-deployment 'chutes on it, and it should have landed out in the ocean somewhere."

When the guidance computer calculated the rocket would reach an altitude of 80 kilometres above the surface (a value chosen by Wernher from extrapolations of the pressure data from the sounding rockets), it shut the engine off and coasted to the point at which the atmosphere was no longer detectable (also extrapolated).

Suddenly, the telemetry stream stopped. Bob panicked and yelled at Bill and Wernher.

Bill: "Bob, the guidance computer is switching to an antenna with a longer range."

The telemetry stream came back online. Seconds later, the guidance program crashed, turning the telemetry stream into gibberish. Bob ran to the tracking station with its three massive radar dishes and pinpointed the probe's location on a 3D map. Bill sent some hurried commands to the guidance computer to transmit its output log back to them.

Jeb: "Now we can have REAL fun!" He grabbed the emergency joysticks and turned the probe to point parallel to the horizon.

"Throttle to max! We've got lots of fuel, let's go to orbit!"

Wernher, Bill, and Jeb watched the 3D map, programmed with Wernher's equations to show the trajectory of the probe. Suddenly, the trajectory appeared to encircle the planet instead of impacting it.

Wernher: "Don't stop now! Ve must get the periapse above 70 kilometres!"

Which it did, moments later. Jeb cut the throttle. Everyone cheered. And then they turned the data recorders on, pointed the radar dishes to the projected location of the probe according to Wernher's theories, and went to bed.

They awakened to the sound of an excited crowd. Wernher was in the spotlight, followed by the four astronauts, and Mortimer, who had fished the slightly battered spent stage out of the ocean and brought it back.

Mortimer, Bob, and Wernher were so delighted they hired three new staff on the spot from the crowd: Linus Kerman, to head the Research and Development team; Walt Kerman, to oversee the PR department; and Gus Kerman, as general operations manager.

The scientific data from the rocket's telemetry as well as the surge in possibilities due to the proof of Wernher's theories led to some very generous contributions that doubled the ready cash of the space agency (Mortimer was delighted and had to be physically restrained), and some groundbreaking discoveries in the field of rocketry.

The influx of cash was used to start construction of a new and better VAB, worthy of its' name.

KREDITS: 92,530

REP: 157

SCIENCE: 14.4

[DaMachinator]

We say good-bye to the Tantares mod, in the never-ending struggle to free up memory.

Modlist updated.