Mister Dilsby

Well, we're not going to discuss politics on the Forum of course...but yeah, if I can ever bait DJT into a Twitter war with a Kerbal, I think I will have won the Internet forever

Not long

Oh good, I've not gone crazy Thanks for taking this on Red

So, no proper update today but we have some progress in the so-called "mission" part of this mission report. Posting some pics because we might not catch up to Intrepid in Chapter 15 until she's in Bop orbit (haven't decided). After a successful liftoff, Val finds Intrepid in polar orbit right where she left her. Here's Qwammer on final approach to Q-bay. Jool, Laythe and Tylo visible in background, Vall in fore. Captin on the bridge! Welcome back, Val! Here's our ejection burn from Vall orbit... And with that burn completed, we just need a planar correction to intercept Bop. I will most likely not attempt to land the ship on Bop, the terrain is ridiculous and gravity is a bit worse than Pol. But we'll see how I feel about that after the 11th or 12th Qwammer mission. :/

Thank you! It was driving me crazy, I checked through all of the E:O0 and AJO .png files twice and couldn't find it--I had forgotten that those pages of D,OB! actually appeared after the Dilsby pages in O0 .

I do take a lot of umbrage, don't I? It's OK Dman, and to be clear there are are some things I plan out way in advance--months, or sometimes years ahead , as in the case Dman cited. But there are also things I decide on a much shorter timescale, and some things that don't get written until they're actually happening. The big elements, the What This Story Is Really About stuff, of course that's already decided. And just like in the example above of Jeb spotting Kerbulus, I do spend some time and some panels preparing the story before those big elements happen. Another thing I've said before is that I do not tend to spend time telling a story that I do not intend to go anywhere. The "Kerbahashi Maru" scenario Dman mentions is a good example of this. I used Dislby's experience with the simulator in Eve: Order Zero to go a bit deeper into his character and explore the theme of a person struggling with command responsibility--which was a big part of the story (and not just for Dilsby) in that book. Then I flashed back to it when Dilsby ordered Tedus to abort to surface. Looking back at those pages, I can see a lot of elements that have made their way into the present story (I still laugh at how alike some elements of the bridge are to Intrepid's) Are there still bits and pieces of clues in there, or in Val's simulator flashback [Which I can't seem to find the link to! Did I really write it?] , that have yet to appear in Jool Odyssey? Maybe, maybe not. But yeah, if you want to get some idea of where I'm going next in a story, you can do worse than to look at what I've already shown you This is one of those things that I haven't decided yet At minimum, of course, updating to 1.2 cannot change the story towards a direction I don't want to go. We'll see, I have a few possibilities in mind for when the 'disturbance' occurs...

No worries, it saves me having to explain anything.

Hey, what were we just talking about? Just weave that disaster into the story, right? Nothing an author of your caliber can't handle! But seriously, best of luck--worst case is a revert to the last 1.1.3 savefile perhaps?

Just whatever you do, don't make the doors open. The only proper way into a '69 Charger is through the window. (after butt-sliding across the hood, of course.)

Well, I don't often show it on-page, but we (that is, Bill and I) do use F5 quite a bit and I admit sometimes even F9. Hey, sometimes I'm too busy getting awesome screenshots to pay attention to little things like "terrain" and "altitude", OK? ...and anyway, while we did indeed F5 several times in and around the Vallhenge anomaly, no beam was observed until Clauselle sent the five tones.

Well, the shot did miss by at least a million meters--if Intrepid did know their location they have a funny way of showing it Honestly, sometimes I don't even know. Seriously. I didn't even decide on the whole "death laser persistence upload" thing until Qwammer was parked on the surface next to it.

Well, I suppose we can have a bit more... This is likely the end of Chapter 14, unless I think of something else I need to wrap up before Intrepid leaves Vall for Bop

A few brushes with this sort of thing early on are the whole reason Kerbfleet Bill can do what Kerbfleet Bill can do But yeah, writing interesting fiction tied to an actual mission is very, very hard and @Just Jim is great at it. Some call it "serialized" storytelling, as was often done in the 19th century, but it's even worse than that--Dickens never had to publish his story updates in between articles from his own critics, and he never had to deal with things like his "spirit visitation/time travel" mod not getting updated

Please. I was a tuba player, I can't even sight-read the top of the bass clef. (Sure, I play trombone now, but my motto is "I was just on my way to the right note") I had to keep repeating to myself, "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge" to get that last panel right. Never feel bad for having lived! But hey, you're probably one of the few around here who reads treble so that counts for something too.

It's certainly no dumber than anything I've done.

OK, for those of you who didn't stay in band (and those of you who did, but whose memories don't go back to 1977) I think this is as good a clip as any to explain that sequence of tones: Hm... just because I didn't think of that doesn't mean I'm not going to use it.

Hopefully you don't have to be too much of a musician to figure out where this is going

I'm still catching up, so I've not really thought much about it yet. At minimum of course the Intrepid and other continuing craft would have to be able to load, so I would have to make sure all my part mods and texture replacer (for uniforms) were updated before I tried to port. Eek! I wonder if it's something that I can correct in the USI config file, or if it's truly save-breaking? I guess I'll find out when I finally download 1.2! In the meantime...

Yeah, that was so cool! And when I get home from work I'll show you how to trim images from quotes.

You're not far off--and add to that, F) catching up on the job they actually pay me for, after a few days away But here's something else for the KSP fan to appreciate; the sidewalk outside Air&Space features a scale model of our Solar System! That's @Nimzo Kerman and his sister standing with the inner planets. Jupiter and the others are several more tour bus lengths down the road. You can see the size of the sun in the model; the gas giants are about the size of marbles, and Earth is just a coarse grain of sand. Each planet's plaque includes that planet as well as its major moons, with orbits to scale.

So, we're back. New comics will appear...when they appear

Hmm... If you really thought that was a possibility, then why on Kerbin would you post such a thing and ruin the story for everyone? But I think it's fair to say that no one will connect ALL the dots between all the clues and foreshadowing and Chekhov guns etc etc. So speculate away! In any case I don't comment on the veracity of fan theories for what will happen next, ever. And I like the posts I like, for no reason other than that I like them. That's it. Well, really they're a mashup of Romulans and Mirror Universe with a little Klingon thrown in

Wow, I must have achieved some crazy levels of fame if people are guessing based on which theories I repped. Either that or people have no idea what to do in a week with no comic Reallu, I rep things that amuse me. That's all. If I didn't rep something though, it doesn't mean that it didn't amuse me. But it could! Now that amused me. Also it would be a lot less work for me than Plan A,

Well, we did tour the WH gardens yesterday but didn't see any family, oh well. Spent about an hour in Air&Space and will probably make a longer visit today...one of the exhibits I enjoy most is the scale model of the solar system outside the museum; stand at Jupiter, the size of a marble, and see the orbits of the inner planets and the bocce ball sun down the block. Turn around to see just how far out the outer planets are, the distances are mind-boggling! It's something I haven't worked on in a while but would like to get back to: a long duration explorer ship like Intrepid, but without the hangar and air wing. Hoping to get back to it as Jool Odyssey winds down