Gamera Obscura

Ack...time got away from me and I guess I missed a few weeks of updating this. To get back to speed: we did some more missions near Minmus and then I sent a probe out to Duna. In this latest episode, Jeb rescues several stranded kerbals in a single launch while Val and her gal pals head out to repair some space junk. Someone forgot to bring the repair kits, but that didn't keep the girls from having a good time. Trying to repair the broken rover went a little better...until it started flirting with the Kraken. Can they fix it again and fulfill the contract?

I got another explore Duna contract (this time to land on it and enter the atmosphere). Once again, when I entered the atmosphere (during aerocapture) the game did not recognize that part of the contract as being fulfilled. I deleted the 14 messages I had from other contracts. The next time I entered the atmosphere, while trying to land, it counted it. There definitely seems to be something going on with the game recognizing being in Duna's atmosphere if you have messages in your inbox. So strange...

Let's fulfill a bunch of contracts at the same time! First, we need to put a satellite into a polar orbit of Kerbin. I explain how I like to fulfill these kinds of contracts, while doing it in a painfully inefficient way (just to make it easier for me to explain what I'm doing). Seriously, if you're an actual pro at this game, you may weep at how much fuel I waste. In a super dick move, as soon as that contract is fulfilled, we immediately fly it to Minmus in order to dock it with something to fulfill another contract we had accepted at the same time. On the way, Jeb does a flyby of the Mun to perform a long overdue test of an engine, and somehow actually gets a plan for a Minmus encounter all in one go. The only hiccup is that pretty much every rendezvous they ever try to do happens in the dark. After landing on Minmus, Jeb radios home that they need to upgrade the R&D department so he can bring some pieces home. After flying around on EVA collecting bits of the tiny moon, he decides he wants to see what a polar day/night looks like -- this is legitimately something I want to do before I die -- so he take a breather on the north pole before visiting one more biome. As always, Jeb ruins the landing so he can roll down a hill like a child. It's nice to see him have fun, but sometimes I really wish he would grow up. But it's tough to be angry when his mission resulted in massive science upgrades that will make traveling to places like Eve and Duna possible. Stay tuned.

What's really strange is I can't even find mention of this contract within the persistent file and I cannot cancel it within the game. Anyone have any insight? EDIT: I had 158 messages from all the contracts I had completed. I deleted them and then when I entered the atmosphere, it counted it as fulfilled. Very strange, but I guess there's a limit to that kind of thing? Although, I was able to force completion through the cheats menu. Either way, I was able to get it completed.

I have an active contact for "Explore Duna" in which all I have to do is enter the atmosphere. I sent a probe over there but it didn't register so I thought maybe it had to be a manned mission for some reason. Jeb flew over there, dipped low enough to generate some heat around the craft, and landed back home. The contract is still incomplete. Has anyone had something like this happen before? What should I do other than make changes to the save file?

It's time for Valentina to rescue Jeb from orbit over Minmus. Everything was going well until she got distracted with non-essential communications in the cockpit and missed the end of her burn. She recovered nicely and Jeb was able to board the lander can, remembering to take all of his sweet, sweet science with him. The return to Kerbin was almost ruined by flying around the Mun the wrong way, but Valentina noticed this error in time and everyone returned home safely despite a design flaw in the rocket that briefly had her questioning whether the parachutes could slow down the craft enough. Valentina immediately returned to space -- again without batteries on her craft(!!) -- simply to plant another flag on the Mun. Val, the adrenaline junkie that she is, showed very little emotion with her accomplishments as the mission went off without a hitch. However, upon returning home, she was thrilled with the fact that the space program had ONE MILLION DOLLARS in the bank!! With all of the new research Jeb's and Val's expeditions brought the program, it was finally time to send some probes to the Mun for docking. With both probes about 20-30km apart, I realized I no longer had full probe control and could not get the RCS thrusters to fire. It mattered not, as with both probes set to target each other, I was able to just watch them automatically drift towards each other as they went about their orbits until they finally docked!

Having done some rescue missions to build up some funds, it's time to go to Minmus for real. I suppose we can rescue some more astronauts though, because the contracts were very lucrative. After a scare at launch -- the rocket almost tipped over before launch -- everything came together quite nicely. Even though I encountered Minmus going the wrong way relative to the stranded astronauts, I was able to set up a maneuver with one of them while setting up my first correction burn. With that done, rescuing the 2nd one was just trivial. And, as if I weren't lucky enough, one of them was a scientist, meaning I could reset my science apparatus for even more gains. After all that, it was time to land on Minmus. Learning my lesson, we used the "grabby towers" to ensure stability at launch. As you know, landing on Minmus is a lot easier than landing on the Mun, so there's nothing special to report. Jeb did have a lot of fun doing a little bit of biome hopping to grab more science, though. Unfortunately, the craft ran out of electric charge (who knew the Terrier didn't have an alternator??) so Jeb parked himself in orbit and awaits rescue...once again.

Using some new parts that became available after rescuing Jeb, it's time to start building some real rockets and go to Minmus (and beyond?). Oh, yeah...Val still needs to be rescued doesn't she? Turns out some other guy got stranded around the Mun as well (per a contract). Jeb is horrified to discover that Val and the other guy are traveling in opposite directions around the Mun. No matter: he quickly realized he could simply grab Val, fly out to Minmus, and then go back to the Mun. That way, he could approach the Mun the same direction as the stranded kerbals' respective orbits each time. His flight plan is very inefficient, but it works. What's the rush anyway? Space is beautiful. Or was it all a sneaky plan to spend some quality time with his best lady friend, before the 5th wheel climbs on board? Either way, it all goes off without a hitch and the three pilots make it home safe and sound. As an added bonus, the program has earned enough money to upgrade the woefully inadequate VAB.

.23 in March/April of 2014 after watching a bunch of videos from Robbaz. I still get a kick out of the time he sent a rescue mission to Duna but forgot to leave an open seat in the command pod so he had one of the extras try to hang onto the ladder during the launch back home. It didn't work...

With flight planning and an actual pilot, it's time to try bringing Jeb and Val back home. To recap, Val was stranded on EVA in a garbage orbit around the Mun while Jeb was actually still on the surface. The newly acquired and quite heroic pilot parked himself in orbit of the Mun while Jeb used up all the fuel left on his craft to get into orbit and make the rendezvous as fuel efficient as possible for the rescue craft. Even still, there was barely enough fuel to get back home safely. Jeb, the hero that he is, immediately prepares for a return to space to rescue Valentina and...some other guy.

I finished my "Explore Eve" contract that required a flyby of Eve and returning a vessel back to Kerbin. I had sent a very basic probe out there. The only way I could get it back home was to fly directly to Kerbin and aerocapture. Even so, I had < 100m/s left with a ridiculously eccentric "orbit". I realized it had no parachutes so the plan was to push the Pe back out past 70k and fly Bill over to slap a parachute on. In true Gammy form, I forgot to redeploy the solar panels and the probe died...still in its suborbital trajectory. All that meant was I needed to take a battery along with the parachutes. Bill did a great job and everything got back home safely. Now I get to do the "Explore Duna" contract! The EVA construction thing is pretty much the coolest feature in this game if you ask me. It's kinda sad how many awesome updates I missed between 2018 and this year.

I finally build up enough funds to upgrade things enough to get flight planning so I can complete some rescue missions. But with both pilots stranded in space, and not enough funding to hire another one, Bill takes some drastic measures to save the entire space program from going belly up. Fortunately for him, it works (even if just barely), because the penalties for stealing a rocket and flying without a license are pretty severe. The rescue missions are lucrative enough as it is, but when you factor in the money saved by getting free astronauts, they're almost completely broken. Jeb and Valentina are still stuck out there, but at least the prospects of bringing them home are a lot less grim.

My most recent "failure": I tried bringing a probe back to Kerbin from a flyby of Eve. I was just barely able to get it into orbit of Kerbin with the help of some very light aerobraking (60km). I have about 100m/s left with an Ap just inside Kerbin's SOI. Anyway, I had retracted the solar panels before entering the atmosphere. I warped several days to Ap so I could push the Pe back out into orbit only to realize I never redeployed the panels and the probe is now dead. Did I mention I needed to send an engineer to attach a parachute to it because I also realized I had no way to land the thing anyway? I guess I'll be taking a battery with me as well...

False. I celebrated a return from the surface of Eve by going cow tipping later that night. No, wait...it turns out that I've been playing on and off for 7 years and Eve is the only actual surface I've never returned from.

Thanks to her jetpack, Valentina is able to end up in an orbit around Mun. It's a crappy orbit, but at least she's alive. With Valentina's safety assured, it's up to Jeb to collect as much science and funding as he can for our fledgling space program...but he apparently can't help but break stuff just for fun. When he's done screwing around, we upgrade Mission Control and send him to the surface of Mun (still without flight planning) to fulfill several contracts at the same time. He lands safely, becoming the first kerbal to set foot on another celestial body...but it might just be the last body he touches for quite some time.