KSK

*bows down before CatastrophicFailure* Fantastic story, great writing *and* you managed to reference an entire Metallica track! What's not to like. Seriously though, you did the most important thing - you managed to finish the story and finish it in style. Looking forward to that last postscript once you've managed to get some sleep! Oh yeah - and I loved being completely and utterly wrong about the Goo. Guess that post gave you a laugh.

I'm not a big fan personally and in general I don't think that k-words sound that much more kerbal, apart from the obvious exceptions like Kerbol or Kerbin. With that said, I wouldn't let somebody else's use of k-words stop me reading their posts or, unless they were seriously overdone, enjoying their writing.

Nope. Care to explain?

It might well be once a moderator gets around to reading it but backseat moderation is frowned upon. From the forum rules:

Apologies - my post wasn't aimed at you personally but the way my first paragraph is written, it looks like it was. Sorry about that. And with respect, I hear what you're saying but in a game like KSP, where experimentation and learning is emphatically part of the game, I still don't see this as a developer problem. If Squad just gave you a set of orbital parameters and expected you to get on with it, then I'd somewhat agree with you but since they've also gone to the trouble of providing a very obvious visual clue within the game, then I think it's reasonable for them to expect players to at least try and figure things out on their own. Personal anecdote - satellite contracts were when I realised that I was waaay outside of my personal understanding about spaceflight. Thanks to KSP I think I've got a reasonable qualitative understanding of basic orbital mechanics (even if I couldn't do any of the calculations to save myself) but when I took one contract to put a satellite in an inclined, eccentric orbit around the Mun, it was just an exercise in playing with the maneuver node handles until everything lined up, without any real feel for what I was doing. I got there though - and I think the current maneuver system does a fantastic job of presenting really complicated stuff in an intuitive way.

That's a pity but yeah - this writing business can be time consuming. Hope that inspiration strikes and that you find the time to continue!

I like this idea. Or have that science bump spread out over time in the same way that the Science Lab does.

I guess. Although watching the body/craft on the Map screen, maybe under x5 or x10 timewarp to make it a bit more obvious, works just as well. Or, for the active vessel, dropping a maneuver node and checking where the prograde marker is. And I suppose you could swap the moving dots for moving triangles or arrows, although I still think the mere fact that they're moving is sufficient.

For me it's not so much the realism but the immersion. Having clouds really really helps give me a sense of scale, of how high I'm flying above Kerbin.

Sorry to be a grouch but I completely disagree. First of all, pay attention to the game and read the darn contract. Or at least the mission summary part (have Squad updated the procedurally generated gibberish for 1.0?) After that, the fact that every other orbit on the map is just a line - apart from one with these funky moving dots - should be a clue. Besides that - is failing one small part of a darn computer game such an ego bruising trauma that the game needs to lead players by the hand to make sure it doesn't happen? I say - no way. We're playing a game where failure is an option, where rockets explode if they're badly designed and where missions don't always necessarily go to plan. If you muck up your first satellite contract, learn from your mistake and move on - just like you did with every other part of the game.

ROFL - have some rep. That definitely needs to be a new intenet meme - "Yes - but does it plough?" Nah - I like my Mac a lot but it does have its quirks. Repetitive 'your keyboard is running low on battery' being one of the more irritating ones.

I hope so too, although I'm almost certain that realistic near-future infrastructure will be a big part of the film. After all, allmost all the drama in the book derives either from Watney hacking together what he needs to survive from what he has available or from limitations imposed by the available spacecraft / orbital mechanics. Edit: I *really* hope we get to see the 'Watney Method' for making water. Jeb would have been proud of that one.

Brilliant book. The one minor gripe I had is that the NASA characters didn't feel particularly authentic, although my idea of an authentic NASA mission controller is probably rooted firmly in the 60s. Even so, their characterisation felt kinda 2-dimensional next to Watney's. I'm honestly curious about how the film will handle the enormous amount of internal monologue from the book. It works fine in a story but is going to be difficult to get across on the screen I think. Then again, if anyone can do it, Ridley Scott can, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

Next chapter is up. Pre-emptive. The chainsaw bit into the snow-crusted bark with a willing roar, chewing through the dense wood beneath. Jerfun's shoulders throbbed with the effort of keeping its blade level, his hands aching with cold and vibration even through his thickly padded gloves. He switched off the saw and slipped it carefully out of the trunk, before fitting two slim wedges into the cut and driving them home with practiced blows from his hammer. The resinous scent of freshly sawn wood blended with the sharp nip of frost in the air as Jerfun slotted a felling bar into place, picked up his chainsaw with a grunt and set to work finishing the cut. Last one of the day, thank the Kerm. Long habit and careful routine made him take one last look to the sides and two looks down the drop line. Quickly, he stepped back and sideways, keeping one eye on the poised trunk, then took hold of the felling bar with both hands. "Dropping!" Slowly, majestically, the tree began to topple, spindly branches tilting against the leaden sky. The last sliver of wood holding the trunk together gave way with a resounding crack and seconds later it thudded into the forest floor amidst a great snapping and tearing of undergrowth. Jerfun picked up his loppers and began trimming. By the time Bureny arrived on her kaya, he'd reduced the bottlebrush tree to a single long log and a respectable bundle of firewood. The enormous woolly animal snorted as Bureny backed it up to the log, the warm, wet smell of fermented lichens on its breath overpowering the scents of sap and crushed bottlebrush needles. Bureny tossed a towline to Jerfun, who lashed it around the log and tied on the bundle of branches. “Move on ya!" The kaya lumbered forward up the steep forest trail, oblivious to the extra weight. Jerfun plodded along behind, one eye on the path and one eye on the tip of the log bumping over the frozen ground in front of him. As they crested the rise and stepped out onto the main road, Jerfun was breathing hard and the waiting lumber truck, grapple at the ready, was a welcome sight. He unhitched Bureny's mount from its load, heaved the bundle of branches onto the back of the truck and clambered thankfully into the warm, oily fug of its cabin. Lumber trucks, Jerfun decided, represented the best of his people. Hard wearing, hard working and built for practicality not sentiment. And just like many a good northern Wakiran, they can also be an honest-to-Kerm pain in the ass. His teeth snapped together as the truck jolted over yet another pothole and lurched to a stop. The driver swore, shifted into reverse and slowly backed up. The trailer sprang free, its suddenly shifting weight causing the truck to fishtail violently, one wheel lifting off the ground. Automatically, Jerfun slid across the back seat, throwing his meagre weight against the tilt. Calmly, the driver spun his wheel, the back of the truck swinging out in response and thudding back on to the road. He shoved the gear lever forward with a crunch, engine screaming in protest as it took up the load. The truck slowed, logs thudding ominously against the trailer and then began to creep forward around the pothole. Further into the hills, the ride began to smoothen out and heaps of chippings began to appear by the side of the road, half buried in the snow. The road itself was a pitted patchwork of fill-ins and craters, gravel and hard-packed earth providing a temporary surface. Red striped marker poles stood out brightly against a landscape of whites and greys. As the road wound down through a cleft in the snow-capped hills, it was joined by a foaming, iron-grey brook. Jerfun nodded in satisfaction. Fresh water, good defensible territory and it's on our side of the border. We'll take the high ground here and in Conclave. As if to mark his words, the truck grumbled to a halt with a squeal of hydraulics, belching a cloud of sooty smoke from its exhaust stack. The heavy, gated log palisade blocking their way was tall enough that the two kerbals standing guard on its parapet could comfortably look down into the exhaust stack if they felt so inclined, and thick enough to give the driver of most vehicles pause for thought. Not, thought Jerfun, eying the guards, that they would get that far. The rough-and-ready barricade they were guarding stood in stark contrast to their conspicuously carried and thoroughly modern hunting rifles. And anything that can put a charging scallan down cold will have no trouble with a set of tyres. Truly, we need more than logs to protect them but until the thaw starts logs will have to do. The third guard peered through the cab window, nodded as she recognised Jerfun and waved them on. The truck rumbled smoothly through the gates and out into the wider valley beyond. Beside them, the stream burbled through a tunnel cut into the log walls and wound away out of sight. A partially completed watchtower stood atop the hill on either side of the palisade. Jerfun watched a distant team of kayas dragging sleds of supplies and building materials up to one of them, leaving a broad swathe of trodden down snow and the occasional heap of dung in their wake a work gang of kerbals were busily digging out the compacted snow and marking out the boundaries of a new trail with wooden planks. The dung went on to a nearby trailer. A similarly industrious scene greeted them when they finally pulled up at the new village site. Another gang of kerbals were methodically packing rounded stream-bed stones into a newly dug out road bed and filling in the gaps with gravel to create a crude but serviceable cobbled crossroad. A pair of broad, low slung log cabins faced each other across the street, each with an attached outhouse. Next door to one of them, a workshop spilled soft yellow light and paler yellow drifts of sawdust onto the cobbles. Jerfun nodded approvingly at the row of neatly turned and carved porch rails propped against the workshop wall. Pleasing to see a touch of civilisation in this back end of nowhere. Further up the street and well away from the cabins, half a dozen lugubrious kaya stood by their paddock rail, backs into the wind; heavy, horned heads foraging under the snow, indifferent to the activity going on around them. The driver's door slammed, the truck rocking as the driver clambered up behind the cab. Machinery whined to life, followed by the rattling of chains and the distinctive clunk of the grapple closing around a log. Jerfun watched it swing past the cabin door before setting its load down neatly by the workshop. He rapped sharply on the rear window of the cab, opened the door and jumped down, grabbing his rifle from behind his seat as he went. As he slammed the door shut and sprinted clear of the truck, he heard the grapple starting up again behind him. A small, brick building with a galvanised sheet iron roof stood on a concrete plinth at the very centre of the crossroads. Jerfun unloaded his weapon, dropping the clip into his pocket. He reached under his jacket for his key, unlocked the heavy steel door and stepped inside. The cloying scent of gun oil in a confined space assaulted his nostrils as he scanned the wall-to-wall gun racks for a space. Hardly enough room in here but I'm Blighted if we're spending more time hauling cement and steel until the thaw. He stowed his rifle on the nearest rack with a grunt and dropped his clip into its storage box. Then again, don't expect the Kerm is going to be doing much in this weather either. Should have this place locked down tight by the time it gets round to Seeding. --------------- Rain beat against Lemdan's oilskins and trickled over his boots. Runnels of water ran this way and that over the heaving deck, glistening on the heavily varnished planks. In the distance, the Crater beacons gleamed in the dark, the square windows of the nearest ones shining against the night sky, the furthest ones twinkling like stars in the distance. Lemdan crouched by the binnacle, sighting the two brightest beacons across his compass. He grunted, checked the anchor line was still sliding freely in its blocks and retreated under the cabin roof. Whilst it's name had changed numerous times over the centuries, the Crater had been a favourite port of call for seafaring kerbals since the Age of Sail and possibly long before. Historically, the enormous natural harbours afforded by it's forbiddingly jagged walls, had been the economic force responsible for cementing a loose alliance of Wakiran city states into Kerbin's pre-eminent maritime trading nation and eventually, Regionality. At it's height, the wealth and power of Wakira had rivalled even that of Doren, providing a crucial political counterbalance within the young Council of Twelve Pillars. Modern day Wakira was still a political and economic force to be reckoned with although its influence had declined since the Age of Sail, especially with the advent of air travel. Nevertheless the Crater harbours remained the busiest seaport in the world, their network of radar stations watching over the constant traffic of hundreds of, predominantly sail-driven, merchant vessels. At the southernmost tip of the Crater wall, rain spattered off the windows of one station, the ceaseless drumming unnoticed by the three kerbals inside. Two of them sat in front of a large radar screen, their faces lit from beneath by its soft green glow. The Harbourmaster stood at the back of the room listening intently. “Course I'm in the right place! Yer think I can't take a bearing on a pair o' beacons?" “I'm not doubting you, Captain," replied Edbur wearily, “it's just that we can't see you from here either." “You want mebbe I should point my torch at yeh? Pretty sure I could find yeh, even if you cannot find me." “It might just come to that, Captain," sighed Edbur, “but please could we try one more observation before we call it a night?" “If yeh think I'm getting any closer to these cliffs at night, lad, yeh've got another think coming!" “Actually, Captain, we're thinking that you might be too close to the cliffs already. If you wouldn't mind, please could you sail one kilometre further west and heave to." The voice on the other end of the radio sounded suddenly amused. “No need for heaving to, lad - I'm not in my sailing hauler tonight, nor my raft for that matter." The other radar operator turned to look at Edbur, eyebrows raised. “Come on, Ed - he's not going to be in our shadow." Edbur rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. “He's not," he said, “but I want to get him out of all that surface clutter around the cliffs." “That's not going to help much in this weather." Edbur counted to three under his breath. “I know that Gil but I'm starting to run out of ideas here. "He gestured at the shifting patterns of speckles on the radar screen. “If we can at least get rid of the rock returns, we might just have a chance of picking him out of the rest of that junk." ----------------- The last metre of chain clinked dully against the fibreglass hull. Lemgan hauled the anchor over the side, folded it and stowed it neatly under a bench with the coiled anchor line. He took his place behind the wheel, glancing distastefully at the idling diesel motor mounted on the stern. Swinging the wheel hard over, he opened the throttle, wincing as the motor roared. Noisy damn things. Wouldn't want to be runnin' out of battery on a night like this though and least this weather is keepin' the reek away. Lemgan glanced at his compass. Not too shoddy. Got a while till the tide turns and I'm doubtin' they'll need me exactly due west anyway. Right, that should do it. Lemgan eased the throttle back, locked his wheel and made his way forward. Cleating the line securely, he unfolded the anchor again and dropped it over the side, paying it out hand over hand. Easing the boat into reverse, he rested his hand on the line for a moment then, satisfied that nothing was dragging, switched off the motor. For a minute he stared entranced at the ragged, phosphorescent wake trailing back towards the cliffs. Hordes of tiny nightfish dove in and out of the froth, feeding on the churned up plankton; their scales glinting in the luminous glow. Reluctantly he went back to the cockpit and picked up his microphone. “Lemgan here. Anchor set - any sign of me yet?" “Not yet, Captain," Edbur replied. “Not even with your wake to point the way." He sighed. “Maybe that's the answer. Forget about the radar, build a chain of watchtowers and have their crews look out for wakes." “Wouldn't work," said Lemgan. “If I was that dead set on smuggling Kerm seeds, I'd charter a boat, give it a reason to be close to shore so yer watchers are expectin' it, then row a dinghy in after dusk. Wouldn't work around these parts but if the coast was kinder and ah was really desperate, ah'd swim. Either way there's be no wake givin' me away." “I suppose so," said Edbur. “I think we're done for tonight, Captain. The Harbourmaster conveys his thanks and bids you safe seas on the way home." “Understood," Lemgan replied. “Signing off." Static poured out of the speaker. Silently, Gilbin leaned over and switched off the radio. “Well so much for that idea," he said. “If the powers-that-be want a coastal surveillance system it's gonna cost them." The Harbourmaster cleared his throat. “Are you suggesting that we could use some other sensors?" he said. “Infra-red perhaps?" “Not a bad idea," said Gilbin, “but radar will do jus' fine. Pickin' out a small target is easy enough in good weather and can even be done in this muck."He gestured dismissively at the window. “Problem number one is that yer standard traffic management antenna isn't built for the high gain, narrow beamwidth system that yer need for the job and problem number two is that a narrow beamwidth antenna isn't exactly set up for scannin' large areas. Which means a lot of expensive new stations if yer want to watch the whole coast." He glanced at Edbur. “Which is a waste of time in my not-so-humble opinion. Tryin' to watch the whole coastline to stop one kerbal in a rowin' boat?" Edbur stirred. “It's not the single seed carrying kerbal we should be looking for," he agreed. “but everything else you need to start a new Grove. Any ship big enough to carry that would be easy enough to spot." “Unless, as the good Captain pointed out, it was there for wholly legitimate reasons," said the Harbourmaster heavily. He threw up his hands resignedly. “Even so - unofficially - I'm inclined to agree with you. Nevertheless, the powers-that-be have not so politely requested that I investigate all options." He looked at Gilbin. “I would be much obliged if you could draw up an engineering summary of your high gain system. Equipment requirements, numbers of stations - everything." ------------- Gusden stared out to sea, elbows resting on the newly poured harbour wall. Below, a similarly clean, concrete jetty slashed an angular weal across the incoming tide, the blocky new buildings strewn across the wharf speaking more to urgent need and raw functionality than any kind of aesthetic sense. A squad of converted coastal cutters rode at anchor, deck guns reflecting the cloudy sky in sullen gunmetal grey. Across the bay, the old lifeboat station nestled into the cliffside, its launch ramp stained in shades of algae, rust and trailing seaweeds. “Approaching target zone. Weapon hot." “Copy that, Vanguard. Clear for release." Neilbin shivered at the matter-of-fact radio chatter. He raised his binoculars to his eyes, settling his gaze on the dark bulk on the horizon. The aircraft banked hard, dropping into a spiralling dive before pulling out into a series of sluggish S-turns. It rolled wings-level, a glinting speck falling away from its belly as it raced towards the ship, then pulled up and commenced a slow, wide circle of its target. A fountain of spray erupted, completely obscuring Neilbin's view. He twisted the focus dial on his binoculars, trying to see through the turbulent whiteness. The spray smashed down, scattering debris across the waves and obscuring what remained of the ship. He scanned the wreckage, trying to piece together what had just happened, when the radio crackled again. “Clean release and tracking. Weapon impacted amidships." Neilbin thought he heard the pilot's voice shake. “Hull is gone, repeat gone. Nothing left on the surface but flotsam and precious little of that." Solemnly, he lowered his binoculars and looked soberly at Gusden. “A successful test I'd say, Commander. I presume it was a realistic one? Gusden shook his head. “Not really - in fact we went out of our way to make it as unrealistic as possible. Extra reinforcement on the hull, fuel tanks drained so that they couldn't contribute to the blast. It was a stationary target of course but we don't have any way of steering it remotely and I'm not in the habit of shooting live ordnance at my own troops. Besides the manoeuvrability tests were mostly successful, once we'd worked the kinks out of the guidance system." Neilbin raised his eyebrows. “Go on?" To his surprise, Gusden grinned. “A Wavedancer class racing dinghy makes a fine test target. We did trials with diesel motors to begin with, then electrics. Doesn't make a lot of difference actually, the acoustic sensors can pick up propeller noise almost as well as engine. We're still working on sailboats but between you and me, I think that's just the research team showing off. I can't think of anything wind powered that could out-run or out-manoeuvre a Mark II fingrillin." Neilbin blinked. "One with a dummy warhead I presume?" he said dryly. "Of course," said Gusden, affronted. "Dye cannister with a - very small - explosive charge to rupture it." He grinned again. "The pilots set up a leaderboard at one point; seeing how long they could last before getting a faceful of dye turned into quite a competition." He caught Neilbin's expression. "And yes - safety goggles were mandatory for all test runs." "Go on then," said Neilbin neutrally, "Who was your paint-torpedo racing champion?" "You'll get to meet her in a few minutes," said Gusden, pointing over Neilbin's shoulder. "She's just coming in to land." --- By the time the two kerbals reached the airstrip, the small single-seater spotter plane was parked neatly by its hangar, wheels chocked and jet engine powered down. Neilbin stared curiously at the empty torpedo pylon welded incongruously to its underside. He squatted down, measuring the gap between pylon and runway by eye. "Right. Getting off the ground without smacking it off the concrete is the real trick." Neilbin got to his feet. "Why not hang them under the wings instead?" he asked. A derisive snort rattled off the hangar walls. "Does sitting up there like a stuffed wagga, picking bullets out of the canopy sound like a good plan to you? Everyone else on this patch of wind and scrubland can please themselves but I plan to get in fast, drop the fish and get out faster. And trust me - hanging one bodged together bomb rack off this plane makes that quite difficult enough thank you." "Torpedo," said Gusden mildly, "Not bomb. And it's hardly the engineers' fault if one hotshot ex-racer can't handle anything sportier than a Skysprite." "Hah - a Skysprite would leave this pair of wings and worry on the runway. Seriously though, boss - fast and low is going to work a whole lot better than evasion." "Just so long as you can pull up in time at those speeds, " said Gusden. "But we can work this at the flight review and before that we have a guest to show around our patch of wind and scrubland. Valentina Kerman - meet Envoy Neilbin." Valentina gave Gusden a cursory glance and then, warned by Gusden's scowl behind the Envoy's back, stuck out a hand. "Pleased to meet ya. Call me Val." Gusden studied the young pilot thoughtfully, remembering the tremor in her voice from the damage report. Not quite as hard headed as you want to appear I don't think. Trim under her baggy flight suit, sleek black hair cut racer-short, Valentina stared back at him through frank copper-brown eyes. He shook the proffered hand. "Pleased to meet you too, uh, Val. So - where do we start?" << Chapter 45: Chapter 47>>

Very speculative guess here but how about kerbal achievements viewable from the Astronaut complex. No idea how long this would take to do but a) it wouldn't need balancing, so could be added at the last minute, the underlying code has been in the game for a while if I remember rightly (I might not ) and c) it would be a nod back to the earliest days of KSP where the game was basically an altitude contest - and having some kind of in-game 'high score table' would have been good. Edit. Either that or the Launch Tower is back!

[OO-zo-KAH-lo] Noun. Nomadic tribe peculiar to Northern Kerbin. Spondulous.

Interesting thread - thanks for posting! Wikipedia defines anti-intellectualism as: Caveat - this is a quick post and I haven't bothered to find other sources to corroborate that definition. On that basis, I'd say you're almost certainly not anti-intellectual. At worst you could be a pseudo-intellectual but I don't really think that applies either. I'd regard the fact that you set out to find alternative sources to validate (or otherwise) that FB link - and cited those other sources in your post - as evidence of good scholarship. In fact, I would argue that most of the issues you point out (which I agree with incidentally) are down to pseudo-intellectualism at worst or laziness at best. It amounts to much the same thing either way - people consuming and propagating one particular agenda without bothering to question it.

14km/s is a bit high and remember that the ISS isn't standing still either. Still an impressive bit of marksmanship though.

Can't remember either but you definitely can't in Elite: Dangerous. It's a huge game map but it's not contiguous.

Oh my... Nope - don't have words for that. Superb chapter and a very bold bit of writing at the end. That's a version of Jeb that I've never seen before.

This. But if we are aligning to human equivalent decades, I'd say late 50s for game start. I'm sure there was a great deal of fascinating technical development in the 30s and 40s and I look forward to reading about them one day. In KSP terms though, I really don't see the point in having more than a single tier of sounding rockets since the vast bulk of that development is abstracted out. Sounding rockets would be great for snagging the first couple of altitude achievements and maybe a biome hop or two to teach new players the basics of earning Science points. After that - let's move on please. Having to start each game by running through half a dozen variations of a basic sub-orbital rocket, each going slightly higher than the one before it would get old really really quickly. By all means mod it in if you like but I would strongly disagree with going that way for the stock game. And this. A lot of the earliest serious spaceflight proposals involved crewed craft because the current state-of-the-art in electronics was too primitive (think vacuum tubes) to imagine much else. Also human spaceflight and exploration of the stars was kind of the point of the exercise. Then there were the really outlandish proposals in the late 50s - again for crewed spacecraft. Leaving aside gameplay considerations, I really don't have a problem with starting crewed, either on technical or historical grounds.

Agree with Ten Key on all counts. Well except for the bit about the cat. Looks like Chadvey's 'tears in the rain' monologue in the last chapter was a harbinger of things to come though.

Hey ArmchairRocketScientist! Thanks for the kind words and thanks indeed for stopping by to post them. I have to admit that the story was originally intended (more or less) as a semi-serious history of peaceful exploration but after some quiet off-thread advice from Scotius, I realized that it would probably need a bit more plot than that. Things kinda snowballed from there. About those questions. The Rockomax engines were intended as clunkier, more primitive versions of their small in-game engines. Much in the same way that the KIS started out with the RT-5 and lower numbered versions of the LV-T30. I don't have any particular ideas about visuals but they're probably not painted orange! As for the capsule, kind of the mutant stepchild of Voskhod (except a little bigger - proper two crew capsule) and Gemini, so a generally frustrum shaped service module with a kinda spherical crew module. The habitation module - I'd have to check my notes but from memory, it's basically a big metal cotton reel, two pairs of windows on opposite sides with the solar array in the middle: O--------------O That kind of arrangement. Plus a bunch of handholds, foot restraints and a toolbox stuck on the outside, for EVA practice. The map is heavily based on Cardgame's map here, which reminds me that a) this attribution is waaaay past due and that I really really need to ask him nicely if I can borrow his names. Not cool of me to leave that so long. I have taken a couple of liberties: Old Kolus is simply 'Kolus' in the story, Young Kolus has been renamed to Wakira and the Forseti Lowlands and Kaledonian Archipelago have been merged into 'Forseti', which itself is the major partner in the Forseti-Spierkan Confederacy. Oh - and the Itaalic Isthmus is simply part of Kolus. Foxham is somewhere on the eastern Kolus coast so that it too gets a nice ocean to launch over. Tracking Station Alpha is in the Koluclaw mountains, not terribly far from Cardgame's Itaalic Isthmus if I remember correctly. The mountains are very visible in-game - they look kinda like a crooked hand, which might have been some inspiration for their name. I've been deliberately vague about the Capital location, but tracking stations Beta and Gamma are equidistantly spaced with Alpha, which puts them in Northern Doren and mid-Wakira respectively. The KIS's Wakira station is on the west coast of Wakira. I may have to revisit some earlier chapters and make sure all the geography fits but that should be more or less right.

Rufus?? Dude from the future who you should totally listen to. Also plays a mean lead guitar.

Fel - I get where you're coming from. It's annoyed me on many game forums, whenever a game tries to do something a bit different, there's inevitably a vocal minority insisting that it will surely fail if the devs don't add x,y and z RIGHT NOW and thus make it more like $favouredgameofchoice. That's nothing new under the sun either. From the Elite wikipedia page (which correlates with other sources that I've read): "They first approached Thorn EMI; the company's rejection letter stated that the game was too complicated and needed to be finishable in 10 minutes with three lives." This of course in an era when most home computer games were based very much on coin-op remakes. And on this occasion, the 'it must be like games we know if it's going to succeed' attitude was absolutely dead wrong. There was nearly 1 copy of Elite sold for every BBC microcomputer sold (the platform it was originally written for), it was ported to gods knows how many others and kicked off an entirely new way of thinking about computer games. Unfortunately, KSP career mode is not a bold but misunderstood departure from convention but a mish-mash of concepts and game mechanics borrowed from other games. To be fair, that kind of lateral thinking can produce something that's way better than the sum of its parts but I don't believe it has in KSP. Worse, some of the mechanics, in their current incarnation, don't even make a lot of sense together. Crew experience is probably the main example - trying to shoehorn crew skills progression into a game where all the actual flying is done by the player doesn't make a lot of sense and hasn't added anything particularly significant to the gameplay. This might change of course but it's going to require a fairly brutal balancing pass of the whole game.