ALIEN SKIES: A 6.4-scale playthrough of GPP/Rald

[Windspren]

What mods are you using for those parts?

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 6/10/2018 at 8:03 PM, Windspren said:

What mods are you using for those parts?

Which ones would those be?

 

[Windspren]

On 6/10/2018 at 8:03 PM, Windspren said:

What mods are you using for those parts?

Oops, forgot to mention that. Mainly those hydrolox engines, the capsules, and the heatshield with a hole

Edited June 14, 2018 by Windspren

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 6/14/2018 at 1:35 PM, Windspren said:

Oops, forgot to mention that. Mainly those hydrolox engines, the capsules, and the heatshield with a hole

Nearly any engine I use is from @Shadowmage's excellent SSTU mod, it'll make you not want to bother with stock parts ever again. 

The big capsule and heatshield (with built-in fuel tank) is the MEM-clone Estonian from @Angel-125's also excellent DSV mod (slightly tweaked), which... I can't find the link for at the moment. 

Both are also quite actively maintained and compatible with 1.4.x. 

Also some bits from @TiktaalikDreaming's Mod Pods.

 

.

While I'm at it, @GarrisonChisholm et al, here's the map of the RaldBase's journeys thus far, thanks to the BTDT scanner on board. It looks like it got switched off at some point tho, so there's some gaps, but that thing sure gets around. 

Should have a new episode up this weekend, lots of new material finally (and a big surprise... eventually).

 

[TiktaalikDreaming]

Wait, Angel has a MEM thing???  Why did I not know about this?

Found it.  It's DSEV, Deep Space Exploration VVessels, which will be why it was hard to find.

Here it is, 

 

Edited June 16, 2018 by TiktaalikDreaming
found it

[CatastrophicFailure]

Ah, that would be why I couldn't find it. Missing that "E"...

[CatastrophicFailure]

Year 10, Day 160...

Greetings, Comrades!

Sigh. I still miss that guy. Is that weird? It feels weird. I haven't show my papers to anyone in, well, ten years and 160 days I guess. Not even sure where they are anymore, I think I needed coasters one time.But anyways...

Spoiler

We have one last ore contract to return 3000 units of the stuff from Rald, our biggest haul ever. And, well... remember a few updates ago when I mentioned someone musing on the efficacy of the Nero X booster stage as a single-stage-to-orbit lifter? Well someone on the engineering team sort of fixated on the idea, and got some others involved, and if it can SSTO to LGO it can probably get all the way to Rald and back with several tonnes of ore and a little help, and then someone started rambling incoherently and someone else started writing that down, and anyways, now we have this... thing...

I refuse to let anyone name it, and will shortly destroy any and all records of its existence save for this classified report. I did learn a few things from the "Glory to Arstotzka!" guy, after all. Its basically a Nero X core stage cobbled together with leftover Mallard bits.

 

Well, look at that, it did NOT just explode and blow Gael a new orifice.

Color me surprised.

 

The first pair of boosters actually feeds fuel into the second pair of boosters as well. Which, oddly enough, leaves me with an odd craving for some stringy, odoriferous vegetable, lightly blanched, with butter. But anyways, the booster separate fairly low...

 

...followed by these fuel-routing saddle tanks, which will all be recovered...

And promptly buried. Hmm, we could actually use a nice planetary orifice about now. Maybe that volcano over there...

 

The second pair of boosters burns out at the edge of space...

 

And then the core engines finally ignite for the climb to orbit.

 

It's a standard Rald transfer and entry from there. Here, it comes in passing Rald's massive shield volcano. Which, oddly enough, is exactly the opposite of an orifice and so still of no use to us. More like a... giant, dried up space pimple.

Am I waxing poetic again? I should lay off the nostalgia trip...

 

Entry progresses oddly smoothly, for something as big and heavy as a building...

 

Targeting was surprisingly good, too, coming down within only 25km of the RaldBase.

 

Shortly before landing, this extra module is jettisoned...

 

The powered landing is, well, quite... ahem, graceful...

Only by the grace of Kerm it didn't fall over and give Rald another orifice...

 

And is joined a few moments later by the extra module under its own parachute...

 

The RaldBase's targeting too, is, er... surprisingly accurate...

 

Fortunately, though, nothing too important is run over, and Hellenna gets right to work ripping the thing apart to harvest the replacement hydrolysis module, as the base's on-board unit failed irreparably some time ago.

 

And once again, the RaldBase leaves a pile of trash in its wake...

 

After that, it's a simple matter for Hellenna to plug in to the... it... and power up the RaldBase's drill and ISRU equipment, to being the process of filling the massive booster's tanks.

All of them.

This may take a while...

 

Meanwhile, out in deep space, after a transit of nearly four years, NOVA Gauss is finally approaching it's own target, and...

What's that?

What is that?

Is... is that a...?

 

My Kerm, it's enormous...

 

Edited June 24, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[CatastrophicFailure]

Soooo... I'll admit to a little bit of cheating, here...

But the game started it, dangit! 

Once the RaldBase was hooked up to the thing and chugging along, I was expecting it to take a long time. But I quickly realized that, despite an indicated 4-day supply, any time I tried to timewarp back at the Space Center or otherwise unfocused, the crew would instantly run out of water and die.  Before Kerbalism could even throttle the warp back. Ok, s'pose I can deal with that, I'll just switch to the RaldBase and timewarp there, right? Wrong. Now another glitch kicks in, that I kind of remember, where the two crew begin gaining stress and radiation poisoning right before my eyes! Now I know Rald is a stressful place, but this is ridiculous! So quickly hyperedit the booster tanks full, unhook the base, and drive out of physics range, maybe that's causing the weirdness. Nope. Burrick and Hellenna now on the verge of going quite mad.

So, I had to go in and tweak the save file. And what I found is that their "TimeSinceLast" entries were some bizarrely yuge number. Near as I can figure, it actually started accruing as soon as the rescue contracts were accepted (or spawned), so by the time they were both on board, somehow there was just too much of it for Kerbalism to calculate for and it went all wahoonie-shaped.

But, a quick edit back to zero, and everything at least looks on the up and up. They'll still be hanging around the thing for a while anyway, other... things are happening. But not that sort of thing. Normal things. Not weird boostery things. Maybe I should have named it after all, this is confusing...

But as you can see, Hellenna is perfectly fine...

Spoiler

Does that look like the face of madness to you? Just look at that face. No sign of a kerbelle gone mad there, no sir, right as rain!

Back away slowly, no sudden moves, and for Kerm's sake, whatever you do, do not break eye contact!
Did you just blink? Someone blinked. I just said no blinking! This could get awkward...

 

[qzgy]

If you're are looking for names (which you aren't... Please don't gulag me!  ) I think the Nero XX could be quite reasonable. After all it is a bigger higher capacity Nero X..... 

Giggling maybe might start happening at the third iteration.... 

[1101]

On 6/19/2018 at 7:26 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

  Hide contents

 

Does that look like the face of madness to you? Just look at that face. No sign of a kerbelle gone mad there, no sir, right as rain!

Back away slowly, no sudden moves, and for Kerm's sake, whatever you do, do not break eye contact!
Did you just blink? Someone blinked. I just said no blinking! This could get awkward...

 

Spoiler

'Don't Blink.  Blink and You're dead!'

'Don't look away.  Don't turn your back, and don't blink'

'Good Luck!'

Now re-reading this, up to the first Rald stranding.  It is a very good thread!

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 6/20/2018 at 10:30 AM, qzgy said:

which you aren't

Exactly. ಠ_ಠ

Here, we have the sunk cost fallacy in all its fallacious glory.  I spent way too much time making that thing work, switching around engines, rekajiggering boosters, even simulating (expensively) umpteen launches just to make sure the boosters really could survive reentry and landing (which was surprisingly difficult, apparently a long skinny thing with all the mass at one end prefers to lawn-dart into the ocean at hypersonic speed rather than slow down enough for the chutes to deploy, go figure...) even tho in the actual flight, I’d never see this as it’s all handled by StageRecovery.

At some point, the thought probably occurred to me, “maybe I don’t really need a thousand-tonne monstrosity just to get 30 or so tonnes back from Rald...” but, I’d already put this much effort into it... 

In the end, lift capacity of the thing is far less than even the stripped-down Nero IX, not even that of an Otho V, cuz it has to haul the rest of itself around too. 

[CatastrophicFailure]

Year 10, Day 249...

After three years and 171 days in the cold, lonely reaches of deep space (and one heckuva launch gambit), NOVA Gauss is at last closing in on its target...

Which is already revealing a wealth of surprises.

Spoiler

After crossing the frontier into the might blue gas giant's SOI, NOVA Gauss brings its nuclear reactor online.

We're... still not sure if this was a brilliant engineering move to save precious nuclear fuel for the main mission, or someone just forget to switch it on after launch. At any rate, up until now the probe has been sipping telemetry power from the lander's four small RTG's. Which... might explain why the lander's parachute has malfunctioned. This will be an unfortunate loss for the science team.

 

The Gaussian system remains unserveyed, being still beyond the range of the aging NewScope, but the early target for the atmospheric lander was our first surprise of the mission:

A massive, super-Kerbin-type planet orbiting the parent world, with an incredibly thick, cold atmosphere. now dubbed Catullus, it has an estimated radius of nearly 7700km. That's twice the size of Gael, bigger even than the gargantuan Tellumo, but with a far more reasonable surface gravity of only .9g. Our landing plans are shelved for now, but this massive "moon" will prove to be the saving grace of the mission. 

By a lucky quirk of orbital mechanics, a swing-by of the pale world en-route to Gauss will brake the probe into orbit without expending any further fuel!

As NOVA Gauss's braking stage is already half empty just from the impulse to get here in the first place, this is an incredibly unexpected boon.

 

The probe beings its approach to the pinkish world. This first pass will only take it within 5000 or so kilometers of the cloud tops.

 

In a further round of weirdness, it's discovered that Catullus itself has a moon, a moon moon, if you will. Dubbed Tarsiss, it will be some time before the science team can accurately trace its orbit, but it's quite obviously bound to the large, rocky world.

 

Passing over the terminator. Catullus has a towering atmosphere, perhaps as high as 600km above the surface. Despite its incredible size, this should make future landings far easier than at Tellumo with its thin, dense scrape of air.

Other than the fact that this world is really, really far out, kerman...

 

Between a rock and a hard place. The probe makes a relatively close pass to Gauss's inner moon, the diminutive Loki, but not quite close enough to enter its SOI and learn anything useful about it. Other than it's dark. Very very dark.

Probably because that's the night side.

 

Passing further inwards, the probe now enters Gauss's inner radiation belt, where the telemetry returning on the Geiger counter quickly rises from "high" to "really high" to "enough, already!" to "are you flarping kidding me?!?" whereupon the gauge indicates that is has had quite enough of this crap and promptly commits seppuku. 
That's what we get for keeping around a crate of Gytepi parts this whole time...

 

As it turns out, the gauge is really just a bit of a drama queen and eventually turns itself back on.

NOVA Gauss makes its low pass above the night side of the gas giant, emerging unscathed back into the light...

 

It's a very long way from home.

The fact that home is so close to the sun from this perspective may shortly become a problem, too...

 

And what's this? It appears this gas giant actually has more than a single biome...

This will requite further investigation...

 

But for now, that will have to wait.

 

Meanwhile, also in deep space, Audacity makes a mid-course correction, now dropping its path into Gratian's atmosphere once it finally arrives, still over a year away...

 

NOVA Gauss has its own problem. Gauss, Gael, and Ciro are swiftly moving towards conjunction, and it's affecting our signal.

Signal strength actually began to drop off severely just after entering Gauss SOI, but it's now down to a bare trickle and getting lower every day. We've never been in this position before, and the science team is unsure whether the signal will be lost entirely once conjunction occurs. Will so many massive bodies swinging around the system, having no way to control the probe would be a disaster. So the decision is made to get it into a stable orbit somewhere by any means necessary.

 

Fortunately, Catullus will once again be our saving grace.

 

Or rather, it's moonmoon of Tarsiss. That last maneuver put the probe into a swing-by course, which like entering the system in the first place, will brake it into an initial orbit of Catullus with little fuel spent.

 

We'll get some close-in science out of the deal, and a proper track of the moonmoon's orbit, and also--

...why is that trajectory line red?!?

 

Upon further examination, it's realized that Tarsiss has an impressively thick atmosphere of its own! If not for the Trajectory display, NOVA Gauss's mission would have been over suddenly and unexpectedly. There's a flurry of activity around mission control, it's time for another gambit...

Spacebars are mashed until the lander is jettisoned, failed parachute and all. This will not only save mass, and thus increase available Δv, but we may get some trickle of science before the probe slams into the surface.
Boy, good thing there's no time delay of commands between Gael and worlds millions of kilometers away, this might have gotten awkward...

 

NOVA Gauss then quickly raises its periapse above the also impressively high atmosphere of the small moonmoon.

 

The lander begins its descent. Estimated surface conditions on Tarsiss are 1.5atm pressure, .17g, and a balmy 95k. It begins sending back data at once as NOVA Gauss passes overhead.

 

Entry speed is a fairly sedate 3.6km/s, but that heat shield is still needed.

 

The probe slows down quickly in the thick air, then begins a long, slow... drift towards the surface...

It... it might actually survive... It's moving slow enough even this high up to pop the main antennas, one of which as also failed...

 

Terminal velocity is around 35m/s at the surface. The heat shield is released just before impact, there's explosions and bouncing...

 

Then what's left of the lander begins unceremoniously rolling downhill...

 

Until the RTGs deploy and...

Well, something survived. In fact, most of it survived. It looks like it's missing one of four RTG's and a couple of science experiments, but we're still getting a data feed...

 

...which is promptly lost as NOVA Gauss passes over the horizon. We'll have to wait and see if anything useful can still be recovered from the plucky lander.

At apoapse, the main probe fires up its engine...

 

This brings periapse just out of Tarsiss's own SOI. Long-term simulations confirm this should be a stable orbit for at least the next few months. Here the probe will stay until Gael emerges from conjunction and a proper signal is restored.

 

It remains uncertain if it will pass close enough to the moonmoon to recover any data. The lander is short one RTG, it's anyone's guess how long it survives on the frigid little world...

 

 

Edited August 5, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[CatastrophicFailure]

Year 10, Day 296...

Today, we're going back to Iota. We have a promise to keep, to an old friend...Actually, it's just an old, half-forgotten contract that's about to come due. But it looks like the perfect opportunity to test new hardware. So another Nero X takes to the night sky!

Spoiler

It's completely overkill. No boosters and the second stage is half empty. But sunk costs and Yoda Yoda Yoda...
Yadda? It's yadda.

 

Anyways, the primary test objective is to put our new fully reusable upperstage through a shakedown. Enter the Dual-Energy Universal Cryogenic Evolved Stage, or DEUCES!

Based around a single, high-thrust hydrolox engine, DEUCES can do it all: act as a launcher upper stage, interplanetary transfer, or orbital tug, even all on the same sortie since it can be refueled in orbit and we hope, land safely from BLGO to be used again! This first mission will shove 45 tonnes of Bob toward Iota.

 

Yes, Spaceship Bob is back again after a minor refit to remove the legacy solar panels and add an extra pair of RTG's to the existing six. With plenty of fuel between the crew and the radioactive slugs I'm sure they'll be just fine. Here, shortly after trans-Iota injection, Bob decouples and transposes...

What do you mean, what about after that fuel is burned off, half the entire trip?

 

...and retrieves the mission support module.

Apparently despite our previous missions there, no one would agree to be camped up in Bob's capsule for two weeks, so the engineering team had to build and entire living space. Which promptly became festooned with all sorts of other junk and led to long and rather heated arguments about mission mass limits.
Who knew a flying slide rule could do that much damage..?

 

Speaking of flying things, today's mission is brought to you by veterans LeeLenna, Gilfrey, Ferdin, and Hadald. Thanks to Bob's extra spacious accommodations, for the first time we're able to bring a crew of four all the way to the surface of Iota and back. Hopefully.

Triti Kerman was initially offered the helm once again, but there was another one of those heated arguments and something about "when pigs fly."
Oddly enough, this did not refer to Vlad arcing gracefully through the air a few moments later.

 

But more on flying Kerbals later. For now, the flight crew is left to twiddle their oversized thumbs while attention returns to DEUCES. Shortly after separation, DEUCES leaves the twiddling quartet behind, burning the remainder of its mission fuel to shorten its orbit from Iota-crossing to and apogee of only 51,000km and a 22-hour return.

 

Bob's abort package is discarded shortly after. Unfortunately, we're unable to recover this, as simulations indicate it's just too high and too heavy and so makes re-entry a bit too... interesting.

"Interesting" and "re-entry" are generally bad things to go together.

 

Dual-energy here refers to the solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells DEUCES can use to power its on-board systems during long loiter times. Both are extensively tested as the stage passes in and out of Gael's radiation belts, as well as monitoring boiloff and fine-tuning of control systems.

 

Less than a day later, DEUCES is coming in hot. This first pass is meant to aerobrake down a low orbit...

And while the stage maintains rock-solid stability, apparently someone, somewhere with the engineering team forgot to carry the one and velocity drops a little too much...
This is what I mean about the danger of flying slide-rules...

So passing back into daylight, DEUCES is now hopelessly on-course for a full re-entry... right into the middle of the ocean.

 

And while this is quite literally the farthest place it could possibly get from the space center, all systems perform nominally and DEUCES transitions hypersonic re-entry to powered landing with only a moderate bit of transsonic helplessly flopping around.

 

More than enough fuel is carried in a separate EDL tank for landing and post-mission maneuvering, and DEUCES comes to a soft plop in the middle of flarping nowhere.

 

Fortunately, being airtight and hollow, it floats.

Unfortunately, salt water and glowing hot metal bits also go together about as well as "interesting" and "re-entry."

This is going to take a bit more refurb than just fuel and go, I'm afraid. But the design is proven successful, and not a moment too soon, as it's quickly rushed into production for the impending launch of the second half of our Gratian sample recovery mission.

Also, we've still got four Kerbals halfway to Iota.

And someone go tell Vlad to start paddling...
Or maybe Triti could just throw him...

Edited August 5, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[CatastrophicFailure]

Year 10, Day 302...

Picking up where we left off, our stalwart crew of LeeLenna, Gilfrey, Ferdin, and Hadald aboard the good ship Bob have arrived at Iota!

Oddly enough, seemingly without consuming any resources at all...

Spoiler

I seem to have acquired a rather annoying bug where background simulation/data transfer has stopped working. 

Spoiler

 

But, the mission must go on, this just means they get to stay longer. I'm sure they're all getting along swimmingly.

Get yer foot out of my face!
That's my foot!
Someone's been using my toothbrush!
Well if you'd bothered to clean the space toilet...

Ahem, yes, well... anyways...

On to the mission, we've landed here enough by now.

 

So it's quickly on to flags and footprints...

C'mon, guys, can you at least all face the same direction? A little professionalism here, you're kerbonauts.
Stop staring at me! Hadald's being creepy!

 

Hadald's always creepy, dear...

Moving on... With the contract complete mere hours before the deadline, roots now in the cellar, and Vlad shackled firmly on the other side of the complex, it's on to less important measures! First, some experiments into in-situ vehicle construction.

Couldn't they have put the box on the bottom of the ship? I hope that stuff's packed good...

 

Veteran Ferdin then sets about constructing a new, lightweight rover called the PackRat.

Try not to look so bewildered, Ferdin, you did read the assembly instructions, right? 

 

Ok, the engineering team tells me it's pretty easy, you just put tab A into slot B, but never ever tab A into slot A! Not to be confused with slot a. You'll figure it out.
There's nothing explosive in there, is there? Oh, several kilos of nuclear material. Wonderful.

 

At any rate, this lightweight chassis design is svelte enough for a single Kerbal to manipulate unaided, so Ferdin here can easily flip the rover on its back to attach the wheels, thereby avoiding that awkward part of rover assembly when it rolls away down the hill while you stand there helplessly.

 

After attaching the wheels and watching the rover roll away down the hill while he stood there helplessly, Ferdin finally manages to outmaneuver and retrieve it for the rest of the assembly. Which will include a parking brake.

 

Then, he gets to pilfering the scientific equipment from the Mission Module in order to turn the rover into something actually useful.

Hey, I wasn't done with that yet! You just flarped up hours of precise adjustments!

 

So, while Hadald and Gilfrey stay behind to keep Bob company, Ferdin and Leelenna head off for some four-wheeled biome-hopping!

 

Despite the nearly non-existent gravity and complete lack of reaction wheels, the little rover handles quite well...

Slow down, Ferdin, you're making me karsick!

 

Three more nearyby biomes and thoroughly analyzed in only a few hours.

Seriously, slow down! Where are the seat belts? Whaadda you mean, you didn't put them on?!

 

Feeeerdiiiin! We're not even on the ground now, look out for that--!

 

Wonderful. You've managed to run us into the only boulder around for hundreds of meters!

That's coming out of your paycheck, you know, Ferdin.

 

SeriouslyFerdinknockitoffthisisn'tfunneeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The new rover does manage to get some impressive air. Or rather... space...

 

Bah-bah-bah-baaaaah, baaaaaah, bah-bah-bah-baaaaaah-bah, bah-bah-bah-baaaaaah-bah, bah-bah-bah-baah!

Stop singing!

 

Things were going so well, and then, well, this happened...

I TOLD YOU SO!

 

Feeerdiiiin! You get your S back here and pick me up right now!

Don't you dare make me fly over there!

 

Kerm flarping dangit, Ferdin!

You take me back to the ship RIGHT NOW!

 

Or, just crash us within convenient walking distance, I can live with that! Hmph!

 

Left to his own devices, Ferdin takes the rover right back out again to catch mad air space, and insists everyone call him Mario.

 

He then goes on to single-handedly invent the new extreme sport of Freestyle Rovering...

 

Killer kickflip ollie 270, dude. Or... something like that...

 

Then, it's time to set some altitude and distance records.

 

YEEEEEEEEEEE-HAWWWWWWWW!

 

His first high of 67 meters doesn't last long...

 

And there, he's done it, ladies and gentlekerbs! Ferdin Kerman has broken his own record in the solo rover highjump, setting a new record of 80 meters!

All he has to do now is stick the landing...

 

Nyet.

 

You got yourself into that one, Ferdin. You're on your own.

And that's still coming out of your paycheck.

 

But, with the rover dragged back to the basecamp again, the crew agree they've had quite enough of this nonsense, and its starting to get smelly in there what with the space toilet issue. Time to go home.

Yes, you're coming too, Ferdin. Your career as an extreme athlete will live on in the halls of... oh, the crew deleted the rest of the tapes... ok...

 

It's a (fortunately) uneventful float back. Margins are tight, but Bob heads back to Gael with just enough fuel for landing.

 

Un-fortunately, we're not able to recover the mission module. But given what happened with the space toilet, we probably wouldn't want to, either.

 

Wait a minute, I'm not flying the entry course?
Who's not flying the entry course?
Well someone must flying the entry course...

FEEEEEEERDIIIIIIIN!!!!1!!!111!!

 

 

Re-entry is... mostly nominal, save for a minor trajectory anomaly... it seems the initial aerobrake pass wast just a touch too aggressive...

But, here the crew are, landing safe and sound...

 

Nice going, bozo, you've managed to land us on the exact opposite side of the planet from the Space Center!
I hear banjos...
No, that's just a hungry bear... oh, he brought friends...

 

 

Ho, boy. Um... someone get Triti in an airplane heading that direction. Might want to have her bring some bear spray. You know, for seasoning...

Edited September 8, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[insert_name]

Just don't let Triti shave for a day or two and the bears will think she is one of them

[roboslacker]

Yay content! It's as kerbal as ever.

[CatastrophicFailure]

Just a reminder mostly for myself...

This thread is not dead. 

Doug is coming.

[Damon]

On 6/19/2018 at 7:46 AM, CatastrophicFailure said:

Year 10, Day 160...

Greetings, Comrades!

Sigh. I still miss that guy. Is that weird? It feels weird. I haven't show my papers to anyone in, well, ten years and 160 days I guess. Not even sure where they are anymore, I think I needed coasters one time.But anyways...

  Hide contents

 

We have one last ore contract to return 3000 units of the stuff from Rald, our biggest haul ever. And, well... remember a few updates ago when I mentioned someone musing on the efficacy of the Nero X booster stage as a single-stage-to-orbit lifter? Well someone on the engineering team sort of fixated on the idea, and got some others involved, and if it can SSTO to LGO it can probably get all the way to Rald and back with several tonnes of ore and a little help, and then someone started rambling incoherently and someone else started writing that down, and anyways, now we have this... thing...

I refuse to let anyone name it, and will shortly destroy any and all records of its existence save for this classified report. I did learn a few things from the "Glory to Arstotzka!" guy, after all. Its basically a Nero X core stage cobbled together with leftover Mallard bits.

 

Well, look at that, it did NOT just explode and blow Gael a new orifice.

Color me surprised.

 

The first pair of boosters actually feeds fuel into the second pair of boosters as well. Which, oddly enough, leaves me with an odd craving for some stringy, odoriferous vegetable, lightly blanched, with butter. But anyways, the booster separate fairly low...

 

...followed by these fuel-routing saddle tanks, which will all be recovered...

And promptly buried. Hmm, we could actually use a nice planetary orifice about now. Maybe that volcano over there...

 

The second pair of boosters burns out at the edge of space...

 

And then the core engines finally ignite for the climb to orbit.

 

It's a standard Rald transfer and entry from there. Here, it comes in passing Rald's massive shield volcano. Which, oddly enough, is exactly the opposite of an orifice and so still of no use to us. More like a... giant, dried up space pimple.

Am I waxing poetic again? I should lay off the nostalgia trip...

 

Entry progresses oddly smoothly, for something as big and heavy as a building...

 

Targeting was surprisingly good, too, coming down within only 25km of the RaldBase.

 

Shortly before landing, this extra module is jettisoned...

 

The powered landing is, well, quite... ahem, graceful...

Only by the grace of Kerm it didn't fall over and give Rald another orifice...

 

And is joined a few moments later by the extra module under its own parachute...

 

The RaldBase's targeting too, is, er... surprisingly accurate...

 

Fortunately, though, nothing too important is run over, and Hellenna gets right to work ripping the thing apart to harvest the replacement hydrolysis module, as the base's on-board unit failed irreparably some time ago.

 

And once again, the RaldBase leaves a pile of trash in its wake...

 

After that, it's a simple matter for Hellenna to plug in to the... it... and power up the RaldBase's drill and ISRU equipment, to being the process of filling the massive booster's tanks.

All of them.

This may take a while...

 

Meanwhile, out in deep space, after a transit of nearly four years, NOVA Gauss is finally approaching it's own target, and...

What's that?

What is that?

Is... is that a...?

 

My Kerm, it's enormous...

 

Your boosters landed under a parachute huh, admit it! 

[CatastrophicFailure]

Year 11, Day 111...

And, we're back! Well, at least Triti is, along with the Iota crew, and a lovely new rug...But more on that later, first off in the flurry of activity of late, we head back to Gauss. NOVA Gauss, specifically, which, after spending the last few months in a high orbit of the large moon of Catullus waiting for the tenuous link home to improve , now makes another low pass of the moon moon of Tarsiss.

Spoiler

 

It's a significant braking burn to enter orbit, and there goes the last of the, well, braking stage.

 

NOVA Gauss will now spend the next few months in a carefully crafted orbit around the moon moon, low enough for a good signal to the lander down below while not requiring a huge impulse to leave orbit down the line. With one of its already lackluster antennas out of commission, beaming the data back from the plucky lander is going to take time.

 

Spoiler

 

More time, for the fact that all background stuff in Kerbalism seems to have completely broken, and transmission only occurs when focused on a vessel. 

 

 

 

But moving on back home, the long awaited day has finally come! It's a surprisingly simple launch, but now the Gratian Sample Return mission is at last underway.

 

This fairing staging would have been far more interesting in daylight, but someone I'm looking at you, Vlad fell asleep at the console and forgot to hit the launch button in time, so as a result the rocket lifts off ten minutes after the nominal maneuver window expired.

 

Fortunately, as this is an ideal transfer window to Gratian, impact to the mission is minor. The Sample Return vessel is based on a slightly modified DEUCES stage, which also provides the ejection impulse to the transfer orbit. Aboard are more advanced sample collectors than even the Gratian Rover, as well as a mini ISRU system. The mission will be dependent on DEUCES to not only land on Gratian, hopefully close to the rover, but also launch the sample containers back into orbit. No easy task, given that Gratian itself is nearly the size of Gael, and will require around 5.5kms of delta-V to return to orbit from the surface. Once back in space, an advanced electric propulsion system will return the samples to Gael orbit. And since we're slightly worried about releasing an alien plague on this alien world, we'll need to build a new space station to receive those samples.
Glorp? Why would we call a space station glorp? I'm not getting the reference....

It will be just over a year to reach the cold, distant world. Or just under a year. The calendars don't seem to agree, time is strange here.

 

Meanwhile, back at Gauss, the NOVA probe has finally finished its downlinks. Or at least all that we're willing to put up with. It's time to leave the moon moon and complete its mission.

 

A boost at periapse, and then a convenient flyby of Catullus...

 

...and a few corrections later NOVA Gauss is in a semi-resonant orbit with the tiny inner moon of Loki, setting up for its first pass.

 

Hmm, that's not... disconcerting at all...

Vlad, stop staring at me with that creepy grin and chanting "oh yes" like that.

 

As always seems to happen with these things, the probe approaches from the dark side, skimming close to Loki's surface...

 

...eventually giving us our first view of the creepy little world.

And stop with the snapping, too, you're freaking me out! I'm not into doo-wop.

 

The probe will make several more close passes, narrowly missing the higher mountains, returning a trove of data and slowly boosting its inclination relative to Gauss higher and higher.

 

Meanwhile meanwhile, back on Gael, the second ESTI finally takes to the sky! E-02 will bring home the latest round of Rald castaways, affectionately named Doug.

The ship, not the castaways, those are still Burrick and Hellenna.

 

Doug is backing a brand new, freshly freshened Gandalf-D engine. More powerful and more efficient than its predecessor, it should allow enough of a fuel budget to return all the way from the surface of Rald.

Shortly after the trans-Rald injection burn, another DEUCES flips around for its own return home.

Oddly enough, the crew for this mission is Triti Kerman again, who insisted Jencince come along with her. No one is sure why, until a minor problem occurs halfway to Rald. It seems no one bothered to fit Doug with a high-gain antenna, and all contact with the crew is lost. We get one final, cryptic teletext message from Triti...

...something about wax and Popsicle sticks...

 

Contact is eventually regained once the ship nears the Rald commnet. Both crew seem unusually... quiet for, well, themselves. As always seems to happen again, it's a daring night landing.

 

But skilled as ever, Triti manages to bring Doug down within 15km of the Raldbase, which wastes no time in trundling over.

*boop*

 

Once morning comes, another, er, oversight comes to, well, light...

Fortunately, flying on Rald is as easy as commenting on Triti's appearance or Jencine's chest hair.
I do not have chest hair! Anymore.

 

Doug is hooked up to the base for a quick top-off from refined fuel, and Burrick's... rather unusual accommodations are bolted on for further examination back on Gael.

 

Given the shenanigans the place is known for, the crew wastes no time in heading home. Or pelting the RaldBase with debris.

 

*crackle*
Control, this is Doug... Someone seems to have broken the universe again...
*beep*

Once re-entry begins, yet another did you guys do any QC on this thing? minor issue arises...

It seems no one bothered to coat the brand-new Gandalf D engine in the requisite heat-resistant coating, and it promptly explodes. The only engine. The landing engine.

Fortunately, we have a contingency.

We've just never tested it.

 

But with Doug now almost completely drained of fuel, and rapidly dumping the rest as it descents, the abort parachutes are just enough to slow its decent to something survivable.

Without having to sacrifice half the ship.

Never fear, Doug shall rise again.

 

Meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile, back at Gauss...

The NOVA probe makes one final maneuver. This one brings a last high pass over Catullus, and catapults it nearly out of the system. Nearly a year down the road, it will make its last likely maneuver ever, bumping its inclination up to its final long-term science orbit to satisfy the contract.

 

But meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile, almost to Gratian...

 

The Gratian rover is approaching its final destination. And while quietly on the backburner, the mission has been going incredibly well. A little too well..
But landing is next...

 

Ugh, too many dire portents for one report. I'm going to curl up on Triti's new rug with a few comic books.
Who knew bears had such a talent for weaving?

 

 

Edited November 10, 2018 by CatastrophicFailure

[roboslacker]

Neat. Looks like the doughnut heat shield has shown some flaws.

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 9/8/2018 at 4:54 AM, roboslacker said:

Neat. Looks like the doughnut heat shield has shown some flaws.

Erm, yes... seems when I upgraded the engine I forgot to tweak the heat tolerance up a touch... 

 

But, in a spot of good news, the potentially game-killing bug that’s been haunting me has finally worked its way out, and Kerbalism background transmissions (and presumably everything else) is working again! 

[qzgy]

@CatastrophicFailure

.... moar?

Edited October 22, 2018 by qzgy

[CatastrophicFailure]

41 minutes ago, qzgy said:

@CatastrophicFailure

.... moar?

I’m not calling this thread dead yet.  I was just getting to the interesting bit I’ve been building to when I got sidetracked into a... thing. The kind of thing we do not speak of. Said thing may be winding down for a while soon, so hopefully if Life™️ cooperates I can jumpstart this again. 

[Patupi]

LifeTM never cooperates. I'm just glad you haven't jumped off a cliff screaming after getting this far with this insane, wonderful tale (not to mention the other, even more insane, even more wonderful thing we do not speak of).... you haven't, right?..... Riiiiight?

[CatastrophicFailure]

On 10/24/2018 at 1:54 AM, Patupi said:

LifeTM never cooperates. I'm just glad you haven't jumped off a cliff screaming after getting this far with this insane, wonderful tale (not to mention the other, even more insane, even more wonderful thing we do not speak of).... you haven't, right?..... Riiiiight?

We’re all a little mad down here... 

One interesting thing to note... whilst engaged in The Thing We Do Not Speak Of, I noticed a lot of lag and yellowtime, even in a bone-stock game with a craft of a modest part count. It seems my usual late-game lag issues that always seem to drive me to something new might not be related to the game itself, but with my ever more potatoey computer reaching its limits. 

That, at least, I may be in a position to remedy soon.™️

Meanwhile, I do have a cache of screenshots from the latest mission here, I’ll see about getting that up Sooner(Patent Pending).