Jump to content

The Wrong Brothers - career mode done differently (pic heavy)


katateochi

Recommended Posts

Before you can walk you have to crawl, before you can space you have to plane.

Kerbals have long dreamed of travelling in space, gazing up at the stars and their two moons, but between them and space was the atmosphere and that had to be conquered first.

So it was that two brothers embarked on a project that would one day put their kind closer to their ultimate goal. They believed that it was possible to build a machine that, with enough speed, could raise a kerbal off the ground in a controlled manner and bring him back in (more or less) one piece.

Their first attempts where crude at best as they had not yet understood the concept of lift.

DJt1jvwl.jpg

As AV1, which was more of a rocket car on skids, shot down the runway terrified bystanders rushed for cover. Jebediah, with grim determination fought to keep it going straight and tried to pull up. As the craft neared the end of the runway and still showed no signs of leaving the ground everyone feared the worse. At the last second the nose lifted up and Jebediah sailed into the air.

T5sYv6Yl.jpg

However, it was a short lived flight as a failure in the second engine resulted in a hasty abort. Two parachutes where deployed which ripped the engine clear of the cockpit which was safely deposited in the ocean.

E8dPrWXm.jpgbCSWaVQm.jpg

While this flight was short, a great many things were learnt. As well as scaring all Kerbals within 2.1km, the roar of AV1's explosive engines also frightened the elusive birds around KSC into taking flight. The Kerbals had heard the birds before, but this was the first time they'd ever seen them fly.

“If birds can glide for long periods of time, then… why can’t I ?†said Jeb and shortly later the first ever wing was created.

The flight of AV1 had gained some interest from the scientific community and they agreed to provide some funding if the next flight would also carry a couple of experiments into the air. So AV1 was modified and this time left the ground with ease and soared into the air. Some experiments where done mid flight and other results where gained when she later splashed down several km from the shore line.

WQrwj4kl.jpg

The Wrong Brothers where still not satisfied as they had not yet managed sustained flight and so far only the cockpits had survived. After many variations, some more viable than others, they finally arrived at a craft that will forever be remembered as the first craft to cross the water and land on the nearby island.

The SSthiswontlandwell surprised those who'd named it by landing (mostly intact) at the island runway.

saqo7VVl.jpgrXU1XBEl.jpg

Their next triumph was a smaller craft that was both the first craft to not use exploding engines for its initial thrust and was also the first craft to land intact and be able to take off again. The Herring could land on her front skids and (so long as the landing was level and gentle) would skate along the ground before coming to rest and flopping onto the runway like an exhausted fish. The sequence shows the Herring's iconic landing style;

DWfbc5wm.jpggxcMAHPm.jpgSX59gz6m.jpg1z1MbI9m.jpgAt8l9Hfm.jpg

With this aircraft it was finally possible to make trips to the nearby areas, perform experiments and (sometimes) return.

tiuZfcUl.jpg

Several larger variants where made that slightly increased the range of the Herring but there was a limit to how big she could be and still land safely. Here is Jeb standing proudly next to one of the larger versions;

QCEQsRkl.jpg

More funding became available as people realised that these lunatic brothers might actually be onto something and the first Jet engine was conceived. It had the advantage of a much lighter fuel and greater range and for the first time the kerbals where able to fly over the mountains and across to other continents.

PD4jh8cl.jpg

Landing was however still quite an issue and touching down was only possible on the smoothest terrain, like in the deserts. Often the pilot and experiments had to eject in order to land in new terrain.

It was believed that the terrain at the North Pole would be smooth enough for a safe landing. So it was that an expedition to fly to the north pole begun. Still believing that moar was better the Wrong Brothers built the high-five; a 5 engined triplane which became the first craft to fly above 20km and also set the record for longest flight.

ft0VBxUl.jpg

The expedition was scheduled to land at 2 sites, the tundra surrounding the pole and then to proceed on to the north pole itself.

kBmAoCGl.jpg

He barely made it. Perhaps it was the beauty of this seldom seen land which distracted Jeb, or perhaps it was the weight of the craft, but as he came into land a wing clipped the ground.

The high-five tumbled and flipped over. By shear luck (or as Jeb would argue, good piloting) the rear of the craft took the heaviest impact and he survived (the experiments however did not). As the smoke cleared Jeb was left with some indistinguishable rubble, a load of wings and the most stunning view of the moon he'd ever seen from the ground.

tnlwvYjl.jpg

Every detail of it was clearly visible and Jeb took this as a sign to not give up.

While none of the experiments made it, he did return a couple of interesting soil samples which was enough for the scientific community to fund the development of a jet that could carry materials for analysis.

INuQ5NVl.jpg

One of its missions was to study the mountains and so it was designed to separate into a small lander section which could parachute into the awkward terrain. It took several attempts but did eventually yield some discoveries. One discovery was during a failed landing; Jeb found himself tumbling over and over in his cockpit as he and bits of experiments made a hasty hillside descent. As he rolled along he realised that something that could roll would be a far more effective landing solution. The first ever wheel had been invented!

Now the scope of destinations had really opened up and SciJet2 (funding for names had dried up at this point) was commissioned.

n1qYW6Ol.jpg

This was the first craft to be able to land almost anywhere on Kerbin and made several successfully trips to other continents and returned, each time bringing back a little more understanding.

A second attempt at reaching the north pole was made and this time it was a success and both the tundra and pole where landed at. On the way Jeb passed some truly beautify landscape and discovered a new type of tree that he'd never seen before.

A0K9ecxl.jpg

ul6wCk6l.jpg

It was then modified to have a single rocket engine in conjunction with two jet engines (instead of 3 jet engines) and became the first craft to reach the upper atmosphere. However due to a tragic laminating accident in which three kerbals lost their lives, no photos of this craft remain.

Still space was out of their reach. That is until the development of their latest jet, the SO1 which made the first suborbital trip and Jebediah became the first kerbal to leave the atmosphere and touch the inky blackness.

1j9TRCfl.jpg

xXGEOQ4l.jpg

Fuelled by the excitement of being in space and a substantial amount of funding this trip brought in, it was all the others could do to stop him making further attempts. He believes that one day a plane will be able to leave the ground and orbit the planet, he even believes that it is possible for such a plane to fly to the moons, land and return. No-one really believes him, but he's determined to prove them wrong.

“If we worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true really is true, then there would be little hope for advanceâ€Â

- Orville Wright

So that's been my last week in career mode, trying to do it with aircraft alone. Like Jeb I'm sure is possible to work my may up to SSTO level but its been hard work! To anyone who is finding career mode too easy, I invite you to try doing it the "Wrong" way!

Thanks for reading,

Katateochi.

There are more updates to this in the comments, here are the links to the other chapters;

Chapter 2 - Circumnavigation of Kerbin

Chapter 3 - Higher Orbit

Chapter 4 - First Mun flyby and First Minmus encounter

Chapter 5 - Super fast SSTO followed by first Mun orbit, an almost fatal mission (plus the first VTOL)

Chapter 6 - Jebs encounter with Mt. Villain, a Mun Orbit without incident and the First off world landing, on Minmus.

Chapter 7 - The Oddity, the first craft to land on Mun

Chapter 8 - Multi-stage science mission to 8 Mun biomes

Chapter 9 - Construction of GammaLeo, the first orbital station

Chapter 10 - The Duna Glider, first interplanetary mission.

Chapter 11 - Mission to Laythe and the completion of the tech tree. Plus some bonus craft and the introduction of some mod based ground support craft.

download all the craft from this career

Chapter 12 - The story continues, but with the addition of mods. Jeb builds some sea worthy planes and a floating house to chill in.

Edited by katateochi
links to in comment updates
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This was great and I could see an argument for changing career mode to play out more like this.

Though I do like the idea of Kerbals inventing rockets before they even get around to wheels, so that would need to stay.

How did you unlock so far into the science tree just bumming around Kerbin?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wonderful storytelling! You have just earned a reputation star.
Kerbal Air Program.

Your storytelling is almost as impressive as your ship-building in this one.

(I've been playing since version .15 and STILL have never found a pine tree.)

Thanks Guys :)

Yes, that was my first encounter with a pine tree too! Head north if you want a tree for Xmass!

This was great and I could see an argument for changing career mode to play out more like this.

Though I do like the idea of Kerbals inventing rockets before they even get around to wheels, so that would need to stay.

How did you unlock so far into the science tree just bumming around Kerbin?

I also really like the idea of the SRB preceding the wheel, it just shows how dedicated they are to getting into space (and also how nuts they are!).

It was also quite a fun getting planes to work without wheels, I was quite surprised that the struts made such good skids.

You can get a load of points from just around KSC. Just sitting on the runway gives you a small picking, then once dunked into the ocean you can get a bunch more and after you can turn to fly west there are more points in the grass lands and more in the mountains (although landing a plane on the hills was rather problematic and I eventually setted for parachuting into them). Even without goo or materials you can get quite a few points from doing a crew report and 3 EVA reports in each location, one while standing on the ladder which counts as a different report to the one when your standing on the ground and finally a soil sample which is the most lucrative. Once you have goo and materials going back to those places is worth a few more points. Once I had a jet engine I was able to get to the desert and the north pole and that got a load more. Also its worth taking a quick swim in the lakes as that seems to count for more points although the message just says the name of the main biome your in (I'm not 100% sure about this, but I thought I'd got all the points from the desert but I then got some more in a lake in the desert).

It has taken me much longer to rack up the points this way but that's been part of the fun. Once I poked my head out of the atmo I got a load more points and now I think I'm not too far away from having an SSTO, even without the advanced Jet. A few more intakes on the last plane I showed and I got a wide suborbital with the Ap at 100km so I think its possible with a few more tweaks and then I'll have a shed load more points :)

Edited by katateochi
typo fix.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Update;

After a couple more suborbital flights I was able to unlock fuel lines!! With these fuel lines I can take over the world....or at least orbit it, said Jeb with glee.

A new craft was built and this one did make a complete circumnavigation of kerbin. It wasn't quite a stable orbit thou, Ap was 80km pe was 55km. Jeb had a choice; either save fuel to control where he came down at, or push the pe up as high as he could. As it was still in the atmo he went with trying to get it as high as possible and hoped he could avoid the oceans. The craft made 1.5 passes round Kerbin before being dragged back down by the atmo and landing on the other side of the planet from KSC an hour after take off.

9zp9VVYl.jpg

That mission brought in 50 points but I'm now in a quandary as to what to unlock next. This is my tech tree currently and I have 170 points to spend.

WMLCUfRl.jpg

What would you suggest I unlock next?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I say Advanced Exploration, new sensors are always good and with the ladders, Jeb will be able to get back into the plane easier and get SCIENCE from more places in a single flight.

EDIT: I just saw that you have not yet unlocked electrics, which might be a good thing to unlock first. On the other hand, with jet engines supplying power, that might not be so important anyway in an aircraft-only scenario.

Edited by Mr_Brain
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yup, very original. I admit to not being as creative. The few times I thought to do a realistic thing like this I was considering redoing the tech tree so wheels and wings came earlier. The fact he did it with stock tech tree... fantastic!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I say Advanced Exploration, new sensors are always good and with the ladders, Jeb will be able to get back into the plane easier and get SCIENCE from more places in a single flight.

EDIT: I just saw that you have not yet unlocked electrics, which might be a good thing to unlock first. On the other hand, with jet engines supplying power, that might not be so important anyway in an aircraft-only scenario.

That's the one I was thinking of going for, cos MOAR SCIENCE! and yes the ladders would actually help a lot, I've had to make use of the odd thing which enables you to do surface samples while standing on top of your craft to be able to do readings in multiple places and that seems a bit hacky. On some of the wheeled planes if I dropped the nose gear I could get back in so there are ways around it, but ladders would be nicer.

I'd thought maybe the supersonic flight, but I've almost got an SSTO without it. The thing that really helped was fuel lines!

I've stayed away from getting the electrics for now. I not done much transmitting in this so far, just the odd crew report. As I'm landing on Kerbin I can always do a full craft recovery wherever I land, although I do try to make it back to KSC. When I get an SSTO that can break orbit I will need more power but hopefully after doing several missions to orbit kerbin I'll have enough points to unlock that.

Plus he'll get to rover wheels quicker. Might help exploration prior to space ships

I wish rovers were actually more useful for this, problem is it just takes so darn long to drive anywhere. It's also kinda dull driving places, even if it takes longer overall I'd rather fly two aircraft missions cos at least then I'm doing more than holding W!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is great, did you stop because kerbals moved on to rockets?

Not stopped yet, just RL has been getting in the way again. I got an SSTO into a stable orbit, I'll post a pic of that soon. I think the next move will be to launch a small satellite of the back of the SSTO. I'm still quite a way from breaking orbit in the SSTO but that might be more my lack of SSTO skill rather than part limitation. The SSTO uses the basic jet engine as I don't have the advanced one yet, so it has to just punch its way out of the atmo rather than accelerating up to speed in the atmo. Prob not the most efficient way of doing it but it was the only way I could actually make orbit with it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Update:

After his almost stable orbit Jeb decided to enlarge the current design and ended up with this craft and finally achieved a stable 100x100km orbit.

Heco4N0h.jpg

The design of the craft was however criticized for carrying an unnecessary about of jet fuel and having already reached an 80*50km the mission did not bring much new science back.

Jeb knew that he had to get higher if he was going to get more and a new SSTO was designed with less jet fuel and a different rocket engine configuration.

O0GNVoSh.jpg

Instead of two LV-T30's it used a single LV-T30, surrounded by for LV909's. The T30 and 909's would be used during the ascent, but final circularization and any adjustments once in space would be done just with the 909s.

Here's a close up of the engine setup.

mNmTwE8l.jpg

At first the craft seemed a success and he reached an orbit of 260x150km, a new record. The new engines config worked well and the sound of 4 LV909's was pretty awesome.

While at the Ap Jeb reached for the "do science" button, but in his excitement he slipped and hit the parachute deploy button on the emergency controls (which some Muppet had put right next to the science controls). Off course in space nothing happened, but the problem with that was he couldn't re-pack them. Jeb knew as soon as he entered the atmo they would open and likely flip the plane around, if he was quick he could cut the ropes but then he'd be left without a working escape system if anything went wrong during the landing.

What could go wrong during the landing he thought....

As fate had it something, everything, went wrong during the landing. He'd managed to cut the parachute cords before they flipped the plane and descent seemed to be going ok. But as he got within 5-8km from the ground the plane started to pitch up uncontrollably, now nearly empty the weight was too far back. Quickly he pumped what fuel he had to the front most tank and fought to get the nose down. But the obstinate plane refused and he started falling backwards out of the sky. Finally he managed to get the plane pointing directly up and used the engines to slow his fall. If he'd ever seen or even heard of a rocket before he might have realised that he was attempting a lander style touch down. This seemed to be working and his descent was under 15ms as he neared the ground. He wasn't expecting a smooth touch down, infact his plan was to crumple the rear of the plane so it would soak up the impact but leave him (and his precious experiments) intact. It would have worked, but he didn't hit the ground quite level and two of the left engines broke off, the right side still had its three engines and despite Jeb hutting the kill switch they where still running enough to cause the now unbalanced plane to cartwheel and smash sideways into the ground.

He thought he was a goner, but then he remembered that He was Jeb . As bit of wings, fuel tanks and experiment crashed and exploded around him, he calmly waited, knowing full well that he would survive;

qyhYZyuh.jpg

and survive he did, although that couldn't be said for very much else.

Having lost all the science from that mission he had to try it again and altered the craft to shift the weight further forward. One this second mission the ascent was made much more efficiently and he set a new record for highest orbit with a 400x400km orbit.

KOe9dGSh.jpg

The descent went according to plan and this time he landed safely, admittedly on the wrong continent by hey, the experiments survived.

Hrop2V2h.jpg

But now he as a quandary, most of the science on Kerbin has been done, there are some atmo readings to take but they yield very small amounts for the effort required to fly to all the biomes again. And both "near kerbin" and "high above kerbin" experiments have been done. There is very little else left to gain science without embarking on a mission to either Mun or Minmus.

Without a more powerful jet engines it still takes a lot of rocket fuel to reach orbit so he is struggling to see how to make a plane that could carry enough fuel to reach orbit and then transfer to Mun.

He has two options. 1) to put a small satellite on the back of an SSTO and release it in orbit, if its small enough it will require only minimal fuel to make the transfer.

or 2) have his cockpit separate from the plane with enough fuel and a 909 engine to put him onto a free return orbit.

He can't decide which to do. Sending a satellite would mean he wasn't personally going to get there and the idea of being beaten by a machine (even one he built) did vex him somewhat. However the other option of separating the plane into a smaller transfer section meant that the craft would not be reusable and worse it would leave debris in LKO, something he swore he never do.

Can you suggest what his next move should be? here's the current tech tree;

twcJMzuh.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't know whether you have docking ports yet but if you do you could have the cockpit section undock, orbit the mun or minmus, redock with the spaceplane in LKO, and then land. That way it would be totally reusable, leave no debris behind, and Jeb would personally be able to be first to these new worlds.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I recommend Jeb to go there himself, but put a little probe core on the detachable part so it can be deorbited remotely.

yes, I think that is the way forward. Don't know why I didn't think of putting a probe core on the detachable section, doh! I wonder if I can make it so that I could land the detached section on its own, like some kind of headless plane!

Don't know whether you have docking ports yet but if you do you could have the cockpit section undock, orbit the mun or minmus, redock with the spaceplane in LKO, and then land. That way it would be totally reusable, leave no debris behind, and Jeb would personally be able to be first to these new worlds.

Unfortunately I don't have docking ports yet, otherwise that would be a nice solution.

Odd thing found in doing a couple of tests runs in my other save. I made a small satellite but my problem is that I don't have any solar panels yet and even if I switch the reaction wheels off and turn SAS off it still runs out of power before I get to Mun. But if I made a manned section that separated it will get to Mun and still have plenty of power without me switching off reaction wheels. Both have the same amount of batteries and neither had anything that generated power. It seems odd that a much smaller satellite with everything switched off ran out of power but a manned version didn't.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Odd thing found in doing a couple of tests runs in my other save. I made a small satellite but my problem is that I don't have any solar panels yet and even if I switch the reaction wheels off and turn SAS off it still runs out of power before I get to Mun. But if I made a manned section that separated it will get to Mun and still have plenty of power without me switching off reaction wheels. Both have the same amount of batteries and neither had anything that generated power. It seems odd that a much smaller satellite with everything switched off ran out of power but a manned version didn't.

It runs out of power because the computer systems of probes require electricity, while Kerbals seem to have an organ that can utilize zero-point energy and thereby power themselves and the capsule, but not the reaction wheels or anything else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It runs out of power because the computer systems of probes require electricity, while Kerbals seem to have an organ that can utilize zero-point energy and thereby power themselves and the capsule, but not the reaction wheels or anything else.

lol, it does seem that way!

UPDATE:

After consulting with colleagues it was decided that the first trip to Mun should be a manned fly by. The idea was to make a plane which would split into two sections, the front section consisting of Jebs cockpit, experiments and enough fuel to transfer it from LKO into a free return orbit. The other larger section, the more plane like bit, would be left on a sub orbital trajectory and would either glide or parachute to safety where it could be recovered.

So it was that the MunRunner was brought into existence;

3rXlX4ph.jpg

This heavier plane had 4 rear wheels and two wheels that are raised before take off (they get used when landing the front section). There were also two landing legs to support the rear section once its landed (although they turned out to be a waste of time).

B6qlZGrh.jpg

Powered by its 5 jet engines and 2 T30's Jeb reached a 80km suborbital and then separated his transfer craft from the main wing section.

0QSzZK8h.jpg

Nfa83Cgh.jpg

He then had to complete the orbit and prepare for his transfer burn, ready to become the first ever kerbal to break out of Kerbins gravity. There was much at stake, but in the name of science all must be risked.

0GBqVPSh.jpg

Meanwhile the wing section made its return. The plan had been to remotely control it to a safe landing site, however even though there was fuel in it before separation a fuel leak had emptied the remaining jet fuel and the only thing to do was to parachute it into the ocean.

Lpg0A7Km.jpgM762FwBm.jpg

The transfer that Jeb was aiming for would take him around the far side of Mun and then sling him back towards Kerbin so that he hit the atmo. This would ensure his return even if there was an on-board failure later on. The transfer went according to plan and Jeb said farewell to Kerbin for the first time.

84Hnl0Yh.jpg

As he neared the gravitational influence of Mun he took a moment to look back at his home, now far behind him and not a lot bigger than his head.

Shg1JJYh.jpg

Mun rushed towards him, for the first time he could see its texture, pitted here and there with craters many of which lay conveniently around the equator. They would at least be easy to land at he thought. While high above Mun's surface he performed several experiments, discovering for the first time what happened to goo and some random materials when near Mun.

ie7Lskah.jpg

As he rushed past, Mun occluded both Kerbin and the Sun and for the first time he felt alone, cold and cut off from his friends back home. But almost before he had time to finish that thought the Sun and his home shot back into view and he was now on the homeward stretch. He had to make a minor adjustment to his return path to lower his Pe at Kerbin from 50km to 29km. As a Kerbal he instinctively knew what height he had to hit the atmo at in order to perform a skip and not burn up on re-entry so this didn't require any kind of trial and error (or worse having to resort to using maths).

Re-entry went perfectly, with a slight skip and nothing got badly singed

OF3TC82h.jpg

A short while later Jeb glided (glid?) to a touchdown near one of Kerbins rivers. He and over 150 points of science were safely back home.

IwrDmEgh.jpg

dLHEcRXh.jpg

Back at KSC a press conference had been called and many people where eagerly waiting to hear his report. But he never appeared. As they waited they heard the roar of engines and rushed outside to see the MunRunner speeding down the runway and disappearing into the sky. Jeb was off again, he couldn't wait to get back to Mun and this time he was going to pass much closer.

This time he passed within 5km of the surface and could clearly see some of the different regions that he'd seen on the first pass.

0zRZe2ph.jpg

When he returned from this trip he did pause to tell his fellow Kerbals of what he'd seen. But he next statement worried them. "I believe this craft is capable of reaching our further moon Minmus, and I'm going for it!" Without making any alterations to the craft he set off again. This time he was unable to plot a free return and had to do a burn to enter Minmus's orbit.

A2Sw6Wsh.jpg

86VKvuCh.jpg

This cost him much more fuel and even he wondered if he'd have enough to make return transfer. The craft did have 40l of RCS fuel which was originally intended for making small course corrections. If he ran out of fuel it would be just enough to correct his course back home. Thankfully he had enough fuel, but only be a small margin of a few litres. Once more he made his return and glided to safety, this time landing by a small lake.

After all that time cramped in a small craft, Jeb had earned a rest and took the opportunity to go swimming.

Ga3h4jHl.jpg

f7BdU9om.jpgVvZXKXVm.jpg

PJMbiBvl.jpg

While paddling about he had an idea and knew how he would use the research these missions had yielded. He was going to build the fastest Jet aircraft ever seen;

QUDV6Iph.jpg

tbc.....

Edited by katateochi
fixed unfortunate typo!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...