SeaFoam - Making New History

[Cydonian Monk]

SeaFoam - Making New History

Hello! Welcome to SeaFoam!

Some time back I decided I wanted to run a mod-light KSP career play-through based around the Making History expansion. The idea was I'd only use graphical and user-interface mods and see what I could do with the new parts in the expansion. And I'd do it all with no reverts, limited design time, low stress, just winging it all as I went along. In other words: play.

It was brutal. Over the course of 34 flights I lost six kerbals. Two died in what I'd categorize as freak training accidents. The first kerbal in space died when he popped his capsule on the side of a mountain. The first kerbal in orbit died when her capsule became a dart during reentry and slammed into the desert at Mach 2. Two others died during early aircraft tests, one due to the slabtastic landing gear springs, the other due to bad decisions while flying.

Ultimately the survivors made it to the Mün, landed rather roughly, planted a flag, and came home.

This is not that play-through.

As I was running through that career I found I wanted more. More than my usual milieu of mods and plugins. More than I was doing in Forgotten Space Program. More than just some graphical dressing. More failures. More chaos. More dumb kerbals. More random explosions. More hard decisions. More challenge. More than just Making History. I wanted to make a new history. Tell a new story. Forge a new path.

Ultimately all that "more" was more than my computer could handle. And I introduced some ugly mod incompatibilities I was ultimately unable to track down. On top of that, if I right clicked on a capsule I was presented with a list of buttons and stats twice as tall as my monitor. A lone kerbal on EVA was enough to cause the framerate clock to go red. 

Eventually they made it to orbit, but not without their own share of major trauma.

This is not that play-through either.

I had to scale back my ambitions and find something that was stable and yet still captured the spirit of what I was after. Something... less. I'd need to lose things such as CryoEngines and the NearFuture suite of mods. Maybe I could add them back in later, or maybe I'll wait until RSS/RO are updated to use them again. Who knows. I also had to lose some resource-heavy plugins, and a few parts mods I rather like but will either use in Forgotten or return to later.

Eventually I settled on the following list. The three which will have the largest impact on gameplay are BARIS, Kerbal Construction Time, and Principia. Funding for this adventure is to be provided by Monthly Budgets, on a 49.5-day minth (rounded up to 50). Celestial bodies are hidden and will be discovered by either scientific endeavor using Research Bodies or by brute force using kinetic assaults. Kerbals will need to eat, and drink, and breathe, and excrete, all with TAC. Oh, and we're going to the Outer Planets. It's time.

Mods In-Use (KSP v1.4.5):

Spoiler

    (I will eventually add links for all of these...)

    Airlock Plus
    Aviation Lights
    BARIS
    CapCom
    Chatterer
    CommNet Antenna Extensions
    CommNet Constellation
    Community Category Kit
    Community Tech Tree    
    Community Resource Pack    
    Custom Barn Kit
    DiRT
    Distant Object Enhancement
    DMagic Orbital Science
    Docking Port Alignment Indicator
    Hullcam VDS
    Impact!
    Kerbal Alarm Clock
    Kerbal Attachment System (0.6)
    Kerbal Construction Time
    Kerbal Engineer Redux (jrbudda's fork)
    Kerbal Hacks Parts for KIS (selected)
    Kerbal Inventory System
    Kerbal Operating System
    KerbNet Controller
    Kopernicus
    KSCSwitcher    (with some modifications)
    Making History
    Missing History
    MOIST!
    MOLE
    Monthly Budgets
    One Window
    Outer Planets Mod
    Planet-Pack-Patches-for-Principia
    Principia
    ProProps Parts for KIS (selected)
    Raster Prop Monitor    
     Real Plume Stock
    RemoteTech Antennas    
    Research Bodies
    SCANsat
    Scatterer
    [x] Science!
    Soundtrack Editor
    SpaceY Heavy Lifters
    SpaceY Expanded
    Surface Experiment Pack
    Surface Lights
    TAC Life Support
    Tarsier Space Technologies
    Universal Storage II

This is to be a "Long-Term Stable" game. I do not intend to update KSP or many of these mods once I've started into this save. I'll limit updates to bugfixes and occasional minor additions to maintain that stability. (I'll probably add KAS 1.0 once it's fully released, and maybe CryoEngines once it makes technical sense.) This save will remain in KSP v1.4.5 unless something remarkable and life-essential is added in the next couple of versions. In some ways this is replacing my RSS/RO/RP-0 install, which is still on version 1.2.2 and getting a bit long in the tooth. In most ways it's something new. Something different.

So, shall we begin? Again? From scratch?
 

This is that play-through.

Welcome to SeaFoam. I hope you enjoy.

 

Edited August 21, 2018 by Cydonian Monk

[Cydonian Monk]

SeaFoam

They call us SeaFoam. Well, no, they call us much worse than that. Thief, traitor, degenerate, frog, kerman..., spume. Or they call us nothing at all. Usually they just spit at us or kick us away. We're the rejects, the convicts, the outcasts, those who dare to question the "proper" order of things. Those who do not belong in the society of the Deep Ones. Those who no longer serve the Great Old One.

Our punishment? Elevation. Banishment from the deep waters and the safety of the drowned cities, condemned forever to the shores and shallows. They take our true names, brand us as Kerman, and cut the webbing from our fingers to make sure we can never swim home. Some get lucky, float into a friendly cave with good air. Some become hermits and dig their own tiny domes in the soft soils near the coast. Most just wash up on shore, churned about and spat out by the ocean that birthed them, dead, lungs full of the dry surface air. SeaFoam.

It's a hard life, up here close to dry land. The heat goes out for half the day, and when it's here the water is so blindingly bright it stings your eyes. Food is scarce, and we fight for it with critters larger than your usual grabtooth or dogfish. There's not much in the way of good minerals, and what forges and factories we have are fed by inferior fuels. Our tools and ships tend to be cobbled together deathtraps. And good wet air is neigh on impossible to find. 

But what choice do we have? We can't fight the deep ones any more than we can grow wings and fly. So we band together, form our own societies, our own little governments. Trade is essential to our survival. Caravans of float ships take raw materials, food, and finished goods all over the seas and trade them for more of the same. They tread only the shallower seas, as the Deep Ones get angry if we venture too close to their cities. To our former homes.

And maybe we've learned something the deep ones don't know. There's more water, more oceans, up beyond the sky. The legends told of them, the forbidden stories. Said we could reach those unclaimed waters if we worked hard and were pure enough and blah ti di blah. Me? I think all legends are bunk, but what do I know? I'm just a lowly spume. Legend or not, some kerbs far smarter than myself built gizmos to find that water beyond the sky. And they've spotted it everywhere they looked. Granted they've only looked at the Mün, but you have to start somewhere.

Now these same madkerbs want to go up to the puddles in the stars and live there. Dig new air domes, fill 'em with healthy, wet air. Maybe we could find a new home, a safe harbor beyond the reach of our arrogant cousins and those who lord over the depths of Kerbin. Make us some place where the weirdos and the outcasts and the kelp-eaters can all belong.

What do I think? You probably already know the answer. It's not like I really have a choice here. Where the foam goes, so goes I. Just drifting around on the tide like the chum I am. SeaFoam.

--

First Steps Ashore

Call me Jonesy. It's not my real name, but it's the best one you'll get. And it's the name everybody knows me by. Most days I'm off running a hustle, sprinting contraband through deep waters, or maybe introducing two frogs for a business deal or three. The good days? Well these madkerbs pay me to stand around and watch stuff explode. It's quite a bit of fun, even if I secretly think they're trying to off me. Or maybe they don't care. They would care, if they knew who I really was, but my life is easier this way so let's just stick with Jonesy. 

You see, these crazy frogs all started from nothing, and that ain't so easy. Nothing's ever easy. That's true for everything from digging mud domes to building slick space ships. I figure it's why they came to me in the first place. You see, my reputation in such matters is, well, it's rather unique. Finding the things these poor frogs needed to start from said nothing and do the impossible is exactly my speciality. "Hey Jonesy, help a kerb out would'ja?" "Of course!" I might yell back. "Anything for the right price!"

Let me tell you now, there ain't no price that was ever right enough for these nutters. Ole' Jonesy should've swum away and kept at his old gigs. But what did I know? Sure didn't know enough then. I figured the pillars of fire and the occasional explosion were worth the risk. Ha!

The wildest thing of all is these frogs tried to launch rockets from the bottom of the sea. Heavy, solid fueled things, shot straight out of the hole they were built in. The first one exploded in the mud, so the damage wasn't all that bad. The second? The third? They blew up in the water, exactly like sonic charges. The shockwaves killed every kerman within range. The ones almost in range? Busted eyes, popped ear skins, internal hemorrhaging, bruises all over, the usual. Good way to wipe out a bunch of undesirables and outcasts, not so great for getting into the sky. 

So I fixed 'em up real good. Introduced them to a few union guys, construction workers and shipwrights and whatnot. We put together a nice little complex here along the shore. Great place. Prime swampland. Just a few steps below 13º South on the old latitude. And most of it's buried in the mud, all the factories, the ship launch, the wet-docks and whatnot. Safe. Took ages to build, and it employees more of us outcasts than I ever thought existed. Only the final bits are up above the surface, all the assembly buildings, the pair of launchpads, the blast-proof observation building and so on. 

Y'know, why bother blasting out through the water if you're just trying to fly through the air? It's dangerous, yeah, all that dry air, but it's usually so humid in these latitudes you can spend a minute outside before your lungs seize up. And we're only on the surface long enough to shoot our rockets off, so whatever. It's what they wanted, it's what I gave them.

We call it "The Shore." Yeah, yeah, I know, real creative name. Not my fault.

Officially I'm an Administrator, one of several, and also a Flight Engineer. Funny title, that. Just means I get to carry a wrench and push some buttons and make things go boom. My engineering knowledge goes about as far as how to hot-wire a ship, and I've spent more time bashing things with wrenches than using them however it is they're meant to be used, but whatever. Engineer works. For some reason they think I want to be an astronut, but I'm always conveniently off on vacation or faking my death whenever there's a launch coming up with my name on it.

 

There's other engineers, they need the experience more than I do. Let them set their own hair on fire and get blasted off into the void. About the closest I've been to space was back when these frogs were testing their "safe escape" system. Now that was fun. That little capsule shot off into the sky hard enough to nearly knock me out. Most of the astronutters actually passed out, even Kazu and that Berlin girl. And they're supposed to be the best of the best.

Mostly I just give advice and test fire some engines and watch the sunrise.

You wonder why I do this? Why a kerbal of my background does such grunt work? I'll tell you. It's entertaining, interesting, and gives me a good excuse to put on a hardhat and stand around like I'm still some important bullfrog. Sometimes they even let me test stuff underwater. Those are the fun ones, though I'm not about to get outside the pod when the tests are running - I've already seen the aftermath. No thanks, I prefer to not bleed from orifices that I'm not supposed to have. 

As an added plus all this testing makes my side gig a little easier. Maybe a new rocket engine goes missing. Maybe it exploded on the test stand. Maybe it just rolled down the ramp and into my ship that just happened to be waiting to carry it off to some frog that'll pay me top shell for it. Who could ever say for sure? Not like anybody would miss it. The accounting around here is already rather laissez-faire, whatever that means. 

We're funded by the floatship traders league, and none of them will dare cross me if they know what's good for 'em. The budget allocations they slide us every 50 or so days are very much use-it or lose-it, so you might say I'm making the most efficient use of the shells they give us. They're happy, I'm happy, we're all happy. Nothing funny about that. 

As for the spacey parts of this space program, it's slow going. The first things we launched that intentionally made it to space were small "sounding" rockets. Shot a few straight up, shot a few more off at angles. Eventually we figured out how to recover the little capsule bit at the tip of it, useful skill for whenever we send a kerbal up. Mostly these sounders just disintegrated while screaming skyward, their debris fired out into space like shot from a scattergun. They were all part of the rather generic "Tadpole X" program, just like my equipment liberation..., er, rocket engine tests. 

--

Barnacles

And then we decided to shoot frogs up into space too. Heck, we not only decided to send them to space, but also to orbit. Tadpole steps? Whazzat? Now these silly looking capsules we've built, they might have room for a small kerbal inside, but there was nowhere to stick a flight computer. And seeing as we wouldn't be able to talk to the thing after it went over the horizon we'd never know if it actually made it into orbit. Maybe half a day later we'd pick up its radio signal again when it drifted overhead. All that trouble goes away if you just send a meat computer up instead. And there's quite a few volunteers here. 

Those volunteers? The pilots? They were the real crazy ones. These mad kerbs were floatship pilots before they signed up, which might explain some things. Not that guiding a ship atop the seas through a poisonous atmosphere prepared any of 'em for what they signed on for. Sure, Kazu knew what she was doing, but Berlin? She was absolutely out there. Talked kinda funny, a bit like that famous rocket frog, and claimed to be a "commercial astronut" when she joined. Never mind none of these frogs had even been to space and so couldn't possibly be a commercial astro-anything. 

Kazu got close to space during one of the Tadpole X tests, but that was as much an accident as it was an event. Calmin was the only slightly sane one, but he was a deep ship captain for the Navy before he was elevated. That military background must've hardened up his noggin, though not enough to keep him from whatever crime it was that banished him.

The rest of us just kinda wandered in here. Me, you already know my story. As much as I'm going to tell you anyway. Trisel was hired on as a Flight Scientist, meaning she was also on the short list to die horribly. Spaghetti showed up for dinner one night and hasn't left since. He's a bit like me, a shady drifter who trades info for food, so it was only natural he'd become another Flight Engineer. He's good at it, even if he's a bit dull. 

And that was it that first year, just six of us space frogs. One who refused to fly, two too confused to run, and three who would willingly set themselves on fire to get out of the water. 

What a bunch of weirdos. 

     

Kazu won the frog-in-space lottery. Fitting, given she's been with the program almost as long as me. There was a dark ceremony the night before her launch to beg for protection from the Great Dread One himself. I didn't bother to go, as there's not much you could do to convince me those old superstitions are anything more than madness, but to each their own. It's not like His Sunken Dreadness did anything to keep us from being ostracized and elevated in the first place, so if he's actually real, he can get stuffed. I hear stuffed octopus makes for a tasty snack anyway.

The next morning the old girl was strapped into the Barnacle 001 and shot off into orbit. Not much fanfare to it, just slap the hatch shut, lift the rocket up onto the pad, and boom - she's gone. The LR-01c Dogfish rocket was a bit of a beast when it came to small payloads like us frogs, if a bit dangerous. This one worked as intended, which was a good thing considering all the testing we threw at it.

Overall it was a good flight and Kazu did us all proud. First frog in space, first kerman in orbit, first seafoam to go outside their spaceship. Lots of firsts. Lots of science, too. She only stayed up there for an orbit, and we got to watch her reentry from the space center. A bright red streak across the northern sky. 

She landed just a bit offshore from The Shore. Sorry, that name really wasn't my idea, but I'm going to run with it when I can. The science whizzes went all foamy when they saw the stack of samples Kazu brought back. And the rest of us had fifty-two questions for her to pick up. Whatzit like? Did ya see any Great Old Ones? Are those deadly space fungi still a thing? Did you happen to see a sunken city down in the waters of the Southern Ocean? Was it smiling at you?

The biggest surprise of all was when Kazu started going on about other planets and such. Big bright spots too dull to be stars yet too bright to be dull. Wanderers. We'd seen them from the surface, the floatship frogs all knew about them, but nobody had ever suggested they might be anything more than really bored stars that felt the need to pace across the sky. Even the super-smart genius types over in R&D will gladly tell you the Mün is the only other celestial body. 

Well Kazu says that's all bunk, and she should know because she's been up there. These new ones are tiny from what she could tell, but they were all sorts of colors you didn't see from down here. Green and brown and red and blue and so forth and when did this become a home decorating show? Even a mint ice-cream looking one. Maybe a really dark grey one, but that might have been a speck. 

Maybe she's right, maybe she's wrong, but what do I know? We had some other frogs start looking into it anyway. They're out there now in their observatory, "searching the skies" and whatnot. They might just be weirder than us. Guess it goes with the territory.

This was all good info, good intel, too good to sit on. I decided maybe it was time to take another of those vacations. Visit a few friends. Make a few shells. Maybe see if they knew anything we didn't. Maybe suggest they start looking in a few new places for things that might be beneficial to the lot of us. Make all of us rich. 

Then I got back and we got around to running a serious space exploration program. Maybe even launched a few more frogs in a few more of those Barnacles. But those are stories for some other day. Ta.
 

====

 

[qzgy]

This is neat.

That's also a super snazzy flag at the top.

Looking forward to more from Jonesy. Seems like a very sarcastic and apathetic frog.

[cratercracker]

Good stuff.

 

[Cydonian Monk]

20 hours ago, qzgy said:

This is neat.

2 minutes ago, cratercracker said:

Good stuff.

Thanks! 

20 hours ago, qzgy said:

That's also a super snazzy flag at the top.

Thanks again! The logo is one I've been sitting on for a couple years now (it's an alternate from whenever it was I sketched the octopus-in-a-gear logo I used to use, cleaned up a tiny bit). The color scheme and flag pattern, well, that I just kinda threw together in a few minutes.  I added the "deep" green colors to the lower left only for this save. 

[Pretorian28715]

Ok, this is now getting silly.

I have 5 or 6 threads in the 'Mission Reports' I follow now.

Think I need to do one myself.......

Maybe....

But, seriously good stuff, awaiting MOAR!!!

[Cydonian Monk]

10 hours ago, Pretorian28715 said:

But, seriously good stuff, awaiting MOAR!!!

 Thanks!

Don't worry - I haven't forgotten about this. Just suddenly a bit busy (which happens every August but I always seem to forget). Maybe more tomorrow?

[Pretorian28715]

10 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

 Thanks!

Don't worry - I haven't forgotten about this. Just suddenly a bit busy (which happens every August but I always seem to forget). Maybe more tomorrow?

That's not a problem really, when it's ready. As I've said before Quality over Quantity any day.

Always liked FSP, and this is interesting, seems you have a writer's 'hand.

[Angelo Kerman]

Way cool! Interesting take on kerbals who “EVA” to the surface in SeaSpace suits filled with water and then venture into the black sky. Gives me inspiration to keep working on Rocket Shark and its mini mods. Looking forward to seeing what happens next with the frogs!