SaturnianBlue

Hurricane sketch—based off of Irma, though that's not necessarily the result.

Or perhaps smaller ships—I would suspect that there would be far less bugs and it would be easier to move the spacecraft that way.

If you can, hang out with a friend or a few—it's certainly something I should've done more this summer.

It is a shocking decision! They might still be relying on the estimates of the Dvorak technique or some other factor to help advise their intensity estimate, but I don't really know. We'll have to see the data from the recon flight which will be flying this night (EDT) into the storm and see if anything is changed. Edit: To quote the CPHC from 5 PM EDT/11 AM HST: Edit 2: And to quote the CPHC from 11 PM EDT/5 PM HST: Personally, I don't think what is usually thought of a Category 4's pressure should be factored into the strength of the storm when data suggests a Category 5, but I digress.

925 millibars of pressure recorded on the latest recon pass—that's some very rapid deepening. Very likely a Category 5 at this point.

@IncongruousGoat @kurgut Thank you for the suggestions! I'll probably use them all! Regarding a rescale mod: since I haven't actually set up the save for the missions, I should be able to do the rescale mode, and it would certainly make for an interesting challenge, but I'll have to consider it further.

In the next chapter, I will be introducing the first spacecraft. This means that I will have to decide what part mods to start out with. The major mods I'm thinking of for now are Near Future Technology, KSP-IE, WBI, SimpleConstruction, B9, MKS or Kerbalism, KAS/KIS, and Kerbal Construction Time. What mods would you recommend for this series? Keep in mind that I'm looking for part and gameplay mods that would primarily focus on making the game more realistic/difficult, and focus on space colonization.

Hurricane Lane, with winds of 150 mph (as confirmed by aircraft recon), approaching Hawaii... It'll weaken, but the NHC forecast still has it as a hurricane on approach to Hawaii.

Space Warfare, In-Game Chapter XLII of Imagining a Kerbal Future In the first of a couple chapters covering the various approaches to space warfare, the first will be in-game. Though it is not an ideal scenario for recreating in KSP due to the limitations of the game, we will use a scenario involving ships inspired by @MatterBeam's Space Warfare Design chapters for this chapter. Once again, a special thank you to the ToughSciFi discord for their help in the chapter. Before I could begin building the ships, I had to create a two new copies of the USAF laser, considerably increasing factors like damage, and ending up with two versions—one for point defense, and another as an anti-ship laser. All in all, the ships would take much longer to develop than initially thought. This is because of the numerous structural issues encountered for many of these ships, like the tendency to shake themselves to destruction (even with cheats), significant bending of the front half of the warships under acceleration, and a ship that wouldn’t get under control even with SAS (though this issue was easily solved, when I realized the command pod pointed at a different direction than expected). These issues were likely a result of building very long ships, to take advantage of armor sloping. The Duna Interceptor The Kerbin Battleship The Railgun Ship After countless hours of testing, I got a trio of ships that did not always explode when reloaded. One of them is inspired by the Martian Interceptor and carries a large laser and laser point defenses. The second is inspired by the Martian Arsenal Ship, though hardly a perfect replica, because it was impossible to carry so many missiles on the ship, much less launch them with a coilgun. As a result, it uses a railgun with large projectiles instead. Lastly, a design based on the Terran battleship, which became a design that was a more powerful, less maneuverable version of the interceptor. The Scenarios The cheat menu was ultimately necessary for the ships to not explode when loaded into the game. Cheats required/Used: Ignore Max Temp—Gas core engine on the Battleship would overheat for some reason Pause on Vessel Unpack—To make the ships not explode Unbreakable Joints—To make the ships not explode No Crash Damage—To make the ships not explode Scenario One Having figured out the way to get the weapons firing at a much further distance than before (using the settings file of the weapon manager to increase firing range to 2000 km), I finally had a setup I was satisfied with, using Hyperedit to create it. An interceptor would first fly approximately 200 kilometers at around 5 km/s. After that, a railgun ship would meet the battleship at a slower velocity to finish it off. While having more ships would have made for a more plausible scenario, it would have resulted in a very slow game. The Kerbin Battleship, equipped with very powerful lasers, approaches Duna at a relatively slow velocity. While it must prepare for orbital insertion, it cannot flip around, because enemy ships, including one interceptor, are waiting—it must keep its armored nose pointed at the enemy. The 12,000 ton ship encounters some issues regarding orientation, often failing to stay pointed at the enemy, exposing the weaker side armor protecting the fuel tanks, in the rear. This will put the battleship in a dangerous position. In reality, the laser would be invisible, but making it visible here makes it more easy to observe the battle. Approaching the orbit of Ike, it enters combat with the Duna Interceptor. After passing the two-thousand kilometer mark, the two ships share laser fire between them, but even the powerful lasers of both ships can only chip away at the armor of each ship in the brief moments before the lasers must cool down. Gradually, however, the laser fire becomes more effective, and this leads to panic on the Combat Information Center of the battleship, as the battleship slides away from being directly oriented on the target. After a few… Corrections (turning on on-rails time warp momentarily), the ship is slowly brought under control. In that time, however, one of the side armor plates of the battleship takes considerable laser fire. While I have balanced the lasers in such a way that they can only shoot for a second or so before overheating, this short time window is enough to wreck havoc at closer ranges. As the ships close to within a couple hundred kilometers, it becomes very difficult for the ships to stay oriented at the other ship, as the ships start to shift quite quickly across the sky. This leads to a devastating series of strikes to the 4,000 ton interceptor, that exploits the moment of weakness to annihilate a side panel of the nose cone, and the lasers are stripped off as another layer of armor is destroyed. As the battleship passes to the side of the interceptor, it can hit the sides, destroying the propellant tanks and fully disabling the ship. The interceptor’s crew is fortunate—a section of their protective shell was destroyed, exposing the crew capsule, but they manage to avoid destruction. The yellow are the tracers on the railgun projectiles. The battleship proceeds towards Duna. The railgun ship, intended to be more “stealthy” (though only to some extent—”true stealth” is quite impractical for a large space warship), lies in wait. While I used the “stealth coating” parts from DCK, they ultimately didn’t do that much, since the ship was still visible (I forgot/was unaware of the “active camouflage” parts). Instead, I turned down the weapons range for the battleship. Though the KTech railgun has no deviation, it proved to be mostly ineffective—the shells were concentrated within a kilometer of the ship, but only a few actually hit. In any case, they were still able to expose the interior from the side, which could have incapacitated the ship with a few more hits. Alas, the lasers of the battleship quickly dispatched the railgun ship, and the battleship secured Duna. With not much armor, the railgun ship is prone to even small amounts of laser fire Scenario Two The Interceptor's main laser has an amusing tendency to wobble, as seen here. The exhaust should be larger, but it does not appear to scale with the rest of the NTR, which has been made large enough to produce 36 Meganewtons of thrust. After additional testing, the railgun ship was proven to be unworkable. Therefore, I decided to substitute it with another interceptor, which would slowly diverge from the other interceptor, bracketing the battleship. Additionally, I installed Mechjeb on the warships, to prevent the orientation problems. This solution would prove to be mostly successful, and the ships stay at the target. While the battleship no longer faced one issue, it would soon face another one. Two interceptors mean that there are two different points from where the lasers can strike. As the distance between the interceptors and the battleship decreased, the separation of these points increased. This means that while the battleship can be fully protected from one ship, its side would be exposed by another ship. For a while, the battleship can point itself in the space between the interceptors to be safe, but eventually, this merely exposes two of the battleship’s sides. Theoretically, the ship can distribute the damage between armor plates by spinning, but the ship only has fairly weak thrusters, leaving it unable to do so. At this point, the battleship is able to expose a third of the front nose cone from one of the interceptors, but the battleship itself is in a worse situation. The side paneling is destroyed, exposing the shell of the CIC and the propellant tanks. While the CIC survives, the propellant tanks are destroyed, and much of the ship is destroyed, leaving only the crew modules and the front nose cone, which failed its purpose. Duna wins the day. Total destruction... A better picture of the damage on one of the interceptors—the other interceptor was mostly unharmed. While I certainly would like to release the ships for your own use, downloading the ship would be complicated by its nature, because I would have to remove the lasers and instruct the user to make the major configuration file changes necessary, an inconvenient process for certain. In any case, I have no wish to cause undue rage that may be induced by ships exploding, so I will someday try to create “hard-SciFi” vessels that are more suitable. In conclusion, building relatively realistic warships and setting up battles in KSP is a time consuming processes, but they have the reward of the spectacle that space battles can be. I wish anyone trying to create their own hard-SciFi space battles good luck, because it can be time-consuming. In the next chapter, we will continue our exploration of the various approaches to space warfare in a KSP setting. Thanks for Reading! Next: Space Warfare In KSP, Part Four

Watched warships duel each other in space... Took screenshots of a conference room for The Kerbin Escape... And took a break by quickly putting together a Kerbal B757 of sorts and flew it around—a pretty slow plane when full of fuel, despite having considerably more powerful engines and being lighter than the real thing, but it eventually reached comparable speeds.

In the next chapter of IAKF...

You'll find out in the next chapter!

THE KERBIN ESCAPE CHAPTER TWO: "The Kerbal Space Program is the Past." Astronaut Complex, North Wing Linus Kerman awoke at his dorm with a slap to the face. While it left Linus clutching his cheek, it was a mild one, paling in comparison to the one he got for buying the wrong rocket pump in the university rocketry club. Linus rolled to the side and caught sight of the alarm clock, projecting the time in an ominous red, the seconds marching towards midnight. 25 minutes past noon! Even for him, this was late! He vaulted his body forward, before an unexpected, rapid deceleration—to put it another way, he smashed into a big green blob. The mass of green yelped and scurried back, and Linus fell right back into his bed. Struggling back up, he retrieved his contacts, snapped them on, and saw the reeling figure of Dr. Wernher von Kerman. “Is this how you wake up?” he asked, his accent slipping. “Wernher! How did you get here? Are you ok?” “Linus, you had the door unlocked. I imagine it was rude to step in here without asking, but you did not reply—” “I left the door open again?!” “Yes. Second, I do not think being head butted would make me ok, no?” “Good point. Now don’t tell me I missed the test of those KS-25 engines this morning.” “You are in luck today. Have you heard the roar of those? Surely that would wake you up!” “Nah. So we didn’t test them?” “We had more notable events at the KSC today.” “The speagle surprise? I slept through that?” “The super surprise, Linus.” “It wasn’t a speagle surprise?” “No, Linus. Now we will be late to the meeting if you do not get ready now!” “What meeting?” ———————————————————————————— The Administration Building: The Meeting Room Wernher told Linus that the basement meeting room of the administration building remained intact after the blaze. “Intact” was subjective. It looked better than most of the building, but cardboard plastered over the exposed piping stirred little confidence in Linus. The only lighting was haphazardly clamped onto the walls. So much for KSP precision—if the news had a field day with the makeshift press room, they would have a field week looking at the meeting room. Wernher and Linus sat at the table, away from the entrance. They were the first ones. Astronauts had their day in space planned to the minute, but it was as though the KSP leadership planned to the hour. “Wernher, why did you bring me here?” “I do it with every intern who wants to stay here. To succeed at the KSP, you have to see the greater picture.” A kerbal emerged from the door, gingerly holding a cup of coffee in one hand, and a stack of ragged folders in the other. Mortimer Kerman, the KSP Head of Finance. ‘Ol Mort. Linus had never met him, but he had heard enough. The oldest of old guards. Calculation and manipulation. The guy who looked vaguely like a kerpato in a suit worth more than Linus’ pay his whole time at the Safut House—5 Munths. Most of all— “Wernher! I see you have brought us another young intern today. I hope he is not another of the kind that has the tendency to spill my coffee on my suits!” “Don’t worry! He is applying for a permanent position, so he will make sure not to do that.” Wernher turned towards Linus, who was doodling the nozzle of the KS-25, “Isn’t that right?” Linus blurted out, “What? Sure, I guess.” “An improvement, then.” “I will not lie, I find it somewhat amusing that you are the one who is late, Mortimer.” Mortimer claimed a chair three seats away. “I would point out that since every other meeting member has yet to enter the room, and since your intern is still in his…” Mortimer let out a chuckle, “Krakin’ Kraken pajama pants, I would say I’m the one deserved to be first.” With that, the rest of the members shuffled into the meeting room—one in a vest, another in a flight suit, one in a hazmat suit, and the last one in the attire of a technician, though he wore it like a typical business suit. Linus couldn’t think of a sensible reason for the outfit. He was Gus Kerman, the administrator himself. Gus sipped his mint and began the meeting. “Hello, fellow Kerbals. I’m sure we’ve had the time to read the Space Settlement Drive Act, no?” Wernher interjected. “Would anyone be interested in handing Linus a copy? I am quite sure he has not read it.” Gus showed a hint of annoyance, “All right then.” He retrieved a sheet of paper from his folder, folded it into a paper airplane, and shot it towards Linus as if he had years of practice. Linus was the second worst goalie in handball in his zone, but he still intercepted it. He folded it open and consumed the text—not literally—Linus didn’t like the taste of paper. “As the administrator, I think I would like everyone to share their opinions on the matter, before we make any action.” Mortimer declared, “As Head of Finance of this fine organization, I think we should agree that we should be totally opposed to this rather extreme proposal by our... Fresh Secgen—it would impact the level of funding the KSP will receive by its mere existence. After all, the funding for the TIKASD would almost certainly come at the expense of our program. In order to secure the continuation of the KSP as we know it, we must first delay the creation of the TIKASD for as long as possible, submit an alternative proposal for combining the TIKASD with the KSP, or try to stall and postpone the implementation of the SSD Act indefinitely.” While everyone else parsed through the murk of Mortimer’s words, Linus finished his skim-through of the SSD Act summary. “Err, thank you for your observation, Mortimer. Would anyone like to go next?” Gus asked. Linus pricked up. For him, it was total insanity for just another intern to simply express his opinion to the most powerful members of the KSP, but some bizzare urge gripped him. He had to prove to Wernher that he had a vision for the big picture. Linus made a nervous laugh and gradually lifted his hand. “Um, sure, I guess.” was what spilled out of his mouth. “Really? The last one to finish reading is the second to speak. Interesting.” Mortimer observed. “Well, I’m just an intern, so my opinion probably doesn’t matter, but here’s it is; the TIKASD, if we change it up a bit, might actually help us! The TIKASD gives us a chance to focus on exploration. We landed on Minmus like, 3 decades ago! If we let the TIKASD handle everything near Kerbin, we can focus on the Duna program.” Wernher straightened his glasses—that could only mean one thing; he was about to speak up! “Linus brings up an important point. The KSP was intended to explore space. While any mission is certainly a delight to work on, it has always been the bold, ambitious spacecraft that my engineers love the most. With its establishment, the TIKASD might finally let us work on such designs!” Mortimer shook his finger at Wernher, “If you happen to be very fortunate. It doesn’t please me to say it, Wernher, but I think it’s more likely you and your team will be shuffled about to whichever organization manages to win possession for the week.” Wernher sighed, “It does not have be that way. There is space for amendments in the act. Therefore, we can make changes.” “Perhaps it does not, but what exists now is always difficult to change. It won’t be a breeze passing an amendment, since the General Council knows you’d prefer the KSP, and the General Council wants you to spend time at the TIKASD, since they are the ones who established it!” Wernher concluded, “Surely there are other options.” Gene cut in, “Guys, we’ll talk this over later. May I be allowed to speak?” Mortimer shrugged, “Go ahead.” “I disapprove of the SSD Act. The structure of our mission control team will be more complicated when we’re forced to deal with missions from another organization. Mission Control will need a lot more staff.” Mortimer muttered, “More jobs is always a good thing, as they say.” Gene momentarily flashed a faint smile, “I want everyone to look at the fifth point of the first section. It reads ‘Especially given the current situation, the creation and expansion of strategic space-borne facilities to aid in the overall security situation of the Kerbal Union.’ Seems a little suspicious—” Valentina paled, “It is.” “Val?” There was a hint of hesitation in her voice, “I would rather forget it, but the last time I encountered the words ‘security situation’ buried in a document like that, it was a military matter. Not only that, the phrase ‘strategic space-borne facilities’ raises even more suspicion.” Gus lifted an eye, “Val, are you trying to say that they want to put weapons in space?” Valentina puckered her lips, “Yes. Absolutely.” Walt, who was busy typing on his terminal, swung his head up, “Seriously? If the public finds out about this, it will be an absolute disaster for my public relations office! The KSP has suffered enough, we don’t need this!” Mortimer muttered, “Mm? Worry not, Walt. There’s a reason that’s the only line about these weapons in the whole act, and it’s deliberately written to obscure what it suggests.” “How about this,” Valentina began, “We ask General Council or Secgen himself on the matter. We won’t get a direct answer, but it is better than having nothing. Next, we state our overall feedback on the SSD Act.” “Sounds good, I suppose. What kind of suggestions do we want to give him?” Gus asked. “I think we all agree that we shouldn’t put weapons in space, yes?” Wernher said. Mortimer replied, “For the time being. Why don’t we ask the Secgen what his opinion regarding the possibility of joining the TIKASD and KSP together is a viable option? I would give it slim odds he thinks so, but we shall see.” Wernher joined in, “Not only that, why not ask for my team to have a choice in who they are working with? Probably the same result, but it is best to try.” Gus concluded, “Sounds good for now. Walt, can you send a communication to the Secgen’s office with those ideas?” Walt replied, “Sure can, boss. I’ll get right to it.” “Excellent. Valentina, do you have any opinion on the SSD Act?” “I do.” “Can you share it with us?” “Sure. As the representative of the Kerbonauts at the KSP, I have reason to believe that TIKASD will be a major disruption. Placing Kerbonauts of both organizations in the same building is a recipe for rivalry. If Kerbonauts can choose which organization to go, the kind of fighting that might result will grind our effectiveness to a halt. That said, the opposite of having no choice will leave us with an entire group of Kerbonauts angry at the Secgen.” Mortimer asked, “Would making the TIKASD a department of the KSP help, in any possibility?” “I see what you mean. It would help, for sure.” Walt exclaimed, “A quick reply!” “A reply from the Secgen?” “Sure thing, boss.” “All right.” Gus decided, “Play it on the big screen, please.” The screen showed a man in a fine suit with a lapel crested with the emblem of none other than the Secgen. Hudcas. Gus tapped his fingers on the table. The Secgen stared into the camera, with the look of firm concentration, as if he was contemplating his next words. “Hello, members of the KSP board. I greatly appreciate your kind suggestions and hope to collaborate with you soon. The fact is, I have loved what the Kerbal Space Program has done. Indeed, it is one of the Kerbal Union’s finest achievements. However, we must follow one of the core foundations of the Kerbal Union, to move forwards from the past, and aim for a bright future. It is what raised us from the ashes of war. Today, changes in the paradigm of Kerbin’s power have forced us to take new measures to defend the ideal of Kerbal unity and progress. The SSD Act is the first step of my administration to reach that. The Kerbal Space Program is the past, and the TIKASD is the future. It is time we shift our focus towards the future, towards the TIKASD. The KSP can do more with less. If this agency cannot stop a single asteroid, what else can it not stop?” Until next time! End of Chapter Two

But... Mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cells?

That approach would probably be like AV:T, with KSP.

I have finished writing and drafting the second chapter of The Kerbin Escape, so I have begun taking the screenshots for the chapter. Enjoy this sneak peek of a work-in-progress version of a set that will debut this chapter...

I just realized that the rocket scientist of the KSP is spelled "Werhner" in this story, while it usually gets spelled "Wernher"!

Making glacial progress on the next chapter for Imagining a Kerbal Future, where I will depict a hard-SciFi (-ish) space battle in-game. For example, a "stealth" (as in, harder to detect, not "impossible") railgun ship. The first issue was that the structure simply liked to tear itself apart, regardless of using the cheat menu (which have been required to prevent ships from exploding when reloading them). Next, even a highly modified railgun had serious trouble against a laser ship, often failing to hit, possibly because it simply wasn't aiming the right way. The battleship, equipped with powerful lasers on the front (and though not depicted to save part count) and powerful missiles. Building the battleship went smoothly, but only because I forgot to test the front and back halves of the ship to see if they would explode. Indeed, the front exploded spectacularly with great frequency, caused by a combination of an FEL laser part (for cosmetic purposes) and armor plating on the rear part of the cone, which required extensive testing to fix. Once fixed, the issue became a pattern of the front half constantly flopping around under acceleration, which meant I had to cut down on the amount of parts the central truss used, and I ended up having to fix the first issue again. Once this issue was solved, I was able to test the vessel without constant destruction, until the gas core engine started to rapidly overheat, and the radiators seemed to have little effect. I experimented with other engines, but they proved to be poor substitutes in performance. Putting back the engine, I encountered the problem of the engine being the part that was now shaking itself apart, and after countless tries I managed to get back to a usable configuration. Lastly, however, the ship pitches severely when SAS is enabled, despite SAS attempting to counteract the shift. Turning off SAS solves the issue, but that will be an unsustainable option in combat... (In short, A LOT of problems have stretched what should've been a day-long endeavor into one a few times that.)

It would depend on the situation. The "Trade and Relations" section gives some idea of what worlds, like Duna and Dres, would be more predisposed to becoming allies, but under some circumstances, they might not be so friendly. Progress report for the next chapter: As it happens, I have not stopped working on IAKF. It is more that the work I have spent on it has been extremely time consuming. Each ship for the "In-Game" scenario can take a couple hours to really put together, and a good 5+ hours go into making the ship not explode or shake itself apart, even with the use of cheats. Even then, there are certain problems that reveal themselves. Thankfully, I am fairly assured that this will probably be the scenario that takes the longest (and thus likely to be a standalone), since the other approaches are less likely to encounter unexpected obstacles.

A few no-go's at the L-7 minute poll... Update: Launch has now resumed. Update: Launch window over, launch scrubbed.

That said, there are airlines that do assign names for at least some of their aircraft.

Made progress on my space warship based partially off @MatterBeam's Martian Interceptor concept for the next chapter of Imagining a Kerbal Future. The main problem I had at the beginning of the day was the serious tendency for the ship to shake itself apart, likely because of length of around 160 meters. Here's the ship without fuel tanks or armor. By the end of the day, I was able to put together a version of the interceptor that generally didn't shake itself apart, though it still does when reloading the ship without temporarily enabling cheats—however, it is now good enough for combat testing.

It is what I have been using for the past few chapters... What do you mean by look-alikes? And you will get to see more art in the next chapter!

How did everyone approach the various manufacturers and companies that are in-game? It's a rather interesting part of the game, having a fair amount of in-game canon with the manufacturer descriptions and all, but at the same time not particularly concrete.

In regards to The Kerbin Escape, I think I've chosen an approach where the preparations leading up to the first launch are covered at the beginning of each chapter. While I feel that it serves as a clean compromise from the two other choices I was thinking about, it seems quite possible that I might still go through four chapters of the fallout from the Secgen's announcement and the decision making afterwards before reaching the launch. Should I try to cut down the amount of chapters to the launch to hopefully retain the people who want to see the launch (being in the mission report section, after all), or just let it progress the way it is currently planned?