purpleivan

Mine would be the first time I sent what in theory would be a successful Eve return vehicle design to that purple ship eater. It had everything right, sufficient power to lift from the surface, enough fuel to get into orbit, stable enough to make the landing in the first place, it even had well place ladders to allow the trip to the surface for its pilot, not to be one way. Just one thing wrong. In the set of fuel lines for the asparagus staging, one of them had become attached at the end to a ladder, instead of to the tank itself. This resulted in one of the engines being supplied with less fuel than the others and burning out early, making the vehicle uncontrollable soon after launch. In the end I had to send an identical vehicle (except for the fuel line snafu) land it as close as I could to the first one, then have the pilot hike over to it on foot. BTW... this is an image of the rescue vehicle, not the first one.

It does, but much smaller in blue across the front of the suit. Unfortunately the new suit models aren't mapped with unique UV's, they're mostly flipped, so it was difficult finding a place to put it, that wouldn't end up with a mirrored copy of it as well. I made the switch to a newer version of the game (from 1.3.1 to 1.6) to give me access to the retro style suits that I'll be using soon, so unfortunately lost the big normal mapped logo on the helmet. I also lost the visor reflections, as the newer versions of Texture Replacer have problems with them. But elsewhere... shiny!

Chapter 15 - Siren Song "It should be give an unmistakable warning that no-one can ignore, nor sleep through" - Part 176b (Outline Specification) 3 Days to destruction of Kerbin. What wasn’t there to like about The Box The scientists were excited by the principles behind it, the engineers admired its constructions, the pilots... well who doesn’t like some new shiny. Jeb had wanted the start of the use of their new equipment to be a smooth, well planned affair, with a neatly prioritised list of requirements from his team. Instead he felt like a waiter at a restaurant on a Saturday night. “A new infra red filter for the microscope” shouted one. “Type 2 fuel hoses” shouted another. “New seat cushions for the Hab” yelled one of the engineers. “Chilli cheese paste” screamed another over the din. Jeb was now wondering about the wisdom of supplying them a machine that promised to provide anything his team could wish for, well at least before their current supplies had dwindled enough to focus attention on what really mattered. “Hey, everyone” yelled Jeb, trying to cut across the onslaught of requests. “Socks... blue ones with white spots on them” shouted Sindley, eager to add something new to her extensive collection. Jeb knew there was only one option to make himself heard. He reached for the touch panel on the left sleeve of his suit and tapped on the button marked “Alert”. The illuminated button blinked yellow 5 times in rapid succession, giving time for him to change his mind and deactivate it. After the fifth yellow blink it changed to solid red and an ear splitting sound ripped through the atmosphere from each of the colony modules. The sound of the Colony Alert siren had been described by some as a cross between a cow vomiting and two fog horns making babies... just much louder. Whatever the specifics of the sound, it did the job of stopping the flow of Box requests. However the mood of the team had changed from excited and optimistic, to mass panic. Some assumed the KSP’s highly recommended (and with their hardware’s track record, much used) “duck and cover” pose. Others meanwhile dashed mindlessly from one position to another, or ran in circles. Two engineer "circlers", whose “orbits” conflicted, ran straight into each other, while one of the pilots dropped to their knees and started franticly scrawling a picture of the kraken in the soil. In the midst of this Jeb stood motionless, waiting for the initial panic to wear off and for the team to remember their training. Then he realised that the Colony Alert system was a late addition to their equipment, and so this might be the first time those around him had heard it. Suddenly the sound of a million Kraken maws opening ceased and the colonists froze in whatever position their state of mind had put them in. “Ahem...” said Jeb over colony wide comms “Now I have your attention, I think we should start using The Box by making something we can all enjoy and...” before being cut off by Coslin who was now running full tilt towards him. “What... what was THAT NOISE Jeb, that was YOU!” she screamed as she tore across the ground towards him. As she drew close Jeb took a step back, just as Gelsey raised he left arm and jabbed her index finger at his faceplate. “Calm down Gelsey, I was only trying to...” began Jeb. “CALM... I am CALM” shouted Gelsey, continuing to jab at Jeb’s visor “if I wasn’t calm, I’d be doing a whole lot more than shouting at you”. Jeb thought about the situation, as well as the look on Gelsey’s face and realised that he should probably begin by explaining the sound of doom that he’d just inflicted on everyone. He raised his hands before saying “Ok everyone, gather round”. The members of the colony team pulled their helmets from under the soil, stopped their runs for the hills and turned to head toward Jeb. As they approached and Gelsey continued to give him that slightly psychotic stare, Jeb thought through what he was about to say. “So... some of you might not know what the Colony Alert siren sounds like” stated Jeb, to which the others gave a bewildered look, all except Gelsey, who continued to stare him down, like a bear staring at its soon to be lunch. “That was a siren?” asked Bill incredulously “I mean I thought the planet was taking a deep breath before it spat us out into space”. “Did that thing get certified... by anyone?” enquired Coslin. “Seems a bit unnecessary to me” stated Elson “you could just whistle in ya mike, I mean that’s just one more piece of kit that’s gonna fail on ya sometime”. “Certified... it was not” stated Jeb before continuing “it was a late addition, too little time, too much continuing the species to be done”. “So any other, late additions, that we should know about JEB, things we might be upset about?” demanded Gelsey, again jabbing at his visor, before screeching “I don’t know, maybe some emergency heaters that use the power of the sun to melt our skins off, or how about emergency water rations made from genuine children’s tears”. Jeb looked at Gelsey, who was clearly very unhappy, almost as unhappy as the gloved finger that was still jammed against his visor. Clearly the Colony Alert siren had been a little over done, so something was needed to lift everyone’s spirits. “Ok, sorry about using that siren just then, it won’t happen again... unless of course there’s a real emergency” said Jeb. “I thought my brain was exploding” stated Bob. “Ah... ok Bob, again I apologise for that, but moving on to the reason I used the siren in the first place, we need to prioritise the list for The Box, as we’re limited by the amount of resources the mining vehicle can extract” Jeb explained. “Ok, but who gets to go first” asked Sindley, concerned about the lack of blue socks with white dots in her wardrobe. “Not who, but what” Jeb replied mysteriously “and I have some thoughts on that, you see it came with some materials already in the machine, to be used as a test run to make something we can all enjoy”. With that Jeb turned and walked to the control panel for The Box and entered the ID code for the first item it would manufacture. “So what do you think, cool huh?” exclaimed Jeb, some 20 minutes after setting The Box’s first task. He stood before the other colonists, some of whom nodded approvingly, while others, such as Gelsey had questions. “So... it’s a new suit” Gelsey stated “does it do anything new?” “Well no, not as such, but it is cool right... so shiny” answered Jeb, hopping round in a little circle to give everyone a good look. Some of the surrounding colonists muttered their approval and nodded, but Gelsey wasn’t convinced. “But we had brand new suits a couple of days ago, was this really the most important thing to get The Box to make?” she stated. Jeb paused, a single finger raised and mouth agape, for once at a loss for words before saying the only thing he could think of in the moment “But shiny right!” The suit was indeed shiny, being covered in a dust repellent material intended to prevent a build up of Laythe’s fine grain soil on it. “But is it too shiny” asked Sindley “I mean that’s really a thing isn’t it?” “No, no... you can never have something too shiny” replied Valentina, before asking "So Jeb, where’s mine?”.

International sneak up and surprise a kerbal day.

Personally I'd start up the dramatic music, line up some coffee, head for the VAB and go for the RESCUE MISSIONTM

I've got a few images from my 2001: A Space Absurdity and 2010: The Year we Make Kontakt stories that fit this challenge I think. Most of them I can't use as they are too photoshopped, or are vehicles I could never launch it into space. For my first entry here's one from 2010. Here's the original. As for the points, I guess it's Contestant for 20 and Photoshop skills (various tweaks but also noise filter applied to add grain) for another 30, and then Interesting for 35 more. So a total of 85.

I've done both Jool-5 and the Eve return (a few times) and to me they have similar levels of difficulty, but in different areas. The biggest difference is time. Eve return is something that can be done in an afternoon, but Jool-5 is likely to be something that takes a few days, so there's a practical difficulty in terms of commitment of time that it has, that Eve return doesn't. For that reason alone, Jool-5 is something I've only done twice whereas Eve return I've more than a half dozen times. Another big difference is the type of skill demands of the two, with Eve being fundamentally about the design of a single vehicle for the purposes of a difficult ascent, and Jool-5 being more about mission planning and general piloting.

Not too long, maybe about 10-15 minutes, but that includes getting the camera in the right position to match up with where I wanted to put the kerbal in the image. After that it was just a case of waiting until the panic animation started, then hammer away at the F1 key to grab screenshots.

More news has come to light regarding the shocking story of human interaction with alien beings on the moon in the 1960's and 70's. A photo that the space agency had previously said was "lost when sent to the local drug store to be developed" has come to light in unusual circumstances. Janitors clearing up after a particularly raucus Christmas party at the Kennedy Space Center discovered the photo in a folder, stuffed in a half empty box of tequlia bottles. The box of "Limpiador de Cerebro" brand bottles had the words "Space Shots" written on it in thick black marker. As well as the photo itself, the folder contained a transcript of a debriefing of the astronaut seen in the photo. "We were on EVA 2, heading out to Cone Crater and we made a stop near a large boulder, the grade was pretty steep so both of wanted to catch our breath. Ed started started taking panorma photos and I went to take a closer look at the boulder. As I got closer suddenly one of those little guys we saw on EVA 1, trying to take our flag, pops up from behind the boulder. It takes one look at me starts to panic, it's flapping its hands around like their on fire or something, and gives me a look like he was staring at his own ghost. Eventually it stops flapping its hands and started quickly looking around, still with that panicked look on its face. It was turning between looking left and right so fast that its helmet spun round 180 degrees, so I'm staring at the rear of the helmet while the visor's round the back. Well it started flapping its hands again, then it starts feeling the part of the helmet that's in front of its face. I don't know if it couldn't turn it back round, or if it was just confused, but suddenly it turned and started running off to my left. I don't think that little guy got more than 10 feet before it tripped over a rock and landed flat on its face. Then it jumped up and took off again in a different direction, got another 10, 20 feet or so before it was in the dirt again. It kept running and falling like that for about a minute and half, all the time I'm staring at this thing, getting nice clear look of the back of its head through the visor. A lot clearer than that little guy's view of the moon anyway. Eventually it drops out of sight when it dropped into a small crater. I gotta tell ya... you ain't seen physical comedy 'til you seen it in 1/6th G."

I have had the same reaction to some of the new part skins when seen from a distance. I think it's the thick mid grey outline around some of the panel lines on some parts. I'm not sure what that outline is supposed to be, as it's too regular to be grime. When you look at them up close they look fine, but from further away the outlines can make it look as if it's dropped too many mip levels. Up close they look fine though.

Feel free, I won't stop ya Just noticed it's been 2 months since I made the last image... I'll have to correct that sometime soon.

More 1.6 career pics. Bob goes out to stretch his legs and reset the Moble Processing Lab. Another agency's hapless pilot makes a run for a remotely guided rescue vehicle (their failures keep us in fuel). Val takes this game's first spin in an aircraft, heading north to pick up some tasty science. She stopped off enroute for a quick panic, when she realised that the snacks locker only contained low fat custard creams. Into the blue again, she headed North, scooping up a bit of midair science as she went. Finally she arrived at her destination in the frozen North, and posed for a celebratory snapshot of the end of her trip. She was especially thankful that v1.6 didn't contain any embarrasing sneezing or butt scratching anims.

Agreed about the lander height, I wouldn't normally use one with that kind of desing, but I was making an early grab at landing on the moon, before I'd unlocked docking ports, so had to rely on carrying all the fuel for the return to Kerbin with me. I don't think that the lower stage engine is capable of taking fuel from the upper one, and if you look at the resources in the HUD, you can see that the upper stage tank is full (90 units of LF remaining).

Working my way through the tech tree in my obligatory "new version, new career" game right now. On my first Mun landing of this career I found out on checking how much fuel was in the decent stage, that it was precisely zero. Didn't notice the engine cut out on landing, but must have finsihed off the remaining fuel in moment of touching down.

Another major version, another career game. Mun landing number one for this career. 2 kerbal rescue mission. 3 and 5 Kerbal rescue missions... other agencies failures are mine's cash cow. Really liking the new look of the Poodle.

I generally like to listen to music while I'm working, and here are a few of my current favourites for that. Death in Vegas - The Contino Sessions: I like their earlier albums like this, but not so keen on the later ones. J G Thirlwell (under Steroid Maximus label) - Ectopia: The wierd and wonderful madness of Mr Thirlwell, best known as the creator of the Venture Bros soundtrack. Jerry Goldsmith - Planet of the Apes OST: One of his best and drawn from a lot by other composers.

Chapter 14 – The Box “Fuzzy slippers that light up when you walk... no sweat, gimme something harder” – Stranlow Kerman - Chairman - Kerbal Institute for Astronautics (KIA) With backlit Jool resting on the horizon like a giant soap bubble, the members of the LOST team got to work making preparations for the arrival of The Box. For the most part the preparations were just normal day to day tasks; normal for a bunch of kerbals setting up shop on a distant world that is. However Jeb wanted the colony to be looking its best for the final arrival from Kerbin, so had tasked some of the colonists to dusting and polishing the vehicles of the colony. For this “much needed” task Jeb had assigned Coslin and Bill. The pair of them had spent most of the previous evening in a heated discussion (involving the use of ad hoc projectile weaponry) of Kit Kerman, Space Detective. Their “debate” had been about the merits of the episode “It Erman”, in which the titular character was trapped in a strange alternate universe, identical to their own except it lacked the letter K. Most viewers ascribed its plot to writers who were just phoning it in after 7 seasons of coming up with scripts for the show. However ardent fans like Bill and Coslin had their own theories. For Coslin the missing “K’s” were highlighting the lack of of personal identity in Kerbal society, but for Bob the number of these missing letters (167) took a prime place in the complex formula that calculated the end of Kerbin. The upshot of this discussion was that the pair had to be dragged apart by Jeb, who sent Bill (who’d been doing most of the projectile throwing) to the Science Vehicle to cool off. Now with an order from Jeb that the pair of them not discuss “that stupid kids show” ringing in their ears, the pair of them set to work on scrubbing the vehicles. After a couple of hours the two rovers were looking like new (i.e. very slightly cleaner than they had the night before) and Jeb headed over to Rover 1 to take it for a short drive. He planned to position it a couple of hundred metres East of the colony, to provide an outer marker for the landing of The Box. Elson was meant to take the rover out, but as he was busy cleaning the remains of last nights discussion off the walls of the Hab, he decided to drive it himself. As he approached the rover, Gelsey ran over to it, which surprised Jeb, as he’d never seen her run willingly in the 7 years he’d known her. The only times he’d witnessed it were when lab experiments were “not behaving as expected” and was usually accompanied by her wearing a gas mask and screaming some choice obscenities. “Wait... rover... drive” Gelsey wheezed after her uncharacteristic exertion. “Not happening Gelsey, this isn’t like that School Bus of yours, it’s a finely tuned piece of transportation technology and it takes a pilot’s skills to control it” replied Jeb getting the gist of what she meant. Gelsey turned and stomped her way over the where Jeb stood, with a steely look on her face. She didn’t like Jeb’s condescending tone. “Now just wait a minute there, you had Voyler drive this rover back here just yesterday, and she’s not got half the brains...” Gelsey started before Jeb cut her off. “Well I made an exception that one time and after all she’s an Engineer, she’s used to, erm... handling things... er... with wheels... and levers and...” Jeb began, before remembering he’d only let her drive it because she’d been saying “Gooo on, gooo on, gooo on” at him for 3 hours straight. Plus he thought, there might come a time when one of his team of pilots wasn’t available to act as taxi driver, when some scientist or engineer needed a ride. He had to admit, he trusted Gelsey with the machine more than Voyler. “Ok Gelsey, take her out 200m East, that’s that way” Jeb instructed, pointing to the small signpost that was Jool. “Oh East, you mean the direction that the sun is currently rising in” replied Gelsey, with only a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “Yeah... that too, I guess you’ve got two things to show you the way. Don’t get lost” Jeb answered, assuming that anyone other than a pilot had the navigation skills of a small rock. Gelsey hauled herself up the side of the rover and made her way into the cockpit. She plopped down into the seat and prepared the vehicle to move off. This was complicated by the scatter of sticky notes that Voyler had attached to various controls and displays, to give her a more thrilling ride on the way back to the colony the previous evening. “Guns” Gelsey muttered ripping a note from the interior lights controls and stuffing it in a suit pocket “don’t think I’ll need that”. This was followed by notes marking such things as “afterburners” , “eject” and “bigger guns”. With the controls cleared of Voyler’s fighter jock fantasy aids, the scientist started up the rover, swung around the mining vessel and headed East. She'd had been looking forward to trying out one of the colony rovers, but the reality of the experience was less than she’d been expecting. Although the rover looked like a little hot rod, it was actually woefully under powered, driven as it was by the RoveMax Model M1. These had started out life as the RollerMate Economy, a wheel for electric golf carts, before the company moved into the sexier (and more lucrative) world of space exploration. But at any rate, it beat driving the Science Vehicle, if Bob’s “Pregnant Whale” description of its handling was to be believed. Once in position, Gelsey put her feet up on the console, pulled a small flask of coffee from her leg pocket and poured herself a cup. The Box wasn’t due for another 7 hours and 26 minutes, and she didn’t want to get volunteered by Jeb into the colony cleanup crew, so she planned to settle in for the day. As she looked out over the console towards the colony, she saw kerbals scurrying around from vehicle to vehicle, brushes and cloths in hand. The sun glided slowly overhead as the colony became ever so slightly cleaner. This also gave Gelsey a chance to indulge in her favourite pastime, and she grabbed a few hours sleep. “..sey, come in” suddenly squawked in her ear. “Huwhaa” she exclaimed suddenly jerked awake by the sound of Jeb’s voice. “Gelsey, Gelsey, come in” Jeb repeated, sound like he might have been calling for a while. “I’m here Jeb, I hear ya” she responded, rubbing her eyes. “I need you to turn on the rover’s location beacon, set it to channel 3, with high gain tracking.” Jeb instructed, the plan being to do the same with the Mining Vehicle’s beacon and have The Box drop in slap bang in the middle of the two. Gelsey quickly set the controls as Jeb had described and a small antenna popped out of the mid section of the rover and slowly tracked across the sky, as The Box started its fiery descent. Meanwhile the rest of the LOST team stood within the confines of the colony, awaiting the arrival of the last piece of equipment they would ever receive from Kerbin. Fortunately this one would make any future deliveries redundant. As Val stood staring at the sky, listening to the updates on the descent of The Box, she saw a small glow to the East gradually grow brighter and larger, as their much anticipated piece of equipment made its way down to them. 3M (Magical Marvel of Manufacturing) AKA. THE BOX Specification and development plan: Dr Stranlow Kerman: Chairman - Kerbal Institute for Astronautics (KIA) Year 976 Day 341 The What As there will not be time for us to send all the equipment required for a fully functional colony before our planet’s imminent demise, we need to provide a means of manufacturing on the surface of Laythe. So, imagine a box, in which the thing you want most comes true: You want a new engine bell for your rocket motor; it can make it for you. You want a 27m length of corrugated aluminium tubing; it’s on its way. A piece missing from your 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle; we’ve got that covered. How about a six pack of miniature cheeseburgers, with strawberry icing and chilli flakes on top (mmm.. . I really want one of those now... underling, make a note); no problem, this thing is the 3 Kraken M. The How For this we will need a massive joint effort, drawing from all fields of engineering, science, project management and even some of those nutbag fringe beliefs that we’ve fought as a species to rise above for all these centuries. No expense will be spared; we will scour the globe for the finest in their fields and bring them here to the KSC; first class of course. We’ll keep the focus grouping to a minimum, but we need a better name than “The Box”. Efforts on that will start now, including a phone in poll on the prime candidates, to see what kind of mass appeal they have. After all it’s important to keep the public on board with this... for the next few weeks anyway. The When This thing needs to be designed, built and launched in 23 days, so best roll up your sleeves, put your thinking hats on and get cracking. The glow in the sky receded all the while Jeb kept shouting out number letting everyone know how the descent was proceeding. “6000 metres, 165 metres per seconds” read Jeb from the readout on his arm. “5000 metres, 161 metres per second” came another update. “4000 metres, 155 metres per second” updated Jeb. The glow was replaced at first by a small grey dot that gradually grew in size as The Box whizzed down towards down the colony. “2500 metres 117 metres per second” Jeb informed, at which everyone sucked in a deep breath. At 2200 metres the parachutes were programmed to deploy, but the high failure rate of these at that critical moment, had over the years made this step more than a bit hazardous. “Kraken be merciful” muttered Coslin. “In cat we trust” thought Bill. “I just can’t look” thought Bob and slapped his gloved hand over his faceplate. A couple of seconds later and the beautiful sight of four fully deployed canopies billowed above The Box, slowing its descent from a crushing 100m/s, to an only slightly worrying 7m/s. Finally it was down and apparently in one piece. The collection of communication dishes mounted on top of it, moved into their active positions and a low hum became audible from the direction of the large grey block. The dishes didn’t actually server any function, but one of the designers had misinterpreted the name of what they we going to build as being an enormous TV set, so had built in some serious satellite TV capabilities. Some members of the team rushed over to take a closer look at this marvelous device, that when supplied with minerals extracted from the ground by the Mining Vehicle, would be able to make anything that they needed. Others, wary of the “science” that had been used to make possible Stranlow Kerman’s rather ambitious specification, decided to keep their distance for the time being. Jeb stepped forward from the crowd that had gathered around the new addition to the colony and walked up to the great slab of kerbal tech. He could see a small piece of paper stuck to it, next to the large dull yellow door. He leaned in to get a better look at it.

I now really want something like alphabetti spaghetti, but with little kerbals in delicious tomato sauce to throw down the hatch. Behold, I am become Kraken, eater of little adventurers!

I think the first mod I added, after a few months playing the game vanilla, was Chatterer. Now I barely notice that the mod's installed, but back in the day, hearing the crew happily chatting away really gave the game some extra character. First useful mod was KER for the readout in the VAB, then Planetshine and EVE for some pretty visuals.

Thanks for the suggestions from @Deddly @HebaruSan and @TriggerAu I verified the install, set contol to forward, but In the end it was toggling torque to disabled in the right click menu that pretty much fixed it. There are still some very small turns of the vehicle (right when accelerating, left when braking) from time to time, but nothing I can't live with. The strange thing is that I've built dozens of rovers in the past (versions 0.23.5 onwards) and I've never had to think about the SAS settings, just built the things, launched them and rolled into the sunset... no problems like this. Additionally the problem (with torque enabled) was only showing up for me with the Mk2 Lander Can variant. It just seems twitchy somehow, at least for me.

Didn't do a verify but it was a fresh install, not over an existing one. Away from my PC for next few days but can try that when I'm back.

Although I tend to play in the latest version (after a week or two waiting for some mod updates) I still use 1.3.1 for my LOST on Laythe story series. The reason is that it's the latest version that I know has working mods for changing suits textures with fully working helmet reflections. However I will need to move to at least 1.4.1 fairly soon, as I plan to make use of the Making History suits in the story.

I'm liking what I've seen of 1.6 so far, especially the removable neck ring and kerbal idle anims. The Mk2 Lander Can variant is a cool addition to the part too. However I've notice some strange behaviour of the Mk2 Lander Can rover variant, when driven around. I've posted a bug about this, but thought I'd post here in case others have noticed the same behaviour. The behaviour is that when powered is applied the vehicle veers strongly to the right, as if the center of mass of the Lander Can is off center (although it appears centered in the VAB). The detail of the behaviour is that from a standing start the vehicle pulls a few degrees to the right, then continues straight ahead until a certain speed is reach at which point it steers continuously in a steady right turn. I tried out both the RoveMax Model M1 and the TR-2L wheels and both had the same behaviour. I tested out the RoveMax with some different bodies for the rover (Mk1 Cockpit with a Structural Fuselage as well as Mk1 Lander Can and some girders) and those behaved normally. Something else I noticed was that the Mk2 Lander Can based rover exhibited much stronger movement of the suspension that the other designs, regardless of whether it was lighter or heavier than them. It was generally bouncy as well as a pronounced dive down at the front when accelerating (opposite of what I'd expect) and at the back when braking. All the wheel settings were default and the wheel positions were definitely symmetrical (positioned then snapped into place after to be sure) for all vehicles tested. Here's a couple of pics of to show what I mean. Braking. Accelerating.

Some Christmassy pics from Manchester.

Something from The Tinfoil Times