The Wait (OR a newbie's adventures in Hard mode)

[TheHolyChicken]

Reddit thread here: http://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/2zc4ee/short_story_the_wait_or_a_newbies_adventures_in/

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Sean waited, alone, in space.

Perhaps it was bravery, or perhaps he didn't understand the question, but Jebediah didn't hesitate to accept their most important mission so far - to save the stranded Kerbal, Seanemone, from (inexplicable) orbit. His family's eyes and hopes were on us. Our organisation - with its dodgy facilities and well-meaning (albeit stupid) employees - had barely skimmed the surface of space; this would be our greatest challenge yet.

Top scientists and engineers collaborated to construct our flagship craft: 'RESCUE 1'. Courageous Jeb was catapaulted into orbit, assuring everyone that he "got this" and that he "knew what he was doing". Alas it was all bravado, and, after failing to rendezvous, Jeb was forced to re-enter amidst much embarrassment and shame.

Sean waited, alone, in space.

'RESCUE 2'. After a near-disastrous launch (thanks to the engineers' "great tweaks") Jeb once again found himself in orbit, battling gravity and his limited understanding of orbital mechanics. His bravado muted, this time he directed his attention fully to the task of saving Sean. So fully, unfortunately, that he wasn't paying attention to where his elbows were, and - BOOM! - he accidentally progressed to the rocket's next stage. The stage where the command pod separated from the engines. "Uh Oh". He was adrift.

Sean waited, alone, in space. Jeb understood how he felt.

Back at home, the stricken engineers clamoured to construct 'RESCUE 3', and there were no shortage of volunteers - none remaining even knew how to fly a rocket but they'd be damned if that would stop them. Yet doubts grew - are we insane? Is it right to send more Kerbals to their potential doom? Is this moral?

Sean gazed into the increasingly familiar black. A speck was taunting him again, trying to tease hope into consciousness. He wouldn't let it. It weaved back and forth, here and there, smaller and greater; like a stalking mosquito. He wished he could hear its buzz - he would let it come close and drink if only to break the damnable silence. This one's persistence began to frustrate him - how far had dehydration gone?

The speck grew closer. Could it be? Surely not. It grew closer still. He blinked in disbelief, and fired up the jetpack with trepidation - his training hadn't covered this. If he ran out of fuel... it didn't bear thinking about. Fumbling with the controls, Sean zig-zagged erratically towards the speck until, miraculously, he was alongside the craft. With bated breath - still distrusting his senses - he opened the hatch and clamboured in.

Cheers erupted from the command centre, and then from all the Kerbals watching at home. He was aboard! Seanemone was aboard! They had done it! 'RESCUE 3', despite the pilot's inexperience, had found the lost kerbal and was heading home. But, for all the celebrations, it was a hollow victory... we had left someone behind.

Jeb waited, alone, in space. Sean understood how he felt.

"Get me back UP THERE!" he yelled at Mortimer, the head of Finance; and Linus, the Science boffin; but it was no good. Even Sean had to concede that they were right - a rescue mission just wasn't feasible. They were broke. Almost bankrupt, in fact - the rescue attempts had bled them dry. Worse still, they didn't have the technology to get Jebediah home; to even attempt a rescue would first require a huge investment in their facilities. Where would the money come from?

A radical new idea was proposed - what if the craft didn't explode every time? What if we made a plane that could land without exploding? No-one much liked the sound of that, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The road was rough; we flirted with bankruptcy for weeks as prototype after prototype crashed into the ground - it quickly became clear that no-one knew anything about planes. Sean piloted every test flight they would let him, nearly costing him his life on multiple occasions, but nothing could break his resolve. He had to believe they would get it right eventually - they just had to.

Perseverance paid off: the plane 'BRAVERY' was born. We entered a time of prosperity - dozens of contracts were completed in record time, and none of the accidents were even fatal! New facilities gleamed proudly in the morning sun. Scientists did sciencey stuff. Finally, at long last, work began in earnest on a brand new space craft. Eyes started to look to the sky again... was he still alive?

Jeb waited, alone, in space. Sean gripped the seatbelts. He felt the familiar rumble of the engines. It was time.

Edited March 17, 2015 by TheHolyChicken

[TheHolyChicken]

These were my genuine experiences with KSP's career mode so far, expanded and fleshed out into something I hope you enjoyed reading. There is also an alternative version of these events, though - one where we had saves available to us:

"Woops I screwed up lol, F9".

None of it would have happened. The failure of the first craft, the disaster of the second craft, the abandonment of Jeb in orbit, the rescue and near-bankruptcy, the subsequent march into aerospace and financial turnaround. All blinked out of existence by a revert launch, or a quickload. If you're playing KSP's career mode with saves, I'd urge you to try without!

I'm gonna go and see if Sean and I can go rescue Jeb from his plight now, and then perhaps we'll try to get to the Mun? Happy kerbaling everyone, and GL for your future endeavours

Edited March 17, 2015 by TheHolyChicken

[Patupi]

Congratulations on losing Jeb I'm sure he'll find his way back somehow. Yes, playing with things for keeps is more... interesting. It certainly makes things last longer... in a way. Well, the ships don't, but the game does

Nicely done on the scripting, but you know you can insert imgur pics directly into the post even without those 'tiled' pages? Go to the album page, hit the 'edit descriptions' tag, then on the pic you want you can left click to enlarge, then right click to copy the URL. Then it's just and it's in the post. Just in case you weren't already aware of that and were doing what you had above to avoid spoiling the flow of your writing

[TheHolyChicken]

Just in case you weren't already aware of that and were doing what you had above to avoid spoiling the flow of your writing

Thanks for the friendly help. I was indeed using hyperlinks instead of embedded images to avoid spoiling the flow of the writing - I wrote the story first, then embellished it using the screenshots I had taken along the way. I was happy with the text and didn't really want big images intruding mid-sentence, which would kind of require re-writing a bunch of it. Unfortunately, I suppose this way means it's less visually interesting, and I'm forcing people to click a bunch of links instead of being able to just passively read/look. Let's change one to an image to grab some attention!

[Patupi]

I think that is a good touch. The only other way would be to do tiny little thumbnails... which probably would also spoil the flow a bit, and also be awkward to work out anyway. *shrugs*

All I can say is I like the style and leave it at that