Quasar

One maneuver 40 days later, and we're on-course for a rendezvous with Ike. I decided the crew should visit the Dunian moon first, on a whim more than anything else. The crew's eyes glaze over and they start drooling, a sure sign that boredom has overwhelmed their higher order brain functions. Eventually, however, they come out of it, in time to ooh and ah at the red planetary system as they approach it. Kertrid heads out on a science collecting mission as we drift towards Ike. The only source of science we have aboard the Shub-Niggurath (aside from obvious things like crew and EVA reports) is the experiments aboard the Roverhopper, so she moves up to the front of the craft, taking a moment to appreciate it's sheer size. Sometimes she forgets just how dang big it is. Kertrid let's out a low whistle before returning her mind to the task at hand. In another plane of being, foul tendrils reach out towards their prey. A small prize, but food nonetheless. She gently brushes against a rover wheel as she nears the experiments. The Kraken pounces.... Shub-Niggurath vanishes in an instant. Duna and Ike race away. Kertrid stares in horror as she is pulled out of the Solar System, dragged from this very plane of reality. Behind her, an unholy chittering informs her of her fate. She turns and catches a glimpse of dozens... hundreds of wide, gasping maws filled with dripping teeth, and her mind surrenders to madness as they close upon her. ------ F9 ------ Sometimes she forgets just how dang big it is. Kertrid let's out a low whistle before returning her mind to the task at hand. In another plane of being, foul tendrils reach out towards their prey. A small prize, but food nonetheless. She pauses, then nervously navigates around the rover wheels. She's not sure why, but something deep within her is telling her not to touch them. The Kraken pauses in confusion. Something has changed... the prey is no longer visible. Kertrid starts gathering up her precious goo and material studies, before they reach Ike's SOI and she can do it all again. Lost in the joy of science, the strange moment of dread is quickly forgotten. Irritated, the beast retreats again into the darkness between the shadows. ------ Duna Orbital Insertion Burn Oh that's right, someone wanted some science from Duna space, didn't they? Better send that off. MULTITASKING. ------ Duna Insertion Achieved. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are now officially residents of the Duna planetary system. So... what now? Should Shub-Niggurath circularize around Ike, or continue on to Duna? Valentina comes up with a third option: split up. The crew pile onto the Stingray. It and Payload Iota would circularize around Ike, while the unmanned Octopus would insert Payload Delta into Low Duna Orbit. But then Kertrid remembers the experiments. Not much point in going to Ike if we can't bring the roverhopper with! A few moments later, the Shub-Niggurath is in 4 seperate pieces. But the crew are professionals (and I've had a lot of docking practice now. Flippin' refueling), and they perform an elegant, zero-G dance to get the ships rebuilt. With Joevey piloting and Asicca offering construction advice, it doesn't take them long to hook Payload Delta back to the Octopus... ... and then attach the rover to the front of Payload Iota. With everything hooked up, Val starts up the Stingray's engines (all of them, this time around) and circularizes around Ike... ... while Payload Delta returns to Duna orbit. It drifts out to it's apoapsis, and then... Valentina: (staring out the window at Ike) "So, where're we landing?" Ratina: "The surface scanning probe will let us know where the highest ore concentrations are." Valentina: "The surface scanning probe..." Ratina: "Yeah. We've just got to deploy it. It's attached to the side of... Payload... Delta... Whoops. Oh well, no biggy: the scanning probe's got Ion engines and a full tank of Xenon. It can make it's own way back. After a brief scare caused by me forgetting I'd turned off the reaction wheels, it deploys and begins burning for Ike. Meanwhile, Payload Delta falls back towards Duna. At the periapsis it circularizes it's orbit, where it will wait for the crew to arrive. We're well established in the Duna system now. Nearly time to actually start doing missions! Now, what's the first thing we'll need? Well, there's a part in orbit around Ike not far from the crew. So all we've got to do is rendezvous and pick it up with the claws... ... the claws that are still attached to Payload Delta... ... which is now in Low Duna Orbit... ... dangit.

Now, for the trip to Duna itself, I have been uncharacteristically thoughtful, and have laid out two options for consideration... Option A: the "Minmus-to-Duna as efficiently as possible" maneuver. Step 1. Wait until we are within 47 days (Minmus' orbital period) of the transfer window. Burn out of Minmus' SOI, and lower our Kerbin Periapsis to 70km. Step 2. Await the transfer window, as given by Kerbal Alarm Clock. When we are 1 orbit ahead of it, adjust our orbit so we will be at our periapsis at the exact moment. Step 3. At the next Asc/Dsc node, perform a plane change. This is put off until now to slightly reduce the chances of the Mun screwing with our orbit before it's time to leave. Step 4. At periapsis, burn prograde all the way to Duna. Alternatively... Option B: the "Who needs efficiency? Have you SEEN how much fuel we have?!" maneuvre. Step 1. Screw it, just burn straight to Duna. ------ Gene: "Option B." Qu: Wait, really? I thought you of all people... Gene: "Option A has far too much risk of Munar interference. It would certainly be more efficient, but as you correctly state, we have an excess of fuel. We may as well use it." Qu: Huh. Fair enough, I guess. Let's do it, then! Game on! Gene: "... when the transfer window comes around in 100 days time, you mean." Qu: Oh. Right. ------ [1 timewarp boredom induced coma later] Gene: "Mission Control to Shub-Niggurath. T-minus 2 minutes to Duna transfer burn. Joevey: "Roger, Control." Gene: "Joevey? I thought Valentina would be piloting this burn." Joevey: "She is. She opted to perform the burn from the Stingray's cockpit, where she can see the entire ship from." Gene: "Okay, understood. You're green on all ground checks, crew. T minus 1 minute." Joevey: "Thanks Control. Engineering crew, report." Hainy: "Engines, check." Asicca: "Structural integrity, check." Hayemma: "Rover wheels, check." ... Joevey: "... rover wheels, Hayemma?" Hayemma: "Nobody told me what I was supposed to check!" Joevey: "Fine. Science crew?"Ratina: "Experiments Stowed, check." Danny: "Ritual sacrifice performed, check." Daphdolin: "No android spy's aboard, check." Kertrid: "Materials bay obsessively cleaned, check" Bob: "Delicious Head Spiders, check!" Kertrid: "... dammit Val, stop giving Bob meds from your stash!" Joevey: "Sounds like we're good to go. Henfield?" Henfield: "All lights green, ol' chap." Joevey: "Valentina, we're ready for burn. T-minus 10 seconds." Valentina: "Haha, everyone put your tray tables up and-" Joevey: "That joke stopped being funny 10 years ago, Val." Valentina: "Spoil sport. Prep for burn in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1..." -------- Burn is underway. .... this is going to take a while, and nothing interesting will happen during the course of the burn. Nothing interesting at all. Asicca: "Oh no... this is not good. Valentina! Val, do you read?" Valentina: "Whoooo! This is so much fun! You have you try this!" Asicca: "You need to shut down the engines Val! If you keep this up the whole ship will break apart!" Valentina: "Oh, relax! It's fine!" Asicca: "NO IT IS NOT! I'm an orbital engineer, this is my specialty! The ship is resonating! Every wobble is bigger than the last! Do you understand?! We're a minute at most from catastrophic failure!" Valentina: "..." Asicca: "DAMMIT VALENTINA I'M SERIOUS! TRUST ME! YOU HAVE! TO SHUT! IT! DOW-" VVVVVVVVVVVvvvvvvvv.... Asicca: "[breathes] ... thanks, Val. Gimme a sec to suit up, check things out. If I'm fast, we can resume the burn in a moment." ------ Asicca: "No no nonoNO! These struts are useless!" Joevey: "Asicca? It's Joe. What's the problem out there?" Asicca: "It's these orbital struts. The way they're set up, they're just gonna just tear the ship apart. I think we need a new plan." ------ [the KAS strut connections are pulling bits off the stingray the moment I start burning. I think they're an order of magnitude stronger than the stock joints, so the entire force of the ship's mass wobbling to and fro ends up concentrated wherever I attach them, rather than distributed through the ship. Obviously, this snaps pieces off] ------ Henfield: "Ma'am, if I may?" Asicca: "Go ahead Henfield," Henfield: "Part of the 'wobble' problem is that the ship is buckling where compressive force is applied between the high-thrust aft-tug and the moderate-thrust mid-tug. It should be trivial to negate that force by simply reducing the thrust of the aft-tug. Only turn on 8 engines, to match the mid-tugs maximum thrust levels." Asicca: "Hmm... that might work. It won't prevent the wobble, but it would certainly reduce the possibility of catastrophic failure. It will mean longer burn times, though." Distant voice from Kerbin: "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Asicca: "Did... did you hear that?" Henfield: "No, ma'am, I did not hear anything." Asicca: "Alright, well. Turn off a few of the Stingray's engines and let's try again before we go too far. Henfield: "Yes, ma'a,m." ------ Asicca: "It seems to be working. Still some wobble, but nothing the occasional burst of RCS won't fix." Henfield: "Yes, ma'am. Burn times are around the 20 minute mark." Distant voice from Kerbin: "And it's lagging, so it'll take twice that! And I've got to babysit it with the RCS! I hate you! I hate you both so much!" Asicca: "You're sure you don't hear that?" Henfield: "No ma'am." ------- There's the sun again. Burning all the way across Minmus' dark side, and we're barely a quarter of the way done. Dammit, I was not mentally prepared for this. I hate marathon burns. ------- Bob? Bob, are you okay there buddy? You don't look okay. I don't know what Val gave you, but whatever it was, I think it's wearing off. Don't worry buddy, we'll get you your proper Meds the moment this burn finishes. ------ Halfway there... ------ Three quarters, and the ship keeps pitching away from center. What's going on? Do we have uneven fuel distribution or... ... or maybe I just forget to disable fuel crossfeed on the docking ports. Blargh! Hayemma, fuel crossfeeds were your job! I'm pinning this on you! Hayemma: "Well maybe someone should have, I dunno, told me it was my job!" No excuses! ------ Nearly done. This burn. Oh my god this burn. Urgh. Never again. ------ Aaaand... now! Cut the engines. Whoa, look how far we travelled during the burn. Folks... we have our Duna rendevouz. The Shub-niggurath is officially on it's way to Duna. I'm done for today. Queue up a maneuver node for later: we'll sort out the details of our arrival then. For now, let's break out the champagne. Val: "We've got champagne? Awesome!" Huh? No, I meant the ground team. We're having champagne. We're going to get so hammered down here, you have no idea. Val: "Well... what've we got?" You have loads of nutritional spacepaste if you want. Feel free to break that out and eat as much as you like. Go nuts! You crazy kids. Val: "Aww..."

My PC is a recently built one with fairly high-end components. It's not the best money can buy (nothing overclocked or at the extreme end of gaming tech), but it's pretty good. Even so, Shub-Niggurath is more than a match for it: I don't think this mission would have even been possible before 1.1.0, and the lag is still pretty bad: more than enough to make piloting it a chore. (around 5fps maybe? I'm terrible at judging fps) I can timewarp up to 4x when I'm just turning, but while it's burning it needs to stay at 1x. If I build anything this size again, I'll do it with bigger parts rather than more of them... hmm... I wonder how big Tweakscale can make the SpaceY fuel tanks...

INTERLUDE ------ Shub-Niggurath is a heck of a craft: weighing in at 1529.66 tons, with 1145 parts, it's easily the biggest thing I've ever assembled in KSP. It technically has space for more than 40 kerbals, but despite being a save-scumming, timewarp-abusing, Kerbal-stranding monster of a KSP player, I do actually have some standards. I only consider the spots in the Dunashugah and Stingray viable for long-term space travel, since the actual base parts are designed with gravity in mind and the landercans are not designed for long-term habitation. Not that it matters: that's still more than 20, and the intrepid crew only numbers 11 because I didn't want to give Mort a(nother) heart attack by going on a hiring spree. Anyway, here's a scale comparison: Shubby against it's predecessors, the Excalibur and Gilly Superstation. I think you get the idea. It's big. Big enough that I'm pretty sure even Val won't be able to land this one on any low gravity moons. Valentina: "Hey Bob, how much gravity does Minmus have?" Bob, me, and the rest of the crew in unison: "NO!" ------ Hmm... before we leave, we should probably look at giving everyone jobs and titles. So... meet the crew: * Mission Commander Valentina Kerman * Pilot, 4-star Ultimately responsible for all mission decisions once they leave the Kerbal system. Something of a wildcard. Habit of stowing away on ships she shouldn't be on, partaking of recreational snacks (definitely not drugs, this mission is family-friendly), and being the first to do everything. * Co-pilot Joevey Kerman * Pilot, 4-star Ace pilot and Val's number two, he generally takes the controls whenever she's off on EVA, landing on a new celestial body, or in her bunk partaking of snacks. This guy generally acts like a BadS, but he falls to pieces the moment things start exploding around him. What a wuss. What a total wuss. Habit of being a wuss. * Backup Pilot Henfield Kerman * Pilot, 4-star Remember folk, always carry a spare pilot with you in case you suffer a blowout or puncture. Henfield has a posh British accent even though he's from outer space and there is no Britain. Habit of suffering from space cramps. * Chief Engineer Hainy Kerman * Engineer, 4-star Thrust into a leadership position when Bill... uh... "failed to return" from Minmus all those years ago (for legal reasons, I'm not allowed to say we forgot to rescue him), Chief Hainy has proven herself in a variety of situations, but prefers to work behind the scenes. Habit of hiding behind Bob during group photo's, apparently. * Orbital Engineer Asicca Kerman * Engineer, 4-star Specialising in orbital assembly and station construction, Asicca in charge of keeping the mothership together. Habit of being calm and logical, even enjoying herself in crisis situations whilst suffering extreme panic attacks during periods of relative safety. * Automotive Mechanic Hayemma Kerman * Engineer, 3-star How an ordinary car mechanic ended up stranded in orbit around Eve is anybodies guess (she changes the subject when we ask), but Hayemma has been training to join the KSP engineering corps ever since. Habit of naming different parts of the ship. * Head Scientist Dr. Bob Kerman * Scientist, 4-star On meds for trauma-induced insanity, he is a level headed and sensible, if somewhat cowardly, head researcher. Off his meds he's completely bonkers. Habit of repeatedly jumping out of airlocks in dangerous situations. * Material Scientist Dr. Kertrid Kerman * Scientist, 4-star Bob's partner in SCIENCE, Kertrid keeps an eye on him and makes sure he takes his meds regularly. Habit of obsessively cleaning the lab to prevent contamination of her precious material studies. * Extrakerrestrial Biologist "Dr." Danny Kerman * Scientist, 4-star Technically Danny's PhD is from ADIU (Aliens Did It University), which isn't an accredited institution, but he's been with the program for a while and has lots of experience, so we humour him. In the admittedly unlikely event we encounter signs of extrakerrestrial life, his skills will be invaluable. If we don't, well, at least we can say we looked. Habit of worshiping incomprehensible beings from the outer dimensions. * General Practitioner Dr. Daphdolin Kerman * Scientist, 1-star Our medical doctor, in charge of keeping the crew alive and healthy on the trip out. With a minor is psychology she is also technically in charge of keeping them sane, but KSP knows a lost cause when they see one. Definitely not an android spy. Habit of not being an android spy. * Planetary Geologist Dr. Ratina Kerman * Scientist, 1-star A keen and enthusiastic young geologist who has dreamed of going to Duna ever since she was a child. For the record, her name is pronounced similar to "retina", not "rat-tina". Habit of threatening people who mispronounce her name with a spork. ------ Likewise! Emiko station was my the first Kerbal Fanfic I read when I started visiting here. I really enjoyed the story, and it prompted me to start reading more Kerbal fanfics and eventually to start recording the details of my own missions. Plain ol' MS Paint. Just cut out the bit you want in one screenshot and paste in into the other.

REFUELING INTENSIFIES. The stingray drifts on out to Minmus. Capture is a simple, even somewhat boring matter, and I park the tug in a stable 20km orbit without any issues. Next up is The Unnamed Refueller That Lives On Minmus (TURTLOM), that has been keenly waiting for the last few months to be useful again: TURTLOM is waiting on the ground by the mining base, which is in turn located at the west end of Minmus' greater salt flats. The ever-dependable robot receives it's orders, picks up fuel from the base (not entirely sure why it wasn't hooked up and refueled to begin with), and does an ascent burn to intercept the stingray. In Minmus' microgravity it can take off any way it likes: it was originally designed to tilt itself all the way back up to vertical via the Vernor engines, but it turned out to be easier and more fun to simply accelerate east along the salt flats. One uneventful ascent later, it claws onto any available surface on the stingray, (because as we all know, the hulls of Kerbal spacecraft are made entirely of discarded fuel ports) and refuels it. It looks like it'll take a total of four trips to completely refuel the stingray, so TURTLOM heads back down to the surface. It'll have to wait a while for the mining base to generate enough fuel to completely refuel it: it ends up being about 10 in-game days between refueling cycles. In that time, Payload Assembly Omega passes the Mun (...ahahahahahaHAHAHA-[doppler effect]-HAHAHAHAHahahahahaha...), arrives at Minmus, and parks itself in a 20km orbit as well. After that, it's simply a case of waiting for fuel to be refined and bringing it orbit. Cue the 80's montage music: ... and change. I'm using the stingray to fuel the payload rather than fueling it directly because the 'ray can carry 4 times as much fuel and I'd rather not spend any more time than absolutely necessary in the payload's lag-aura. After handing off almost all of it's fuel, the stingray detaches, backs away, and the cycle begins anew... ... and change again. Oh sweet cthulhu this is taking forever. I'm starting to think my "build a giant mothership to save time because I don't want to do a bunch of separate transfer burns" strategy may have backfired. Note to self: send a bigger refueler to Minmus. Luckily, we had 220-something days to the Duna transfer window when we left Kerbin. It's been 2 months since then: we're now down to 150-something days. The Convert-o-tron is barely working at the moment... Note to self: send an engineer to... oh. Right. ------ Valentina: "Hey Asicca!" Asicca: "Yes?" Valentina: "You're an engineer, right?" Asicca: "Oh, yes! I didn't realise you were interested. Major in orbital assembly and space station construction: it's actually a very interesting fie-" Valentina: "Cool, cool, so what do you know about drills?" Asicca: "Drills." Valentina: "Those mining drills on Minmus. They're taking forever, and Mission Control wants us to send someone to speed 'em up. Think you could do that?" Asicca: "I... uh... there might be some basic optimisations I could make, but... I'm not an expert. You understand I've never been trained in the maintenance of-" Valentina: "Oh don't worry about that! You think I ever actually trained to be a pilot? Nah! Kick logic out and do the impossible, that's the way we roll! You can catch a ride down the next time the refueler comes up." Asicca: "You're not a-... but... but the refueler doesn't have any seats..." Valentina: "Nope! Don't worry, it'll be fun!" Asicca: "I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU VALENTINA- actually, this is kind of fun. Holy carp this is fun! Wheeeee!" Well, if the orbital engineering thing doesn't work out, Asicca has a promising career as a headlight ahead of her. ------ The refueler unceremoniously dumps Asicca on the ground by the base. Asicca: "Ow." Asicca heads towards the mining base, still a bit dizzy and exhilarated from the trip down. She stops for a moment, leaning against one of the bases landing legs to regain her balance, then grabs her EVA controls and tries an experimental jump in Minmus' low gravity. The landing leg explodes violently, throwing her a couple dozen meters across the Minmus flats. Asicca: "Ow again." [no screenshots, sorry: I wasn't expecting the landing leg inquisition] A few minutes later, after resting for a moment to recover from the crippling pain, Asicca EVA's over to the base and radio's in a report to the payload crew. Naturally, the report includes a not-insignificant quantity of swearing and several promises to murder the engineers who installed the landing legs on the base. ------ Chief engineer Hainy Kerman, worried by Asicca's eloquent report of exploding landing legs, goes on EVA to check the ones on the payload. Her news isn't good: the four on the rover have the same batch number as the ones on the mining base, and are likely to be explosive. We're not entirely sure why or how they're explosive, but it's Kerbal engineering, so, y'know... Worse than that, however, is what she finds when she opens one up. It's been tampered with, apparently to draw a small amount of electricity and transmit it into space as low level electromagnetic signals. But why? Why send nearly-inaudible signals into space? And who... or what... could be hearing them? Everyone aboard agree's: for the safety of the crew, the legs need to be disassembled. They're too dangerous to attempt a bomb defusal, and for some reason nobody thought a bomb defusal expert would be required on this mission: a pretty blatantly obvious oversight. Who planned this mission?! Whoever they are, they're an idiot and should be promptly fired- oh I remember now it was me. Nevermind then, carry on. Half a minute of work, and the landing legs are gone. A hidden presense, unseen by Kerbal eyes, stops wrapping it's tentacles around the ship. No longer able to perceive it's prey, it silently retreats back into the dark places between the universes. ---- A few hours later, Asicca radio's in again. This time at least, she has happier news: she can speed the bases ore extraction up. A lot. Asicca: "It, uh... it wasn't on." Bob: "... when you say "wasn't on"... ?" Asicca: "The drills were in the ground, but they weren't spinning. I think the previous occupants must have turned it off when they left." Bob: "But... then... where was the fuel coming from?" After some discussion, the crew decide that the ore must have been pushed up the well by underground pressure. After all, it's a well known fact that particles of a solid substances can, under certain circumstances, take on the properties of a liquid. Even kerbal schoolchildren know about Ablative Ceramic Tiles. Asicca agrees to stay on the ground and keep an eye on things until they're fueled. Asicca: "By the way, you seem remarkably lucid today Bob." Bob: "Oh yes, thank you. I'm trying some new medication Valentina gave me. It's calming me down wonderfully, and the hallucenations are really quite manageable so long as I remember they're all inside my head." Asicca: "Uh... what's inside your head?" Bob: "The spiders, of course. The spyiiiders I can feel them crawling about in there, laying their eggs. Millions of them. One day my head will split open like a ripe melon and innumerable numbers of them will come pouring out... and it will be glorious..." Asicca: "Yeah Bob, I'm going to hang up now. You just... you go get some sleep. Don't let Val give you any more Meds until the doc takes a look at them, okay?" Bob: "Sure thing Asicca! Goodnight! Don't let the bed bugs take over your mind and control you like a flesh puppet-" [Asicca hangs up] ---- ... and change. It's a good thing Kerbals are completely immune to the effects of gamma radiation (Editors note: no they aren't who told you that?), or firing the Stingray's engines directly at the crewed payload assembly like this could be really bad for the crew's long term health prospects. Y'know, until now I never really got why people mine asteroids. I mean sure, they can be moved to LKO which is more convenient, but ultimately they're just a finite source of dull grey fuel when the delicious minty fuel from Minmus is infinite. But I think I'm starting to understand. What I wouldn't give right now to be able to connect to a Class-E and just timewarp until the tanks were full... Though it looks like we're good on Liquid Fuel now. Just need to completely refuel the Stingray one more time... ... and have the refueler take a trip or two over into the lagzone to deliver some spare Oxidiser to the payload. I actually did this synchronously with the last few stingray refuelings. Quite by co-incidence, the stingray drifted into the same area as the payload just as we were finishing up. Nice shot of all the ships in front of Kerbin, Minmus and the Mun there. ... and of course we need to pick up a certain Orbital Engineer/Headlight... Asicca: "I'm on top of the world!" Asicca: "Hahaha, this is so much fun! So long as I don't look down it's great- oh. Whoops." Asicca: "Dammit. Don't puke don't puke don't puke don't puke..." After reaching orbit and plotting a rendevouz, Asicca and TURLOM have a few hours to burn. They talk about their feelings, paint each others toenails/enormous rover wheels, and go on an adventure to save the noble kingdom of vaccuum from the dreaded Lord Kraken. They become fast friends, and Asicca bequeaths upon the refueler a name: "Turtle". Turtle loves the name and is eternally grateful to Asicca, except that it's not because it's a robot and everyone knows robot's don't have feelings. Eventually, however, all good things must come to an end. They reach the payload assembly, and Asicca boards it. Like a puppy, dear little Turtle tries to follow her in, but sadly it proves slightly too large to fit through the crew hatch. We perform the last refueling, and we're good to go. We're done! And it only took me three damn weeks, dozens of docking maneuveres with big, heavy, laggy craft, and a narrowly avoided Kraken attack! Just a few bits of cleanup left to do, and we'll be ready to await the Duna Transfer window. I admit I'm a little bit worried about peeving off the Kraken again. especially since I haven't tried SAS or full burn yet. Disassembling the landing legs stopped the wobbles from building up enough to destroy the ship, but they're still happening. Hopefully, if we do peeve it off, Asicca can head out and add struts to make it safe, but really it's anybody's guess what will happen under full burn. But who cares about that, because the time has finally arrived: the mothership is assembled and awaits a name. This is an important decision: this is the first manned mission to another planet, after all, plus the biggest craft I've ever assembled. We need something representative of both the ships appearance and function. Something to go into the history books. Something concise, memorable and inspiring. I have just the name. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Shub-Niggurath, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!

Nonononononononononooooooooooooooooooooooooooo... I just spent the week refueling the payload assembly via the Stingray. Docked with it multiple times without any trouble. Had the next chapter of the story ready to go now once it was completely full. And now, within 30 seconds of switching to it, it's promptly torn apart by the Kraken. The Kraken strikes regardless of whether SAS is on or off. I tried ejecting the foremost fairings to distract it, (since they were the first thing to start wobbling, and they do have a minor clash with some stuff inside), but no effect. I figure the rover is involved somehow, since that's where the Kraken consistently attacks. I tried disassembling the rover wheels: no effect. I tried disassembling the landing legs. It stopped attacking! So I tried reloading and disassembling *only* the landing legs. And now it's attacking again. Aaarrrrgh! Giving up for now. I don't really want to lose either legs or wheels on the rover (they're both somewhat vital to it's operation), but I at least have an excuse for disassembling the legs if it comes to that.

Qu: "Hey Gene, you'll be happy to know I took your advice about "Aerodynamic" not meaning pointy" Gene: "... can we please put a nosecone on it? This is embarrassing." Qu: "Nah, can't afford it." So anyway, the final piece of the puzzle is Payload Sigma, aka. the Dunashugah. It was originally just called the Duna Shuttle, but a bee flew into someone's mouth at the wrong time and the name stuck. Besides, it's fun to chant (Dun-a-shug-ah, Duna-a-shug-ah). This comfortable space liner is designed to shuttle crew from Duna's surface to orbit, and in the event of martian water-zombie attack it also doubles as an interplanetary crew transport. It's a capable SSTO on Kerbin, so it should easily be capable of multiple orbital hops or even a visit to Ike before refueling. Now, I know what you're thinking: if it's an SSTO, why does it have boosters? And the answer may surprise you, shock you even! The terrible, horrifying truth is... they're cheap and it's easier to rendezvous when you've got spare fuel. This, of course, is our Crew Launch. You may remember some of their names from GSS. Joevey was the pilot of the GSS return module, Hayemma was rescued from Eve orbit, Hainy planted the first flag on Gilly during the trip, and Kertrid was Bob's research partner throughout the entire mission. No idea who Daphdolin and Ratina are, they just turned up. They say they are scientists and definitely not android spies. Good enough for me! ------ The Shuttle is the last piece of the payload, aside from the Stingray's crew module, which we'll be re-using. Dunashugah is great and it has lots of space, but I'm planning to leave it at Duna so if I want to rotate more than 2 Kerbals out on the first transfer window I'll need the extra space. Also, the crew module has a low-grav RCS surface-scanning probe in it's cargo bay, which I forgot to unload back at Gilly. Possibly it'll work on Ike maybe? Who knows, let's find out! We can always bring it back if it doesn't work. Being the final piece of the mission is also lucky because this launch used up most of the final scraps of my budget. Funds: 72,896 But that's fine. It's not like we'll need the money between now and when we reach Duna unless we, I dunno, spot an enormous asteroid on a collision course with Kerbin. Random Kerbal: "WE'VE SPOTTED AN ENORMOUS ASTEROID ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH KERBIN!" ... Oh. ... well, let's worry about that after we've finished what we're doing here. PRIORITIES! ------ The Launch itself goes off without anything exploding, but I screwed up the ascent profile. The flames and accompanying screaming were both amusing and theatric... ... but it didn't leave us with enough fuel for rendezvous, so it was once again left to the generous and altruistic robots to save the ungrateful meatbags. The Octoparrot sets out. Danny and Henfield hop in Payload Iota's Landing Can to come with, leaving Bob to find somewhere else to sit. That's him on the left in the image below. We assured him that being outside on the hull in direct line of sight to 5 nuclear engines while they were firing would not be a health hazard, and asked him to keep this incident to himself the next time the Operational Health and Safety inspectors came around. ------ The Octoperpendicular isn't the only unmanned vehicle to set out for a rendevouz with Dunashugah. A few kilometers behind KSS, Payload Delta's ascent stage fires its engines prograde. This uses up the the last of the fuel, and Delta switches to Skycrane engines for the remainder of the burn. It zips by the now-unmanned KSS on it's way to the final rendezvous. The KSS isn't the only thing unmanned: in fact, once the mothership leaves for Duna, I will not have a single astronaut in Kerbin's SOI. The press has taken to calling this an "exodus", but I assured them it was purely due to budget cuts and had absolutely nothing to do with the enormous asteroid on a collision course with Kerbin. They went oddly silent when I told them that. ------ Rendevouz with Dunashugah goes okay, with the only casualty being Bob's long-term risk of leukemia. Docking takes two tries, but we eventually get them connected. Bob gratefully EVA's over to the space liner, just in time for the deceleration burn that will finalise the rendezvous with Payload Delta. And after approximately a billion "simulations" (F9-F9-F9-F9-F9-F9-DETERMINATION-F9-F9-F9...), docking of these two ridiculously oversize craft is achieved perfectly on the first try (to the surprise of everyone in mission control who saw my previous docking attempts), and orbital assembly of the Duna Payload is complete. ------ All that remains is to take the entire assembly out to Minmus to join the Stingray for refueling. The Mun tried to mess with me on the way out, but I'm savvy to it's shenanigans and have plenty of fuel to burn, so I just powered straight through it's SOI laughing like a maniac the whole time. Screw you Mun! So that's that! By the time the Stingray reaches Minmus, that asteroid will have wiped out all life on Kerbin. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find out how many years of food I can put into orbit along with a Mk1 Lander Can for 72,896 Funds. Random Kerbal: "Oh wait. My bad, I misread the readouts. Thought the icon was actual size. Turns out it's just a Class C." Oh. Well never-mind then, carry on.

I started the Gilly Superstation mission with a comment about the progressively improving visual appearance of spacecraft as you advance in career mode, going from the 1m parts to Rockomax to Kerbodyne to C7 (for liquid-fuel interplanetary ships) styles. Career mode really does make you feel like you're moving from real-world style spacecraft to interstellar sci-fi ships without missing a beat. I was worried that, since I started using mods, my crafts might lose that aesthetic appeal. Afterall, each modder has their own unique artstyle, and they don't always work together. Luckily, I can confirm that they are still as beautiful as ever. As evidence, I present Payload Delta: Isn't she beautiful? This is the Duna Base and it's delivery system. I completely rebuilt her when I realised I'd have twice as much money to work with. The mission profile was expanded from two to six base modules and a science rover, and rather than giving each of the bases piddly little integrated engine I instead built an oversized skycrane to land all of them at once. I also strapped a whole bunch of bits and bobs on on the side there, for reasons of mapping, ore discovery, orbital assembly, and ballast. Now I just need to get Gene to sign off on launching it... ----- Qu: Now, Gene... Gene: "It's an abomination." Qu: It's aerodynamic! Gene: ""Aerodynamic" does not mean "pointy". And contrary to what you seem to think, it does not get *more* aerodynamic if you add more points!" Qu: It's cheap. Y'know. Relatively speaking. Gene: "Because you didn't add a single safety mechanism! It will almost certainly explode in the air, if it doesn't on the launch pad!" Qu: Hasn't yet. Besides, it's unmanned. And it's asparagus-staged, just like you're so keen on! Gene: "*That*... whatever that ascent stage is... is not asparagus staging. That is something far... far worse." Qu: Worse? Or better? Gene: "Okay, you know what? Go talk to Mort and Walter. If you can convince them both to sign off on this... this thing, I'll launch it." Qu: DEAL! ----- Qu: Mort! How are you enjoying your new quarters. Mort: "You put me in the cupboard under the stairs." Qu: Better than the basement, though. Anyway, I have a question... Mort: "[sigh] Does it use up all our remaining funds?" Qu: Nope. Mort: "Then go ahead, I don't care anymore." Qu: Excellent! You're doing great work lately, I really mean that. Keep this up and I might even consider upgrading you to the walk-in wardrobe. ---- Qu: Walter! Ol' buddy, ol' pal! How are things? Walter: "No." Qu: Awww, but- Walter: "I've seen the monster on the launch pad. We are a reputable space agency..." Qu: Uh.. sure. "Reputable". Let's go with that. Walter: "... we're not some... some... freakshow! Roll up, roll up, see the ugliest thing we can put in space!" Qu: Pff, if you think that's ugly you should see some of my other designs... Walter: "I won't do it. I won't condone this." Qu: I'll get you a new hazmat suit. Walter: "..." Qu: A good one. The brightest orange money can buy. Walter: "... with a zipper that works?" Qu: Damn straight. Walter: "... fine." Qu: WHOO! ----- ----- [meanwhile] Gene: "[long suffering sigh] Mission Control to Kerbin International Space Station. Please stand by, we've got a new payload inco-" Asicca: "Gene! This is Asicca, KSS Engineering Corps. We've got a, uh... a situation here. Please confirm: Payload Iota was unmanned, correct?" Gene: "Oh.. yes, Asicca. Of course. All the payloads are unmanned." Asicca: "Okay, so what you're saying is, whatever the heck it is that's moving around up here with us... isn't supposed to be." Qu: There's a what. Gene: "[pause]... Asicca, please confirm. You have something... moving... around the station?" Asicca: "Yes Gene. Definitely mobile, and quite large. It's making a lot of noise." Qu: Okay Asicca, I need you to stay calm. We need more information. Now tell me, has anybody disappeared? Is it in the air ducts? IS IT HUNTING YOU FOR SPORT, ASICCA? Asicca: "Uuuum... no? It's just banging on the walls..." Qu: STAY CALM ASICCA! DON'T! PANIC! Now are you sure it's not picking you off one by one? Have you seen Danny lately? I always figured he'd be the first to get eaten. Gene: "Assica, could it be an animal? I don't think anyone checked the lander-can before launch, maybe a bird flew in?" Asicca: "It's bigger than a bird, sir." Qu: Oh my gods, what if it's a bear? Asicca: "I don't think it's an animal. Whatever it is, we know it's capable of EVA. It's been heard all around the station, and since somebody didn't think to give this station interior corridors... Qu: Oh my gods, what if it's a bear in a space suit? The perfect organism. Gene: "Asicca, has anyone actually seen it?" Asicca: "No sir. It's-" [BANG] [BANG] [BANG] Asicca: "Cheeses! Ooooh-kay, that sounded like it was just outside the cupola." Gene: "Asicca, if it's outside, do you think you'll be able to see it out the windows? Asicca: "Uh... I admit I'm a little nervous to get too close to the window, but... I might be able to catch a glimpse of it if I just... scooch over... a bit..." ... DAMMIT VALENTINA, AGAIN? And you dragged poor Bob into this as well, didn't you? Poor guy looks like he's been driven mad by the trauma of it all. Oh well, if it means a bit less whining on this trip I suppose it's a win. So long as his madness doesn't contaminate the science. ----- Gene: "Asicca, do you have room for them up there? Those lander cans weren't designed for long term stays." Asicca: "Don't worry, there's plenty of room in the Stingray." Qu: Hmm... actually, that's a good point. We need to send that thing to Minmus for refueling anyway. Hey Val, since you're already up there, go ahead and make yourself useful. Asicca, you go with her, keep her out of trouble." Asicca: "Understood." Qu: Alright, now... what were we doing before this? Oh yes, that's right, the launch. Qu: Looks like it reached orbit without any issues: closing on KSS now. Neat! Gene, wasn't there something you were going to do? Gene: "Hmm? Oh, yes! I was going to warn the station crew about Payload Delta before it arrived. You know, to prevent them from panicking and scrawling "WELCOME KRAKEN" all over the station walls again-" "AAAARRRRRGGGH!" "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh spacekraken R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!" "Welcome, ancient one! I am your obediant servant! EAT THEM FIRST!" ----- Funds: 289,466

Okay, now we launch the Ike Mining equipment launch: Payload Iota. We'll just reuse the same launch system as before. It's recoverable, so it won't matter if it's hideously overpowered- "I'm afraid I can't let you do that." Mort? Who let you out of the basement? "That's not important right now. What's important is that we don't have enough money to make this launch." Gimme a sec, just making a note. "Buuuyyy... padlocks... for... basement... dooorrrss..." Okay, you were saying? "It's too expensive." "What, padlocks?" "No! This Ike launch of yours is 1.64 million. We've got 1.60." But it's a reusable launch vehicle. Mostly. If you don't mind wet rockets. Shut up, we'll get our funds back, it'll be fine. "You can't buy something without the money to pay for it." [theatrical sigh] Fiiiiine. What are our options then? Steal rocket parts? Bank heist? Ooh, I've always wanted to try kidnapping the president for ransom... "Well... just throwing it out there... we could *perhaps* consider launching something a bit smaller and cheaper?" ... get back in the basement. -------- Hey Gene, what happens if we default on a contract? "Default on a... we can't do that!" Yes, but why not? "It would be utterly unscrupulous!" Okay... not necessarily a deal breaker... "It would severely and permanently damage our reputation!" We have a reputation? That's a worry. "It would... it would..." "Waaaiiit!" Oh my god Mortimer how do you keep getting out of the basement? "I did the math on the last launch!" Oh no, never do that. It's depressing as all hell. "... I'm just going to ignore that one... Gene! Look at these numbers. We got around 700k worth of waterlogged parts back during recovery, right? And the original launch was 1765k?" "That's right." "So if we can do this launch for less than a million, we'll be ahead." Pff, yea, but how on Kerbin are we supposed to- "A million, Mortimer? Good heavens! Give me a second to work something out... let's see, one rhino, 6 twinboars, basic asparagus staging... this is just eyeballing the numbers you realise, but I think we can do this entire launch for... well... this much: ... huh. That would save us half a million. We could double the size of our Duna payload for that much funds. "Uh... wait. I wasn't actually suggesting we..." THANK YOU MORTIMER! AS A REWARD, I GRANT YOU A BOON! ASK ANYTHING WITHIN MY POWER TO GRANT, AND IT SHALL BE YOURS! "Can I stop living in the basement?" Whoa, let's not get hasty here. ------ ------ Some refitting later, and the launch was scheduled. Waiting until Kerbin International Space Station was overhead took a few tries because coming out of timewarp while sitting on the landing pad caused it to bounce about a meter in the air and then promptly explode. I eventually did the time-warp in the tracking station before launching. The ascent profile was slow and shallow, and needed a bit of help on the final leg. By the way, does anyone know why Hot Rockets gives me weird engine smoke particles every time I go into a vaccuum? (top-right) Eventually, we made it to orbit in sight of KiSS with a tiny bit of fuel left over in the ascent stage. I'd originally planned to jettison the nose-cone, but thought better of it and had the Skycrane pick it up instead. You never know when a spare nose-cone might come in handy. The Skycrane's vernor engines used up enough fuel and oxidiser to empty the ascent stage, so we said goodbye to it. The life of a non-recoverable ascent stage is such a sad affair... ... then we headed over to dock with KiSS. This proved difficult since the vernor engines on the Skycrane wanted to get involved, and we eventually had to enlist the Octopuggle to help us get into position... ... which promptly made everything even more difficult to control for reasons that were difficult to discern. However, after half an orbit, ridiculous amounts of vernor engine fuel, and a lot of bouncing off of each other ("mommy, how are little spaceships made?"), KiSS had a brand new addition: Payload Iota, the Ike Mining Module. I'll go into more detail about it if we ever get to Ike. Suffice it to say it's an extravagantly overengineered, exceedingly difficult to use and most likely useless solution to something that probably wasn't going to be a problem in the first place. --- And so, these shenanigans leave us with... Funds: 1,086,721

"Okay people, now remember, we have a budget for this mission! I know the first landing on Duna is a big moment, but let's not go overboard. Use those delta-v calculators we got you. Let's not make any of our launches too big, okay?" Question for you, Gene. "Yes?" ... I made the launch too big. [fund counter drops by 1.7 million] RRRRUUUUMMMBLE "WHAT THE HELL IS THAT THING?!" Interplanetary Tug. "We've got one of those in orbit already!" Yes, but this one's bigger. I call it the Octopus! Or... maybe Octopi sounds better? I kinda like "Octopi", but that makes it sound like there's two of them. Hmm.. ---- Our first launch, Payload Omega, aka the Octopussie... no wait that's terrible... is headed to Kerbin International Space Station, where Asicca, Henfield, and Danny are currently located. I forgot to warn them it was coming, but they're veteran astronauts. I'm sure they'll react in a calm and reasonable manner. ----- Meanwhile, aboard Kerbinational Space Station... "AAARGH! IT'S GOING TO EAT US ALL!"" "IA! IA SHUB-SPACEKRAKEN!" "I for one welcome our new uncaring tentacled overlords." ----- The Octopurple is the big sister of the Stingray. Back in Gilly SS I nearly stranded everyone in solar orbit when I overestimated the capabilities of the Stingray (and my ability to eyeball transfer windows), so for this mission I carefully measured the amount of fuel I would need- haha no just kidding, I just arbitrarily tripled it. The Octopinyata will be positioned somewhere near the center of the mothership, so it's also the perfect place for a plethora of expensive, oversized reaction wheels. Early examples of the craft tore themselves apart due to physics weirdness (radial attachment points intersecting with three SAS modules at the same time = DOOM), so this one comes with a Kerbodyne tank in the for attaching. ---- "Alright, so you're saying it's so big because the ascent vehicle is re-usable." Mostly reusable. "Mostly reusable. Fine. Has it been tested?" Nope. Wait, do sims count? "I... [sigh]... I guess they'll have to. You've done sims?" I have spent the last week doing nothing but trying to deorbit this craft. "... and?" You would not believe how difficult it is. It blew up so many times. But I have a good feeling about this one! ----- Like a glove. A wet glove. A wet glove that fell apart when it touched the water, but I forgot to take screenshots. Most of the engines survived, at least. "Do you have any idea what saltwater does to engines, sir?" Don't worry, I thought of that! See this? I bought this metal strip off a guy at the markets for 2 funds. Completely stops corrosion with quantum electro-osmosis or something like that! He also told me it makes hair grow back. You should try it! "... shouldn't it be attached to the rocket, then?" Oh.... right... knew I forgot something. ----- In the end, I got about around 700,000 funds back from recovery and attached the Octopinwheel to KSS. This leaves us with... Funds: 1,604,584.

Contents ------ Prequel Mission: Gilly Superstation 1 ------ 1. Mission Profile 2. Payload Omega (Cthulhu In Space) 3. Payload Iota (Money Problems) 4. Payload Delta (The Abomination) 5. Payload Sigma (Orbital Assembly) 6. Refueling Intensifies (A Mothership is Named) 7. Interlude (Size Comparison) 8. Leaving Minmus (Marathon Burn) 9. Arrival (Hello Ike) 10. Iota Deployed: (Ike Mining Base) 11. Ike to Duna (Orbital Re-assembly) 12. Descent (Ride of the Valkyries) 13. Duna Ultrabase (Surface Assembly) 14. Last Mission (TARDIS) 15. Duna Science Collection (Road Trip!) 16. Leaving Duna (Homeward Bound) 17. Welcome Home (Epic Climax) 18. Epilogue ------ Heyo all! This is a sequel of sorts to Gilly Superstation 1, my previous feat of stupidity courage. It will feature many of the same characters and the same thematic sensibilities (or lack thereof). In summary: hour-long burn times and perfectly calculated delta-v are for people who have time to kill and any expectation whatsoever of things going to plan (Also, since we have finally harnessed the infinite supply of minty ice-cream rocket fuel orbiting Kerbin, rediculously oversized tugs can actually prove cost-effective with enough reuse) There will be a few differences from GSS: in part because I'm just starting to experiment with mods, but mainly because I actually have a budget this time! I used up most of my money in GSS, but a few science contracts from Jool space (accomplished by a single xenon-powered probe) have left us with 2.5 million in spare funds. I'm sure that's a big budget by some people's standards, but I'll probably blow most of it in the first launch. Much like the Gilly mission, I started this one by picking up a few missions in the system and appending a few goals of my own. Unlike the Gilly mission, which only had two contracts to fulfil, this one has six: So here's the mission summary: 1. Primary Goal 1 (contract): Establish a base on Duna. This is the most challenging contract by far: this base requires space for 5 Kerbals, 2000 Ore and 5000 Electric Charge. This is the contract I'm most worried about: it requires a number of things to go to plan, and I don't have the best track record of "things going to plan". 2. Primary Goal 2: Establish a complete mining/refueling operation on Ike, with a base and a refueler. Mining Duna is necessary for the ore requirement, but it's hardly the most efficient place to refuel. This is part of my ultimate goal of having a refueling operation in every system. 3. Secondary Goals 1&2 (contracts): I have two seperate contracts to recover small parts from Ike and Duna orbits and return them to Kerbin. 4. Secondary Goal 3: Provide the Duna base with a passenger SSTO. This is for crew rotation and tourism purposes: I like to have a plan to bring my Kerbals home, even if it doesn't work. 5. Tertiary Goals 1,2&3 (contracts): Science from space around Duna, Science from surface of Ike, and "Enter Duna's Atmosphere". That last one is a world first contract: this mission will be our first time in Duna's atmosphere. Naturally, these three will all be accomplished in the process of achieving other goals. 6. Tertiary Goal 4: Provide some sort of rover, hopper or plane to gather experiments from biomes near the Duna Base. The logical thing to do to accomplish all these goals would be to build a series of smaller ships, but since that's slow, boring and sensible so I'm going to pour every cent of my funds into assembling an enormous mothership in orbit instead, and hope like heck it actually works. ----- Funds: 2,503,852

These days I put a spare seat on every one of my orbital satellites. They weigh barely anything and I just *know* sooner or later it's going to come in handy (or more pessimistically, I'll get a mission like this perfectly lined up with one of my old seat-less satellites).

I'd use 2 NERV's and build it upside down. Put the command module on or near the bottom, science, control systems and central tank above that, then finally attach a pair of tanks using 2x symmetry put the NERV's under those. You'll want extra fuel if you do that though: NERV's are heavy. You can tuck them in right alongside your command module, which is great for irradiating Kerbals. Uh, I mean... "I do not condone irradiating Kerbals. That would be bad."

Epilogue 2: EPILOGUE HARDER. A few missions later, and we have fixed literally everything forever. We gave the Mining Probe some invasive surgery and jammed an ore tank in the side of it, which as we all know is the correct procedure for repairing non-functional Convert-O-Trons, and then gave it the whale tank that brought GSS out here as a "no longer completely useless day" present. It's now building up a healthy supply of monoprop and liquid fuel. The station has recieved a new skip which actually works this time (amazing!), and we promptly connected it to the station in the most aesthetically pleasing manner possible. Hmm... it's possible someone may be able to glide the useless skip to the surface on Eve, which would a) mean we had landed a Kerbal on Eve, and b) mean we had stranded a Kerbal on Eve, probably forever. Which would be a win-win, except Bob already returned home. I kid, of course! I like Bob, he brings me science and he's already gone back to Kerbin anyway so that plan's out of the question. I'd strand Jeb. Jeb doesn't bring me science. Screw Jeb. Speaking of Bob, though... Due to a horrendously inefficient orbital transfer, the Stingray ended up running out of fuel just before circularising around Kerbin. There may have been some screaming over the intercom when we told the crew they were hurtling uncontrollably back out into solar orbit, but Valentina smacked Bob a few times and locked him in the cargo bay, which shut him up. Luckily, some quick thinking on the part of the unnamed and unmanned refueling vessel that lives on Minmus managed to bring them just enough fuel to circularise and drop in to Minmus, at which point the refueling vessel began cycling between orbit to ground to fill the Stingray back up to maximum It was thankless and grueling work, but the refueling vessel was simply happy to see people again. It gets lonely on Minmus. Naturally the crew didn't thank it because everyone knows robots don't have feelings. After a final rendezvous with the Kerbonational Space Station, Bob, Hainy, Kertrid and Valentina are now safely in Low Kerbin Orbit and will return to Kerbin as soon we send up a shuttle, while the Stingray itself will await our next interplanetary mission.

Epilogue: Meet "Excalibur". "Tiny resupply ship," mutters Bob sarcastically, staring out the window at the enormous shadow slowly approaching the station. "Riiiiight." The name is a play on "sword in the stone", since most of it's equipment relates to mining. And yes, I know Excalibur wasn't actually the sword that Arthur pulled from the stone, but the Kerbals don't. Or maybe it was the same sword in their version of the myth. Maybe in their version he was actually the guy who jammed the sword *into* the stone in the first place rather than pulling it out, so the name is even more appropos. Regardless, it's a big ship with a pretentious name. Size comparison: The Excalibur includes (front to back): * An Intraplanetary Skip, for local missions in the Eve SOI. Doubles as an RCS tug, which can be used to help us disassemble the non-controllable parts of the Excalibur. * Small Experiment module: a materials bay, mystery goo and narrow band scanner to be attached to the front of GSS. * Crew & Cargo Module. In addition to comfortably seating 10 Kerbals for the trip home, the cargo bay contains a tiny RCS probe with a surface scanner and accelerometer. And finally... * Low Grav Mining Probe. An RCS-powered probe with mini-convert-o-tron, mining drills, and claws to attach it to Gilly's surface rather than landing legs since I don't trust the low gravity. And at the back is the Stingray, the pride of the KSP fleet: the programs first re-usable interplanetary tug. It's designed to be refueled in orbit around Minmus (and in any other location we can get a working refueling base set up), and should significantly reduce colonisation costs. It was actually launched mostly unfueled: while it would probably have been possible to build a launch vehicle for it, it was far cheaper to use a smaller (though still sizable) launch and head straight to minmus for fueling. It also brings 5 Kerbals: Thomprick, Panica and Janica, and Jeb and Bill (who weren't originally a part of the mission, stranded as they were on Minmus for the last 15 years without EVA fuel, but managed to flag down the unmanned refueling vessel and catch a lift to the Excalibur) The Excalibur demonstrates just how far KSP has come since the GSS was launched. Not quite far enough to stop us from making stupid mistakes, though... ----- "The skip's engine doesn't work! Some idiot forgot the fuel lines!" "The scanner data is useless! We might as well just put the surface probe down there!" "The mining probe's claws won't grab onto Gilly's surface! Didn't anybody test this?" "Nevermind that, the probe doesn't even have any ore tanks! How are we supposed to get the ore into the convertotron?" "Without mining we can't refuel the skip's RCS! it's not even useful as an RCS tug!" "Literally everything is terrible!" "AAAAAAAAAAA-" --- Well that all went poorly. Nevertheless, Valentina, Bob, Hainy and Kertrid are still set to be rotated home aboard the Stingray (after being disassembled we can't really keep calling it the "Excalibur") when the next launch window comes around, and I'm assured it at least is working fine. Plus it still has more than enough fuel to bring them all home, even without the mining probe refueling it. I think that's a good point to end the story. Let me know what you thought! I may do more mission logs in the future, if people like 'em and I can find the time. If nothing else they apparently encourage me to perform entertaining feats of stupidity.

I've got that supply ship I mentioned about 10 days from the Eve planetary system (as of the landing of the Gilly Return Module), so I'll let you know how the rendevous goes. If I get offered a contract to expand the station I'll take it, but otherwise I'll probably leave it at it's current size and focus instead on other systems. Everything so far has been stock, but I recently downloaded the Planetary Bases mod and I'm keen to try it out. By the way, I recommend Gilly for your first extrakerrestrial station. In addition to being located in the Eve system (which takes less fuel to get to than Duna and has more frequent launch windows to Kerbin), and providing comical amounts of science if you visit all three biomes, jetpacking down to the surface can bring your Kerbals straight up to 3 stars (4 stars if they've also done a flyby of the Mun or Minmus).

The next few years seem to drift by rapidly for the crew of the Gilly Superstation thanks to a combination of Valentina's recreational drugs sunny personality and near-lethal levels of boredom putting them into the usual kerbal hibernation state. While the Kerbin system is a flurry of activity during this same period, especially around Minmus, Gilly and Eve remain much the same as ever. Eventually however all good things must come to an end, and all boring things too. KSC calls up GSS and lets them know the launch window is about to open. Time for everyone to get on the return module: Hayemma, Henfield, Joevey, Danny and Asicca are on their way home, while Valentina, Bob, Kertrid and Hainy are staying at Gilly (Bob and Kertrid for research purposes, Hainy and Val simply because there was no room aboard the return module). Bob has one last task to perform, however. He goes down to the Lab, gather's up all gets all the data, and enters the airlock. Jetting over to the front of the station, he packs as much of it as will fit aboard the return module. Can't quite fit it all, but that's okay: the remaining 17 experiments will provide enough research data to keep Gilly Superstation occupied for years. Before they head off Mission Control tells the crew staying at Gilly not to worry: they won't be alone out there for long. A tiny resupply mission, nothing worth making a fuss about, is leaving during this launch window to arrive at around the same time. There might even be enough room on it to rotate the crew out, but don't get your hopes up. It's, like, really tiny. Bob thinks he can hear someone trying not to laugh in the background as Mission Control says this, but doesn't quite know what to make of that. The exit maneuvers are plotted, and it's time for half the crew to say goodbye to Gilly Superstation. See you Bob, Val, etc! In a few minutes, GSS vanishes into the glare of the Sun. Bye Eve! May we meet again someday. A few hours and a second maneuver node later, the returning crew are outside the Eve system and on their way home. Midway through the trip, Danny wakes Henfield up from his boredom-induced coma to inform him that they're currently the closest they'll ever be to the resupply ship. Henfield asks how close that is. About 3 million kilometers. Give or take. Henfield goes back to sleep. ----- Hello Kerbin my old friend. How are we doing for fuel? Yay, we've got heaps! Joevey thinks it's a brilliant idea to try to rendevous with Kerbonational Space Station on the way in, maybe drop off some of this data in the KSS labs before we bring it in to Kerbin. This goes about as well as can be expected... Luckily, Joevey's not a complete idiot: he conserved a little RCS for exactly this situation. Nowhere near enough to complete the rendevous, but plenty to deorbit. Besides, it's not like we really wanted to visit KSS and drop off that data. Those grapes were probably sour anyway. The final burn of the mission is remarkably understated. Due to some overly cautious clerk at Mission Control (me), it takes 5 or 6 aerobraking passes to actually begin deorbiting. Eventually, however, as the crew watch the sunrise, Asicca notes that this may be the final sunrise they see from space... ... and the final descent begins just as the crew start to get nervous about the possible double meaning of that comment. ----- "Mission Control, we're seeing some overheating. Nothing major at this point." "Don't worry about it, Joevey. How's the descent angle?" "Soft and shallow, Control. I think we're-" "What was that?! Something exploded!" "Relax, Joevey. That's normal. Most of our craft exhibit some minor exploding on re-entry. The situation is still nominal." "Argh! Something else exploded!" "It's fine, Joevey. The situation is nominal. Just relax and-" "Everything's exploding! Oh my god, we're all gonna die!" "You're not going to die! The sims say there's at least an 80% chance some of you will surv-" "I DON'T WANT TO DIE! I'M TOO GREEN AND TOO PRETTY TO DIE! AAAAAAAAA-" "Will you please shut up?! I SAID SHUT UP! STOP SCREAMING! SITUATION-" "-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" "-IS NOMINAL!" ----- "See? I told you situation was nominal." "... control, can I ask you not to upload our face cam video to youtube?" "Sorry, too late." Congratulations to the crew of the... "Gilly Return Module"? We really should have given this thing a name, shouldn't we. Regardless, the mission was a success. Sure we lost those expensive nuclear engines (in hindsight, should have put them on the other side of the craft), but nobody died horribly and everybody gained a load of experience. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go swim in the Science Vault like Scrooge McDuck. ----- And that's probably a good place to end it. Admittedly it's not quite over: I'll do a brief epilogue when the supply ship arrives to rotate out the remainder of the crew. But after that I think I'm going to continue my extraterrestrial colonization efforts without the narration and screenshots: they're fun but time-consuming, and KSP is already a time-consuming game.

Val, when I told you to stay with the station... ... this isn't what I had in mind. Pretty sure the warranty is void now. But nothing blew up or fell off, so I guess we're good. You've had your fun, and you even got to visit your old landing site. Take us up. We're heading north. One more mission to do here before we settle in for the long wait to the next launch window: the surface scan. Val puts the station into polar orbit. This uses up the last of the Whale's fuel, and I consider detaching it, but ultimately decide against it. The station doesn't have many more manueveres to do, and when we eventually put a mining base on Gilly, an enormous empty liquid fuel tank could come in handy... Bob turns on the orbital survey equipment... Mmm. Look at all that delicious pinkness! ---- So... that's it then. All missions complete. Now we just settle in and wait for the next launch window. Bob and Kertrid retire to the research lab to start pouring over the insane amounts of data we've compiled, and everyone else starts the multi-year long party/boredom coma. It doesn't take long before we start to see the advantages of having a station in extraterrestrial orbit. A mission to plant a flag on Gilly, completed within an hour of accepting it by Valentina. ----- Another mission comes in: rescue someone from orbit around Eve. It's a good opportunity to put the return module through it's paces, so Henfield heads on out. Hayemma Kerman, lost in space, spots a white dot rapidly approaching and receives something inaudible over her busted radio. "Hi. I'm Hayemma." "Henfield, ma'am. Pleasure to meet you." "So, not to be rude or anything, but your ship seems a little... empty? No science, no equipment... did you come all the way out to Eve in this thing just to rescue me?" "Well, technically yes ma'am. But also no." "You're being cryptic on purpose" "Yes ma'am." "Welcome to Gilly Superstation, ma'am." "Yeesh. Overcompensating much?" ----- The rescue was successful. We'll have to leave someone here, but Hayemma is safe on the Superstation until the next launch window. She seems happy. The return module... well, it did it's job. It's not an easy craft to fly by any means, and it's terrible at docking, but it wasn't designed for that so that's excusable. We should probably look at sending out a small runner to do similar future missions with. Checking our fuel at the end of the rescue, though, does paint a slightly concerning picture... Admittedly that's for a rendevous with a ship going in the opposite direction to Gilly, plus the return trip, but it's still a worry. We probably have enough to make it back to Kerbin's SOI when the next launch window comes around, but it might not be enough to stop without aerobraking. Aerobraking... hasn't worked out too well for me in the past. Luckily, Kerbin's infrastructure has been recently upgraded with an oversized mining base on Minmus, so sending out a retriever won't be difficult or expensive, provided we can make it into Kerbin's SOI in the first place.

Alright, party break's over. We're here, let's actually do some work. ----- First things first: deploy the Nose Star 1. It needs to go into a higher orbit to complete the contract specifications. Firing the Xenon engines prograde. One of the scientists at KSP suggested it might be inadvisable to bathe an occupied station in ionised particles, so we fired him. Enjoy your free tan, guys! So, now we just have to wait for... Yeah, aint nobody got time for that. What else do we have to do? How about that surface scan? Well it wouldn't be very efficient to go up that high now... fine, I guess that means we're doing the visitation straight up. Who wants to go to Gilly? (That was rhetorical. You're all going, except for Valentina, she's already seen it) "What? But I wanna see Gilly again!" No, someone has to stay with the station and you've already been. "But-" No buts! Send everyone down and settle in for a wait. "Fine." ----- "So, do you know why I've gathered you all here in the airlock?" "Uh, debriefing for the Gilly mission?" "Yep! Hey Bob, do you know what the best way to get to Gilly's surface is?" "Well actually, I've been thinking about this. I figured, if we re-purposed the return module as an improvised lander, we could safely..." "BWAHAHA NOPE!" [vents airlock] ------ It's entirely possible this entire mission, all that money, all that time, was simply an excuse to drop 7 kerbals from orbit at the same time, space-marine style. But I'd never admit to it. ... CRY HAVOK, AND LET SLIP THE KERBALS OF WAR! ----- Gilly being Gilly, the crew don't so much "rain down" upon the moon as "snow gently". They certainly don't cry havok, although I think Bob might have cried and/or puked a bit. Regardless, it's a fun, safe and slow trip down to the surface, and easy enough to land them all at the same location with around 80% EVA Fuel left over. Could probably have saved even more if I'd been content to let gravity do the work, but what the hey, I got bored. Hainy plants the first flag (she called dibs on the way down) and everyone gathers around. Uh... what on Gilly are you doing with your arms over there Henfield? Space cramps? Are those a thing? Bob, tell me if those are a thing. Actually don't, I genuinely don't care. Everyone, flags out! On my mark... waaaait for it... plant! Kodammit Danny, yours is facing the wrong way! And Henfield, put your arms down, you look like an idiot! Okay, next choice: should we explore the surface, or conserve our EVA fuel for the trip back up? We could theoretically cover all of Gilly with our packs, but it's riskier. If anyone was to run out of fuel down here... Eh, screw it. You only visit a low gravity moon once! So now we've got Asicca and Hainy making a quick jump west to the Midlands, Kertrid and Danny aiming for the lowlands to the southeast, and Joevey and Henfield (who seems to have overcome his space cramps) jumping northeast for no real reason (they had to go somewhere!). And Bob, without saying a word, went off on his own mission. I wonder where he's off to? Somewhere interesting, I hope. ----- Meanwhile... The Xenon probe is reaching it's apoapsis. Engines on, engines off, and we're done. Contract complete, GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONIES! ----- Meanwhile... Valentina is bored out of her mind, stuck alone on Superstation 1 while everyone else gets to have fun on Gilly. ... yes, that's boredom. It's gotta be. Do not question. (we're sure she didn't put anything in the snacks, right? We would have noticed, surely. I swear most people can't hold a grin for that many hours...) ----- Meanwhile... ... ... there it is. Bob arrives at his target, a little piece of history. A science probe launched many years ago. But not just any science probe: this is the Evesplorer 2, the first extraterrestrial science probe. And next to it, the flag Valentina once left here. He can see her footprints: the first Kerbal footprints ever planted outside the Kerbin system. Small steps for Val. Great leaps for Kerbalkind. The probe doesn't have much on it: just a thermometer and a barometer, both pretty useless even if Evesplorer 2 hadn't completely failed it's mission. The poor little probe wasn't built with enough battery power to transmit the experiment results back to Kerbin, and had gone dead before sending even half it's data. A dead probe on a dead world. But still, Bob had to come. He had to stand here, to see the proof of this moment with his own eyes. Yep, that sounds like Valentina. Bob lets out a relaxed sigh and settles down for a long wait in the darkness, until the Superstation passes overhead again. It's peaceful here. Relaxing. Nothing to see outside of the little bubble of light around you, and the universe above. No sound but the occasional radio chatter letting you know the situation is nominal. Right now, in this moment... this is why he joined this mission. This is why he came to space. In this moment, Bob is happy. ... he'll be slightly less happy when he realises he's not certain he has enough EVA fuel left to get back to Gilly Station 1. Whoops. ----- Everyone except Bob returns safely to Gilly station 1, having collected surface samples from every biome on the moon. After a few hours watching the sunrise, an exceedingly embarrassed Bob finally works up the nerve to radio his situation in. Bob has been thinking about this and knows exactly what to do. His earlier idea about using the return module as an improvised lander is the perfect way to safely and efficiently rescue him! He is immensely relieved when Valentina doesn't give him a hard time about getting stranded: as soon as he's done explaining all this, she says "on it!" and hangs up. In fact, she seems really happy to help. Strangely happy, in fact... ... that... ... that's not the return module... Oh my goodness gracious she's as bad as Jeb... "Hi Bob!" "Hello... Valentina..." "Please stop grinning."

Teaser for next time: THE INVASION BEGINS! FLY MY PRETTIES! FLYYY!

Okay, here we go! First things first, Bob and Kertrid transmit the results of all the research they did on the way out. Then everyone bunkers down for another long wait while we drift back out to our Apoapsis, which will be the best place for maneuveres. The way we came in, we're orbiting in the opposite direction to Gilly. That will need to be rectified. We're halfway through the burn when Valentina has a brilliant idea to get us more science. And by "brilliant", I of course mean insane and recklessly dangerous. "Hey Bob, how high is Eve's atmosphere?" "About 90,000 meters I think. Why?" "Oh, no reason." ----- "Hey, Bob! How fast do you think you can reset those instruments on the outside?" "I dunno. 10, maybe 20 seconds? Why?" "Eh, just curious." ----- "HEY, BOB! ARE YOU DONE OUT THERE YET? BETTER HURRY UP, WE'RE COMING IN PRETTY FAST!" "Oh Kod let me in! Why would you do this to me?! WHY??!" "For science." ---- Okay Valentina, fun's over. How much science did you get us- Mother of Kraken. If I'd known repeatedly throwing Bob out an airlock while entering an atmosphere could be so profitable, I'd have been doing it every mission. We even dipped into the atmosphere for a moment and got us some Upper Atmosphere measurements! I'm sure the R&D guys will have a field day with this. How're you coping, Bob? [whimpering] Excellent! Now, onto the next part of the mission: rendezvous with Gilly. ---- Well that was anti-climactic. We're here, ladies and gentlemen. Let's hit the brakes. Capture burn. Success! That'll be a million dollars, ma'am. Would you like fries with your superstation? ---- Well that went well! Still got a surface scan to do, a probe to deploy, and a return module to return Kerbals in, but this was fun! And I've got 34 unprocessed experiments in the research lab now at the cost of a teensy bit of extra fuel and some mental scarring! Valentina, you're alright in my book. You're still not coming home though.

Well it's either g-forces or they *really are that happy* (which makes me wonder what Valentina put in the snacks). I'm going to go for the g-force explanation. 22 nuclear engines may have been a little excessive on my part. Roughly breaking even. The main mission is 1.2 million and the xenon probe is another 250k, (plus 100k for that spacewalk), and I'd guess I've spent somewhere around 1.5 million on launches (I know the interplanetary drive was 480k, but I'm not sure about the rest). On the other hand, if we also factor in the badly failed misson to Duna before this one, I've very nearly driven myself broke in the last few launches. Between initial assembly, rescue mission and a failed attempt at salvage, I think I burned about 3-4 million dollars. I've been doing Kerbal system missions since then with a re-usable mono-propellant tug to try and get a decent surplus back. It's been fun!

The mission is underway: burn is complete, we used up the stage 1 interplanetary boosters, and we're onto a transfer trajectory. Goodbye Kerbin! This is the intrepid crew, seven brave but relatively green Kerbals on their way to Eve... wait a second. Seven? GODDAMMIT VALENTINA, THE HECK ARE YOU DOING HERE?! YOU'VE ALREADY BEEN TO GILLY! Well, I guess she's coming along too. Aaaand staying behind with two of the scientists when we leave, since the return module only seats 5. Enjoy your years of loneliness and isolation, Valentina! ----- [some time later] Trip was uneventful aside from one or two Kerbals falling into a boredom induced coma. Pretty sure the engines firing will wake 'em up. Commence capture burn. Stage 2 Interplanetary boosters out of fuel. Detach! We'll be relying on the Whale from here on out. Capture complete! Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Eve. Oh, and we picked up another contract on the way out here. Who wants to go for a hundred thousand dollar spacewalk?

Contents 1. Meet Gilly Superstation 2. The trip to Eve (+1 Stowaway) 3. Reaching Gilly (and Traumatizing Bob) 4. Visiting Gilly (Orbital Drop Kerbals) 5. Bonus Missions (Scans, Flags and Rescues) 6. Back to Kerbin (with Explosions!) 7: Epilogue: Meet Excalbur (tiny resupply ship) 8: Epilogue 2 (Epilogue Harder) ------ Sequel Mission: Duna Ultrabase 1 ------ Just had to show this off... Have you noticed how, as you reach the higher tiers of career mode, your ships inevitably end up looking more and more awesome? This is my current career mode mission: the contract was to put a 12 Kerbal station carrying 6000 liquid fuel and a research lab into an orbit around Gilly. I call it the Gilly Superstation, because I'm not very good with names. That's it in the middle: the thing that looks like a cross between a station and a giant space shuttle. I'm not sure why I went for that cockpit, but I don't regret it for a moment. The whole mothership is going to be trying to achieve three other missions while it's there: * the little Xenon Probe at the very front will be aiming for a specific contract orbit, also around Gilly. * the winged return module will be bringing 5 of 7 Kerbals home after they've planted a flag on Gilly for experience. The other 2, both scientists, will be staying at Gilly Station 1 to continue their research. * The Gilly Superstation itself, after achieving the contract, will use some of that spare fuel to put itself into a polar orbit about Gilly and do a surface scan. Further down the track, once work out how mining bases work, Gilly Station 1 will be the primary refueling base for all Eve missions. I spent about 80% of my funds on this monster, so it had better work. It's got some odd phantom forces coming from the return module and trying to make it pitch gently, but it's quite stable so long as SAS is left on.