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Forgotten Space Program


Cydonian Monk

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6 hours ago, superstrijder15 said:

You got a lot of old ships, and a lot of weird mission ideas. I love it!:D

Thanks! The mission ideas are likely to get a bit weirder than normal here soon, but hopefully not too weird. :wink: And once the weirder than normal stuff is over things will stabilize for a short while. And then probably go off-the-wall nutters again.

 

As an aside, I updated most of my mods today. Everything is (mostly) running ok now, aside from one small crash at game start (that I _think_ was due to a corrupt ModuleManager cache, likely not MM's fault). As I result I spent some time tweaking old designs and working on some new ones.

One of the slightly-tweaked / slightly-new designs is what I'm presently calling an "Iron Mini" (though what name it would use depends on where it falls into the production timeline, if it gets used at all). It's basically a small version of the Iron that uses the new slanted adapter 1.25m-1.875m fuel tanks from one of @Angel-125's recent updates to MOLE. (Thanks for the new parts!) It has roughly the same range and ∆v capabilities as its larger Iron cousin, it just seats 3 instead of 5. 

More than likely this little jumper will end up being the upper stage for a future Tylo landing attempt, or become a semi-private shuttle for Kerbin's super-elites. It can land anywhere that doesn't have a thick atmosphere, and take off again from most of those places. Landings on Duna might rate a set of small parachutes - if the mass fractions work in the ship's favour.

Here's a totally-not-randomly-conscripted test subject in a totally-not-canon test save moments after having landed a version of the Iron Mini on Duna. (Full disclosure: I hyper edited it into Duna orbit just for this landing test.) 

20170226_kso0050_ironmini.jpg

One small issue was discovered during the test: Kerbals tend to get kraken-struck by those 3-rung ladder pieces, ultimately resulting in a giant kerbal-ending cloud of "poof." Not ideal, but I already have a solution in mind. Just tell test!Bill's next of kin that he died a hero, and never mention his body being turned into a grotesquely warped silly-string version of a kerbal.

 

A few other designs I've finalized will definitely show up in future installments, so I won't go into them just yet.

Cheers.

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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  • 1 month later...

yaaay! i really love thisseries and don't want it to end!

also, the reason your ladders are krakenbait is that they are sunk in waaaaay to far. there's a reason they stick out so far by default

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  • 3 weeks later...

Soon.

Sorry to have delayed for so long, but life comes first. It would appear things are finally slowing down again, meaning we can get back to our quest of remembering the forgotten. Hopefully as soon as tomorrow, definitely this weekend. The plan at this point: I'm going to post the Vall arrival update once I have it written, edited, and the screenshots edited and uploaded. I deleted a bit of it because I didn't like how it played out, which also meant I needed a couple of extra screenshots to set up a certain scene.

Once that update is posted, I'm a bit undecided. It's been some time since I posted anything, so I might write up a "recap" of the important events to date. I'm just not sure a recap would be all that useful. If anyone wants a recap, now is the time to speak up. If not then we can just trust folks to reread all of the mission / story to date. That's hopefully a bit easier now with the forward navigation links.

We'll definitely continue with the mission and get back to what's going on at Kerbin once the business at Vall is concluded. 

 

Also, I've been working on something..... spoilery. Quite a few spoilery things, to be truthful.

Spoiler

Really: This is a Spoiler, though you may not have enough context as of yet to determine why it's a spoiler.

Spoiler

20170413_ksp0146_soon.jpg

And the rabbit hole doesn't end there.

 

Soon.

Edited by Cydonian Monk
Edit: Forum ate half of my post, reverted to a 10-minute-old version instead. So I un-reverted it.
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Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler

Squeaking

If you hear a rabbit make a shrill squeaking sound, there's a good chance that he's feeling happy about something. Maybe he sees the tasty turnip greens in your hand and can't wait to have a bite. While these sounds often denote good feelings, they can sometimes denote frustration and apprehension in bunnies, as well. When rabbits squeak and the sound is a little bit deeper, it often signifies that they feel trapped. Perhaps you're petting your bunny and he wants you to stop so he can get back to playing independently.

Growling

Rabbits have innocent looks, but that doesn't mean that they can't get cranky. If a rabbit is feeling fierce for whatever reason, he might respond by growling. When bunnies do this, it often means that they're afraid of something harming them. Be extremely cautious around growling rabbits. The vocalization is sometimes an indication of soon-to-come nipping, scratching and lunging.

Chattering Teeth

If you hear a rabbit softly chattering his teeth, be pleased, because it usually means that the furry cutie is in a content and peaceful state -- possibly because you're stroking his fur. If the teeth chattering is on the noisy side, however, pay close attention. Noisy teeth chattering can point to pain and illness. Take your rabbit to the veterinarian if his teeth chattering is especially excessive or noisy. It differs from the good kind of chattering in that the movement of the teeth is generally much more audible.

Foot Stamping

When rabbits noisily stamp their back feet, it often means that they're afraid and nervous. If your rabbit does this, it could mean that he heard an unfamiliar sound and now thinks that a predator is coming to him. Stamping of the feet is the rabbit way of letting everyone else know that something bad is coming. This behavior is extremely common in free-roaming rabbits who want to inform their pals of a possible threat. Remember, these lagomorphs are prey animals.

Honking Sounds

Rabbits produce honking sounds when they're thrilled and joyous about something. They also frequently make these sounds as a way of wooing members of the opposite sex for mating. If a male rabbit honks around a female rabbit, then he's expressing to her that he wants to mate -- stat.

Screeching Sounds

If a rabbit gives off a loud screech, then the poor thing is possibly scared about something. Perhaps he hears a dog loudly barking from next door. Outside of fear, screeching can also signify that something is hurting a rabbit, perhaps an injury. Never brush off these sounds as they often are signs that a rabbit has to visit the vet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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1 minute ago, DragonsForce said:

I take it the spoilers are working for everyone else as you are answering to them, but they ain't working for me :( 

:(

Don't worry - you'll see what's in the spoiler tag in a couple of updates. I take it you're on mobile? 

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42 minutes ago, DragonsForce said:

Nope... Laptop on Win10, running Firefox.

Strange. The spoiler boxes work just fine for me in Firefox on Win10 (just checked). You might want to mention it over in the Kerbal Network section. Maybe it's an IPS bug. 

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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19 hours ago, W. Kerman said:
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Squeaking

If you hear a rabbit make a shrill squeaking sound, there's a good chance that he's feeling happy about something. Maybe he sees the tasty turnip greens in your hand and can't wait to have a bite. While these sounds often denote good feelings, they can sometimes denote frustration and apprehension in bunnies, as well. When rabbits squeak and the sound is a little bit deeper, it often signifies that they feel trapped. Perhaps you're petting your bunny and he wants you to stop so he can get back to playing independently.

Growling

Rabbits have innocent looks, but that doesn't mean that they can't get cranky. If a rabbit is feeling fierce for whatever reason, he might respond by growling. When bunnies do this, it often means that they're afraid of something harming them. Be extremely cautious around growling rabbits. The vocalization is sometimes an indication of soon-to-come nipping, scratching and lunging.

Chattering Teeth

If you hear a rabbit softly chattering his teeth, be pleased, because it usually means that the furry cutie is in a content and peaceful state -- possibly because you're stroking his fur. If the teeth chattering is on the noisy side, however, pay close attention. Noisy teeth chattering can point to pain and illness. Take your rabbit to the veterinarian if his teeth chattering is especially excessive or noisy. It differs from the good kind of chattering in that the movement of the teeth is generally much more audible.

Foot Stamping

When rabbits noisily stamp their back feet, it often means that they're afraid and nervous. If your rabbit does this, it could mean that he heard an unfamiliar sound and now thinks that a predator is coming to him. Stamping of the feet is the rabbit way of letting everyone else know that something bad is coming. This behavior is extremely common in free-roaming rabbits who want to inform their pals of a possible threat. Remember, these lagomorphs are prey animals.

Honking Sounds

Rabbits produce honking sounds when they're thrilled and joyous about something. They also frequently make these sounds as a way of wooing members of the opposite sex for mating. If a male rabbit honks around a female rabbit, then he's expressing to her that he wants to mate -- stat.

Screeching Sounds

If a rabbit gives off a loud screech, then the poor thing is possibly scared about something. Perhaps he hears a dog loudly barking from next door. Outside of fear, screeching can also signify that something is hurting a rabbit, perhaps an injury. Never brush off these sounds as they often are signs that a rabbit has to visit the vet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hate you so much right now.

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Finite Arrivals

The Silicon expedition to Jool has not been without its share of failures. Most were small errors, minor design mistakes such as the Laythe jet probe's "lander" stage missing parachutes. Others were slightly more serious; not providing enough power to the mapping probes, not expecting the universe to change how fuel flow is handled mid-flight, not packing nearly enough koffee, et cetera. Yet one particular failure has cast its shadow over the entire mission: The explosion of the Potassium 3. 

20160802-ksp0302-k3.jpg

This still-unexplained event occurred shortly after the Potassium 3 arrived in its 400km retrograde Vall orbit. Remotely operated by Gletrix, it had just started to release its cargo when the "that's weird" incident occurred. The original plan was to leave one of its partially-drained fuel pods at Vall and move the other to Laythe. This would allow the crew to land on Vall, which they couldn't do without a refuel, and to move around the system with a bit more freedom. 

Unfortunately both pods were damaged in the explosion, one of them venting its precious cargo. The Potassium 3 was crippled, its forward docking port sheared free in the explosion, among other minor damages. It limped to Laythe along with its (undamaged) science cargo, but was unable to recover either of the fuel pods. One of them had a known leak, the other was in an uncertain state. Both of their computers had shut down up after the explosion, their electrical systems damaged, the depots now deprived of power.

The incident had created a small cloud of debris in its 400km retrograde Vall orbit. Enough time had passed that all the pieces of the two fuel pods (and the lost bits of the K-3) were scattered completely around the orbit. While approaching the moon the crew had found two larger pieces, believed to be the two fuel pods, but there was no way to confirm which was which and if either of them still had fuel remaining.

All they could do was watch as the tiny dots blinked in their tumbling orbits.

20170102_ksp0256_sulphur.jpg

20170102_ksp0262_sulphur.jpg

So the arrival at Vall was going to be something of a gamble for them. The extra maneuver they had made on the way out of Laythe's orbit to swing by the Potassium tugs burned up more fuel than it should have. As a result, there was very little left in the tank when they arrived at the icy moon. And they were coming in at a bit of a inclination, some 30 or more degrees, which Gletrix would correct once they had completed their capture.

Before that could happen they first needed to decide where they were going. They spent a couple days observing the two larger contacts from a highly eccentric orbit, having just barely captured at the moon. After those observations they were all undecided, so Macfred chose to flip a coin. 

In microgravity.

In an enclosed space. 

What he had done occurred to him shortly after the coin left his thumb. It ricocheted rather violently around the cabin, bouncing off of more than one important system. An alarm sounded as it triggered the cabin decompression, which Thomlock aborted with his usual practiced calm. Finally the coin, having spent most of its energy on the padded walls and control panels, slowed to a spin in front of Agake's face.

And kept spinning.

So they choose the target which was spinning the least.

First, they needed to align their inclination with that of their target. Gletrix set up a maneuver at their highest intersecting point, hoping to save as much ∆v as possible. This burn was a mixture of RCS and the main engines. The math had been working against them from the start, as coming into Vall orbit they calculated they would need 745m/s to complete a rendezvous. Yet they only had 604m/s left in the main engines. The remaining 141m/s would have to come from the RCS. And the sooner they used that the better.

20170102_ksp0269_sulphur.jpg

This was followed by pulling their periapsis up to match the orbit of their target, a maneuver that occurred at their next apoapsis. This "burn" was made completely with the RCS, as they needed to save what ∆v was left in the mains for the final rendezvous. And of course they'd still need RCS to dock with their target. 

Assuming docking was still an option. There was always the possibility the target was too damaged to dock. If it was, some inventive construction (ie: KAS fuel lines) would be needed to transfer fuel between the shuttles and the fuel depot. And if the depot was completely out of fuel, well, they'd have to rethink their strategy. Gamble on a trip to the other target.

20170102_ksp0272_sulphur.jpg

After a series of alignment and rendezvous burns they arrived at their destination. They wouldn't know exactly which of the two Silicon fuel depots it was until they brought its computer back online. It had picked up a slight tumble, spinning mostly along its longitudinal axis. At this distance it was obvious the depot had suffered very little damage in the explosion, missing only the docking port on the end with the monopropellant tanks. Interestingly, the docking port from the other fuel depot was still attached at the far end, and several strips of debris and old struts were flaying about from it.

Macfred suited up. Their EVA suits likely had more ∆v than the shuttle, and it would be easier to dock if they could slow the depot's rotation. He instructed Gletrix to keep the Sulphur's lights directed at the tank while he made his way over to it. The rotation was not easy to stop, the depot being far more massive than a kerbal, but eventually he had one of the side docking ports oriented towards the Sulphur. A quick check showed the computer was still in one piece, just offline due to a lack of power. He pulled open one of the low-power antennas and turned to guide Gletrix and the shuttle in.

20170102_ksp0279_sulphur.jpg

20170102_ksp0291_sulphur.jpg

Once the shuttle was docked up and secure Macfred moved around to connect a few jumper cables and make a other small repairs. Shortly the depot's computer was back online, identifying itself as the Silicon 9, and they could confirm what they had hoped: They had fuel. No time was wasted in filling up the tanks of the two Sulphur shuttles.

After some inspection Macfred decided the docking port that had been sheared free from the other fuel depot was still in good shape. He detached it, cleaned it up a bit, and lugged it to the other end of the Silicon 9. It took some amount of space tape to get the hoses and electrical connections of the old, now missing, docking port attached to the "new" port, but in the end it all came together and seemed to hold. Maybe it wasn't perfectly aligned, but now they had docking ports free on four sides of the depot.

20170102_ksp0284_sulphur.jpg

20170102_ksp0287_sulphur.jpg

Some time later there was a short space dance the crews needed to perform to get ready for the Vall landing. They had approached the depot with the Sulphur 5 (the former LDAV) at the front of the stack, and had docked it to the depot first. As this was the only shuttle with legs, it was needed for the landing. The other shuttle would stay here at the depot until they had returned to orbit.

Thomlock took over the pilot's duty in the Sulphur 5 while Gletrix took the other Sulphur. (No reason to fly remotely when you've got two pilots.) Not entirely trusting of Macfred's new docking port, Gletrix opted to dock the shuttle up at the opposite end. She left the electrical system of the shuttle online to provide power to the fuel depot. 

A quick EVA back to the Sulphur 5 to join the crew and the dance was finished.

20170102_ksp0307_sulphur.jpg

20170103_ksp0310_vall.jpg

With the work at the fuel depot complete they could now move to their next task: Choosing a landing site.

--


And that's all for now. Maybe we'll see an Easter double-posting. With luck I'll have the update covering the landing ready later this evening. If so, I'll post it when ready (in my usual late-Sunday timeslot). Need to do a bit of artwork for it, tweak some of the writing, and then it's all systems go. 

Cheers.

--

 

Navigation: Next Post

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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8 hours ago, Numberyellow said:

There are plenty of decaffeinated brands on the market, that are just as tasty as the real thing..

I wasn't drinking coffee, in fact i can't stand being near the stuff. i'm just really excited!

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No update tonight, perhaps tomorrow night. 

I did however want to point out that we now have a proper and I think complete Table of Contents up there on the First Post, for those that like such things. And a quote of that table is what's in this following spoiler, not an actual spoiler:
 

Spoiler

(Nope, no spoilers here.)

On 12/3/2015 at 7:02 PM, Cydonian Monk said:

Table of Contents

Volume 1: Forgotten
Volume 1 Sequence 1
2015-12-03 - Forgotten Space Program, The Hydrogen Flights 
2015-12-04 - Hydrogen's Last Blast, Noble Helium, Orbital Helium
2015-12-06 - Sweet Lithium, Beryllium Spheres, Boron to be Wild
2015-12-10 - The Age of the Universe, Boron Into The Mün, Beryllium Relic
2015-12-11 - Carbon Testing, The Carbon 6, Carbon 1
2015-12-16 - Carbon Scoring, High Carbon
2015-12-17 - The Dangers of C-4, Carbon For Who?, Beryllium-Coated Lies
2015-12-20 - More Boron Contract Missions..., :C=C:
2015-12-22 - 95 Years, 139 Days, 27 Minutes

Volume 1 Sequence 2
2015-12-24 - A Nitrogen One, Thing C
2015-12-26 - A Little More Nitrogen, And A Dash Of Oxygen
2015-12-29 - Fluorine 1
2016-01-01 - The Six Moons of Kerbin, Nitrogen T-4, Thing A
2016-01-02 - Fixing Kelgee, Walking on Thin Nitrogen, Nitrogen Take 6, More Fluorine For Better Teeth, Oxygen Perfected
2016-01-05 - Nitrogen T-7

Volume 1 Sequence 3
2016-01-11 - The Bright Bright Neon Lights, Neon Sizzle, Neon Clones, Under The Heavy Neon Glow
2016-01-12 - Delayed Return
2016-01-16 - Salty Minmus
2016-01-18 - Taking Pictures For Fun and Profit
2016-01-20 - Release!, Return to Flight
2016-01-23 - Asylum Run, ... By Lunatics, ... Running An Asylum
2016-01-25 - Ferry Ride
2016-01-28 - The Aluminium Gang, Aluminium X-0 1, Aluminium X-0A 2, Aluminium X-1 3
2016-01-31 - Strange Request
2016-02-02 - Sonic Sensei, The Mother Of All Space Telescopes, Nitrogen X
2016-02-04 - Aluminium Cans of Boom, Housekeeping
2016-02-06 - More Housekeeping

Volume 1 Sequence 4
2016-02-13 - Mission Improbable, Reduce Reuse Recycle, Nitrogen TC-12, Silly Silicon
2016-02-14 - Balanced Imbalance, Some Assembly Required
2016-02-16 - More Silicon More Recycling, Some More Assembly Required
2016-02-21 - Queen of the Airwaves, Tour of the Junkyard, Trafficking Hot Goods
2016-02-23 - A Phosphorescent Return to the Mün
2016-02-26 - Second Verse Same As The First, A Little Bit Louder And A Little More Rehearsed
2016-02-27 - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Mün
2016-03-05 - Slow Moves, Nitrogen Transfers
2016-03-08 - Memories of Tomorrow

Volume 1 Sequence 5
2016-03-11 - The Mystic Mün
2016-03-19 - Operation Ice Castle
2016-03-20 - Contracting Smallprobes
2016-03-23 - Reentrant Aluminium
2016-03-28 - The Mün of Our Youth
2016-04-11 - The Crater of the First Kerbals

Volume 1 Sequence 6
2016-04-15 - Ghosts and Things
2016-04-18 - Memories of the Storm
2016-04-24 - Two Star Detour
2016-05-01 - Familiar Voices, Building Anticipation
2016-05-05 - Anticipation Building
2016-05-10 - Titanium Flight Test, Titanium Boxes, The Münquake is in Another Castle, Kerbal Kerbals
2016-05-14 - Stellar[is] Launches
2016-05-20 - Silicon Sulphur Snack Strategy
2016-05-28 - Finishing Touches
2016-05-30 - Little House on the Minty Prairie, And Another Thing...
2016-06-01 - Departures

Volume 1 Sequence 7
2016-06-05 - GLORY TO KERBIN!
2016-06-27 - Bugs
2016-07-10 - 99 Years, 343 Days, 2 Hours
2016-07-13 - Your Robots Are Ignoring You
2016-07-20 - Captain Kerman and... The Robot Invasion of Jool
2016-07-26 - Setting Up The Fireworks
2016-07-28 - One Hundred Years At The Edge Of Infinity, Thomlock's New Year's Rocket Eve, Infinity's Edge

Volume 1 Sequence 8
2016-08-07 - Answers In Time..., More Pieces For The Jumble
2016-08-14 - ... Time In Riddles
2016-08-14 - No Kerbal's Sky
2016-08-22 - Wings of Fire
2016-08-25 - Sulphur Descending
 

Volume 2: Continuum
Volume 2 Sequence 1
2016-10-03 - Somewhere In The Dark..., Kerbin: North Mountain
2017-10-07 - Continuing From Where We Started, Continuum

Volume 2 Sequence 2
2016-10-16 - Continuing From Where We Left Off
2016-10-20 - I Could Fly Here Forever
2016-10-30 - Fire In The Sky
2016-11-08 - The Jebediah Kerman, Remotely Controlled Kerbal
2016-11-26 - One Final Sunset, Leaving Laythe

Volume 2 Sequence 3
2016-12-04 - The Bosses, Ghost Attack, Data Recovery Services
2016-12-11 - Chrome Plated, Missing Minmus Mishap
2017-01-22 - Adaptation, Burning Manganese, Cobalt Testing, Iron Birdie
2017-01-31 - Iron Supplements, Manganese Mün
2017-02-10 - Cobalt Blue, The Award, Into The Unknown

Volume 2 Sequence 4
2017-02-25 - Infinite Departures
2017-04-16 - Finite Arrivals

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Cydonian Monk
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2 hours ago, Kertech said:

i always forget how much of this there is!

At the moment, a little bit over 140,000 words, and more than 1200 screenshots. 

And to answer your previous question: I have no idea how long it took to update all the posts as I spread it out over several days. :wink: Probably an hour or two. It took less time to edit in the "Next Post" links at the bottom of each post, and had I not added those links it would've taken much, much longer to build the table of contents.

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11 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

At the moment, a little bit over 140,000 words, and more than 1200 screenshots. 

And to answer your previous question: I have no idea how long it took to update all the posts as I spread it out over several days. :wink: Probably an hour or two. It took less time to edit in the "Next Post" links at the bottom of each post, and had I not added those links it would've taken much, much longer to build the table of contents.

Editing posts on iPhone turned out to be trickier than I thought! It kept deleting and re editing, turns out it's an iPhone chrome error :( 

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WHAT, no...       nnoo...       nnnnoooo...        SSSCCCCHHHHRRRREEEEECCCCCCHHHHHH [run's into brick wall at end of chapter]

 

[wakes up half hour later]

 

what was that. [Dawning realisation]

 

NNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOO................

 

OUT OF CHAPTERSSSSS...

 

Where's my precious????!!!!!!!.......

[Snaps back to reality]

 

@Cydonian Monk ok just crammed all this in about 4 days, I must say between you and @Just Jim I have been on the edge of my seat for the last couple of weeks, in an enjoyable way though.

Both of your series' have really brought the game to life, really wish there was a real story based Campaign.

Oh and.....

MOAR PLEASE, MOAR PLEASE, MOAR PLEASE, MOAR PLEASE, MOAR PLEASE, MOAR PLEASE [ok that's enough]

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14 minutes ago, Pretorian28715 said:

@Cydonian Monk ok just crammed all this in about 4 days, I must say between you and @Just Jim I have been on the edge of my seat for the last couple of weeks, in an enjoyable way though.

Both of your series' have really brought the game to life, really wish there was a real story based Campaign.

Oh hey, thank you! I'm a big fan of @Cydonian Monk, and it's an honor to be mentioned alongside him! :D

 

Edited by Just Jim
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