Parkaboy

I can attest that in a save game I started with the Asteroid Day mod installed only female kerbals appeared on the rescue contracts. After I deleted the mod, I started getting male kerbals.

I wonder who'll pay for that rescue contract? Kenlie's family? Is Mort really that heartless?

The sound is probably played out by the suit's radio, to confirm the door was locked. On another matter, that patch is just perfect.

Apparently all part of Bill's plan. Don't forget that's the guy that routinelly hacks persistance files. I'm sure he knows what he's doing.

I've been toying with the graphic novel format for a few weeks now, and I think I'm getting the hang of it, so let me share a few thoughts. Please note I'm not pretending to be an authority on the subject - I just want to pass what I've learned from attempt and from years of reading. First: don't fret too much if your stories aren't getting enough readers. Even if nobody reads, your story still serves as a good practice. I did a few attempts at mission reports before, and nearly nobody read or cared about them. But I learned from those experiences, and I think I found now a format that fits me. Doing prose is a bigger effort to me, since english isn't my first language, and so it turns out that I have a lot more fun creating comics than doing old-fashioned mission reports. To each his own, so don't try to emulate what you think is more "popular", just experiment and find out what gives you pleasure to do. Second: if you want to be an author, then don't just read other stories as a reader. Read them as an author. Try to figure out what makes the storyes you like work, and try to apply that to your own stories. But don't copy a plot, try to understant what makes a story special, try to imagine the steps its author took to arrive at the concept, the characters, the plot, and try to replicate those steps. For instance, the stories that I most enjoyed about KSP were stuff like Scott Manley's Reusable Space Program, Brotoro's Long-term Laythe Exploration and Kuzzter's graphic novels. All of those were mission reports, but not just reports of a generic career playthrough - each had a concept that guided gameplay, something simple to understand and interesting to follow. I tried to apply the same logic to Plan Kappa - do a mission report that people would be interested not only if it was well narrated, but would be curious to see, as players, how I played out a career with those self-imposed rules and objectives. Third: about emergent storytelling, Deddly said it well. It's important to have an endgoal and some checkpoints that you plan to go through, but if you're doing a mission report, try to leave some margin for what the game brings. Don't set goals that are too strict, but looser ones, that can be reached by multiple paths. Plan Kappa has a lot of stuff that arises from me trying to fit what happens in the game with the backstory I had in my mind from the beginning. I think that's very interesting, because even I don't know where exactly the story will take me.

Glery wanted to go instead of Bill in the first flight of the Avid, but Jeb flew it alone, since it was a rescue mission and he needed the seats. After that the Avid was considered reliable, so flying it wasn't really a gamble. Maybe I'll adress that the next time we see Glery.

The Spaceflight History blog (formely Beyond Apollo) also has a lot of interesting bits on the Apollo Applications program. Could be useful!

Not if it's the authorities doing it (insted of Bill and Val, of course). I'm just pointing out that a kerbal police can find ways to be very mean, even without the use of physical violence.

I'm using the Free IVA mod. It's still a long way from its intended purpose, but it's great for taking screenshots.

That is one very impressive ship! Good job!

Kerbal justice is based on the thread of withholding snacks, and of locking you up in the old Mk1 inline cockpit.

Thanks for the comments, everyone. Hope you all enjoy the next chapter:

BTW, the whole grand theft rocket thing reminded me of Xkcd's Apollo speeches, particularly the "In case astronauts abscond with spaceship" one.

So you're basically doing this?

Oh, I've been waiting for a looong time for that title drop! And guess what: it didn't disappoint!

It's a bit like cheating, yes, but remember this is a career save. I couldn't launch that ship from the runway if it hadn't been upgraded earlier to be able to bear the ship's weight. I haven't used the runway in a while, and during that time I managed to upgrade it to tier 2 and still respect the 30 days wainting period before using it. The self imposed rules are there to make stock mechanics seem more believable from an in-story point of view, not just as game rules. So if I'm launching from the runway, I should treat it as if the set up for the launch took days, and therefore the runway couldn't be used by planes during that prep time.

That won't be the usual format, don't worry. I just wanted to give a few important tidbits while also developing Phoice's character. A lot of this backstory grew organically from the game, as I tried to fit everything that was happening with my plans, but it's mostly that: backstory. It's important because it will affect the way some characters behave futurely. Yeah, I wanted to give an overview of every mission, but the least important ones don't need to have much detail, since they're not very important for the plot. It may seem as a lot of reading, but it's actually less boring than the alternative, which is going through all these missions where nothing really happens.

New chapter!

Hi, there! The mod seems fantastic so far! Any chance of a "lite" version that just gives free-moving IVAs for movie and graphic novel makers?

Grand Theft Rocket yeah!

Jeb's Hamlet speech just made me laugh real loud at work and now my coleagues think I'm crazy...

Give me some time to establish my characters a little better and we can have a crossover!

If kerbfleet's General Order One is that the needs of many kerbals outweight the needs of few, I wonder what is the General Order Zero... I'm almost sure it isn't "Don't let Jeb jump from the flagpole"...

Nope, it was more like someone today would be surprised to see an Apollo CSM in space, rather than a more modern design like a Dragon or Orion capsule. She isn't a Kuzzter character, since Kuzzter's Kerbfleet universe isn't the future of Plan Kappa's universe, but rather more like a separate timeline.

Because if he did that, E:O0 would probably turn into Bob and Tedus' sitcom. But I would totally read that.