Kerbfleet: A Jool Odyssey-END OF CHAPTER 21! (and hopefully not so many talking heads in 22!)

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

and on we go... 

You know, it occurs to me that you Kerbals shouldn't be playing Kess, but some Kerbfleet analog of shogi.  The main feature that distinguishes shogi from chess is that you can, instead of taking a move, add a captured enemy piece to your own order of battle.  Which fits with the "we don't kill enemy pieces, we recruit them" thing.

[Mister Dilsby]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

You know, it occurs to me that you Kerbals shouldn't be playing Kess, but some Kerbfleet analog of shogi.  The main feature that distinguishes shogi from chess is that you can, instead of taking a move, add a captured enemy piece to your own order of battle.  Which fits with the "we don't kill enemy pieces, we recruit them" thing.

Makes perfect sense! Unfortunately I would be about as successful writing about shogi as I would writing in Japanese. Actually, less. At least I know terms such as 'shomenuchi ikkyo', 'katatetori shihonage', 'gomen nasai' and even 'unagi maki'. On the other hand, or te as it were, your description of shogi just doubled or tripled my knowledge of that game. 

3 hours ago, Starhawk said:

The landing at Minmus should be interesting.

Should be--I honestly don't know if I have enough oxidant to pull it off. Don't worry, somebody in a red uniform will make some sort of calculation first  

[Mister Dilsby]

3 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

@Kuzzter I have some lab config experience with Pathfinder, if you want me to take a gander at the KPBS science lab.

Appreciate that very much. I'll see what I can do to eliminate some possibilities on my own first.

[Deddly]

First of all, since I don't think anyone else mentioned it, I just wanted to say that I think Kuzzter was very kind to time the release of a comic so that certain readers would be out of school when it was released.

Second, I think it's very interesting that the Kerbal version of chess has an 8x7 board, and I wonder if that's significant in some way

[Thegamer211]

If you're having problems with thrust angle, you should check out Throttle Controlled Avionics!

 

[Mister Dilsby]

7 hours ago, Deddly said:

Second, I think it's very interesting that the Kerbal version of chess has an 8x7 board, and I wonder if that's significant in some way

The significance is that I could not be bothered to build my own board and grabbed randomness from the Internet. Kerbal checks===human chess, right down to algebraic notation. So, anyone know what Bob's correct continuation is after 1. d4 f6? 'Cause I don't think Bob does  
 

[Starhawk]

I've rarely played since high school, but I would play nite to C3.

Happy Concerned landings!

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, Kuzzter said:

The significance is that I could not be bothered to build my own board and grabbed randomness from the Internet. Kerbal checks===human chess, right down to algebraic notation. So, anyone know what Bob's correct continuation is after 1. d4 f6? 'Cause I don't think Bob does  

"Queen to King's Level 1" ?

[soundnfury]

Personally I'd go with "Booster to f4".  But then, I would never have gone for the Val's Pod opening to begin with; I much prefer e4, the Jeb's Pod.

[Mister Dilsby]

12 hours ago, Starhawk said:

I've rarely played since high school, but I would play nite to C3.

 

10 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

"Queen to King's Level 1" ?

 

6 hours ago, soundnfury said:

Personally I'd go with "Booster to f4".  

All quite serviceable (well, except maybe that middle one  )

Standard line is 2. pod->c4, pod->e6, 3. nite->c3, booster->b4 resulting in:

I never open "Val's pod" either as White, I always open e4 and am reasonably well prepared for Black's major lines. As Black I always play the Nimzo in response to d4, and against e4 I probably play the Sicilian (...c5) most often, followed by the Caro-Kann (...c6) and only occasionally the French (...e6). I never play a symmetric defense unless I'm teaching a kid.  

Edited March 7, 2016 by Kuzzter

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, Kuzzter said:

All quite serviceable (well, except maybe that middle one  )

But that one was a key part of a Star Trek episode so is the only appropriate one

1 hour ago, Kuzzter said:

I never open "Val's pod" either as White, I always open e4 and am reasonably well prepared for Black's major lines. As Black I always play the Nimzo in response to d4, and against e4 I probably play the Sicilian (...c5) most often, followed by the Caro-Kann (...c6) and only occasionally the French (...e6). I never play a symmetric defense unless I'm teaching a kid.  

Inigo Montoya: You are using Bonetti’s Defense against me, ah?
Man in Black: I thought it fitting considering the rocky terrain.
Inigo: Naturally, you must suspect me to attack with Capoferro?
Man in Black: Naturally, but I find that Thibault cancels out Capoferro. Don’t you?
Inigo: Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa… which I have.

 

[Mister Dilsby]

4 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Inigo: Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa… which I have.

Huh. For years i heard that as "...has studied his a-leap-a," due to the accent Mandy was using and the fact he was leaping over the MIB at the time. Agrippa makes more sense--you don't study a leap, you practice it.

[Musil]

Hey, I was just coming back here because I had forgotten to comment that I loved kerbal chess, and I find myself a whole discussion on opening theory. Anyone fancy a game at chess.com? I am not very good, but I do play often. 

Great to see that we are finaly setting sail to Jool. 

[Geschosskopf]

16 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Huh. For years i heard that as "...has studied his a-leap-a," due to the accent Mandy was using and the fact he was leaping over the MIB at the time. Agrippa makes more sense--you don't study a leap, you practice it.

Agrippa, like the other names mentioned, was a real-life Renaissance rapier fencingmaster who wrote a very influential book on the subject.

[Mister Dilsby]

On 3/7/2016 at 2:41 PM, Geschosskopf said:

Agrippa, like the other names mentioned, was a real-life Renaissance rapier fencingmaster who wrote a very influential book on the subject.

Ah. Will have to look him up. I was more into guys like Nadi and Monstery. Explains why I was never very successful trying to jump over my opponents.

And while I return to the library to study masters of old, let's finish the chapter!

So,  a few notes: Yes, I probably could get Intrepid to the surface with 90 m/s left for the aerospikes. I could kill my horizontal velocity with the main (LV-N) engines, fall, kill most of my vertical, flip for a belly landing, and most likely make it. But it'd be marginal, and it's not a decision Val would take when there are so many other options. The ore piggies (probe shuttles that used to go between a surface mine and Outbound) hold 15 tons of ore each and have a Rocko-16 tank for LFO. None of them have any ore on them right now, but I could go get some or (as Bob suggested) ferry oxidant from Outbound. Qwammer does not carry any significant ore (it just has a tiny radial tank) but it's sized to SSTO from Tylo with 1.5 OTE (Orange Tank Equivalent) of available LFO storage. 

How much OX does Intrepid need to land? Well, it has about 1900 units aboard now, a bit more than what would fit in a Rocko-32 tank. Even counting losses going down to the surface and returning, just one load from Qwammer would probably suffice--especially if I didn't fill the tanks with LF all the way. 

But (and this is most certainly what went through Val's mind as well) sucking the asteroid dry and turning over a hundred tons of rock into oxidant would absolutely guarantee the descent, with margin--and we do need margin, since the RCS system uses LFO as well, and we are going to want the ship to be VERY stable when it meets the surface. Also IIRC asteroids mine faster than moons, so this would shorten the overall time required to fill up. 

And what, exactly, does "filling up" mean for this ship? Well, with everything docked here is the resource window. This is the same picture that's on the main viewer over Bob's shoulder on the first page.

...am I really going to mine over 130,000 units--650 tons--of liquid fuel? Well, I guess it all depends on how long it takes  ...ten drills, two ISRU modules, and a 25x engineer. We'll find out next chapter!

Edited March 9, 2016 by Kuzzter
corrected: it's a class-C not a class-A

[FlyingPete]

The general idea with grabbing asteroids is to turn them into a fairly long-lived fuel depot.... and you're going to empty one in a single ship Fantastic.

 

And of course, the Captin obviously has to go on the away mission- it's a Star Trek (parody) staple

Edited March 7, 2016 by FlyingPete

[Mister Dilsby]

22 minutes ago, FlyingPete said:

And of course, the Captin obviously has to go on the away mission- it's a Star Trek (parody) staple

 yes, exactly. I do want to find a middle ground between Kirk's "all senior officers on every away mission, always" and Picard's "I only go to the planet when I'm in the romantic subplot." 

Speaking of ST tropes, Clauselle is floating around on the bridge in this update specifially to remind us all that we're averting this one.

[FlyingPete]

1 hour ago, Kuzzter said:

Also of interest is the Kerbal Alarm Clock display. Imminent B-team antics at Dres! Will Gregbob/Gusmore/whatever his name is be going?

Edited March 7, 2016 by FlyingPete

[Mister Dilsby]

1 minute ago, FlyingPete said:

Also of interest is the Kerbal Alarm Clock display. Imminent B-team antics at Dres! Will Gregbob/Gusmore/whatever his name is be going?

Long-time readers may remember seeing such an alarm set on KAC before... I didn't send a ship to Dres or Moho then, and having a Dres window on the list doesn't mean I will send one now. But then again I might. Or I might not. As always, "my own counsel will I keep".  

Just as the fact that the Hohmann transfer for Jool is in 304 days doesn't mean I'll wait that long, if Intrepid leaves Minmus with enough dV to "kick down the door."

[Geschosskopf]

7 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Long-time readers may remember seeing such an alarm set on KAC before... I didn't send a ship to Dres or Moho then, and having a Dres window on the list doesn't mean I will send one now. But then again I might. Or I might not. As always, "my own counsel will I keep".  \

And the more other stuff you have going on, the less time you get to play with Intrepid.

7 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Just as the fact that the Hohmann transfer for Jool is in 304 days doesn't mean I'll wait that long, if Intrepid leaves Minmus with enough dV to "kick down the door."

The more you burn to leave and the quicker you get there, the more you have to burn to stop.

[smjjames]

14 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

The more you burn to leave and the quicker you get there, the more you have to burn to stop.

Not neccesarily. If his timing is good, he should be able to get a good gravity braking maneuver out of either Laythe or Tylo, I use gravity braking all the time when going to Jool. Of course, you don't want to be going so fast that a gravity braking won't help.

Also, the Intrepid doesn't seem like a ship that is meant to be able to land anywhere.

Edited March 8, 2016 by smjjames

[Geschosskopf]

7 hours ago, smjjames said:

Not neccesarily. If his timing is good, he should be able to get a good gravity braking maneuver out of either Laythe or Tylo, I use gravity braking all the time when going to Jool. Of course, you don't want to be going so fast that a gravity braking won't help.

If you're the better part of a year off the transfer window, gravity braking won't help much.

[Mister Dilsby]

7 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

And the more other stuff you have going on, the less time you get to play with Intrepid.

With the lag issues, that's not necessarily a bad thing  Fun fact: Many of the internal views you see in the comic come from the "Intrepid Playset" save:

...the 'playset' includes all the interior spaces including main engineering, the bridge, habs, science modules and a cupola. There's a passenger compartment as a "green room" for all the actors to hang out in when they're not on set. 

Not sure why Dilsby has no pilot skill in this save--he's at least a 4-star in the main save. I think I 'lost' him in this one and had to edit him back in for some reason. And yes, @Dman979, you're still on the roster  

7 hours ago, smjjames said:

Not neccesarily. If his timing is good, he should be able to get a good gravity braking maneuver out of either Laythe or Tylo, I use gravity braking all the time when going to Jool. Of course, you don't want to be going so fast that a gravity braking won't help.

Don't worry guys, I won't mess this up  Whenever I do a fast burn to get ahead of a transfer window I always plot the capture burn and check the dV requirements before i commit to the escape. 

Also, ERRATUM: The Dwagonfly is pulling a Class-C asteroid, not a Class-A. Will correct Bob's speech when I can  

[Alchemist]

Mort listed as an engineer?! OK, the finance report is closer to technical documentation than a scientific report, but... Surely, there was some documentation mess listing senior personnel with the crew

48 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Also, ERRATUM: The Dwagonfly is pulling a Class-C asteroid, not a Class-A. Will correct Bob's speech when I can  

I might have misread that as Class-E, thought it looked a bit on the smallish side...

[Starhawk]

15 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Just as the fact that the Hohmann transfer for Jool is in 304 days doesn't mean I'll wait that long, if Intrepid leaves Minmus with enough dV to "kick down the door."

8 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

The more you burn to leave and the quicker you get there, the more you have to burn to stop.

8 hours ago, smjjames said:

Not neccesarily. If his timing is good, he should be able to get a good gravity braking maneuver out of either Laythe or Tylo,

51 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

If you're the better part of a year off the transfer window, gravity braking won't help much.

37 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Don't worry guys, I won't mess this up  Whenever I do a fast burn to get ahead of a transfer window I always plot the capture burn and check the dV requirements before i commit to the escape.

Now I'm wondering exactly what the limit is for a gravity capture at Jool.   Hmmm.

Happy Concerned landings!