Mister Dilsby

So just to be perfectly clear, the "B" pod is actually two bays mounted back to back. The lower half is directly between A and C, and the upper half sticks out on the dorsal side of the ship.

Thanks @Ehco Corrallo, really glad you liked this! But there is yet another complete comic between this one and the Jool one, all about Kerbfleet's mission to Eve. Chapters of that actually overlap with some of the later ones from this story. Link to the Eve thread is in my sig, and links to each chapter's imgur album (in proper story order) appear on the first post. Enjoy!

My opinion for a graphic novel is to use the absolute minimum of each to tell the story. Pacing is really important and difficult to get right. Let's take the example of a launch to orbit. How many words, panels, pages do you use to show that action? It depends on a lot of things. How unique is this launch? Is it the first one ever, and all of KSC is filled with fear and trepidation? Or is it the sixth orange tank this morning going up to fill the space station? A huge part of the writer's craft is in letting the readers know what they need to pay attention to. Pacing is one technique we use to do this. But if your pacing is drawn out, signaling there's a lot of interesting stuff going on, and you don't deliver--you lose their trust. Here's a couple of lifts to LKO from my work by way of example: Did you miss it? Well, hopefully the pictures made it clear Kenlie got to orbit--but that's not what's important. It's the log he's writing that's important, and getting to orbit is just backdrop. Contrast with: ...and the M7 STILL isn't in orbit! (it took one more page to circularize) Why spread this one out? Because-- --the mere fact Bill and Jeb are lifting off in this stolen ship is a huge plot point, requiring reader attention --I needed panel space to get in all of Mort and Bill's dialogue --I thought readers would want to bask in the awesome of Bobak and his team taking over KSC2 for more than a few panels --the M7 is a new ship that's going to feature prominently in the future story, when it lands on Eve. Extra panels help readers get familiar with it. --it was NOT a routine flight. There's interesting stuff in the way the ship flips, churns and still makes it on SSTO. Pacing! I don't claim to be a master, but I do think about it a lot

Exactly. I also thrive on feedback, both positive and otherwise. I think we'd agree that there is a world of difference between a post on an inactive thread that says "Hey, I really hope you continue, because it's a great story and I want to see what happens next!" and a post on an obviously active thread that asks exactly when it's going to be updated again. The writer in the former case might just need some encouragement. The writer in the latter probably needs a break. Hello! Yeah, we have a really great writing community with loads of stories to read and follow. Hope we get to see yours sometime!

Well, there's never a good time to ask me for more pages. When I have time to, I post daily. When I don't have time, I don't have time. Conversely, I think it's perfectly OK to comment on a story thread that hasn't been updated in a while if the poster has something relevant to say. Every now and then I get a new comment or a replike on the Duna thread or the Eve thread, from someone who's new to the forum or the stories and is just now seeing them for the first time. That always makes my day.

Hey, very nice! I see you made some improvements to the Billmobile Yeah, it probably could have used some solar panels, all I had on it was the RTG stashed in the service bay and of course lots of batteries

Oh, I think it obviously can be done. Since it's well-known that it's possible to land on all of those places and return from them individually, it stands to reason that one ship (loosely defined) could do it all. I wouldn't worry.

If it were me, I'd put docking ports on either end of a Mk1 capsule and insert that 'ship' into a variety of landers and ascent vehicles. Finish by docking a heat shield and parachute for the return to Kerbin surface. Then I would not be able to recover the capsule and win the award, because I would want to leave it parked outside the Astronaut Complex forever to inspire future generations of cadets.

Won't be a problem. I'll just show him a picture of someone shooting holes in the side of a cupola module and he'll be so distracted debunking/fansplaining it that he'll just sign the invoice, no questions asked.

This is not just the Grand Tour--this is the ULTIMATE tour! Looks like Rokea isn't requiring a crewed landing, but for the purposes of this Challenge thread Jim could give bonus honors for crew, single stage (LOL) or other feats. I'm tempted to try it myself in sandbox. I can certainly do everything but an Eve landing/ascent with the ship I'm working on now, and I could always add a module to get one probe core (or one Kerbal) down and up from there. Hmmm....

I would have to name the Kerbal in question "Jeff", then, to keep up with Sarjint Sarge True, except for Looty of course. OK, I'm thinking the best solution is to spell it Cheefe or Cheefy, but if I ever do introduce a senior Fleet NCO with that rank I'll make him Spanish-speaking and his rank will be given as "Jeffy" (same way Clauselle's is a "sous-leuti" rather than junior looty )

Yes. Whatever the actual value of work energy from recoil, (and yeah I think it's more like 5J than 500J) remember that in the expression W=F*d the F is the constant force acting on that mass to push it a distance d. In vacuum, even for a small force d can be infinite. So you can't use the work equation here. You'd use it to calculate how far you could push a mass if there was a force resisting the push. Example: Kenlie stands on the surface of Kerbulus and fires one shot straight down. He's using a special gun and ammo from @Geschosskopf industries with an available recoil energy of 500J. How high does he rise, neglecting air resistance? Answer: A constant force of 94kg* 9.8 m/s^2 = 921N (gravity) is resisting Kenlie's upwards motion. 500 N*m / 921N = 54 cm. In any case, momentum has to be conserved--thus I think my initial estimate of about 3cm/second per shot is correct. *sigh* Let's just assume he corrected with RCS between shots (with his left hand on the suit controls) and the double-tap happened fast enough that both bullets were on the way before he started spinning, OK? Or maybe I need to draw a different gun, something that shoots recoilless flechettes. Or he needs to dual-wield. Anyway, here's something new to distract everyone from the physics lessons

I think you may have misplaced a decimal, my friend. Are you telling me that if a 200lb man (94kg, close enough) stood on a hockey rink in nice sharp skates and fired a single 9mm round, he would be propelled backwards at over 7 1/2 miles per hour? That's Hollywood gun physics, that is

Whatever you do--do NOT "land" in the water!!!

Right, though I am doing my best to make the fuel flow monodirectional, to avoid the usual headaches of one symmetrical line taking precedence over another. As it stands I did just boost to orbit, with 4600 dV left in the tanks! (admittedly, there are no landers aboard nor lots of other equipment) However A pod seems to be contributing more than its fair share and draining faster than C, D and E. Debugging... maybe there's a stray line in there somewhere, hopefully I don't have to rip apart too much of the ship to figure out the problem.

Hey, thanks so much for putting this together, and revising it! Well, I dunno about the Cheef. I have to say I don't like that spelling, but I can't think of an alternate. Maybe it needs another e on the end? In any case, it's extremely likely we will never see a non-commissioned Fleet officer, so (much like with the KSS [REDACTED], whose 'real' name I've changed three times so far) I may delay that decision to give myself maximum flexibility

It's tough, yeah--I really do try to read everything, but let's face it, most new YAMLs (great term, by the way!) that start from Day 0 of career mode run out of enthusiasm and stop updating before they even really get going. I think this is because everybody who's played the game (and therefore, every reader on this site) has already done the first suborbit, first orbit, first Mun landing, etc. So, writers looking for acclaim and thousands of replikes don't get it, and they give up. Now if you want to write for the sake of having a record of your missions, who cares if anyone reads it? But if you want people to read your mission logs they have to find something in the log that isn't in theirs. I think that means doing a little worldbuilding, and it means visiting planets and moons outside of the Kerbin system. The world you build can be anything--the pop fiction mashup that is Kerbfleet, the dark mystery that is Emiko Station, the relentless doomsday timer that is Plan Kappa Omega. I don't think anyone can give you that, you have to make it up for yourself. Your "year of living kerbally" might just be the root of a concept no one has seen before. But then, the missions. Everyone's been to LKO, almost everyone has been to the Mun and Minmus, but I think people tune in to stories about other planets and moons for ideas on how to get there themselves (because not everyone knows how to do that) And since your solution for getting to those distant worlds will likely be unique (most are), it will be interesting. Good luck!

oO ... well, that's me being speechless. Drama! Sacrifice! Stun guns! This chapter has everything. No further comment at this time, as I don't want to spoil anyone who hasn't clicked the spoiler yet.

Thank you! Am cautiously optomistic that it will survive orbiting, its first refuel, and V1.1 in that order Good question. I think it'll be OK. This ship carries a lot more LF than OX, which means that the Rhinos in pods L and R will burn for (IIRC) less than a minute before they cut out. I'm intending to fire those only when I want the extra thrust, for example getting to LKO or shortening an ejection burn. Most of the work is done by the LV-Ns, which will run quite a bit longer. You're correct that pods A-D will run out first, leaving just the 12 engines fueled by pod H. However, each of A-D carries 30,000 units of LF while pod H is just two Mk2 tanks for a total of 1600 units. H is really just meant as a mounting point for the engines and a distribution hub. If I ever get to the point that A-D are drained and those engines cut out, I'm running on vapors anyway. And if I think I'm going to need ALL the LF, I can always pump pod H empty once the first 1600 units are consumed. BTW, fully loaded Kerbin TWR on LV-Ns alone should be right around 0.12-0.15, which I consider acceptable Rhinos would push it over 0.50, not bad for a ship that big.

And here is a line of text so you can quote me in the reply and NOT include the image

"People the Kerbulans go house?" Give me your agonizer!

I believe the answer to that is, "no".

I assure you he was applying forward thrust with his EVA pack the whole time. But hey, let's figure this out... if a Kerbulan cartridge is comparable to 9mm parabellum, we're talking a 7.5 gram bullet leaving the barrel at 380 m/s. As everyone knows, a Kerbal (or Kerbulan) suited for EVA masses 94kg. Conserving momentum: (.0075 kg * 380 m/s ) / 94 kg = .030 m/s. Not a lot. Total momentum of the four shots he fired would have sent Kenlie backwards with a total velocity of 12 cm per second--just enough to mess up his grouping a little

Hello Eucl3D! I understand that the models come in a few different sizes. Suppose I have a couple of ships I want to print, for example a large space station and a smallish plane, and I wanted them to be in scale with each other--how could we go about doing that?

Yeah, actually my original thought was to build the carrier around an asteroid, and simply replace the rock whenever it was drained. The problem is that asteroids only exist (AFAIK) in a belt at Kerbin's solar altitude, and around Dres. So sure, I could stop at Dres for fuel (and provide much-unneeded fanservice to the Dres aficionado faction) but then if Kerbin, Dres and Jool weren't lined up nicely for me then it's just be a headache waiting for windows/kicking doors/wasting fuel etc. Landing on Bop or Pol, however, seems much easier. Four belly-mounted aerospikes would be enough to land and lift off even if REDACTED ends up being ~1000-1200 tons fueled. Then I just drop a dozen or so drills into the crust, fire up the fuel cells and have at it. Naturally the system would have to work on Minmus as well so I can tank up before heading out.