Mister Dilsby

Lies, lies, rumors and more lies! But anyway back to the topic of Emiko Station, sometimes we have to treat the pages as a mission report and sometimes we have to treat them as a comic. In this case regardless of how the shot was made, Jim clearly meant it to be the Emiko asteroid extinction-eventing KSC. That sort of thing is hard to do for reals, even with hyper-edit, so let's put away the tinfoil headgear and accept the shots at face value.

Don't be ridiculous. I'd have to design and build a completely new class of high-endurance mining cruisers. I'd also need a crew that I either didn't care about, or was completely battmulch crazy. Or both.

Now it's time. I expect to finish the chapter in the next update--there are a lot of special images I need to shoot, so it'll take me some time.

Please don't poke the author. Pages come when they come.

Wonderful! Suspense, destruction, intrigue. @Geschosskopf fits right in as a rock-shaman. I just have one warning, and one complaint: Warning: Go watch every episode of the first two seasons of ST:TNG. Take notes of everything they do with precocious lad Wesley Crusher, who started out trying to insert himself into the bridge crew and ended up being accepted as as cadet. DO NOT DO THOSE THINGS. Complaint: I love being a character in you comic and all, but really you have to keep it believable. Everyone knows I'd never go to Dres.

I just wait until I miss the KSC by a little bit, and I don't clean up the debris. Problem solved Landing an SSTO right now, targeting pieces of a prototype mining vehicle that crashed just east of Mt. Whoopstooshort.

This is a really good insight. I have to say that not a lot sticks to me from reading Sentinels. I get threads of conflict--kerbals versus asteroids versus Mort, for example, but what I think I'm not seeing is a real arc with a beginning, middle, and end. Your Kerbals do tend to "romp" (great word!), rather than develop along with their role in the conflict. You might pick one relationship, or personal struggle for a single kerbal, and focus on that--let that one thing play out as the conflict happens. Make sure that relationship or struggle changes in some irreversible way--for better or worse--in the course of that arc. Think of a beginning, middle and end to the arc and keep at it until you like what you're reading

This is loads of fun! Tempted to install KAS and have a go at this but I already have enough going on Might be really interesting to mess around with someone else's old save and see what you can find. Or perhaps a mod that takes random pieces from your VAB and SPH files and scatters them around the Kerbol system--now that'd be piracy!

One possible reason Jeb! didn't respond the first time could be that he's trying to keep the thread somewhere near the basic topic--which, if I recall correctly, was the OP's mission report and associated story.

Yes. What bromance languages lack in conjugalation... er, conjugation... they make up for with the "advanced declension" of some words. Notably, Dude (n.) Dude! (exclamatiory) Dude? (interrogative, general) Dude... (interrogative, sad) Dude (subjunctive) Duuuuude (ablative) etc.

You mean, write some comics that include pictures of those craft and shows them being used on missions? (*goes back in time*) OK, done. (*anticipates next question*) You mean, tell you how to build and fly an SSTO? Once again, I direct you to the many resources available on the Forum, in Spacecraft Exchange or in Gameplay Questions and Tutorials. And as a rule, I do not share craft that appear in the comic--I find that it limits the stories I can tell if everyone knows in advance what a craft can and cannot do.

We have a topic now?

Snipped an bulletized. This is really good advice. I agree with @Just Jim, couldn't have said it better. But I will elaborate nonetheless On lingual style and personality--yes, yes. This is especially important for stories that don't use Kerbalizer or somesuch, as there may not be a clear visual way to tell characters apart. Even in mine, where different specialties wear different color uniforms and speak with different color balloons, I don't rely on that alone to differentiate for the readers. I always mention a name at an appropriate point in the dialogue, or use a 'portrait window' with the name labeled. And then I make sure that character is unique. The one time I realized I was not succeeding in doing that, I put a lampshade on it and Gregmore was born. Relationships--REALLY really important in any fiction. Why should a reader care deeply about characters if they don't care deeply about each other? Good writing tells readers what to pay attention to, by sharing attention unequally. Good writing tells readers what to care about, by caring unequally--the same way a photographer intentionally leaves the background of a portrait out of focus. Focus time on individuals--Critical with a large cast, absolutely critical. It's the 'selective focus' thing all over again. Sometimes you just have to get Picard and Riker out of the way, and tell a story about someone else. Then when that someone else comes back into the mainstream he adds so much to the fabric of the main cast. An idea like this was the beginning of the Kenlie interludes. Conflict--No story is complete without it. When I see a story on the Forum that isn't achieving orbital velocity, it's usually because the conflict isn't clear, or isn't believable enough that there are stakes the reader will care about. Fighting against the destruction of all Kerbin? Brain in a jar that hungers for the flesh of worlds? Now we're getting somewhere. Structure-- Another tripping point for a lot of stories. You need a beginning, a middle, and an end. One might think the beginning's the easiest, but it's rarely any good if the author doesn't have any idea of what the end will be. The middle's tough as well, especially if there are subplots to execute and resolve in time for the big finish. Chess master Rudolf Spielmann said, "Play the opening like a book, the middle game like a magician, and the endgame like a machine." I think this goes for writing as well. Many might object to writing any part of the story like a "machine". But I think the analogy holds, in a way. The beginning of the story sets expectation. It needs to stay familiar to the readers, and more or less gently tell them what kind of story this is going to be. So we stay with some tried and true formulae, there's some innovation, sure, but no deep shocks before they're ready. Just like executing a recipe "from a book". Once they're hooked, play the middle of the story "like a magician". Now is the time for innovation and daring. Now's when you really show why your story is different from anything else they've ever read before. Surprises! Tragedy! Joy! Terror! Leading to ..the end. "Like a machine"-- as a story winds up we know it's winding up. Listen to the last 16 bars of any symphony and tell me it doesn't sound like the last 16 bars of a symphony. We prepare the reader for the ending. Subplots are resolved. Loose ends are tied up neatly, but not "deus ex" neatly. We lay the groundwork for a future story, sure, but make it clear that we have done everything we set out to do in this one, leaving the reader thrilled, satisfied, and wanting to read another Beginning very soon.

Darn it, so close (and so sorry, out of replikes again). Usually moar boosters always works, 75% of the time. Although usually it's more of the same boosters

Fine. MISSION CONTROL GENE: Come on in, Samantha! You’ve done very well piloting the Derpstar. Do you think you could handle… a Gliido? SAM: A Gliido? The world-famous, all-liquid-fuel, high-performance SSTO backbone of the Air Service? GENE: Yes, that Gliido. SAM: Could I ever! GENE: I thought you might say that. We need you to pick up a crew from LKO. It’s the kerbs the press are calling the “Minmus Four” SAM: The ones with… SPACE MADNESS? GENE: Don’t worry, it’s not contagious. We might also need you to drive a rocket. I know you’re Air Service, but the fact is we don’t have any Fleet pilots on the ground right now, so-- UNKNOWN PILOT VOICE: Um, hello? GENE: Did you say something, Samantha? [NEW PAGE] SAM: No, Gene, That was Gregmore. GENE: Who? SAM: Gregmore! Junior Looty Gregmore Kerman. He was Alouette’s pilot on the Eve mission. He’s landed on Gilly and he’s a three-star Fleet pilot. GENE: Um... SAM: He’s standing right next to me! GREGMORE (yes, GREGMORE!) : Gee, thanks Samantha! You remembered all that about me? SAM: I wrote it on this card. GREGMORE: Oh. GENE: That does sound familiar. Hang on, let me check… (reading a copy of Eve: Order Zero) All right, there’s Dilsby, Clauselle… heh, those crazy Battbots! Oh yeah, there he is! It’s all coming back to me now! Mister Gregmore, you’ll fly the resupply mission for Micarooni Station. Samantha, report to the runway—you take off in ten minutes! [NEW PAGE] CONTROL TOWER: *SKKRRT* Ahhh... Gliido Six Eight Eight, you are cleared for takeoff. *SKKRRT* SAM: (thinking) Sweeeet. (out loud) Roger that, Tower, Gliido rolling. [T] [Z] [1] (Gliido takes off) Woo hoo! _______ ETA: Ok that was strange. I put [P A G E] (without the spaces) to indicate a page break, and the Forum made it some kind of actual linked pagebreak. So much for WYSIWYG!

Nothing like a good portmanteau word It took me a long time of experimenting, reading others' methods, trial and error before I perfected the Gliido. I'm sure @Just Jim had the same experience with his Diamondback. So there's no easy answer for you, but I just did quick search on the term "SSTO Tutorial" and turned up this There's lots of other great help and advice in the Gameplay Questions section, if you haven't been there yet. Canonically, everyone can now see him thanks to Samantha's magical index card. Does someone need a transcript?

Sure it is, but "romance" doesn't make sense either in the Kuzzterverse, where the only "ship" is the Intrepid. What does one call a close but not "brotherly" relationship in real life? (searches...) OK, nothing good. So at the risk of seeing seventeen pages of back and forth on the suitability of various terms and the exact meaning of Val's boots, I'm going to propose that an especially close relationship between any two Kerbals regardless of gender is called ... Weltraumfahrzeugträger.

Meanwhile, back at... So yeah, it's time to do a little orbital cleanup while Intrepid refuels. Besides the "Minmus Four" (Kurt, Melgee (aka Not-Kurt), Dongun and Billy-Bobby) there's also the crew of Dwagonfly, the pilot I left aboard Kranefly, and a gaggle of scientists and pilots from the various decommissioned moon bases who have all congregated at Micarooni Station. Since we're running life support now I'll need to bring all those kerbs back to the surface except for the "lighthouse keepers" at Micarooni. Gregmore's mission will install food, recycling and greenhouses to keep them supplied. Kranefly and Dwagonfly will be de-orbited, and I'm working on a new high-endurance mining cruiser class to replace them. And then... we'll see

Sadly, the OP has not visited the Forum since (checking user profile...) 10 March 2015. So I think maybe he can't hear you

Well guess who's out of replikes? This guy! Once again great duplication of the scenes from the 2001 movie, particularly the centrifugal treadmill and the scary clawbot. You seem to be diverging from the 'script' a little more now, with ARL being quite different in personality from HAL, and bringing in a bunch of new stuff with Mama Bob etc. Will be very interesting to see where it all leads

Thanks @Red Iron Crown-- you do a much harder job than me around here and you do it extremely well. Whatever your rep score is, it really should have another zero or two added at the end.

I hear you. This was the first rover drop before F9: Somehow the docking port jr. on the rover exploded due to a 0.3m/s "collision" with the ramp. I think this was because I was still in the process of cycling POVs to take the picture. I lingered too long on Jeb (who is indeed still out on the flats a few hundred meters from the ship, doing ice angels or something). Also I landed too close to the old mine base so when I [ or ] I often go through there as well. Anyway, F5 early and often, especially with this many parts in physics range!

I probably won't use these images in the comic because it interrupts the flow of where i want to go next, but I thought they looked pretty good so here they are anyway--unpacking the rover so Sarge can drive Melbe out to collect some Science! Because there isn't head room for the driver, we have to drop it from the forward ramp uncrewed... ..Sarge hops into the seat as it rolls down the ramp... he's in! "Offer you a ride, ma'am?" And away they go! Mining's going well. Planning to shift back to Kerbin for a bit while we refuel.

That's OK, that's kind of a second-level way to tell them apart. I wouldn't expect a reader to have a crew roster and branch-of service reference in front of them. But if they did--only engineers wear red uniforms and speak with red speech balloons. There are three engineers aboard Intrepid: two are boy kerbs (Bill and Nimzo) and one is Clauselle. But like I said (and have said before) it's bad practice to expect everyone to remember that kind of thing no matter how famous the comic gets, that's why I had Clauselle say something French. But since that's also an English word (sort of) I can understand the confusion, and if even the Official Transcriptizer of Kerbfleet missed it, it's a good note that I need to be a bit clearer.

Well the ??? Is Clauselle of course, as the italicization means it's pronounced 'form-i-dah-bluh' and not 'form-id-ah-bull'. Also, red ballon and not a boy