CatastrophicFailure

Gotch, will check again, I wasn't seeing the config buttons. Also, I noticed Texture Replacer won't let me remove a helmet on Gael, no breathable armor?

Erg... I hate to be "that guy" but are DOE and PlanetShine still bundled with the new release?

Plz excuse all the cringe-worthy typos I've missed, of the ones I've found are any indication. You should definitely do that. There's something very meta about the written word having a soundtrack of videos.

I... haven't played KSP in a couple weeks... I had to get a round of Civilization 6 out of my system. I only played long enough to nuke the everloving crap out of Ghandi! ...and, er, Japan... But they started it! And America... and Russia... and France... anyway, I won. Now I'm gearing up for a new mission report series based on a 6.4x playthru of @Galileo's planet pack. Looking for a modified tech tree with an early emphasis on aircraft/unmanned, any suggestions? Also... (Credit to @Ten Key for the flag & @JadeOfMaar for the skybox)

.....aaaaaaaaaand delayed till the 3rd.

Oh, so that's how it is. Well if anyone asks, "I have no clear record of that, Counsel."

Dat skybox... I want dat....

So, subject to change without notice, I present the Official Unofficial Nonmotion-Literature Soundtrack Running time: flarp if I know anymore, I added to it. 1. National Anthem of the Ussari Union (National Anthem of the USSR) 2. Traditional Ussari Naval Hymn (Hymn to Red October - Basil Poledouris) 3. Winds of Change - Solpugids (Scorpions) 4. Traditional Patriotic March (doubletime extended version) (John Williams - does this really need an explanation??) 5. Why Don't You Do Right? - Lolli Kerman (Jaclyn Haydamacha) 6. Ballrom Blitz - The Sweet 7. Do You Wanna Build A - *thump* *thud* NO! (Kristen Anderson-Lopez/Robert Lopez) 8. Rock You Like a Hurricane - Burdous Kerman (Scorpions) 9. Bouncy Modern Pop Song Based on Inscription Found On Old Statue Plinth - Unknown Foreign Boy Band (Dragostea Din Tei - O-Zone [The Numa Numa song]) 10. Hello Mah Baby - Random Frog (Walk quickly, protect face) 11. Valentina's Pulse (Stayin' Alive - Three Guys Just Kicked in the Jimmies) 12. I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) - Random Technician/Lolli Kerman (Eddie) 13. I Will Survive - Jerdous Kerman (Gloria Gaynor) 14. Gimmie Some Lovin' - Spencer Davis Group 15. Iron Eagle (Never Say Die) - King Kobra 16. Winds of Change (Reprise) - Valentina Kerman (Scorpions in really bad Russian) 17. Random Triumphant Anthem from out of Nowhere (Top Gun Anthem - Harold Faltermeyer) 18. Anna's Lullaby - Instrumental Extended (Far Over the Misty Mountains Cold - Heather Scott/STL Ocarina) 19. Paint it, Black - The Rolling Stones 20. Fortunate Son - Creedence Clearwater Revival 21. War - Edwin Starr 22. Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash 23. Sympathy for the Devil - The Rolling Stones 24. We Gotta Get Out of this Place - The Animals 25: Don't Fear the Reaper - Blue Oyster Cult 26: The Sound of Silence - Disturbed (Originally Simon & Garfunkel) 27: Magic Carpet Ride - Steppenwolf 28: Imperial Requiem (Nasicaä Reqium - Joe Hisaishi/Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä) ... And now to await the chorus of, "wait, where was that??" Quite the list here, including possibly the best music video ever, and probably the worst music video ever. Probably missed a couple too. Presented below in a convenient YouTube playlist. Now, if only I could get John Williams to compose a fittingly somber closing theme...

Excellent.

Is it a config in the zip or just native?

Just a quick question, does this pack have any support for Kerbalism, like the radiation belts?

Have they even gotten to the point of fueling tests at the cape? Or full test fires? I would think the hardware checkout process for what is essentially a brand new launch pad is pretty lengthy.

Sigh... reading stuff like that and seeing how close we came to what might have been just makes me sad. Anyways, we now return you to your irregularly scheduled storytime.

Wait, what? Source?

I'm guessing you're young enough to have no meaningful memory of the 20th century? Looks like I'll have to put together that official unofficial soundtrack playlist I've been thinking of.

I'm quite jealous of his convenient target for blasphemy. It flows much better than War! Uh! Good nonspecific omniscient metaphysical cosmic quasiconsciousness the author may or may not consider extrapolating upon once he acquires a pole of sufficient length y'all...

My dungeon is full of yogurt.

Chapter 93: Paint it, Black I look inside myself and see my heart is black, I see my red door I must have it painted black. Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts. It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black. Three odd aircraft roared along over the jungle, cruising just above the treetops. Then Valentina found herself looking up at one particular tree top, and realized they weren't quite above all of them. "Are we not flying rather low?" she asked as another towering, vine-encrusted sentinel whizzed by the open doorway. "Bit of a gamble, I'm afraid," Reginald managed. He'd actually given up blotting and was now clinging to his harness for dear life, "at this altitude we are quite vulnerable to small arms fire, but any higher and we'd risk passing into SAM cones." She blinked, "surface to air missiles??" He gripped his straps a bit tighter as the plane hit an air pocket, "some of the local factions are surprisingly well equipped." Frowning, she said, "you—er, we, seem to have a fairly well equipped army, too. Could you not —what's the word?— placate them?" "My dear, do you know what the first rule of getting involved in a land war in Cerima is?" She didn't. "Never get involved in a land war in Cerima." His eye... bulge rose just a hair, "despite how it may look, we try to avoid conflict with the locals. Conflict causes delays, and the last thing we need right now are a bunch of irate babbling Cerimans at our doorstep who aren't on our payroll." Bill's eyes flicked up, but only for an instant. He stood at the back of the cabin, next to Igor, casually hanging on with one hand. The other two were all business, swinging their guns back and forth in slow arcs, eyes never lingering in any one place. Valentina called back to Bill, gesturing at her own head and speaking slowly, "what happened to your helmet?" Surprisingly, Bill actually got to answer, "bilong mi brata. Nogat nidim, sho." She stared at the gaping bullet hole. That didn't sound good, "why did your brother not need it anymore?" "Him gat nupela hat ain," the slightest hint of a grin touched his lips. "Clever. Why do—" the skin suddenly tried to droop from Valentina's face as the pilot pulled up hard. Bill started barking out commands. Reginald squealed like a goat. It only lasted a moment before her stomach shifted the other way, and the plane leveled out, banking into a slight turn. Bill was pointing out the door. She followed his hand, and saw a patch down below where the treetops were whipping back and forth as they had not long ago, before the Wall. Straining, she tried to get some glimpse of whatever creature could do that, but the jungle was deep and dark. As the mass of epileptic trees advanced, it startled a flock of birds into flight. No, not birds. Too big to be birds. Most of them scattered, shrieking horrendously, but one seemed to charge directly at the Converter. Long, leathery wings beat at the thick jungle air, not just keeping pace with the aircraft but gaining quickly. The underweared one swung his guns onto it, but his compatriot put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. He called something out to the pilot, who held a steady, circling, easy to predict course. The wingéd thing drew closer and closer, its scaly purple hide shimmering in the sun. The Ceriman popped his huge rifle out of the rack and cycled the bolt. He took aim through the simple iron sights. Waiting. Motionless. The thing was upon them. Sound... Sound... ...the world became sound... The noise of the Converter was briefly quelled by the thundering BOOM of the rifle, flame jutted a meter from the muzzle, and the horrible screeching beast simply disappeared in a purple mist. No, not completely gone... Valentina barely had time to register it before the head flew into the cabin, bounced off the roof, and landed on the floor. It... it was hideous! Teeth... everywhere were teeth... it had teeth coming out of its eyes! Its head seemed to be entirely teeth. Such a thing shouldn't be anatomically possible, it made her eyes water just to look at it, yet there it was, lying on the deck plating. The Ceriman nudged it with the bayonet, and it clamped onto it with a horrendous noise despite now missing most of its important bits. He grinned at it, then at his buddy, and the two of them knocked the backs of their forearms together in some sort of victory celebration. He deposited the frightful head in a large metal bin at the back of the cabin. By the sound of it, it wasn't empty. "Horrid creatures," Reginald said, wiping his face with a look of disgust, "give our heavy transports nothing but troubles. Too big for most small arms, too quick for the autotrackers. They pay a sizable bounty down in the Hole for each head. A nice bonus on top of our already generous wages." The look that passed between the three Cerimans told Valentina exactly how generous that wage really was. "What... was that thing??" She said to no one in particular. Bill answered, "him nem, 'chew-face-spit-bone'," he shook his head, "Mo-mo nogut, mo-mo nogut." The bin thumped. They banked around back on course, nearly due east as far as Valentina could tell. The jungle seemed still for now, if not exactly quiet. Every now and then, they passed over a meandering scar down through the trees to the rich reddish dirt beneath. Some sort of road. This, too, looked like a constant war of attrition against the encroaching vegetation. She pressed Reginald on this. "We fly in everything we can, of course," he said as he blotted, "expensive, but far more reliable than the road. Those big Ki-48's your government has been so gracious to supply can carry nearly anything. But unfortunately there are some things that simply won't fit, even in a Super Converter. That's why we have the Arma-diyo back at the base." "You seem to have it down to a routine," diplomatic, be diplomatic. Try not to think you might be sitting across from an abomination. "Quite so. Rather the accomplishment under the circumstances, if I do say so myself. We have our share of delays, of course, but Mr. Kerman knew what he was about when he set everything in motion years ago." Wipe, wipe. "Mister Kerman. You mean Layland Kerman." The wiping paused, and his eyes narrowed just a fraction, "Mister Kerman is brilliant. If you've been cleared this far, then you must see that too. I've been an adherent of his since the early days, and so I've been blessed enough to witness the impossible. Here, in the most dangerous place in the world, filled with the most disagreeable people in the world, he's managed to get them to work together and build a spaceport," his eyes seemed to glaze over, Valentina recognized a cast to them she'd first seen years ago, on the baking hot concrete of the Kerbal Space Center at high noon, "a tiny enclave of his vision for all Kermanity: a place with no government, no borders, none of the things that divide people. And from there, to send his aspiration of hope to the planets, and beyond." The intensity faded away, and Reginald returned to blotting and sweating, "of course, things are a bit different, now." "How... do you mean?" Valentina asked, caution giving way to curiosity. He raised an eye... bulge... then dabbed at it, "well... perhaps you've not yet been corrupted," he leaned in conspiratorially, a silly thing since his voice only came through the intercom anyway, "I trust you are familiar with that... business on the Mün a few years back?" She was. Too familiar. He nodded, "it was the Board of Directors that pressured Mister Kerman into acceding to it. Insisted on a test of the habitation hardware in situ despite the years of data from the KSA space station, then further testing on Duna. Then they turned around and used the, ahem, incident... as a pretext to wrest control of the Company from him and force him into retirement. And then once KSA funding was diverted to the planned Duna mission, through some very impressive bureaucratic tomfoolery, the whole program simply faded away with the money and the half-finished hardware now in the Company's possession. So you see, the Board has advanced the program considerably, but the priorities have somewhat... mutated." Despite the sweltering heat, he shuddered. A thousand more questions stampeded across Valentina's mind. What she settled on was, "wait, what do you mean, I have not been 'corrupted?'" Reginald tapped a finger to the side of his... not-nose, "in the beginning, we were pure. All working toward a common goal. Since the Board took over, too many have lost their way, pursuing all... sorts.... of..... mis...... gui....... ded........" he trailed off, eyes following some sort of building as it passed by below, then rising into panic. "Pilot! Why are we going this way?!" he nearly screamed. "¿Que?" the pilot half-turned. Reginald shook his head, and started yelling at the fellow in Andacamian. The pilot yelled back. By now, Valentina had picked up enough bits of other languages to guess which words had four letters, and both Kerbs seem to be using a lot of them. Finally, the pilot pointed emphatically to his knee board, then slapped his hand against it with a final word that sounded quite rude indeed. She didn't need to know the language to translate, I have my orders and this is my aircraft. If you don't like it, you can bloody well get out and walk. Reginald sat back against his seat, face, pale as his clothes, eyes, like dinner plates, and muttered softly, "oh dear." Someone seemed to pick up on it in the back. The grainy music in her headphones changed to an upbeat, thumping drumline, a gravelly voice singing about a fortunate son. ...and when the band plays, 'Hail to the Chief' Ooh they point the cannon at you... Through the glazed nose of the Converter, what looked like a very compact city suddenly appeared. Ragged, skeletal buildings rose into the sky like reaching corpse fingers. Valentina couldn't tell if they were half completed or half destroyed. Either way, the jungle was rapidly winning this war too, as spindly green vines wrapped around steel and concrete. They crossed the edge of the tree line out over the city proper. Here, she could see roads, kars, all the signs of civilization. All being slowly swallowed by foliage. Yet even here, there were signs of habitation. As they passed one towering relic, she saw smoke from a cookfire trailing up from a shattered wall. Hanging on a rusting beam were colorful curtains, or perhaps someone's laundry. And there, in that empty window, a muzzle flash— Something went pink just above Valentina's head, opening a small hole in the plane's metal skin. And then many things happened all at once. Something else when pink just beside her. Then again and again. Holes surrounded by spiderwebbing cracks appeared one by one in the plexiglass nose. "¡Aye, caramba!" the pilot cried, jamming the wheel forward. Valentina was shoved upwards against her straps. The three Cerimans all went airborne, the two of them clinging to their guns firing off in staccato bursts that filled the cabin with noise, fire, and searing brass casings. And somewhere, somewhere, a terrified little girl was screaming at the top of her lungs. No. Wait. That was just Reginald. As Valentina stared at him, his eyes wide with sheer panic, the pilot pulled up, and his rolls of flubber gave a very disquieting demonstration of fluid mechanics as the various acceleration vectors rapidly changed. And still the guns rattled away, BAMBAMBAMBAMBAM!, the crew seemingly firing away at random. No... not random. Even in this chaos, Valentina could sense method to it. The Converter jinked one last time before pulling into a steep, arcing turn. Out the hatchway, now pointing at the ground, she saw one of the gunships roll in on the building where the shots came from. BRRRT! BRRRT! BRRRRRRRRRRRRT! Tracers from its chain guns impacted the base of the tower, then a vicious fusillade of rockets tore from its wings, trailing smoke and sparks for an instant before they, too, slammed into the structure. Fire bloomed like an infernal flower, the dull, concussive thuds of the warheads reaching Valentina's ears despite the Converter's wail. Bits of burning debris cast their own corkscrewing trails of smoke tumbling through the air. The first gunship peeled away, and the second one rolled in, repeating the attack in a coordinated assault. She watched in horror as the building shuddered, listed, swayed... then then toppled in slow motion like a felled tree, trailing billowing clouds of black and brown and grey. It smashed into the tower across the street, tearing at its face, before disappearing into an enormous cloud of smoke and dust. At some point, the tape player had switched to the next track. War! Uh! Good Kerm, y'all What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'! For a moment, Valentina thought she might be sick. Then she saw Igor's face. A cast of grim resignation was slowly creeping over a complexion that looked decidedly green. Er. She quickly swung around to the pilot, not even knowing what she was yelling, pointing frantically at the rudder pedal. He looked at her, looked in his mirror, looked at Igor... and then much to his credit connected the dots very quickly and jammed his foot down with everything he had. The Converter yawed sideways into its own slipstream. "HЦЯК," said Igor, adding his own brand of biological warfare to the pandemonium down below in a long, stringy, slightly chunky technicolor stream carried safely away from the plane by the air flowing through it. Once sufficiently emptied, Igor gave a weak thumbs-up. Finally, the pilot returned to straight and level flight. The gunships resumed their positions just off his wings. The two Cerimans did their little victory slap. The group left the smoking wreckage behind, heading out across the jungle again as a new track came through the speakers. I fell in to a burning ring of fire, I went down, down, down And the flames went higher. And it burns, burns, burns, The ring of fire, The ring of fire. Except Valentina could barely hear it. Across from her, Reginald was still screaming. He barely paused to take a breath. His wild eyes had gone far beyond panic into hysteria while kicked and flailed against his straps. Valentina unfastened her own with a sigh, grabbed a stringer overhead and used it to pivot up and kick him squarely in the chin with both feet. His head rebounded off the panel behind, and the horrible noise finally ceased. She fell back into her own seat with a huff, pinching her eyes shut against the applause. "Was that really necessary?" she said, and looked back at Bill. He shrugged, "him no sarap, cray-cray prat, hims sho." She glanced at Reginald, "no, not him. There were people in that building." Bill shrugged again, "is ples nogut, no kam bek," he pointed to the unconscious Kerb across from her, "him save long. Him ken." "But... why did they shoot at us in the first place?" she asked, trying to make sense of the other's words. "Ausaitas," he looked at Reginald, "bosbois. Dem kam. No ken bus, no ken Seri-mah'. Biktaun, trai wokim. Wokim nogut." He pointed out toward a gunship, "Valar Arctûctis. Dem kam," and spat. "You do not like them," not a question. He spat again, "Tunglis no tru Seri-mah'! No laitin, dûm Seri-mah! Always is fait. Nebah pis," he tapped at his helmet, "nebah min." "But... they are taking orders from..." she nodded to the jiggly white lump across from her. "Bikman, him kam. Him painim dip Seri-mah', weh noman go. Wokim pis. Wokim ples, no mo fait. Skulim laitinman. Dem," he gestured out the door, "him baim." Valentina felt more confused than ever. Before she could ask anything else, Reginald groaned. "Oh, my... what... what happened?" he looked around, "oh! I'm bleeding!" She thought fast, "er... shrapnel!" "W—what?" "Yes, um, you were hit in chin by shrapnel," she flashed a winning smile, "you took it like champ!" "I... I did?" he winced as he felt his chin, then an odd little smile formed on his own face, "I... I shall have to fill out a Combat Injury Report..." Strike while he's disoriented, "that settlement back there... what was it?" "Hm? Oh, that," he grew a bit paler as his shuffled his handkerchief around and saw the blood on it, "some of our earliest forays into this part of the world were not always so... efficacious." "How so?" she raised an eye... bulge. "Early on there was a bit of... well, let's call it a language barrier. It seems that's nearly all of the trouble around here. Mister Kerman quickly discovered that Cerimans can actually be quite industrious... as long as they're not allowed to speak Ceriman." Valentina winced against another set of pulsing beats in her ears, "regulations?" Pleased to meet you! (Woo! Woo!) Hope you guess my name. (Woo! Woo!) But what's puzzling you (Woo! Woo!) Is the nature of my game (Woo! Woo!) "Quite so, quite so. But some Kerbs one just can't reach, so one get what we had back there. I don't like it, any more than you. We shouldn't've come this way." He leaned in again, holding the rag to his chin, "do try to understand, Mister Kerman has done great things here. You'll soon see. Please, just have some... sympathy," the odd little smile took on an odd little shadow. Valentina leaned her head back and rubbed at her eyes, "as you say. Are we there yet?" "As a matter of fact, we are," the odd little smile bloomed into a wide grin. She blinked at him with one eye, then looked out the nose... and gasped as the sunlight dimmed away. One last scratchy track played across her earphones. We gotta get out of this place... If it's the last thing we ever do! We gotta get out of this place...

This. I'd rather them play it very cautious and maybe ramp up to that. I wanna see that Falcon Heavy fly this summer! Boca Raton is still years from being ready and I've yet to hear even a guess at getting their old KSC pad functional again.

More likely, it means that CRS-10 will be delayed in turn. Especially with a brand new pad to inspect.

Bleh, next launch pushed back till the 30th, D2 demo till November. https://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/

You just had to go there, didn't you? I think it's the nature of the very specific (and low) orbits they launched to. Getting a Comsat to its final GSO orbit typically takes weeks, so there's a lot more fudge room there with the initial, and very temporary, launch orbit. The bigger question: are they gonna clean and paint the, ahem, veteran booster for SES?

And just when you though this thread had already reached the absolute nadir of off-topic-ness, it's now devolved into discussing each other's balls.

It's back. https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/01/17/falcon-9-booster-first-recovered-off-west-coast-back-in-port/