jimmymcgoochie

Bobak: Hey Gene, are you going to pick the crew for the Eve mission or not? Gene: I will when it's due to leave- Bobak: It leaves tomorrow! Gene: *utter bewilderment* It's not due to leave for over sixty days? Bobak: Boss, are you... are you OK? You're doing that thing again. Jeb: *bursts in* Happy new year everybody! Bobak: OK, that's even worse- it's literally half a year into the year. Jeb: That depends on which calendar you use. Bobak: Well, you're not wrong, but... Gene: OK, fine. Crew for the Eve mission is as follows: Mission Commander: Jebediah. Jeb: Boom! Chief Engineer: Sanlan. Sanlan: Woop! We get to be travel buddies again Jeb! (Jeb: ) Mission Scientists: Duberry and Kerdous. Duberry: Which one of us is the chief scientist? Also yay Kerdous: Maybe we should flip a coin or something? And yay Gene: You can sort that out when you're on the ship. Wernher, get that spaceplane ready. Kerdous: ...but you can't flip coins in space? Gene: I don't care just GET ON THE PLANE! *later* Sanlan: Wow, there are beds on this thing! And artificial gravity! And cupholders! Not sleeping in a cramped space pod chair in zero-G for days and days! Jeb: I call the top bunk! Kerdous: There are no top bunks, Jeb, they're all on the same level. Jeb: I nominate Duberry as Chief Scientist Commander's word is final. Duberry: Kerdous:

The only reason that’s visible is because the centre of the sun is off-screen, so the sun flare doesn’t load. Without that, it’s extremely bright at such a close distance. There’s a mod called Random Main Menu Bodies, which as you might imagine swaps Kerbin for a random celestial body on the main menu. Turns out that includes the sun, which confused me for a while as I didn’t recognise the strange yellow planet.

Wernher: The next part of the Gilly mining system is ready to launch. I call it- Cliff: The Tower of Power! Wernher: You've been watching that Erica Station thing again, haven't you? Cliff: Emiko Station, actually. Wernher: Whatever. It's actually called the Gilly Power Pylon and it should resolve all the power issues we've been having with the mining rovers so far. Mortimer: Exactly how many of those extremely expensive nuclear engines are you planning on using? Wernher: Well, we could launch a gargantuan craft with enough delta-V to get to Moho carrying enough fuel to get the crewed ship back from Moho, but it would cost 4 million funds and be hideously heavy to boot; or we could use ion thrusters, but that would require a burn time of days and cost about seven million funds because xenon is stupidly expensive. Any more questions? Mortimer: I don't see why we need to send such a big ship down to Moho in the first place- just send something really small with a single crew instead. Wernher: That's- actually not the worst idea... Linus: Moho Rover, give me your science! Mortimer: Correction- give ME your science, so I can sell it for much funds! Linus: Hey! Mortimer: You want this Kraken to fix the planets, we need to pay for the missions. Gene: He has a point, Linus. Bobak: The mining tanker has arrived into Moho orbit, but looks like it's pretty much out of fuel. Wernher: Well it's a good thing we put some fuel in for its own engines then, isn't it? Linus: That picture makes my head hurt. *some time later* Bobak: The Gilly Power Pylon is arriving at Moho, ready for deceleration burn *fzzt* ah great, one of the NERVs failed. We should still be OK though, the remaining engines can handle it and we're just about *fzzt* there goes the other one... Wernher: Did it make it? Bobak: Eh, close enough. It's orbiting Moho at least, the main engine still works and we should be able to get it to Gilly. Bobak: See? No problem! Linus: Too far from the rovers though, we'll need to move them closer to get the resource sharing system online. Linus: That'll do. Let's see if the fuel production rates are any good. *a few days later* Linus: Overheat alarm on the Power Pylon? External temperature over 1000K!? 1300EC/s PER PANEL!? How- Wernher: Wow. No wonder it's complaining about excessive radiation levels. How can there possibly be water in that surface when it's hot enough to melt lead? Linus: Don't say that, you might jinx it! Fuel production is progressing, still trying to work out the average rate though. *many days later* Bobak: Jool Relay is now in position, absolutely no issues with the capture burn accidentally firing the wrong way and nearly escaping, nope, no siree... Gene: Right... How's it looking on Gilly, Linus? ...Linus? Linus: *blank stare* Huh? Gene: The mining operation. Fuel production rate. How's it looking. Linus: *wipes drool from face* Best guesstimate, somewhere between 1 and 3 units of fuel per hour. It varies depending on Gilly's rotation and orbit as well as Moho's orbit around Kerbol- both its inclination and eccentricity are making the power levels fluctuate a lot- close to the sun there's actually more sunlight on the south pole of Gilly so we get great production, but further from the sun there's less sun at the south pole so the rate is slower. Gene: I might not be a mathematician, but that sounds like you're saying it'll take a couple of decades to make the fuel we need. Mortimer: I'm really warming to my idea of a single-crew Moho mission, I must say. Far less hassle- and less expense! Jeb: I pity the poor chump who gets sent to Moho on their own. *everyone stares at Jeb* Jeb: Wha- oh, no way! *runs*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnQP5dhxlKU Episode 4 is out!

Each lab can only process each experiment once- it can only run once for a temperature scan from Kerbin’s shores or a mystery goo observation from Eeloo space low, for example. This is per lab part- put two labs on the same craft and there’s no overlap, you can process two copies of mystery goo from Eeloo space low etc. for double the science returns. It’s entirely possible to complete the tech tree without ever leaving Kerbin’s SOI and without using the MPL at all, just trawl through all the biomes on the Mun and Minmus with each experiment and you’ll be done in barely any time at all.

Rating and range are equivalent- a 5M antenna has a range of 5Mm (5 megametres, or 5000km) while a 2Gm antenna has a range of two gigametres (2 million km). If you think you’ve completed the contract, can you share a screenshot of the craft in question with the contract information panel open on the right side of the screen? You should see every parameter on the list with a green tick, if one is missing then that’s what you’re missing.

Further to previous comments- below ~25km, anything in an atmosphere but not within physics range will be automatically deleted by the game. To recover your first stage, you’d need to have that one focussed and land it first, then switch to the second stage which by then should be in space and hopefully not falling back into the atmosphere; doing it the other way around will just delete the first stage before you can recover it. Mods can help with this, but you can’t use mods on a console so you’re stuck with the hard way .

Due to a miscalculation in the engineering department, the apparently daunting task of producing half a million units of liquid fuel via Kerbalism's notoriously difficult ISRU processes has shrunk to a more reasonable 60,000 units; still a challenge, but with a big new power supply on its way and the fuel tanker now on site things are looking up. There's an old nuclear booster lying around somewhere with a dribble of fuel left, maybe I can put that to use somehow; after all, Gilly's gravity is so weak it can fly on RCS alone.

Pff, only 10 hours? Those are rookie numbers…

It’s technically feasible, but very difficult to do- you’d need to launch the second stage high enough and fast enough that you can get the first stage down to the surface and land it, then switch back to the second stage before it reaches apoapsis and put that into orbit.

Glad you're enjoying it. Got a few logistical problems to sort out on Gilly which is holding up progress a bit, but a little bit of Kerbalism config hacking might resolve the issue of fuel production.

Huh. I really thought that was a stock part.

The following are relay dishes: HG-5 (puny), HG-20 (Making History DLC exclusive), RA-2, RA-15, RA-100. If you want a signal to be relayed, you need at least one of those. Also remember that relay signal strength is calculated differently than total signal strength, so sticking an HG-5 (rating 5M) on with a Communotron 88-88 direct antenna (rating 100G) doesn’t give you 100G of relay capability- it’s still only 5M.

The short answer is- just copy and paste the entirety of KSP, now you have two copies. If you’re using CKAN (and you should be ), creating a new copy of KSP is pretty easy: File > Manage KSP instances; Add new instance to CKAN > Clone or fake new instance; Pick the existing instance and clone that, create new folder for it to be cloned into; You now have two copies of KSP- they’ll have identical mod sets, but that’s easy to change. If you want a different version of KSP and you got the game via Steam- right click KSP > Properties > Betas > pick your version of choice from the drop down menu and it will download automatically. Be sure to back up your saves first, and also remember that having mods in the Steam copy of KSP is a frequent cause of KSP breaking (especially when changing versions) so copy the existing KSP to your desktop, delete all mods and then change versions. If you want to do it all by hand, just copy + paste your current copy of KSP and then delete mods from the new copy. I’m not sure how you’d change versions if you got KSP from anywhere other than Steam as that’s where I got it from.

“We can’t put a Mercury on a Pathfinder rocket! It’s slightly too wide!” But it had 9500m/s of delta-V and combined with the Mercury retro pack would probably make orbit! Just tweak the uppermost tank to be slightly narrower at the top to fit the pod’s diameter and you’d be good to go. Re. those parachutes, pretty sure you’re meant to stage them sequentially and staging the main chute will also decouple the part with the drogue on it; at least that’s how the Gemini one worked and it’s a pretty similar layout.

Val: ...and then *poof* it was gone! Just blinked out of existence, left a Kraken-shaped divot in the ground and that's it. Bill: That's incredible! Bob: I still can't reach Mission Control, not sure what's going on back on Kerbin. *back on Kerbin* Cliff: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-! Linus: You must listen to me! Gene: Get him out of here! Sanlan: No, really, why is everyone shouting? *and back to Bop* Val: Not much else we can do down here. I could do some biome hopping stuff, but at this point it seems like a waste of fuel. Bob: I can't believe I'm saying this, but- I agree. We have all the science we could ever use and it'll take years to process all the samples we have right now, even leaving aside one sample from Duna, Pol and Bop like you said. Val: That was kind of rhetorical, I'm already coming in to dock, Bill: Does that mean we can go back to Kerbin? Val: Nope. Next transfer window is in a year, and I'm not about to spend that time getting irradiated by this weird little moon- plotting a course for Duna orbit. Valmal: *thud* Oof! How about a warning before you go firing the engines next time!? Val: Honestly, I forgot you were even on this mission. Valmal: ... Bob: I think we've got Mission Control back, but... *garbled shouting through radio* Val: Gimme that *yoink* Mission Control, this is Val. SHUT IT! *stunned silence* Val: OK, long story short, I kind of made a deal with a Kraken to fix our whole solar system, put it back the way it was before The Anomaly- but first we need to get a surface sample of every planet and moon from where they are now. I managed to swap getting surface samples of Jool and Kerbol for an asteroid and a comet, too. Gene: So you're telling me that you actually talked to a Kraken? Val: Actually, I talked to two- the first one was on Bop the whole time, seemed to be saying that The Anomaly was caused by some kind of perpetual energy device Kerbals made, then this second Kraken showed up- it was HUGE! Way bigger than the first one- and that one said it could fix everything but only if we did the sample thing. Linus: So the Kraken wasn't a malevolent monster after all? All those tales of "Kraken attacks" are just excuses for spacecraft failures and it's really our protector and saviour? Val: Well... Actually, it kind of did break a bunch of spacecraft- but accidentally rather than deliberately. Walt: Pah! Of course it didn't admit that it was doing it on purpose! This whole thing is a trap to get us to send more spaceships out for it to play with for its own twisted amusement. Gus: Oh, please- ten minutes ago you were flat out refusing to even consider the idea that Krakens were real at all. Walt: Well, er... Gene: That's enough of this nonsense. The next person to say the word "Kraken" will be fired on the spot. Cliff: KRAKEN!!! Gene: What did I just- Giant Kraken: CITIZENS OF KERBOL III. DO NOT BE AFRAID. WE MEAN YOU NO HARM. Gene: what the- Walt: It's on every TV and radio station, all across the internet. It's everywhere! Wernher: Forget the screens- look out the windows! Giant Kraken: YOUR SPECIES' ACTIONS NEARLY DESTROYED THIS SYSTEM ONCE. HOWEVER YOU HAVE NOW BEEN GIVEN AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE AMENDS. IN RETURN YOUR SYSTEM WILL BE RESTORED TO ITS PREVIOUS ARRANGEMENT. YOU MUST RETRIEVE A PIECE OF EACH PLANET AND MOON IN THE SYSTEM AND RETURN IT TO YOUR HOME PLANET KERBOL III. YOU MUST ADDITIONALLY RETRIEVE A PIECE OF AN ASTEROID AND A PIECE OF A COMET AND RETURN THOSE TO KERBOL III ALSO. ONCE THIS TASK IS COMPLETE YOUR SYSTEM WILL BE RESTORED. Bobak: And how do we know that you'll actually do it? How do we know that you can do it? Giant Kraken: *chuckle* YOU ARE AN AMUSING ONE, BOBAK KERMAN. Bobak: How-? Giant Kraken: YOU HAVE FIFTY OF YOUR PLANET'S ORBITAL PERIODS TO COMPLETE THIS TASK. USE THEM WELL. *Giant Kraken blinks out of existence* Gene: Mortimer: So that just happened. Bobak: I guess we're going to be doing a lot more interplanetary missions in the near future then. Mortimer: *sigh* Just when my blood pressure was getting back to normal, too... Gus: So we just make a bunch of copies of that ship we already have, send 'em out to all the planets, big deal. Wernher: It's not nearly that simple- Linus: Actually, it might be. Wernher: Eh? Linus: Same top section, different landers and a different propulsion system- Moho will be an absolute pain but going to Eve won't be any harder than going to Duna and getting to Jool isn't all that difficult either. We've already got samples from the Mun, Minmus and Dres in the R&D sample vault, and several asteroids to boot; once we add the Duna, Bop and Pol samples we're half way done already. Gene: Speaking of Moho, how's that fuel mining thing shaping up? Wernher: The Moho mining rovers are being fuelled up in orbit as we speak. It's just taking a while because each flight of the Kronus can only carry about 17 tons of fuel up there. We need something bigger... Mortimer: Let's not get too hasty- it might take a lot of flights, but it's cheap! *** Bobak: Moho Mining Mission part 1 is ready to depart, initiating kick burns. Bobak: And now for the final transfer burn. Linus: Part 2 is up, but we need to fuel this thing up in orbit too. Wernher: OK, this is just taking too long. Fire up those 3MM rockets, we've got some recordings to do! Jeb: *sweaty palms* this landing is going to be dicey... Gene: Initiate a Code Fourteen evacuation of the KSC, all personnel leave to the south. Jeb, aim to the north! Jeb: Aiming is a relative term here! *fwumph* *screeeeeech* Jeb: *peers out from behind fingers* It's... landed? On the runway? IN ONE PIECE? WOOT!!! Wernher: Now on to the bigger one with the extra boosters! Mortimer: *later* Wernher: See, this is MUCH better! All fuelled up in two trips, not twenty. Bobak: That's interesting, that second mission left just before the first one arrived. Wernher: Is that thing at Moho already? BRAKING BURN! Wernher: Oh. Gene: Oh what? Wernher: Well, we're still several kilometres above Gilly's surface and... Wernher: Also the nuclear engines are all beyond their rated burn time so they could fail at any moment. Mortimer: I can't watch! *hides under desk* Jeb: Uh, why don't you just fire the RCS? Pretty sure it has the thrust and the propellant to land from there without firing the engines again. Wernher: Of course! Why didn't I think of that! Linus: New rovers to play with! Yay! Just need to get them on the ground and *decouple* *KRAKEN ATTACK* Linus: ... F9 Linus: Just need to get them on the ground and *boop* there we go, no explosions to be seen! Huzzah! Cliff: What did he just- Wernher: Don't ask. Just don't. Linus: Hmm, maybe we should have checked the clearance on those drills before we sent them all the way to Gilly... Linus: Also driving on a tiny space potato with negligible gravity means A LOT of air time, even at pretty low speeds. Linus: Both rovers are now parked at Gilly's south pole, mining as fast as they can. We have two problems though- first, there are two big hills that keep blocking out the sun so they keep running out of power, and second, fuel production rates are really, really slow. We're probably going to need more ISRU units out there to extract more carbon from the ore, and maybe a solar farm up on one of those hills so it never gets shaded. Cliff; How about this? Linus: That's terrible. Awful. Utterly useless. *glowers for a while* Actually it's rather good, but I just don't want to admit it because Wernher replaced me with you. Cliff: Are you still angry about that? That was years ago! In fact, I'm almost finished my internship and then he'll get a replacement to replace your replacement. Linus: You know what- you're right. It's time to bury that hatchet. Come on, Cliff, let me buy you a drink. Cliff: Uh, sure? Valmal: So are we going back to Kerbin now? Val: HA! Nope, we're staying here for about another 500 days until the next transfer window back to Kerbin. Valmal: 500 DAYS!? Val: Look at it this way- you get to spend a whole year analysing all those samples Bob got from Duna! Isn't that exciting? Valmal: Er- Val: That was rhetorical. Back to the lab with you! *shove* Valmal: AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa- *crunch* Uh oh, the Mystery Goo got loose! Val: *closes hatch between lab and other modules* That sounds like a you problem.

Life can exist without any atmosphere whatsoever- right here on Earth there are chemosynthesis micro-organisms that live in rocks miles below the surface, slowly breaking down minerals for their energy and dividing every few decades or even centuries. Many organisms thrive despite a lack of oxygen and most of those would probably die if exposed to oxygen. If you want complex, multicellular, intelligent life, nitrogen/ammonia could be an option with the ammonia replacing water as seen on Earth and also serving as a building block for this hypothetical organism’s biology. Another option is nitrogen/methane for much the same reasons, for example Saturn’s moon Titan. Helium is too light to be a significant part of a planet’s atmosphere unless it’s significantly larger and/or colder than Earth- see gas giants- because it will just float up and out of the atmosphere; oxygen/methane is known generally as a gas explosion or fuel-air bomb, depending on who you ask, and would definitely NOT be stable for any length of time; carbon dioxide could work but the greenhouse effect would be significant and it’s also a waste product produced by carbon combustion/metabolism so is toxic to aerobic life in high quantities- even a few percent CO2 in pure oxygen can kill a human eventually; a case could be made for argon as a significant gas, it’s 1% of Earth’s atmosphere and could make up a lot more in a hypothetical atmosphere- up to a point, since it’s lighter than oxygen, nitrogen etc. Heavier noble gases like krypton and possibly xenon could also be included, but those are heavier than air and so would tend to sink, potentially smothering the surface. It really depends on what sort of “life” you want- a tiny lichen-like thing clinging to a rock on a barren planet or a Pandora full of alien ecosystems, teeming with life in all its varieties. (Incidentally, I’ve heard it argued that Pandora was toxic due to high levels of hydrogen sulphide, a.k.a. rotting egg gas, presumably given off by the local wildlife.)

I’m only doing it because Moho is so close to the sun in the Snarkiverse, each of the new circular solar panels is producing over 80EC/s at full exposure (10x power!) when Moho is near its aphelion, when they actually get some sun. The next bottleneck will be CO2 production, but I can always send another ISRU configured to make more of that; my idea of storing excess hydrogen in liquid form looks like it’s a bust though, there’s no way to tell the Kerbalism automation to switch the liquefier on only when hydrogen is full and the evaporator on when it’s empty. I’m also not trying to refuel a small moon

Landed a mining mission on Gilly in two parts- one rover to mine the tiny traces of water found only in the highlands and convert that to hydrogen while the other rover mines ore in the midlands, extracts CO2 and combines it with the aforementioned hydrogen to make liquid fuel; oxygen is also produced as a byproduct and can be turned into a little bit of oxidiser, while excess hydrogen can be liquefied and stored long term. Theoretically. In practice, power issues and the fact that I have to actually be focussing on the craft so that Simple Logistics will share the resources between the two mean that so far it’s produced a total of 10 units of liquid fuel in about as many days, and I need to make about a million… After discovering a tiny sliver of highlands near the South Pole (probably a biome map glitch but too bad!) surrounded by midlands, I relocated both rovers there but the sun is frequently blocked by hills as the pole is pretty low lying. The next mission I send will probably be a huge pylon covered in solar panels and batteries to stick on a nearby hill for MOAR POWER! Ironic, since solar panels are currently working at over 800% rated power production and will increase even more as Moho moves to its mildly preposterous perihelion. (Maybe one of those hills is highlands?) Oh, and the booster I used to send those rovers out there landed on Gilly on its RCS with a total of 3m/s of liquid fuel left for its nuclear engines. And then the first rover Krakenned itself into its component parts as soon as I undocked it, then when I reloaded with indestructibility cheats on it ended up with all its parts spinning like crazy and slowly heading off into orbit! Fortunately a dab of time warp (and removing all autostruts in the save file) brought it back under control.

Can you provide the log files please? They contain far more information than you’ll get in the in-game console. Here’s how to get them:

I have a feeling that this will require the KAL controller, but unfortunately I have zero knowledge of how to use that thing.

A single HG-5 has a relay rating of 5M with the default 100% antenna range modifier in your difficulty settings, however if you want that relay to actually be any use as a relay then bigger and more powerful relay dishes are recommended- if anywhere outside Kerbin’s SOI then an RA-2 is the minimum and preferably an RA-15 or RA-100. All antennae have diminishing returns; while some mods can change this, they’ll probably say so in the part descriptions so unless you see anything there assume it’s the default 75%. Each additional relay adds (0.75^n) additional range where n is the number of extra antennae after the first (it’s a zero index as anything^0 = 1). With two identical dishes that have 32M range, you’ll get 32 + (32^0.75) = 32 + 24 = 56M total range; add a third and that one gets ((32^0.75)^0.75) = 24^0.75 = 18M additional range, and so on. You’ll quickly run into some pretty steep reductions with more dishes- the second dish adds barely half the original range, the fourth is about 0.3 times- and it quickly becomes cheaper, lighter and more efficient to add one better dish e.g. an RA-2 with a rating of 2G than stacking a load of smaller ones. If you have antennae with different ratings, I believe it starts from the most powerful before working down to the weakest. There are a few mods out there that can help you with antenna ranges and planning, though Antenna Helper is the only one I can remember the name of right now.

Again, too much dithering around with the intercept node and the docking. I’d much rather have those cut out or skimmed over- give us the game highlights, not a play-by-play commentary.

@boolybooly use the landing legs to “bounce” the top of the rocket towards vertical, then gun the engines and hope you get it pointed up in time to not crash into the ground. Take the legs off and stick them right at the top of the crew cabin so that they’ll deploy down into the ground; set SAS to surface radial out (aka UP), deploy legs then give it full throttle as soon as it bounces the nose up. It’s a risky strategy so worth a few dry runs without the engine first to see how high you can get the nose to go. Alternatively, you could try using the legs one or two at a time to gradually ratchet the craft upwards towards vertical- attach at the end of the crew cabin, deploy, add ore legs further along, deploy those and repeat until you have a much higher nose-up attitude, then try the bounce and go technique above. You also have that rover to brace the rocket against… I really hope you’re not planning to re-enter that thing though, it looks like a deathtrap- materials bays are very easily destroyed by re-entry heating and if that happens your crew cabin will fly off and probably explode too.

Gene: SECURITY! Wernher: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE, LINUS!? Cliff: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-! Walt: This is madness, I tell you! MADNESS! Sanlan: WHY IS EVERYBODY SHOUTING? Kraken: SILENCE. *all the lights and screens go dark* *meanwhile, on Bop...* Val: *wince* Wow, they're really not taking this well. Kraken: TREMBLE BEFORE ME, MORTAL! Val: *completely unfazed* Rude. And frankly ungrateful. Kraken: And why should I feel gratitude to you, impudent little morsel? Val: Now just you hold up there, squid-brain. It took a lot of time and effort to track you down out here, sneak this probe up to you without anyone noticing and run it for literally years to beam enough power into you to wake you up. If you don't start behaving yourself- Kraken: *sniffle* Val: Are you... are you crying? Kraken: No..? *sniff* Yes... Val: OK, what's going on with you? Kraken: I didn't mean for any of this to happen! *sob* I just wanted to communicate with you little green people, but every time I went near your spacecraft they'd either start breaking or running- sometimes they'd even burn me with their rocket exhausts, and that hurt! It took a long time before I realised I was overloading your electronics, but by then it was too late: you blamed every failure on 'evil space Kraken' and reacted to anything I did with hostility. Val: OK, just to be clear- what you're talking about happened decades ago, none of us were even born then! As a matter of fact, we have almost no information about what happened back then; most of it was lost during The Anomaly. Kraken: "The Anomaly". Interesting way of saying "we tried to make a singularity inside a matrix of negative anti-gravioli particles to create a perpetual energy device". Val: That sounds dodgy. Kraken: It was madness! You were meddling with forces beyond your capacity to understand, let alone control! You had an incomplete picture of what I was capable of and thought you could reproduce it for your own purposes. As soon as I saw what you were doing I tried to stop it, but I was too late. Val: What happened? Kraken: The anti-gravioli field began resonating; in nanoseconds it failed completely and the singularity exploded, unleashing a gravitational anomaly across the entire solar system, from the outside in. It was all I could do to save the planets and moons from smashing each other to pieces. First the ice planet fell into the green gas planet's gravity and I caught it into a resonance with the second moon; then the green planet fell sunwards and displaced the grey sub-planet towards your homeworld while its two outer moons fell towards the red planet, where I caught them in a complex resonance even as the original moon flew inwards; the grey sub-planet nearly destroyed your home planet but I was able to stop it by transferring its second moon so that the grey sub-planet ended up as a pseudosatellite instead of turning your planet inside out; your planet's primary moon nearly hit your planet too, but I diverted its course to make its orbit inclined and eccentric instead; the red planet's moon ended up at the purple planet, while the purple planet's sub-moon ended up at the brown planet which fell even closer to the sun. For a moment it seemed that the sun itself would detonate but I was able to prevent it; it almost killed me and I barely made it back to this small moon before crashing onto its surface. Val: ...wow. That's some story. But why here of all places? Kraken: This moon's peculiar composition produces a powerful particle belt that sustained me, and its orbit allowed easy access to the vast energies of the green gas planet's magnetic fields. *ominous shadow* Val: what the- Giant Kraken: DO NOT FEAR, NATIVE OF KERBOL-III. I MEAN YOU NO HARM. Kraken: Great. It's you. I was hoping for someone else. Anyone else, in fact. Giant Kraken: I WILL LEAVE YOU HERE, LITTLE BROTHER, DON'T THINK I WON'T. Kraken: *hastily* I didn't say that! Val: That sounds familiar. So I guess you're leaving, then? Kraken: That is correct. Your device has proven most useful in my restoration, and for that I am thankful, but if I never have to spend another second in this cursed system again, it'll be too soon. Farewell. *Kraken blinks out of existence* Val: ...bye then? Giant Kraken: YOUR ACTIONS TO RESTORE MY BROTHER ARE NOTED. I WOULD LIKE TO REPAY THEM IN KIND. Val: Well, I suppose you could fix our solar system? Put it back where it was before The Anomaly happened? Giant Kraken: THIS IS ACCEPTABLE. BUT FIRST YOU MUST VISIT EACH OF THE CELESTIAL BODIES IN THE SYSTEM, RETRIEVE A SAMPLE OF ITS SURFACE AND RETURN IT TO YOUR HOME PLANET. ONLY THEN WILL I RESTORE THE SYSTEM TO ITS FORMER STATE. Val: Wait, what? That seems arbitrary and unfair! Giant Kraken: DO YOU WANT ME TO FIX YOUR BROKEN SOLAR SYSTEM OR NOT? Val: *hastily* Yes, yes I do! Giant Kraken: THEN THOSE ARE MY TERMS. VISIT EVERY BODY IN YOUR SYSTEM, LAND ON ITS SURFACE AND RETURN A PIECE OF THAT SURFACE TO YOUR HOME WORLD. Val: What about Jool? Gas giants don't have a surface, and then there's the whole Giant Ring of Agonising Death around it... Giant Kraken: VERY WELL. THE GAS GIANT IS EXCLUDED. AS IS THE STAR, BEFORE YOU ASK. BUT TO COMPENSATE FOR THIS YOU MUST ALSO RETRIEVE A SAMPLE FROM AN ASTEROID AND A SAMPLE FROM A COMET. Val: OK, that seems fair. How do I contact you when we're done? Giant Kraken: YOU DO NOT. I WILL BE WATCHING AND WILL RETURN WHEN THE TASK IS COMPLETE. *Giant Kraken blinks out of existence* Val: *blinks* Well, that just happened... Bill: Did anyone else see that? Bob: Was that... a KRAKEN!? It was HUGE! Valmal: Huh? What? Did I miss something? Val: Hey guys, you're not going to believe what just happened...