Mister Dilsby

And never fear True Believers, I have not gone away again, just got very busy. Am laying out the next page or two to close the chapter. You might not see them today but you will see them.

I’m pretty sure I used kellycams for Kerbulan units of distance before but I can’t guarantee the spelling. Evil Bob’s dialogue confirms that the Kerbulan kellycam is equivalent to the Kerbal kilometer.

Yes. In-comic, that is exactly what happened. Or that! (though the fighter did enter atmosphere with a full tank, and I did have to alt-F12 halfway to the island I wanted) My general rule in this just-finish-the-comic / cheaty-cheat-cheat era is that if there is at least one legitimate way I could do a thing without cheating, then it's OK for me to cheat and get it done. I'm willing to cheat more than that if what I'm doing does not affect the main thread of what started out as a legitJool-5 mission, and if it results in really good comics. Notably, this occurred when I put nacelles on KV-6 in order to achieve Uchū Kūbo Entāpuraizu coolness. Otherwise, it's fundamentally important to me that this story stand as something that could have happened, and mostly did, within the boundaries of KSP 1.x.

Well, with all the exposition and koffee talk dialogue it's actually been a while since I tried to fly anything legit. I guess I've still got it? Though I did lose the starboard small monopropellant tank [ETA: and the docking port] on the Gumdrop in the crash. Ah well. You know what they say in the Air Service. The crash itself was a lot of fun, since I had Infinite Fuel hack running (cheaty-cheat cheat!) and I forgot to turn off the Kerbulan fighter's engine before the ship broke apart. So the tail end splashed around for a really, really long time. I was a bit worried it would slam into Dilsby before he could get the Gumdrop out of physics range. Good times! And RE: that infinite fuel--yeah, the plan was always (like, 8+ years always) to drop Evil Jeb in the ocean somewhere and get Dilsby on an island as far away as possible. I'm pretty sure I could have done that legit, e.g. by dropping Jeb really high up, orbiting, and then making a precisely targeted re-entry so that Dilsby could make his crash landing before running out of gas. But seeing as I want to finish this book sometime soon and in the limited time I have to spend on it, I just flew Dilsby here after the drop-off.

@Angelo Kerman, that is a VERY interesting and insightful question! And unless the ISS Despair bridge crew went really deep into the expository weeds back in Chapter 10, pages 18 and 19, there's no way Kenlie or any of the other Kerbals could possibly know the answer. But I think I might know someone else who does, someone who is right now (grudgingly) enjoying the best koffee of his cruel and violent life.

Ha! Just about exactly what I was going for. Having already esta-Bill-eshed that such devices were in common use, I couldn't exactly make that the out for Evil (but with integrity!) Bob. Oh no, I take a bit more care than that i should hope. I'm sure plenty of people around here can read Russian, and if I got anything wrong I'm sure one of them will tell me. I felt exactly the same way. I needed someone to help me wrap up this story with ruthless efficiency, and there he was!

Chapter 15 began with this post. Read all of Chapter Fifteen ("Til You Drop) here.

Well, truth be told I may be taking a little shortcut. We're getting close to whatever the end is, and frankly it's just more efficient if the main people who need to talk next can do it in the same room. Especially when getting visual effects right can mean an hour of flying people around in jetpacks, dealing with helmet bugs, and trying to orient bridge sets sunny-side up for better lighting etc., for just a couple of panels. If there's any concern about continuity etc., well I did hang a lampshade with the thread title. I was considering having Evil Bob throw even more snark than his "abusing crew transfers" comment by pointing out that the "turbolifts" are just part-clipped lander cans, and why couldn't he just transfer into a docked landing craft? Well if he could do that, why did the boarding parties have to burn through bulkheads etc. to get aboard? I'm certainly not going to explain it! This is why the author's crew compartment is as well-stocked with lampshades as KSP craft are with flags and EVA propellant. Who's to say? A couple of thoughts from a similarly mirrored situation: (1) It is far easier for civilized [kerbs] to behave like barbarians than it is for barbarians to behave like civilized [kerbs], BUT, (2) ruthlessly evil or not, it is possible to be a "[kerb] of integrity" in more than one universe.

Well.. Evil Bob is many things. The Chosen One? Not so sure. Also I'm old enough to remember watching Episode IV in the theater, so the prequels and sequels can HEYOOO my sweet WATCH IT NOW!!

Just noticed the punctuation typo in first panel, will fix later

Yes! Dilsby is now in Jeb’s fighter, and Jeb’s fighter is docked to the Gumdrop—which was originally docked to Dilsby’s fighter, and… oh right I forgot

Thank you both! I have had the advantage of thinking about this for a few years. I'm happy I got away with it, and also happy I don't have to keep so many unconnected objects in close orbit any more. If you squint you can just barely see the edge of the Gumdrop Dilsby picked up peeking out behind his Kerbulan fighter in the last panel posted on 10 March. Of course, hiding that docked Gumdrop is exactly why Dilsby is thrusting in the ventral direction towards Evil Jeb and not following the standard convention for orienting a ship engaged in space combat.

Hey! So I've got bad news and good news. The bad you already know, and it's that I haven't been able to make any new pages since that single one last week. My work spilled over to the weekend this week, and I also had to do my taxes. But the very GOOD news is--while searching my gmail for a receipt I needed, I came across a series of emails from a defunct account to my current one, with loads of Kerbfleet stuff attached (uniforms, flags, etc), some ships--and a persistence file! Of course, at this point thanks to Angelo I have the ships and we're running along nicely with the story when I have the time--so even if I could find an old copy of KSP (and all the mods!) that could actually run that persistence file, it wouldn't make too much difference to telling the story. BUT now at least I'll have all the characters with their appropriate stats, and there are probably some other helpful goodies buried in there... when I actually have time to open all the files and start copying and pasting, which is not now. It's not this week either, as I'll be traveling for work and won't have my KSP machine with me.

I'll leave this here while we all wait for the next pages: Caught Monologuing

Well: I didn’t know that until you mentioned it—but if I don’t need it I’m not downloading, I have enough problems!

Yeah I probably should not have chosen this as a new name--I wasn't truly trying to make Dilsby Kerman an author avatar, or heavens forbid a Marty Stu. it's just that since "giving up" the comic years ago I've more or less used the name Dilsby throughout my online personae... and even when I rejoined I didn't think I was going to get that deep into it again until I saw what @Angelo Kerman had accomplished-- But, as the Kerbulans might say, the die is cast and we have crossed the Rubikon! Whatever Dilsby does next is and how that all works out was all plotted out five years and a couple of hard drives ago. And as to this: Seeing as "no plan has ever survived contact with the enemy" and that "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face", it's not a spoiler to say you might be on to something there. xD

And for what it's worth--space combat is RIDICULOUS. As any episode of ST:TNG will attest, getting the two ships in frame for a reasonably good shot puts them orders of magnitude closer than 21st century ground units, let alone where you would expect spacecraft to fight. To get this shot, Evil Jeb and Dilsby's ships are only about 50 meters apart.

For posterity since I’ll change the thread and title with next update—it was “Re-Balance of Terror!” Thank you! What made mine was finding a five year old PowerPoint file where I’d already built the Kerbulan pistol and knife!

Hi Spikemaster, here's how you embed images: just get the direct link to the image in your Imgur album (generally by viewing the images separately, or just right-clicking on it in the imgur album) and then paste the link in your post, like this: ...and welcome to the Forum!