Forgotten Space Program

[Cydonian Monk]

24 minutes ago, StickyScissors said:

What kinda GPU are you running?

GTX-770. It does well enough for what I need.

 

20 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Scatterer is very cool but it was continually crashing my game back in in 1.1.2 so I quit using it.  I'm guessing it's better now?  

Scatterer has been rock-steady for me in 1.1.3, though I had to turn off the god rays (for other reasons).

20 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Also, EVE hasn't been updated to 1.1.3 yet, has it?  I forget what version you're in now.

I'm in 1.1.3. I don't remember if I'm using a version of EVE built by somebody else or by me.... But I think the most recent version on GitHub works just fine, despite being a 1.1.2(?) build.

The only time 1.1.3 has crashed for me was when it was using 12GBs of RAM, which was apparently too much. Something has a memleak somewhere..., but that was also after many hours of gameplay on a Sunday morning.

[Geschosskopf]

1 minute ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Scatterer has been rock-steady for me in 1.1.3, though I had to turn off the god rays (for other reasons).

I always turned them off, and also lens flare.  I'm using my eye, not a friggin' camera, so shouldn't have camera-induced weirdness obscuring the view

 

1 minute ago, Cydonian Monk said:

I'm in 1.1.3. I don't remember if I'm using a version of EVE built by somebody else or by me.... But I think the most recent version on GitHub works just fine, despite being a 1.1.2(?) build.

Well, I might give it a go, then.  I rather like having clouds.

 

1 minute ago, Cydonian Monk said:

The only time 1.1.3 has crashed for me was when it was using 12GBs of RAM, which was apparently too much. Something has a memleak somewhere..., but that was also after many hours of gameplay on a Sunday morning.

1.1.3 crashes a lot on me, but I've found that this is mostly a ModuleManager issue.  If I delete the cache every time  before I launch the game, then no problem.  If I let MM load patches from the cache, then it crashes every time I go to an editor or a ship already in flight.  It doesn't crash on the Space Center, Mission Control, the Astronaut Complex, or Admin, but only where 3D parts are involved.

[waterlubber]

On 6/29/2016 at 8:55 PM, cubinator said:

The rectangles made me think of these:

I love this game, I played it on XP 

On 7/2/2016 at 2:42 AM, Cydonian Monk said:

An update on KSP v1.1.3: It works! Very little ultimately needed to be fixed, but I also did my usual thing of copying all craft and crew into a fresh save, so I didn't anticipate many issues. Kelgee loads without issue, and the Jool mission craft are all hunky-dory, minus anticipated stuff and things. Almost all of the mods I use are updated or working now, so we're pushing forward.

Does anyone have an idea as to why my EVA kerbals have suddenly turned into PacMan? They chomp their mouths at full open one frame, full closed the next. Looks exactly like (Mr/Ms) PacMan. I suspect mods, but have no idea where to start looking, or if this might even be a stock bug. Or if they just really like chomping pills and killing ghosts.....

I doubt vanilla 1.1.3 works. I'm pretty upset at Squad going on with console ports when 1.1.3 is THIS broken.

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, waterlubber said:

I doubt vanilla 1.1.3 works. I'm pretty upset at Squad going on with console ports when 1.1.3 is THIS broken.

Oh, I'm not saying it's all perfect, just that it doesn't crash much on me at all. Lots of EVA things are broken (lights, pacman, etc.), and kerbals are seemingly frictionless like the wheels. But so far the issues have been things I can live with. 

We'll see what 1.2 brings. Maybe it gets better, maybe the whole thing blows up. 

[waterlubber]

3 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

Oh, I'm not saying it's all perfect, just that it doesn't crash much on me at all. Lots of EVA things are broken (lights, pacman, etc.), and kerbals are seemingly frictionless like the wheels. But so far the issues have been things I can live with. 

We'll see what 1.2 brings. Maybe it gets better, maybe the whole thing blows up. 

For me on Linux at least, I'm getting VAB crashes, buggy landing gears, random space crashes...etc, etc.

 

It makes the 64 bit Windows version look like professional software.

I really hope Squad isn't going the whole "no support for Linux" game, or even worse, not fixing the bugs because they're part of Unity. I've never heard of bugs in, say, Portal going unpatched because they're part of Source.

[Andem]

4 minutes ago, waterlubber said:

not fixing the bugs because they're part of Unity. I've never heard of bugs in, say, Portal going unpatched because they're part of Source.

SQAUD didn't develop Unity.

Valve developed source themselves.

There is a reason that this is called a logical fallacy.

[Cydonian Monk]

Given the "We're Hiring" ad at the top of the Forum, I seriously doubt Squad will abandon KSP to its bugs anytime soon. I can't speak as much for Linux support, which I'm in favor of, but can certainly understand why it might have more issues than the Windows version.

Regardless, this thread really isn't the place to debate it.

[Cydonian Monk]

One Hundred Years at the Edge of Infinity

So maybe it wasn't much of a party. Four kerbals, trapped in a tin can, millions of kilometers from home. The only fireworks were a bunch of space trash melting in the Laythean atmosphere and a radioactive cloud of plasmatic hydrogen, both of which were taking place a full two days before the actual New Year. At least they had ample rations of fizzy drink to pass around, and the standard-issue zero-G corn chips and queso dip. Because you can't call it a party without at least three kerbals and two of those three things.

As for the fireworks.... It took a bit of work to get the telescope (and the station it was attached to) aimed in the right direction, but in the end it all worked perfectly. They saw the first signs of the harness' entry just as they slipped to the night side of Laythe. They watched with rapt attention as that small speck of not much flared up and began streaking across the darkened sky. Brilliant reds and yellows trailed in its wake, and occasionally a larger explosion would send pieces tumbling into the atmosphere to burn up on their own.

One final flash, and that was that. No more space trash. 

[Except that wasn't it, as a large piece of the structure survived not only atmospheric entry, but impact with the ocean surface. It came to rest some 2km below the unending waves of Laythe, where it remains to this day. Plotting. Planning. Scheming. One day it will have its revenge! Or, not, because it's just a dead probe core and a bunch of melted steel.]

Meanwhile the Potassium 2 was rapidly approaching the station from the other direction. Its burn to decrease its apoapsis sent another bright red cloud streaking across the sky, yet it was the one bit of fireworks they had to try not to look at as it came with an unhealthy dose of radiation. Not much at their range, but every little bit counts.

[This event somehow escaped the screenshot key....]

The K-2 entered a slightly shallower orbit than the Jumble of Parts, and would catch up with the station after one orbit. A rendezvous in that dark, as is only fitting and proper. 

A quick check of the map showed, yes, more lines, but also that "in the dark" was about to become an extended event. One feature of orbiting a small body that is itself orbiting a large body that isn't the Sun is that said large body blocks sunlight for an extremely long period of time. Sure, there's not much of the blessed warmth of solar fusion all the way out at Jool, but when it's all you've got it's all you've got and you don't want to lose it.

So the absence of that light for such an extended period of time is neither fitting nor proper.

Thomlock ran the numbers and discovered that, yes, the rendezvous would occur moments after the Sun disappeared behind Jool, and, yes, the Sun wouldn't be visible until several hours later. 

"Hope you like being in the dark."

"About what?"

"What do you mean about what?"

Macfred drifted to where Thomlock had been plugging away at the map terminal. "In the dark, about what?"

"Being in the dark. Literally. In the dark. No phone, no lights, no motorcar. Not a single necessity. Primitive as can be." He pointed at the map. "See. Here in an hour or so the K-2 will blast a bit of luminous red plasma out of its backside, and after that we'll be completely in the dark until well after the year ball has risen."

That garnered a quizzical look from everyone. "The what?!?"

All he could do was shake his head. "Kids. If I hadn't been out here with you for the last several years I'd think you were a gang of uncultured mystery goo. Just believe you me, the lights are going to go out and it'll get dark."

Very dark indeed, though not unexpectedly so. There was a reason they brought more RTGs than any healthy kerbal could use. 

Thankfully robots don't need sunlight to function (except they kind of do), and most of the various craft at Laythe have lots of spotlights to spare [which I forgot to use]. And it wasn't like they were in complete and total darkness. Not only did the stars cast a bit of (very dim and oft creepy) light, but the outer atmosphere of Jool was still scattering a good bit of the scant sunlight. 

So occasionally, one of the crew would glance out of their window and see a giant spacecraft floating past in the frighteningly dim green light.

Good way to scare yourself, even if you expect it. 

Macfred set to work moving the Parts around the Jumble while the others watched. Gletrix was on deck and suited up in case an emergency EVA was needed during the task. Thomlock was in the shuttle cockpit in case they needed more power to wrangle the beasties into place. Agake was watching her science experiments cook and bubble, as always. 

First Macfred undocked the Aluminium X-4B aircraft and its small tug from the K-2, moving them to the docking port at the other end of the Sulphur Shuttle. It wasn't the smoothest of operations... conducted by himself, in the dark, using the remote docking cameras... but it was far from the most dangerous thing he'd attempted in his career. Still, had it not been for the docking tools, this was a task that would've waited for the Sun to rise again.

Next he undocked the K-1 tug from the Jumble of Parts and moved to dock it with the K-2. From there both would consolidate their resources (moving as much fuel as possible into the K-1). Afterwards they would descend into a slightly lower orbit from that of the Jumble of Parts. The K-1 was to be their ride back to Kerbin, baring the arrival of an as-of-yet unplanned return craft, so best to have it fueled and ready should they need to make a hasty departure... in several hundred days time. 

This docking maneuver was a bit less challenging and yet a bit more unnerving, on account of the eight NERVAs the forward docking adapter of the K-1 had to miss. One misstep and who knows how many tons of radioactive fuel might be spread across Laythe orbit. Thankfully Macfred was able to thread the needle, and the two tugs were quickly made one. 

By now they were well inside Jool's shadow, and Laythe was in seemingly permanent darkness below. The fuel transfer between the K-2 and the K-1 was completed without issue.

And then Jool moved aside and let the Sun shine through once more. Laythe started to glow once more, and the bright stars became ever so slightly dimmer. 

And with that particular non-crisis over it was time for the real party.

--

Thomlock's New Year's Rocket Eve
[Live from Laythe's Sphere]

Five hours later and the show was on. No literal show, of course, though Macfred did try to raise Kerbin one last time. As they were still operating in the blind and unable to hear anything from Kerbin, Thomlock decided to host his own show. "Thomlock's New Year's Eve. Live, from Low Laythe Orbit." Or something along those lines. He pulled the snacks and the drinks out of the overhead bins and passed them around, calling every kerbal within earshot to join them in the main cabin. Meaning Agake, of course, as the other three were already on hand.

Macfred continued fidgeting with the radio, trying to coax it into recording the party and broadcasting it to an unawares audience. Or an uncaring audience. Or to mysterious aliens that were waiting to eat their ship in one bite. Who knows. Thomlock pulled him away from the obstinate beast and started into a strange ritual.

"This, kids, is this year's year ball." He raised his hand to the middle of the cabin and released a small red rubber ball. Someone had written '99' on the side with a black marker. "Now, back when I was a kid, back when New Year's was when it was supposed to be, some enterprising young kerbal decided to set up a big shiny ball atop the tallest building in Kerbin City."

Gletrix looked up from her bag of corn chips. "Mün Tower?"

"Mün what? Tower? Not on your life. That monstrosity is something your parents built, not mine. Anyway, about an hour before the zero second this other whackjob, this kerbal who might've had a bit too much to drink that night, went to the roof of that same building and started counting down. Had a megaphone and everything. As it went on the revelers in the streets gathered around the building and joined the chant. Age old tradition, really, just this time there was a big shiny ball dangling over everything."

"What's this now? Start into a story without me?" Agake drifted into the cabin from the lower lab, several zip-bags filled with a mostly clear liquid in her hands. She tossed them at the other three and then passed out straws. "Here, try this out. A little something I've been cooking up over the last two years."

"And here we thought you were doing science."

"That _is_ science. And art. Tell me it isn't and you'll become a vacuum exposure test subject. Anyway, what's this about a big shiny ball?"

Thomlock took a sip from the spacer equivalent of a mason jar and made a face that most would consider impossible for a kerbal. "Sharp stuff, that."

Agake shrugged. "Didn't have much to work with. Enjoy it while it lasts."

"Right." Another sip, not so bad a face. "So this loon is standing on the edge of the building next to this big disco ball, chanting to the crowd. Ten. With the crowd. Nine. He climbs out on top of the big shiny thing just as the moment nears. Eight. The Mün rises over the horizon. Seven. And he gets this idea. Six. That maybe he should go there. Five. To the Mün. Four. It wouldn't be hard, he thought. Three. If he dropped a giant rubber ball from the top of the tallest building.... Two. Surely the rebound would take him clear to the Mün.

"One." He gave the ball a push towards the top of the cabin, watching as it spun away. 

"To this day I'm still not sure if the ball was supposed to drop, or if that idiot with the megaphone somehow broke the cable holding it up. But the fall was something else. Really, like something out of a dream. One of those crazy dreams. The city lights reflecting off of it as it fell. A kaleidoscope of colors. The crowd below moving in rapid slow-motion, running for their lives as quickly as they could. The spray of glass as the ball finally hit the ground. Colors, lights, everywhere. Amazing."

The red ball bounced off of the upper hatch and rebounded towards him. He had to blink a couple times. For a moment it looked like more than one ball, but, no, just the one. That concoction of Agake's was strong stuff if his vision was already going double.

"A couple days later when I woke up in the hospital they said I was lucky to be alive. Spent hours pulling glass shards out of places no glass shards have any business being. And they suggested I was perhaps crazy. Yes, crazy. And crazy lucky. The newsreels played video of that night for munths to follow, and just about every New Years Eve thereafter."

"Waitsa second." Gletrix took another sip out of an already mostly-empty bag. "Why you were, were you, in the hopsital?"

"It was my megaphone." He grabbed the rubber ball as it floated past, tumbling lightly downwards. "So the following year we tried again, just with a giant rubber ball instead of a giant glass one. Painted the year on the side if it." He held the ball up as an example. "Year ball." A quick toss and the ball disappeared into the lab. "Didn't make it to the Mün, and we don't talk about the following New Year's anymore. Wasn't pretty."

The clock started beeping and soon it was ten seconds to zero time. Thomlock started the count as he had more than a hundred years before. "Nine, eight, seven," the others joined the chorus "six, four, no, five, three, two, none, none?, one. One."

And a red rubber ball came bounding out of the lab and sailed past them, startling Thomlock as it grazed his face. Gletrix and Macfred both started giggling, the others too, and the laughter amplified into a cacophony of giddiness. New Year's Day, finally upon them. Another year spent way out in the black.

"So," Macfred said some minutes later after catching his breath. "One hundred years." He was looking out of the window pensively, perhaps wondering what was happening on the blue speck next to the red speck near the Sun.

"Yeah, but one hundred years since what?" Agake looked at Thomlock, expecting an answer.

"Well, if you kids ran your numbers right, one hundred years since that Jeb kid blew himself up on the launchpad. Morbid thing to set a calendar to if you ask me." They sat in silence for some time, each reflecting on their own thoughts. Finally Macfred perked up and spoke directly to Thomlock.

"Oh, I forgot to mention," he stabbed at the window with his straw, pointing at nothing in particular. "I had the computer compare the flare you reported to the dat from the map sats and our own radar data."

"And?"

"And you're right. Something's here with us. Something big. The Boss suggested we might find, uh, something, so maybe this is it. Maybe it isn't. Either way as soon as this little holiday is over and all our heads clear up we'll go check it out. Deal?"

"Deal."

--

Twenty four days later and they were ready to head out on their expedition. (That "science" left them all with an incredible headache the likes of which nothing would chase away except time.) The K-3 and the extra fuel was still some forty days out, so instead of sitting around dreaming about where they might land on Laythe, they all piled aboard the Sulphur shuttle and went on a short trip. (They first had to move the Aluminium X-4B out of the way, but that was a simple task.)

Thomlock had labeled their destination as Thing L-1, the first Thing around Laythe. After running over the data several times, they calculated it to be in an equatorial, 200km orbit. Just a bit above them. With the observed flares and the radar blips they soon had the ephermeris down, and were able to catch another flare when and where it was expected.

"That thing's huge."

"Sure looks that way, Gletrix."

"What is it, do you think?"

Macfred interjected from the lower decks. "Probably a rock. Captured asteroid. Captured comet. The moons here play billiards with them, especially Tylo. Regular pool shark that one."

"Only one way to find out for sure." Thomlock hit the locks and backed the shuttle away from the station. "We'll go see it in person."

"Get comfortable, because it'll take us awhile to reach our target's orbit. I figure, two, maybe three burns total. We'll kick up into an orbit just above it, pull our peri up.  Should be there in, oh, two orbits? Give or take."

--

--

Infinity's Edge

One last burn and the rendezvous was set. 

"You should come back here and take a look at it." Agake had her head shoved up into the canopy behind Thomlock's, something neither had room for. "Can't see anything from this angle. It's huge. Why can't I see it from here?"

"I'm flying kiddo. I'll see it soon enough." Whatever it was. The blip on the radar was certainly very large, and the occasional glimpse he caught of it in the rear docking camera reinforced the radar's opinion. Huge. Round. Engineered. Just then Macfred pushed his way into the cockpit, somehow squeezing three kerbals into a space only meant for half of one.

"You've got good eyes, you old geezer. I'm wrong. Certainly isn't some rock." The console blipped, and a faint pink dot showed up on the video overlay.

"I'd say not," he pointed at the monitor showing the rear camera and its new symbol, "unless rocks have figured out how to broadcast docking instructions." 

The readout blipped again, showing they were closing at two meters per second. "Close enough." Thomlock switched off the main engines and brought the cold gas system online, slowing their relative velocity to near zero. "Monoprop from here on out. Let's take a better look at this thing." He gave the shuttle a nudge and they flipped over to face their destination.

Huge was an understatement.

The two kerbals wedged into the back of the cockpit both started speaking at the same time, and Gletrix was contributing to the commotion from the cabin behind. "It's spinning." "How did that get built?" "What's it doing here?" "Who says we built it?" "Are there kerbals onboard?" "Is it broadcasting anything else?" "Can we talk to them?" "What..." "How..." "Who..." "When..." "Why..." Noise. Noise. Noise.

"Quiet!" Thomlock couldn't hear the beeps and blips of the console over the three of them. He gave the RCS another nudge and they were facing it, whatever it was. Relative velocity still zero. "Now, let's go see what that thing is." A push and they were on their way. A twist of the controls and they were spinning in time with it. Laythe swung up, then down, then up, Jool joining in on the dance. Spinning chaos.

Macfred pushed off of Thomlock's back and moved into the rear cabin. "I'll try to hail them." The air in the cockpit quickly returned to its cold, fresh, well-circulated state.

Docking with a spinning target wasn't the easiest task in the universe, and approaching the docking port while spinning was even more challenging, so Thomlock stopped their rotation and switched back to a more traditional approach. Best not chance things when approaching an unknown and unexpected station. "Fifty meters to go."

"Can you see anybody in the windows?" 

"Sorry, trying to not look at them just now. It's a bit, well, disorienting." While spinning he had found it easier to focus on the station and ignore the rest of the sky. But now that they were stationary and the station was spinning? He almost didn't want to look at anything.

"Thirty meters." The station was now large enough that it blocked Jool from view. Or perhaps formed a ring around Jool. Soon Jool was less than half the size of the ring. Then barely a third. "Twenty meters." The approach looked good and steady, so he gave the controls another twist. That brought their rotation up to match the station again. Jool shrank against the bulk of the station.

"No response to hails" called Macfred from the cabin. No surprise, really. Most of the Things they'd found in space had been completely empty, and those that weren't were devoid of sanity. One was far more preferable to the other, but both likely to result in silence on the radio.

"Ten meters." Yes, it was much easier to match the rotation of the station once the craft was aligned with its docking port. Attempting lateral movements while spinning only resulted in being 90 degrees out of phase... something the computer could adapt to, but required far more practice than Thomlock had ever had. Watching the navball helped. Kind of. Helped make it feel like the universe was spinning around them.

"Five meters." Just drifting in softly, the occasional push to the left or right. He slowed their approach so as not to bump off of the station. "1 meter, magnets kicking in." He flipped the RCS switch and let the ports work their magic. A few moments later and the familiar sound of metal-on-metal rang through the ship. Teh universe snapped, and there it was. 

"Contact. Green lights. We're docked."

Macfred bounced over to the forward airlock, pushing past Agake and into the now incredibly crowded cockpit once more. He activated the hard docking latch and checked the atmosphere on the other side. "The air looks good. A bit warm perhaps, but not uncomfortable. Flight suits should be safe enough." 

Thomlock turned off the docking aides and shut down the ship's other navigational systems while Macfred checked over their new anchor point through the tiny terminal.

"Shall we see what's behind door number one?"

No complaints so he pulled the hatch open. The outside was cold to the touch, having been exposed to the vacuum for who knows how many years. Ice crystals formed as the wet air of their ship became condensate, and then just as quickly melted away. The hatch to the station opened with a crank of the locking arm and a gentle nudge, and the slightly warmer air pushed past the four and into the Sulphur 3. They all slipped into the airlock and closed the shuttle behind them.

The area immediately beyond the lock was empty and clean. A dozen suit lockers lined the edges of the room, and the center was best described as the unholy marriage of a hospital and a jungle gym. The room was clean, brightly lit, all in white, with a geometric latticework of pipes along the perimeter. Said latticework focused on eight doors, doors that led to the eight spokes radiating from the hub. At some three and a half meters across, the hub was the largest open area any of them had ever seen off-Kerbin. A similar suit locker was at the other end, where a small collection of smaller craft were apparently docked. 

"Wow."

"Wow indeed, 'Trix. After 96 years in a tin can, this place feels like a palace." 

Agake pushed past them, scanning the room for... something. She didn't seem to be sure what herself. Finding nothing, she wrapped her legs in the latticework and shrugged. "It's empty. Ten doors, 24 suit lockers. nothing else. No science, no crew comforts, nothing. Why so empty?"

"Form follows function, maybe? This could be a loading dock. Only reason to be here is if you're coming, going, or moving cargo." Macfred bounded over to a random door. "Let's go take a look at the ring." Thomlock wasn't sure haste was the safest approach, recalling their encounter on the Mün. Yet before he could say anything Macfred had checked the door for an atmosphere and was through the hatch. 

The other side was just a long tunnel, as one would expect from the outside. A ladder ran the length of it to another door at the top. Bottom. Other end.

"This place is enough to make a top dizzy."

The centripetal force at the hub had been minimal, only enough to suggest the walls were where they wanted to be. As they climbed up out of the hub, they felt like they were descending into a heavy pit. Halfway through they each realized they were going into it the wrong way, and flipped over carefully. The gravity helped more than they expected or wanted.

After three years in the void, this "gravity" felt welcome yet disconcerting. On the ladder they were falling backwards. Upwards. Sideways. Downwards. That feeling of disorientation worsened as they reached the bottom. The top. The other end. Through the door and into another small room. A clean, white room with two more doors.

Many doors. One in front, one behind, one overhead. Three doors. The room below them wasn't very large, and before all four could descend up sideways into the disorientation around them, Macfred needed to open a door and go through. He chose one at random, slid the hatch sideways and pushed through into a large, well lit room. Thomlock followed the other three in, closing the hatch behind himself.

It was a large room, though not as large as the hub. It was warmer in decoration than the rest of the station, wood trim around the floors and the walls, lights a welcoming hue. The floor slanted down and away from their vantage point, the ceiling sloped down to match. Or did it? With the hatch closed the inside of the room felt perfectly rectangular, perfectly squared. On the far end a set of stairs led up to a door identical to the one they'd just opened. The confusion of the hub and its spokes faded the longer they were in the room, and after a few seconds the sense of falling itself fell away.

They were in the library. Books and folders filled shelves and lined the walls, a set of high-backed flight chairs circled a table in the center. Small reading lights descended from the ceiling, positioned over each of the seats. The more Thomlock looked at the room the more wood trim he spotted. It was quiet, the eaves and shelves catching every sound. And nicely warm after their long, cold journey through the black.

Macfred stumbled into the room, and Thomlock wondered if perhaps the others hadn't adapted to the gravity as well as himself. Sure enough Agake was dizzily leaning against the bulkhead wall and Gletrix was walking with her arms outstretched. Thomlock laughed at their suffering and walked confidently over to the nearest bookshelf. He grabbed a folder from the top of the stack and started reading. 

"A Study Into the Effects of Extreme Magnetic Fields on Exorem." Macfred and Agake looked on intently as he read the title page, Gletrix was still relearning how to walk. "Chief Researcher Bob Kerman, assisted by Lindra Kerman. 173rd Day of the 88th Known Year. Interesting." He flipped through the first few pages of notes, mostly hand written, before holding it towards Agake. "And many more where that came from."

"Of course there are." They all four stopped cold in their tracks. It was a male voice. Unfamiliar. Thomlock looked at Macfred, who could only shrug. "That's all Bob does, write those silly reports that nobody will ever read." Yes, unfamiliar. Yet not. The voice seemingly came from everywhere at once yet nowhere at all. Each of them looked around nervously, trying to find the source. Macfred motioned towards the chairs in the center of the room just as one started to spin. 

In the chair sat a kerbal, not young but not ancient, his hair greying, his orange jumpsuit bright yet visibly worn. Unfamiliar, yet not. Not unfamiliar. Thomlock blinked when he saw the face and then gasped uncontrollably. That face. The face of a ghost. He'd seen it those many years ago, twisted and burned. It had etched itself into the forgotten halls of his memory. He barely heard what Macfred said next, and completely missed Agake and Gletrix as they moved to opposite sides of the room. 

Thomlock fumbled at his side for his spacewrench, only to find he'd left it in the shuttle. Fool. The sense of falling returned, the universe spinning around him as he fell endlessly towards the streets of Kerbin City. The lights flashed past, a kaleidoscope of chaos, the sound of the wind and the crowd ringing in his ears. He went down on one knee and dropped the folder.

Macfred put a hand on his shoulder and waved a greeting to the ghost. "Hi, we're very sorry to have bothered you. I'm Macfred Kerman and this is the crew of the Jumble of Parts."

The other kerbal stood and repeated the gesture. "Hello Macdude." The impossible other motioned towards Thomlock, and started walking towards them. It could still walk. "Is he going to be ok?" No, he was most definitely not going to be ok. He shook his head to regain his senses, but nothing could shake the falling. Spinning. His mind twisted in upon itself, and for some reason his head nodded in the affirmative. A faint yes leaked treasonously from his lips.

"Sorry, we've been in microgravity for a very long time. I'm sure we'll all be fine once we adapt." No, they wouldn't. They couldn't. They were communing with the dead, they could never be ok. Ever again. Macfred kept speaking while the universe continued to spin. "Sorry, again, we're on a mission to study Laythe and Jool, and we just kind of stumbled on your station. Heh. Stumbled, in, your station. Where are we exactly?"

The ghost laughed. "Where are my manners. I'm Jebediah Kerman and this is Edge of Infinity Station." It waved his arms around, mimicking the motion inside Thomlock's head. The tunnel vision returned and he fell once more towards the streets. The roar of the crowd increased, the rush of the wind took hold. The ghost spoke again as the ground rushed up to meet Thomlock.

"Welcome to the Forgotten Space Program."

And then the lights went out.

 

====

 

Spoiler

I wrote the bulk of this post back in March, shortly before I decided on the crew for the Jool mission and shortly after I decided the ultimate path for this save. This snippet, this small wall of text has been sitting in a text file in the folder where I keep the notes for this mission report that entire time, waiting for its chance to strut and fret its hour upon the stage. And now that hour has arrived. Hopefully it's been edited enough.  

When originally conceived, the Memory of Tomorrow was the ship docking at the Edge of Infinity, which I can only imagine would've made for an incredibly difficult operation. Impossible, most likely, at least in KSP v1.0.5. The game simply wouldn't have been able to handle the part count at the time. The scene was also originally written from Macfred's point of view, a change I made only a few hours ago. So I apologize if any of the prose is a bit... off. Especially in the last bit. I'll likely give it a big edit pass in a day or two, as usual.

 

And because I know some folks will ask for it, here's a little companion video to go along with the mission report. Enjoy. I'll leave it as unlisted for a week or so, just to save the handful of you that are subscribed to my channel from being accidentally spoiled by it.

 

 

 

Navigation: Next Post

Edited December 4, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[AviosAdku]

Yet another great entry, all I can say.

Other than I hope Thomlock doesn't lose it.

[DMSP]

That was brilliant, and beautiful.

You know exactly what you are doing and it is incredible. Keep going.

[insert_name]

macfreds little dance at the end of the video was amusing

[Cydonian Monk]

8 hours ago, AkuAerospace said:

Yet another great entry, all I can say.

 

7 hours ago, DMSP said:

That was brilliant, and beautiful.

You know exactly what you are doing and it is incredible. Keep going.

Thank you both.

I'm sure Thomlock'll be just fine. Crazy lucky, that one.

 

37 minutes ago, insert_name said:

macfreds little dance at the end of the video was amusing

I love the old kerbal animations, especially when they all start to chat or dance in unison, making it look lile they're singing and dancing together. I just hope they fix whatever it is that makes the female kerbals occasionally act like zombie statues. 

[Kerbart]

You need a way to add some creepy music to that last paragraph. Excellent suspense!

[Angelo Kerman]

Nicely done! It also makes me wonder if all those Stuff and Things in space are forgotten because the updates to the game reset Kerbin but leave space intact, so that reality shifts whenever KSP is updated..

[Andem]

Jeb... 

[cubinator]

But if Jeb got blown up on Day 1, how is he orbiting Laythe?

[AviosAdku]

Well, I'm no expert on Cydonian Monk's work but from what I have read (I forget what it was but it was a massive list of crew members with several Jebediahs, Bills and Bobs) I would say that while it is "a" Jebediah, it isn't the one Thomlock knew.

To elaborate, it seems that for a fair while (not this time though), whenever Cydonian Monk started anew with a different version, they used the default Kerbinauts (in fact, one of them came back to Kerbin post-reset at least once). This time it seems that the Jebediah (at least) from whatever "cycle" this is got left behind during the reset. On a side note, it seems (so far) that 12+ years haven't hit this Jeb too badly.

P.S. Name tags don't seem to be working

P.P.S. congratulations on the rotating docking, I've discussed this before (in the Plan Kappa thread a while ago) but I have some experience with the disorientation of docking with a spinning target from playing Orbiter, and particularly the World of 2001 add-on. In the end, I simply flew up to it before synching at the last moment and flooring it (hooray for no default vessel-vessel collision detection in Orbiter). To actually try corrections is a commendable feat indeed.

[Torgo]

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

But if Jeb got blown up on Day 1, how is he orbiting Laythe?

My story is missing a Jeb. Not sure if it's him, though. Lots of Jebs went missing a few months ago. 

[Just Jim]

3 hours ago, cubinator said:

But if Jeb got blown up on Day 1, how is he orbiting Laythe?

 

18 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

The ghost laughed. "Where are my manners. I'm Jebediah Kerman and this is Edge of Infinity Station."

It appears to me that's Jeb's ghost orbiting Laythe... 

[cubinator]

22 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

 

It appears to me that's Jeb's ghost orbiting Laythe... 

Does that mean Sieta has been talking to Jeb this whole time?  

[Geschosskopf]

19 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

"It was my megaphone."

LOL, that's a great story.  It does seem out of character for today's Thomlock, but I guess he's grown up a lot since then

 

19 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

"Well, if you kids ran your numbers right, one hundred years since that Jeb kid blew himself up on the launchpad.

 

19 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

The ghost laughed. "Where are my manners. I'm Jebediah Kerman and this is Edge of Infinity Station."

So, Jeb died before there was permadeath and Thomlock launched on his accidentally long trip before Jeb respawned?

Anyway, glad to finally meet Jeb in this story, and Bob, too, I suppose.  I knew they had to be somewhere.  Although right now Jeb is reminding me of how I act when would-be proselytizers bicycle up to my door.  Lure them in and then go really weird on them.  I expect the other shoe to drop momentarily 

And congrats on keeping your save going for 100 years.

[Cydonian Monk]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

And congrats on keeping your save going for 100 years.

Thanks, though it's an ensemble effort, of course. It's taken 27 different main saves and I forget how many experimentals to get here. And, since I've only run 3 Jool missions in all of those saves (1 of them a 1-way double fly-by), only 15 or so years of it has been dead time spent in time warp. The overwhelming majority of those 100 years have been spent between Kerbin and the Mün, with a couple side trips to Eve and Duna.

The 100 years doesn't include Ad Lunam, of course, which itself was a good decade or two (I think).

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

Although right now Jeb is reminding me of how I act when would-be proselytizers bicycle up to my door.  Lure them in and then go really weird on them.  I expect the other shoe to drop momentarily 

Depending on ones definition of really weird, very likely. Nothing like what happened at Pioneer Mün Base... I wouldn't pull that twice. 

 

2 hours ago, Just Jim said:

It appears to me that's Jeb's ghost orbiting Laythe... 

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

Does that mean Sieta has been talking to Jeb this whole time?  

Perhaps some of the time.... It's hard to say whose whispers one hears on the wind. At least some of the whispers were Jonbald's. 

 

5 hours ago, AkuAerospace said:

Well, I'm no expert on Cydonian Monk's work ... I would say that while it is "a" Jebediah, it isn't the one Thomlock knew.

That would be a safe thing to say. Answers in time, time in riddles. Riddles tied up with ribbons that will soon be cut.

Quote

P.P.S. congratulations on the rotating docking

Thanks. That was by far the easiest spinning dock I've done. Tools help.

I didn't cut much from the video (just a bit of "gee dude, this is 8 minutes of boring here"), so what you see is what I was seeing. I found docking with the navball to be the way to go if your target isn't completely stationary, and having the DPAI readout helps to maintain orientation towards the port. As may or may not be obvious, any part of the approach where the Sulphur 3 was spinning was done without SAS.

And yes, I did all of that in one take. Sort of.... That one crash I mentioned a few posts ago? Where KSP hit 12 GBs of RAM? That happened just after the Sulphur flipped over to face the Edge of Infinity station. I'd been playing KSP for most of the morning, and had done everything from ditching the debris into Laythe's atmosphere to rearranging the station to some off-camera work to get the science and mapping satellites doing what they needed to be doing. Between KSP and OBS recording KSP, Windows and its memory management routines had had enough and started throwing the youngest and the fattest things off the airplane, which just so happened to include KSP.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Cydonian Monk

[DMSP]

@Cydonian Monk, hi! I tried recreating the Aluminum 4X-B, but I have a problem. It's extremely maneuverable and wants to go into a flatspin everytime you touch the controls. I'll send some photos.

Do you have any tips on how to fly it?

Also, is there any chance you have a stock version of the craftfile lying around?

All the best!

[Cydonian Monk]

3 hours ago, DMSP said:

@Cydonian Monk, hi! I tried recreating the Aluminum 4X-B, but I have a problem. It's extremely maneuverable and wants to go into a flatspin everytime you touch the controls. I'll send some photos.

Do you have any tips on how to fly it?

I'll take a look at it tomorrow in 1.1.3 - there's a chance it's changed and is now insanely maneuverable. I'll also work up a stock-only version while doing so. (I need to spawn a new version of it in 1.1.3 anyway so I can copy the new wheel parts to the craft that's at Jool.) As for flying anything - I use a joystick. Logitech 3D Pro is a nice, cheap stick. So if you're trying to fly by keyboard, that might be one thing.

[KAL 9000]

Now, if the station was spinning out of control and falling into the atmosphere, we would have to see if any of the Kerbals had a copy of "No Time For Caution"