Mister Dilsby

Been meaning to get one myself--they come with USB output now! - - - Updated - - - I actually did not use Build Aid, just spread the Vernor thrusters around and let it go at that. As you may have noticed in the comic, AG6 toggles them on/off (otherwise hilarity would ensue whenever I pressed 'K' during a normal RCS maneuver). They ended up close enough to centerline that the monopropellant thrusters and reaction wheels can generally hold attitude. - - - Updated - - - Thank you, that's quite a compliment! I've been reading through the old pages myself to re-acquaint myself with the canon (see other thread, but if anyone starts making artillery homonym puns over here, so help me...) before I return to the Hummlebee Four characters in earnest.

Honestly, it's a bit hard to pick a favorite for the poll yet--there are many characters to choose from and a LOT going on at once in the text. I think I'll be able to differentiate better between them all once your Kerbals get into space and start doing stuff there

Oh sure, I actually flew it around Kerbin a bit before I took off for Duna, and landed it off-runway a couple of times. Initial trials just lifted off from the runway on the aerospikes, not using Orange Knight. I'm not a complete munatic! This was all back in 1.0.2, but hopefully once Hummlebee gets through re-entry the aero will be similar enough in 1.0.4.

Some attempts are successful, some are not. We don't know yet which kind this will be. But as Gretzky Kerman once said, "You miss 100% of the maneuver nodes you don't set." - - - Updated - - - Says the guy who bothered to drive around Gilly Well, he's the last 'boat' driver in the Eve system who can reach a working spacecraft, so maybe that will give him some more to do when the story rolls back around. Or else I make a running gag about ignoring him...

Well that's certainly true--but isn't SQUAD really just distributing the game and leaving all the storytelling to us? It's not like there is a KSP movie out there that tells us what Jeb's first mission was or explains the island runway. So yes, we are fans writing fiction, but what we are fans of is not a fictional story. It is a framework intentionally left open so that almost any kind of fictional story can be built on it--or none at all. Though it is fair to say that the orange-suit characters each have a "stock" (forgive the term) personality based on their in-game behavior and what few characterizations SQUAD have made in promo materials. Every fan-made work I've seen so far stays true to that, and one of the main things I've tried to do in my work is to add some depth to the "stock" characters of Val, Jeb, Bob and Bill.

You tell 'em Joeely! Though now that you've mastered that one plane (which does have a parachute after all so not sure why you're so nervous) you just might be able to not crash the next one.

I can't tell you that yet, Pete. What I can give you is a rough idea of what will update soonest over the next few weeks. --First I'll ease everyone back into D,OB! with a brief interlude sequence. --Then probably we come back to E:O0 for an interlude/epilogue to Ch3 which will unfortunately raise more questions about Bob's and Tedus's fate than it answers. --Then back to D,OB! and fast forward to Hummlebee's (attempted) return to Kerbin. This will finish that book. --And finally the Kerbfleet saga continues in E:O0 (likely including some events that occurred while Hummlebee was en route to Kerbin) where I promise the story which has had a Beginning and most of a Middle will have the rest of the Middle and an End. And that is all I am going to say about that. J'ai dit! - - - Updated - - - Well, it took longer than I thought it would--which one of you clowns voted for Gregmore? I finally voted myself, for Tedus. My original intent in writing this was to make it all about Dilsby's struggles to command a doomed mission, but Tedus's banter with Bob got to be so much fun it gave him a larger role. In fact he grew on me so much it literally saved his life. (Yes, I was originally not even going to try to save him!) So Tedus gets my vote for exceeding the author's expectations and taking the story somewhere I wasn't originally going to go.

What I like best about your mod is that it adds the life support dimension but is simple and fun. Therefore my vote is to: 1) Not allow parts to age please. Nothing else in the game wears out--engines don't need to get overhauled, you can recycle Mystery Goo indefinitely, etc. If you had filters etc that needed to be cleaned out by an engineer, OK--but I really don't want to have to decommission ships because their stuff wore out. 2) This I like, having a 'happiness' factor for each Kerbal. Their "Dumb" stat and BadS flag should factor into it. Unhappy Kerbals should be less efficient--maybe degrading their rank-based abilities, slowing movement, etc. 3) Yes, you should be able to pull off a resupply by taking the effort to get the new stuff in the general area of the crew. Not being able to do so would be reminiscent of back when a Kerbal could get stuck on the ground because there was a 10cm step to get to the hatch and no ladder In general, I say keep it simple! I think a good design rule to keep in mind is that it should be possible for the user to build an indefinitely self-sustaining long haul spacecraft if desired.

Interesting--most folks are describing origin theories, rather than a canon per se which I would define here as the officially published material (history and facts) pertaining to a fictional universe. For instance, it is Kerbfleet canon that there exists on Kerbin a kind of snake called a 'kobra', because Lisa Kerman made a reference to it on page 54 of "Duna, Ore Bust!" There are probably other animals on Kuzzter's version of Kerbin but no canon exists for them because they haven't been mentioned*. If I ever make refernce to a kow or a kougar in the strip that will instantly become canon--but for now, they are not. Of course every time new content appears in an ongoing work the canon builds. This is the fun part, especially when multiple creators are playing in the same universe--the general rule is that nothing can contradict existing canon without some sort of justification. For example, I've made it canon that due to transmission time limitations probes have to be controlled by a nearby Kerbal pilot. If I were to suddenly show a probe landing on Eeloo with no crewed ships in the area, I would be violating my own canon. Anyway, some people like to design the whole thing from the start (like sumghai, whose stuff is extremely detailed and definitely worth a read!), and some like to let it flow. Since I'm drawing from a lot of parody sources I have to keep it loose, I wouldn't want to avoid a good joke just because something I'd written down previously contradicts the new material. I mean, today it was a Simon and Garfunkel reference--imagine if I'd already made it canon that every male Kerbal has the exact same haircut! *ETA: whoops, I did mention kittehkatts a couple of times. But that's it so far.

You know what else I like? When someone gives me exactly enough rep to make the total a full multiple of 5.

Elcano Ablate. Hey, at least you can hyperedit to the surface...

I played the old v0.18 demo for a few weeks before I got the full version, and I had a heck of a time landing on the Mun. My ships were too tall for their base (not an uncommon problem when restricted to the demo game parts kit) and I had simply not yet mastered the art of thrusting to the navball markers. However I did learn the trick of landing a rocket on its side, 'breakdancing' with SAS and mashing the throttle as soon as the nose was pointed to space

Nope, I waited to about 8000m, ejected Bob, took some screenshots, opened his chute, and pressed "[" to switch to Tedus who was still within 2km of the capsule. Landed Tedus, then IIRC went to map view and switched to Bob's capsule which was still coming down at ~3m/s. Landed him, ran down the street high-fiving random strangers, returned to desk and made the comic.

I got lucky--'hydrazine' rhymes with 'magazines' - - - Updated - - - Not sure if you included these on your version, but never forget Hummlebee's secret weapon!

It sure does, but just in case you don't want to click before it's time--it's time!

And now, back to our Duna team as they head on home... Not sure how well-known the original is outside the US or with thekidsthesedays, so .

Wow, that's quite a compliment, I'm not sure I've ever been 'replica'd Orange Knight is darn tough to fly. Runway control problems are often due to landing gear placement, so be sure yours is in dead straight. I'd debug by trying to lift off without the Hummlebee attached. Once you're airborne unless you did a better job balancing than I did you will have to manually adjust engine output as you go to avoid flipping. Good luck!

I would really encourage not judging anyone who wants to hide rep. They've got their reasons. I'm sure there are those who would judge us for what we post here. As long as no one is trying to 'have it both ways' it should not be a problem. And whatever happens with WBG, there will still be a white bar option for the forum--which I think is a good thing overall. I recommend a quick scan of Upsilon's original LGG list which existed before the white bar was a forum option, and noting which names on that list no longer show rep. We would miss any names that got their first bar after Upsilon's last update and then went white, but I think that's OK. Carry RIC and others in a "Gone, But Not Un-Repped" section and that's that. I would be happy to do that work if you would like, Endersmens.

Well when you do get around to it... just hit [][][][][] thanks to a chapter end and a well-timed troll-smacking. W00t! Thanks Forum!

oh, don't worry about that. It's on course to pass through Eve SOI and has plenty of fuel to slow down... I think.

Nope, I definitely did not want that. Fortunately I had enough fuel after going to abort 2 to make sure I was over land. Here's where they ended up, I uninstalled clouds temporarily so you can have a clear picture The ship to left of Dipperkraft is of course Bob's capsule, 9.2km away. Coordinates plotted if anyone wants to look up the location on kerbalmaps.com Land there is pretty flat, 1000-1100m. You can see the probe some distance east of Bob and Tedus, and that lander Alouette orbiting behind the planet. - - - Updated - - - Thank you, welcome aboard!

Always been a Pentax man myself, though just moved over to a Lumix micro4/3... but anyways, while I think a lot about this sort of thing I find it very difficult to write it down. For me, there is a (hopefully) self-consistent set of rules for my personal Kerbalverse that I try to make come through in the comics. I'd rather reveal it than explain it

I pretty much assume mine are hibernating whenever I'm not looking at them, it's the only explanation for their indefinite survivability. Whether or not that goes away in 1.1, after the Eve saga concludes I plan to add the USI Life Support mod. I suppose that means (1) I have to retconn the need for life support and (2) all the crews in Kerbfleet's various orbiting/surface labs will have to "come home for supper" since their vessels have no NOMS and no way to make them.

Followed you here from the Eve thread--nice work on the Potato, and welcome to the Forum!

I'm finding it hard to choose myself: if I pick based on which one I liked writing the most, which one got the reader reactions I liked most, and which one I would like the most as a reader, I come up with three (or maybe four) different answers.