Ultimate Steve

Interesting. Its not related to the series, but I do have something story related you might be able to help with. I will pm later maybe, remind me if I forget. Thank you! We are leaning towards a series format instead of a movie format, and we are leaning towards simple cartoon-like animation with in-game ships as a reference rather than direct in-game capture. KSP 2 maybe, but currently plan is ksp1 for the reference craft. Yup, the dreaded soon tm!

Could you be thinking of the VA?

Also this isn't directly what the question asked but there is far less chance of something breaking off and hitting the heat shield on starship than on the shuttle. Starship isn't on the side of anything and there isn't much that can fall off beside the tiles. This would require a tile falling off and then either onto the leading edge of the wing things, or back into the hull. However if the tiles are more secure than the shuttles, then this is less of an issue than on the shuttle. Assuming, of course, that they don't change the heat shield design again.

This would be difficult. It would be basically a whole new engine as you would need an actual ignition system, negating a lot of the launch escape system reliability. You also suggest non pressure fed which greatly increases the complexity of the system and again necessitates a vastly different engine. You would also need to prevent the rp1 or methane from freezing during the flight, and the oxygen from boiling off unless you used gaseous oxygen, but that requires far heavier tanks. You would need to have whole new tanks as well as you aren't using the same system for rcs but that's probably not as big of a deal as the engines. The escape engines would be far more complex than the other system and NASA would probably be very hesitant about using something that complex as an escape system. Plus if pump fed, the system will take longer to ignite because the pumps have to spin up. The holes in the heatshield thing might be the easiest part, it was done on every space shuttle mission and I believe some or all of the unmanned VA flights. Edit: Misread the post a bit, thought you emphasized pumps more than you did. Pressure fed is still possible but SpaceX doesn't really have the greatest experience with cold lox under pressure.

Also, if starship ends up being like 10 milliion per launch or more initially, it would be cheaper to send a small payload to gto or the moon with a falcon than it would be with a Starship due to the number of starship launches it would take due to refueling.

Yeah this discussion would probably fit better in a PM but I won't be able to continue conversation for a while, I have something to do.

I really, really hope it isn't live action. Hiring actors and getting them all in one place over the KSP Forums would be... not ideal. And I hope for a series, one episode per chapter, to make it easier to split up and to get feedback from the community sooner. Yes, if this is to remain a KSP community project, live action is a bad idea. I was more commenting on my aspirational goals there, if money and time is unlimited that's what I'd do. It is probably too long to be a film without massive cuts, so I agree with the episodic format. Honestly the story might be too long for a single book at this point... The kind of thing I'm hoping for is: pictures. Every time the set and/or characters need to be changed, or an event needs to be shown, the picture changes. I'm explaining this poorly. I'm hoping for something like the Pixar Toy Story storyboard in the spoiler below, but higher quality pictures and stuff. Okay. That could work. Maybe a step further would be high quality backgrounds only changing when necessary, so we can focus effort on making the characters move more. But we will definitely not have time for like 30fps animation or anything, or fluid characters, but I do think it should have a faster framerate than the toy story thing shown. For a community level project I don't think we should go full animation, as long as the background/character method is of sufficient quality. Art style is another thing we need to think of. I'm sort of flexible on this, but the characters should still be normally shaped and it shouldn't be entirely 2D. Like, flat characters talking in front of a background is fine but there's probably going to be parts where we need to show ships flying around, and probably parts where they need to walk around. But like as far as art style, again I'm pretty flexible. And as for art/animation, I cannot for the life of me draw people or animals so that can't be me, but I do have some art experience and I could probably do backgrounds and ship design. Speaking of which, I'm not going to redo the screenshots in revision, but going back there are likely a few things I would change about Voyager. Like the whole Lost Dreams thing... No way the engineers wouldn't catch that design flaw, and no way they would design something that dangerous in the first place. In a series/movie or if I did do a screenshot rewrite (which is probably never) it would be a mechanical or operational error, not a design error. Short version: Some ships would be different if we were to make a series. Well, somebody's certainly doing scripting, whether that's you or someone else. I could potentially do scripting, but I don't want to overwhelm myself; and besides, there's probably enough dedicated Voyage fans who'd love to help. Some might be into the tedium that is assembling the script. If I'm not too busy I will certainly think about doing the script. If I had infinite free time I'd gladly do the script, but unfortunately there's this thing called life. Probably. But certainly don't take out too much, because if it's a series, runtime isn't likely a problem, since we can always just turn chapters into Chapter Pi: Part 1 and Chapter Pi: Part 2. True. If it's a series, I'd only be taking things out that aren't in any way necessary to the plot (I was preparing for an alternate ending early on but I dropped that so there's some loose ends I'd snip off early on in the story) and maybe I'd work around some difficult to animate stuff. I see why it's necessary to wait until plot-holes and stuff are patched in the revision. Also, if you don't reach the revision before college, please make sure to task someone with revising it, so we don't lose hope of the Voyage Series (or, less likely, the Voyage Film, but I still vote for series). Noted. I'm not expecting it this year. "This year" equates to about 1.3 days. Don't stress yourself, or overwork yourself, and if the chapter gets lengthy (and if the fans get unruly waiting for an update), don't be afraid to add a minor cliffhanger event in the middle so you can split it up into multiple chapters-- it's how I tried evenly distributing word count across chapters back when i was into writing. Thank you!

Some notes: In my head, a Voyage movie/series would be a mixture of live action and ksp gameplay (or animation if we have a huge budget, but well done KSP sets may be faster), involving well animated Kerbals and lots of green screen. Unfortunately this involves having actual actors in the same place and probably sets. And we would have to deal with zero gravity. The KSP of course would be loaded up on visual mods. Not quite nassault level but better than stock. And also we'd need spacesuit costumes. Unfortunately we don't have any budget whatsoever. Full animation could also work but I'd imagine the style would probably have to be a quicker and non photorealistic one if we ever want to finish it. If we get serious about this, I don't know if I would be doing scripting or not, especially with college coming up, but if I don't I would like to at least consult on the script, as there is a lot I would change. This is less necessary if we wait until revision. There are some parts that would probably be taken out to make the story flow better and to reduce runtime. Not directly movie related, but an example of something that was in the first chapters that has changed: The council chamber has have been overhauled and is now completely different from it's description in the prologue. The council room is more or less the same but the station is way cooler and way bigger. Started work on chapter 28 last night. Can't say what the total will come out to be, but we are in the last quarter. Can't say when 28 will come. Not this year, as there are a bunch of application deadlines and I'm going way too slow. Plus new year's and stuff.

True, and your concerns are valid. If you really want to go ahead with this then I can help but be aware that the beginnings of the rough and final drafts will be different, not in any major ways, but in many small ways.

I appreciate the spirit but I would strongly advise waiting until at least the rough draft is done before doing anything like this, and I would even prefer to wait until after revision if that ever happens. It can be hard to set something up without knowing the ending, and it's good to rewrite stuff to better fit that ending once you have it.

Soggy Naruto 1. Probably Serial Number 1... it's interesting that they may have switched from Mk to SN. Maybe because Mk has gotten a bad rap because Mk1 and Mk2 will likely never fly. Well technically Mk1 flew... Parts of Mk1 at least...

AND SPEAKING OF INCONSISTENCIES.... I have been using the terms Ziquunodian Crystal and Illasticonian Crystal interchangeably... Ziquunodian was the original, but I've been using Illasticonian recently. It would be too much work to change every Illasticonian to Ziquunodian, so I think I'll change the Ziquunodian to Illasticonian. This does present one problem, the Ziquunods and the Illasticonians are supposed to be equals in the galaxy, but the story has referenced the Illasticonians many more times.

Hey sorry for not responding as quickly as I should! Life is busy. Me too! A few weeks ago we had a winter dance. Sadly I didn't have time to make a successor. How do we know The Species isn't controlled by The Species??!?!?!/11/!1/!/1? True, I have thought of this, and I have already set certain chapters to specific songs in my head. However, if it ever happens, it will be long after I write the final draft (this is the rough draft, I decided that when I reread the first few chapters and saw so many inconsistencies and plotlines I never developed, many of the characters are fairly flat, etc), and it certainly wouldn't be just me doing it if it happened. I can't even be bothered to download/make all of the planet packs needed for the next chapter so it will be mostly text, so if I can't do that then I certainly can't make a quality film. Thank you for the positive feed back and wishes! I hope I finish this as well. My goal was to finish it this year, but that sadly won't happen. My goal is now to finish it before summer starts. If it somehow slips to after college starts then it may never get finished... I will see about shortening the chapters. Thank you! I wish to do one more chapter before break is over, but unfortunately all of the college applications are due REALLY SOON and I'm really behind the game on that. Also I've been working on a castle: Completely survival except for a few items spawned in by admins, but those aren't really that important, stuff like beacon base blocks and overpowered enchanted tridents. I've been working on and off on it for a bit over a year, and the exterior of the castle is over half done at this point. There are going to be a few smaller towers, a walled entranceway with a drawbridge, a lower enclosure (in the back) and a giant watchtower on the mountain on the right. Also dungeons and details. The interior probably will never be finished. Until recently many of the floors didn't even have proper staircases.

Speaking of Starship,

I knew I was dreaming. Today I'm supposed to go on a date, get college apps done, and join friends in a video game... Already unrealistic enough, but a Chinese rocket launch with a LIVESTREAM? I'm going to be so sad when I wake up.

IV - Dennis

III - Rainbow

My postcard came back!!!

Bridenstine just confirmed that going to the spac station is off the table given the fuel levels.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1206741550694158338

II - Anthem

Yeah I was wondering what happened. Are you allowed to say anything about that or is it top secret code stuff?

Alright y'all, Boris is now Brent. Part II coming soon.

I named him before the whole election thing went down, and actually even before I came up with the backstory. At the time he was just another Kerbal.

A Home in The Sky I - Triumph Welcome to my latest mission report! I got carried away with the backstory, there will be brief updates, not as elaborate as the first part. The save is in version 1.3.1 because I already had the mods loaded. I may update to a recent version as those robotics parts look appealing for what I'm going to be doing, but maybe not. The purpose of this save is to focus on early space stations and their operational challenges, which will include a lot of EVA, KIS, and KAS. There's only so much obvious stuff you can do with KIS, so any experiment or construction suggestions are encouraged! I got the inspiration for this after a particularly late night reading articles about the Salyut program. Enjoy!