Cydonian Monk

Thanks! Perhaps because Wernher gets really space sick? Guess we'll have to find out, because that's exactly what I'm going to do. (Not suborbital, actually, I'm going to send everybody to one of the stations and keep them there. Especially nice that we can now have kerbals earn experience without returning to Kerbin.)

I agree with the above - just ignore the "social" parts of Imgur - that website is toxic more often than not. For what it's worth I just gave your Mün landing album an upvote on Imgur. Cheers.

Thank you and You're Welcome! In my universe, Wernher and Gene don't start out with the space program. Rather they are hired on or attracted to it somewhere before crewed spaceflight starts. That's something I've held to thematically in most of these stories. As such, with each of these resets or Cycles, Wernher and Gene are somewhere far off. (Wernher would be from what I think of as the Westlands.... I've never established where Gene comes from.) If allowed to develop naturally, the two would eventually find their own way to KSC. As The Boss, Jonbald, etc, are forcefully accelerating the start of each new cycle, they have to go out and find those two so they can work their magic. As for why the two are important?..... Reasons.

This update is half of what I had intended to post, but I need to rework two of the screenshots for the second half and rewrite some of the prose. Not happy with my second draft.... And I'm still feeling rather completely under the weather. Unless things go further south for me (how?) then hopefully I'll have the rest of this done by Friday. Just need to fire up my copy of KSP that has Animator installed and reshoot a small scene. I'm happy to have January behind me, considering I've been sick-ish almost the entire month. Also, I will most likely slightly rework this post once I've regained my senses and actually proof read it again. I'm already a bit salty at my spellchecker that insists "sopaceworthy" is the proper spelling of "spaceworthy" and I just want to post the derned thing. Cheers. ==== Iron Supplements The first Iron shuttle had proven itself spaceworthy so The Boss scheduled a second one. Having two Irons and two (working) Sulphurs in the system for their crews to use would help alleviate some of the stress. Plus it would allow them to make regular runs to The Mün and possibly Minmus. They still needed to get some more fuel in orbit, but for now they could make do. There were a few changes in this new Iron, made primarily to the relay antenna and the launch fairing. No one was quite certain how the fairing of the previous Iron had ripped the antenna off, so they made its new placement rather conservative and increased the width of the fairing at the same time. (And they crossed their fingers.) The only other changes were minor tweaks to the placement of smaller, less important parts. Wiggles, really, not really much of a design change. The fingers had been crossed well enough, as this relay antenna survived first stage jettison. The second stage fired up and the Iron powered its way into orbit. This launch was the first of a two-stage operation, and merely needed to place the Fe-2 into a parking orbit above Kerbin. Any stable orbit would do. Once there, the Fe-2 would await the second piece, the craft that would accompany it to The Mün. The guidance software that launched this Iron was perhaps more accustomed to "rockety" rockets, and burned the shuttle into a slightly higher than expected orbit. It continued burning until the craft's periapsis was above the atmosphere, and then shut down, entering into its quiet slumber. With that, the Iron 2 was safe and sound in its rather temporary 70km by 120km parking orbit. -- Manganese Mün Next up was the Manganese Module bound for Pequoni Research Station at the Mün. While the module itself was identical to the previous Manganese, its destination necessitated a much larger launch vehicle. Something the LV-10 was not even remotely capable of lofting into orbit. Thus was born the LV-11 Nocturne. A rather simple rocket, the LV-11 used two of the KS-25 Vector engines to power its way into space. One Vector was capable of lifting a Titanium and its tank, so two should be more than capable of pushing a skyscraper full of fuel and experiments to The Mün, right? Right? Of course they were. The Boss wasn't sure who's idea this rocket was, but she had signed off on it immediately. It may be a new twist on an old concept, but it used parts developed by Wernher to do the crazy type of things only Wernher would think of. And it looked nothing at all like the madness Jonbald had cooked up for the Iron. Whoever had designed it was due an extra round of corn chips, and perhaps their own private bowl of queso dip. The launch had been timed nearly perfectly. The Iron 2 sailed overhead just as the first stage burned out and the second stage's Skipper took over. The second stage placed the craft almost into orbit, requiring only the shortest of burns from the Manganese's wet workshop styled propulsion stage to finish the ascent. Once the Manganese 3 was in orbit, the Iron 2 was a mere 22 kilometers ahead of it, an easy distance to clear. The ground controllers had the flight computer pull back from the craft's original apoapsis to allow the station to catch up with the Iron 2, set up the rendezvous, and then wandered off to the snack table. What they failed to noticed was the periapsis of the Manganese 3 dropped down to 68km immediately prior to the rendezvous. Ooops. In the end it only resulted in a tiny discrepancy, a few m/s lost. Well within the Iron's ability to match. Shortly thereafter the two had met and mated together, preparing for the long trip to the Mün. In the dark, as is only right and proper. That munar trip began some half orbit after the docking. The controllers transferred all of the fuel from the Iron into the Manganese's propulsion module (it would need it), calculated the burn so that the Manganese could rendezvous with Pequoni Station. A long, seven minute burn that would use up almost all of the two ship's combined fuel. The burn went exactly according to plan. Since the Mn-3/Fe-2 would need most of its fuel to complete the transfer and rendezvous, the space program would need to send more fuel and soon. The reserves they had been skimming from were running low, and thus far no other Forgotten tankers had been found in orbit. (Though surely there were some out there they had yet to find. The Boss knew of at least four.) Yet that was something that could wait until they had finished the first of their research tasks. Until they had unlocked more of the secrets of the universe's tech tree. Until they had found Wernher. -- Navigation: Next Post

Reference to 99% of most science fiction in the last 50-100 years that included a colonized Mars in some form.... Red Mars, Babylon 5, etc.

Avatar: Something I drew with a magic marker ages ago and then cleaned up a bit in photoshop..... It just kind of stuck, and I prefer to see that d6 plastered all across the intertubes than my own face. Username: What's in a name? That which we call Mars by any other name would as rusty be. So Cydonian Monk would, were he not so called, still chant Free Mars, for a Free Mars is best for all.

I would, were I going to PAX. Just coincidental timing.

No mid-week update like I was hoping folks. Busier week than I expected. Most likely Sunday, since I'm in San Antonio Saturday. Good luck. If it does end up (nearly) killing you, the craft file is up on KerbalX. I'll have a stock version of the Cobalt up on KerbalX sometime this weekend, too.

It's possible. I often see weird graphics glitches or physics "wiggles" just before a crash. Like the game is skipping some of its code or running some of it twice. FWIW, it only leaks that much while I have this save open, so it is partially related to the save size. Other saves crash just as frequently, and they don't get anywhere near 16+GBs like FSP does. With the unpredictability of crashes in v1.2.2 it could be anything. (I'm still reasonably certain most of my crashes are either due to graphics, or because of mods that think they've been updated but haven't really. I just wish they'd log SOMETHING. The crashes have been less frequent this year, too, and I updated a few plugins this month....)

We are definitely looking at multiple entities that have different end goals and differing paths to reach those goals, yes.

Welcome! Now if we could do something about the helmet collar and the space mittens we'd really be in business.

I use the "Black Shades" from Pro Props and edit the texture so that the glass is clear. It's close enough for me.

Adaptation “Burn complete,” the Guidance Officer reported. “Chromium 13 shows good orbit at Minmus. The network is green.” “That’s the last of them. Good work, kerbals.” Rosuki unplugged her headset and shut down the Flight Director’s station. “Snacks are waiting in the lobby, and a reliable source tells me there’s a fresh rio queso waiting to be forded. Go enjoy yourselves this evening. You’ve earned it.” She waited until mission control was empty before she moved to the CapCom's station. Four sets of crews were highlighted on the task list: one at Transfer One above Kerbin, another at Pequoni 2 at The Mün, Sieta aboard the Memory of Tomorrow, and the final at Jool. Sieta was marked as "Do not Contact," while the Jool crew had no date for their last check in. She debated about adding the others to the list; the crews at Eve and Duna, maybe even the rest of The Forgotten. Wherever they were. First call was the same as always: Jool. "Kerbin calling Jumble of Parts. Please respond, same frequency. Over." She repeated the message once, and then listened. No answer. After the acceptable time delay had passed she started scanning the frequencies, listening to the noise emanating from Jool. Still nothing. Next she moved to Duna, attempting to reach Valentina and her crew. Last time they'd talked to anyone on Kerbin was just after they landed on Ike; just before the hard reset. Rosuki was on The Mün at the time. How long ago was that? Ten years already? More? Same answer as Jool: silent static. It was the same story from Eve. Had Bob and his crew had made it, they would have been at Kerbin years ago. Same with Val. Either The Forgotten had picked them up or the Krakens had taken them all. She looked back at the list. Sieta. Sieta and Hallock. Where were they headed? Duna? Dres? Both? Dres would be a stretch for the Memory of Tomorrow, requiring nearly twice as much ∆v as Duna for a low orbit. Why would they go to Dres? Why Duna? What could either planey possibly have that would draw them in? As much as she wanted to dial them up and ask she knew they wouldn't answer. Probably couldn't even hear her. They probably weren't listening, at least not listening to Kerbin. Sieta was always listening to the universe. And what of the rest of The Forgotten? The ones that weren't on Kerbin had disappeared with Elite, either by choice or happenstance. Surely their chatter would've shown up on the network by now. Whatever happened.... Rosuki didn't want to think about it. The crew at Pequoni 2 was in good spirits, preoccupied by the science data Verly had brought back from the surface. They were all showing signs of space adaptation though, that characteristic voice as their vocal chords changed in the microgravity. Both of her crews were overdue for a return to Kerbin. She took notes on what supplies and other equipment they needed, promised to send it along on the next mission. The story at Transfer One wasn't as happy. "Purple. Two of them. One purple. One green. Both green. One purple. Purple. Two of them...." Tetris was back on the radio after a few seconds. "Yes, I'd say Rozor has left the fleet, if you catch my meaning. Just keeps muttering the same phrase over and over." "Noted." So Rozor was still babbling and muttering. Tetris informed Rosuki that she had assumed command in the interim. They were trying to keep themselves busy, but they were preoccupied by the space crazy former commander and their other guest, Enwise, The Party Boss. None of them completely trusted Enwise, for good reasons, but the loss of Rozor as a functioning member if the crew had them at a count of 3 to 2. If another of them snapped, the two remaining would be outnumbered. At least this time The Boss had good news for Tetris and her crew: help was on the way. -- Burning Manganese That "help" was in the form of Project Manganese. Utilizing the newly discovered Wild Blue labs, Manganese would allow their science crews to research a broad selection of important subjects. Space adaptation, for starters. It was hoped by the Continuum Council that Manganese would determine why kerbals go space crazy, and find a way to prevent whatever brain rust was contributing to it. Intended to serve as the first module of a new research station, the Manganese Lab Modules would first be delivered to two existing ones: Transfer One and Pequoni 2. The support modules would be send up once the two labs were in place and confirmed to be working. The first Manganese module, Mn-1, was launched atop an extended version of the LV-10 Concerto. This proved to be severely underpowered, extremely wobbly, short of ∆v, and failed to make orbit. And so Mn-1 burned up in Kerbin's upper atmosphere, well short of orbital velocity. (The tracking station reported that most of the wreckage fell into the ocean, where it was ultimately destroyed.) -- Manganese 2 The crews took some time with the second Manganese launch, trying to find a launcher that was both powerful and capable enough to place the heavy payload into orbit. Eventually they settled on the LV-10-H, or Concerto Heavy. This design added six solid rocket boosters, fur that fired at launch, two that fired when the first four were discarded. The extra kick, and some extra struts to fix the wobble, were all that was needed to loft the Manganese 2 to its intended orbit. A few orbits later and the Mn-2 arrived at its temporary destination: Transfer One. The existing power infrastructure of the station would allow research to begin now, instead of waiting for the Manganese Station modules to be fully completed. The final rendezvous and docking occurred at night, as is only fitting and proper. The crew moved in to take a look once the module was docked up and linked in. Tucked away into the various pockets and cabinets of the lab were kits for four specific experiments. First, the afore-mentioned Space Adaptation study. This was to be conducted on all current members of the crew, as well as any new recruits that might arrive at a later date. Next up was a study of power tools and how well they operate in space. To date the crews had only used the standard Space Wrench, but it The Plan was to be executed fully they would need to build far more complex things in space. Power tools were just one of the many items they would need. The final two experiments were of a rather secretive nature. One, a study into cryogenic preservation, was inspired by the freezer unit recovered from Thomlock's Hawk 3-2 capsule. The actual unit had been long lost, but Wernher had been quite careful in taking notes. Notes which were stored in the archives recently recovered from the Mün. It was a strange device, using a technology long lost to kerbal kind. Freezing kerbals for long spaceflight missions might even enable them to send craft to nearby star systems. The final experiment was undoubtedly the most important. How can kerbals live in space if they can't make ice cream in space? That is a secret that MUST be revealed. -- Cobalt Testing Jonbald had been busy in the space plane hanger. He hadn't chosen it for his office by accident, and it certainly wasn't chosen because it was quiet. No, Jonbald had spent some time adapting Thomlock's designs for the X-4 into a five passenger craft that could be used on Kerbin. The end result was the Cobalt X-5. A few early versions had failed to make it off of the designs, so the final, flight-ready version was dubbed the Cobalt X-5C. The Cobalt represented a substantial upgrade from the Aluminium X-4. While the frame design was essentially the same, the engines were considerably more powerful and the craft's wingspan was a bit wider. All necessary if they were to carry four passengers and a pilot around in it. The addition of heavier landing gear should help with certain landing issues that had plagued the Aluminium in its later days. Jonbald's first test was simple: Make sure the aircraft can fly. A few backs and forths over the space center proved that it could, so he brought the jet down to the deck and punched the throttle through the dash. He was more than supersonic by the time he buzzed the old tower at the abandoned island airstrip. (Thankfully its windows had been broken many years before.) After the flyby he pulled up hard, climbed through several cruising altitudes, and kept a watch on the Cobalt's performance. It was generally a well behaved craft. After several minutes of testing he found the ideal cruising altitude was above 20km. Closer to 22km, truth be told, though keeping the craft right at 22km was difficult. Still, above 20km the fuel efficiency was such that he could likely fly around the planet if so desired. Max atmospheric velocity was something near twice orbital velocity, even at such high altitudes. Quite a nice bird indeed. His final test was to see if the craft could survive a fast descent. A dangerous test, one that would require him to pull out of a steep dive at full throttle. He remembered one of the Jebediahs losing an aircraft to a similar test, coming in to land without a nose and not much of a cockpit. There was a chance he might suffer the same fate. And so, somewhere on the far western end of their continent, he pushed down on the stick and let it speed towards the ground. To his relief the dive worked perfectly. Some parts were complaining, a few sensors screeching their heat warnings in the cockpit, but nothing melted. (At least nothing important.) He kept the aircraft throttled down as he cruised over Kerbin City, gliding up the coast at a leisurly rate. After a triumphant trip around the space center, Jonbald brought the X-5 in for a landing and coasted to the space plan hanger. The craft had performed beyond his expectations, and was now considered safe for flight. It was perhaps a bit short on range unless flying above twenty kilometers, but should serve nicely as a transport between their facilities on Kerbin. And possibly even serve as a future transport jet on Laythe. Director of Continuum or not, Jonbald was required to pose for the compulsory post-flight photo. Another successful test flight in the books. -- Iron Birdie The Boss wasn't quite sure what to make of the craft awaiting launch. She hadn't really thought to look at it while it was being assembled in the VAB, too busy with the tasks usually assigned to the Flight Director. So it was a bit of a shock when she looked up from mission control and saw something rather peculiar. “What is that... thing?” The answer almost made her jump. “That, my dear Rosuki, is Iron.” Jonbald had slipped into Mission Control immediately following his Cobalt test, unnoticed until just now. “Iron? The thing on the launchpad?” “Yes. It's an older design, something Wernher cooked up before, well, before the madness. It's a Sulphur, quite truthfully, updated for more range, with more powerful engines, a relay antenna, and built-in landing legs. Should be able to land on and return from any body in the Kerbol System except the usual suspects. Eve, Tylo, Laythe, what have you. We were somewhat lacking in launch vehicle department, nothing capable of placing it into orbit, so I had to be, ah, as you see, creative." "Not sure that's exactly the word I'd use." She scratched at the back of her head, a habit she had probably picked up from Gene. "Ok, let's see if your design flys as crazy as it looks." "It'll fly. Trust me." She started the count down and ran through the pre-flight checks. Nothing seemed out of place, the flight computer was happy with all of the onboard systems, no kerbals had snuck inside of the cockpit, the "rocket" was fueled and everything was good to go. And so it went. It wasn't the design Rosuki would've settled on, something of a large metal badminton shuttlecock, but she supposed it would work. At its vacuum rating it really would land almost anywhere, and could probably make it back from most of those places. Duna would perhaps require landing chutes, but otherwise it should work just fine. Getting it to orbit? That was a different task entirely. The first stage, its motley assortment of tanks and engines, carried it well out of the atmosphere. Once it was expended the stage's fairings deployed, the stage was blown free, and the Iron 1 deposited itself into orbit of Kerbin. Except something was missing. "We've lost the relay antenna. Looks like the fairings ripped it off." "Pity. I'll have to update the design, move the antenna down and away from the fairing walls. It's hard to say exactly what fits where these days." In the shuffling of ships around the Kerbin system following the Kelgee ghost strike, the crew at Transfer One had been left without an in-system shuttle. Three of the Sulphurs were at The Mün (though one of them was disabled), and all that was left at the transfer station was an older shuttle without a cockpit and stripped of its RTGs. The Fe-1 would fix that problem. The rendezvous occurred after just one orbit, allowing for a daytime docking for a change. As an added bonus it could seat five, enough room for the (living) crew members at the station. It may not be able to return crews to Kerbin, but in the event of another anomaly such as hit Kelgee, it would get them somewhere safe. Assuming there was somewhere safe to run to. Because in this business, safety isn't always a guarantee. -- Navigation: Next Post

Now that the aviators have made an appearance you should get some glasses for Wernher. Poor guy is probably half blind without 'em.

Ok, I think I have everything worked out now. Between our wacko Houston weather, these promiscuous cedar trees with their lovely pollen that I've never built a resistance to, other first of the year things that had to get done, and the whole messy ball of wax that is the world at the moment it's been tough to find the time and energy to pull all of this together. (A friend of a friend once said writing requires one to have a stable mind; something many are lacking at the moment.) I may have even "lost the story" at one point, and really did need to go back and reread large chunks of it to remind myself where certain threads are going. Hopefully I've got it right in my head and my head screwed on right. I've flown all of the "parallel" missions I need to complete, I've worked out all of the screenshots (though editing them on my Mac has now become needlessly difficult), and I believe I have the prose how I want it. I've had to rethink a few things, and I wasn't happy with how this first part o the next update was structured or presented... so I've now rearranged it a few times. In the end I went with the words I had first written, so.... *cough* Yeah. Expect an update later tonight, probably another mid-week, and two more for the weekend and week after that. Hopefully. After that there's... stuff, and things... and likely a large chunk of prose. Maybe two updates that will only have a single screenshot each, if at all. Following that, well, we'll see. Hopefully at some point I'll be caught up again to where reports are posted within a day or two of the missions being flown. -- In other news: For those that don't know, I try to post the ships I've launched in this save in a public folder on Dropbox. (Here.) So far the only KSP v1.2.2 craft I've added are the four Chromium vehicles (and an unflown, updated Titanium), but more will be added in time. Keep in mind that almost every craft I've launched has used mod parts, and that several of the mods I've used have changed part names (Tantares) or have been long abandoned (in one case since 0.22...). As always there's a modlist in the first post that includes all most of the mods used in older KSP versions, too. If you load a craft and a part is missing ping me with the exact part name and I'll see where it went. That link will only work until March 15th. After that Dropbox is discontinuing Public folders, so I'll need to find another solution. Likely I'll just use a direct link to another location in Dropbox, or perhaps a folder on my webserver. We'll see. Lots of things are going to break this year with Dropbox's changes (us Pro users lose yet more features in September, such as abusing Dropbox as a website), but they all seem to be for the best. Some of my craft are also posted to Kerbal-X. ("Some" meaning "three".) I don't have any of the 1.2.2 craft up there yet, but there's something coming in the next update that I intend to upload. Keep your eyes peeled (not literally, please). -- That's the one. Alt-j adds ∆, which is useful in its own right. Not sure what I was thinking. My MacBook Pro keyboard is a bit weird anyway, as I'm using a JIS layout keyboard (I was experimenting with JIS before I bought this MBP, and after four years I'm still undecided which layout I prefer), but those keybindings are still the same.

Tell me about it.....

It would appear one of them is named SAM and is rather Mobile.

Agreed. Now I'm waiting for @Zhetaan to break down Gene's post-fight speech in which he claims "For I am Kerbal, you know" despite possibly neither of his parents being so. I guess we must now wait until the day be Gene's.....

Yep, can confirm. Alt+F12 in Windows 10 stopped working for me late last year, and not just in Kerbal. I discovered later that ShadowPlay was installed (without any notice, mind you), deleted that, deleted the NVIDIA GeForce Experience garbage, and everything went back to normal. Also - on OS-X, by default the function keys are not function keys, but are instead skip/eject/etc, this why you have to hit Fn+F12. You can change that behaviour in settings. (Assuming you still have function keys. Or an escape key.) I presume some Windows laptops do the same.

Thanks! Definitely not intentional... though there's only so many ways to skin Rip Van Winkle. Not conciously intentional, but Star Ocean is one of those things that's so deeply ingrained in my psyche it'd be hard to say it doesn't influence things here and there. [That said, Till the End of Time came out after I lost access to a PS-2, so I've not played it, only watched it on YouTube.] Soon™.

You chose correctly. In this sense the name of the English vessel, "Enterprise," is a loan word. Katakana is generally more correct for such foreign words.

Copied from my Twitch page, because I'm lazy: It's not so much the save size, it's that KSP leaks about 500MBs of RAM at every scene change. I'm also at the lower edge of what scatterer supports, GPU-VRAM-wise. I have no idea what specifically is causing the crashes as it doesn't produce any sort of log - it just dies. I'm not sure how to get the (tm) symbol on OS-X, but I assume it involves the Alt key and lots of guessing. (Ex: To get ü, you have to type u and then hit Alt+j twice. No idea why.) I usually just copy/paste symbols from Wiktionary or Wikipedia these days.

Run away. As propagandized detailed by Julius Caeser himself, under pressure and threat from Germanic tribes the Helvetii were planning to migrate en-masse to the Atlantic coast. This threatened the stability of Gaul and the interests of Rome, forcing Caeser to rob them to pay his debts protect the interests of Rome. Perhaps these pesky kerbal antagonists are likewise planning to migrate to Laythe, thereby forcing Kerbulus to keep the peace?

The Banner Saga, in which I make terrible decisions that ultimately result in the end of the world. Also Dwarf Fortress; same outcome.

Soon. Not sure how soon, but soon. You'll understand when I post it, but there are some things I need to finish concurrent with things that are going on, so that I can then backtrack and take care of those things in the story. Also, this was happening: ... often. Which was getting rather a bit frustrating, so I needed to take a break from the game. Had lots of other tech-stuff to get into over my not-a-vacation, plus other hobbies, college football, and the usual holiday social stuff that pulled time away. Soon.