The Outer Planets Traveling Circus Episode 28: Superheroes (The End)

[Mister Dilsby]

7 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

I dread having to first build a "green screen" set to capture images of the Kerbals against.  Maybe this coming weekend.....

If you're using Powerpoint, a quick and dirty way to do it is with the "remove background" feature, which is reasonably smart about what part of the image you wish to be "green" and which you don't. I use it all the time. For example in the upper image:

Spoiler

..I put Bill on the pad alone to take the screenshot, then stripped the background from the (separate, of course) image of the scientist, cropped, resized, and put him in roughly the correct location. Don't know if there's a background remover in Paint but I'm sure a clever lad such as yourself can find a way in that program or another.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Kuzzter

[Geschosskopf]

6 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

If you're using Powerpoint, a quick and dirty way to do it is with the "remove background" feature, which is reasonably smart about what part of the image you wish to be "green" and which you don't. I use it all the time. For example in the upper image:

Ah, schweet!  Never knew that existed.  Rather easier and not really any worse than trying to do it in PSP with the magic wand tool.

[Sigma88]

32 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Thanks!

But I've occasionally used text balloons off and on for years. Here's an example from nearly 2 years ago.

All the pics in this thread are made quickly and cheaply with the standard MS Paint.  That includes just hand-drawing the "eyeball madness overlays", which I'm glad you appreciate.  I also hand-drew the red lights and upside down "ERROR" message on Gergas' cryopod, and it looks that way, but I figure that's Kerbal, what with all the post-it notes they leave scattered about  

Gergas's face required using PaintShop Pro with multiple layers and transparencies and such, starting from one of the Human Colored Faces.  I have a desire to use that also for a depiction of the Spirit World, but I'm putting that off for as long as possible, mostly because I dread having to first build a "green screen" set to capture images of the Kerbals against.  Maybe this coming weekend.....

In case you don't know, there actually is a green screen mod for ksp

(Added the link)

Edited February 25, 2016 by Sigma88

[Geschosskopf]

4 minutes ago, Sigma88 said:

In case you don't know, there actually is a green screen mod for ksp

Ah, thanks!  That should be quite handy.

[Geschosskopf]

Hmnm, the green screen mod doesn't work in 1.0.5, at least not for me.  But fortunately, I was able to use a "blue screen", aka the sky, and PSP's magic wand had no trouble getting rid of that.  And because this is all for being in the Spirit World, jumping and free-falling poses are exactly what I need.  Getting the necessary shots took a heavy toll on the stunt doubles of the 4206th Penal  Battalion, but the 4207th Penal Battalion is standing by for deployment to the KKO Radio Pictures studio so filming can continue if necessary

[Mister Dilsby]

On 2/26/2016 at 7:59 AM, Geschosskopf said:

Getting the necessary shots took a heavy toll on the stunt doubles of the 4206th Penal  Battalion, but the 4207th Penal Battalion is standing by for deployment to the KKO Radio Pictures studio so filming can continue if necessary

Stunt doubles! What a great idea  I admit I do the same thing, I have a mirror save of the main one which includes all the characters and a "playset" version of my big laggy ship that's just the crew spaces. Much easier to get the angles and facial reactions I want that way: "Hm, Bob doesn't look 'concerned' enough... ALT-F12... WHACK!"

[Geschosskopf]

On 2/27/2016 at 1:50 PM, Kuzzter said:

Stunt doubles! What a great idea  I admit I do the same thing, I have a mirror save of the main one which includes all the characters and a "playset" version of my big laggy ship that's just the crew spaces. Much easier to get the angles and facial reactions I want that way: "Hm, Bob doesn't look 'concerned' enough... ALT-F12... WHACK!"

I just use a sandbox game and refrain from making distinctive Kerbals with Texture Replacer, except for special occasions like Gergas.  Anyway, on with the show....

EPISODE 18: Shaman Dancing

Spoiler

 

EDITOR'S NOTE:  My own spirituality is along the lines presented here so before anybody takes offense, remember this is coming from a practitioner.  One of the great things about animism is that sacrilege is very subjective   Anyway, on with the show....

--------------------------------------------------

Before COPROLITE's 8-day passage to Tekto had passed, even before HOPELESS had reached Orvok, back on Eeloo Orbles had entered
the Spirit World.  He soon met up with one of his 3 familiar spirits, whom he called "Imp".

 

 

Imp led Orbles to Truiki's lost soul.  On the way, Imp continued Orbles' education.

IMP:  Orbles, do you remember your initiation?

ORBLES:  How could I forget?  You, Blob, and Mask tore me to pieces, installed some of your own essences into me, and put me back together.  It was terrifying, painful, but yet exhilerating.

 

 

IMP:  Do you remember what we told you?

ORBLES:  That you all had chosen me to be a shaman, and what you did to me allowed me to enter the Spirit World at will and call on you all for help with my job.

IMP:  And what is your job?

ORBLES:  I am a healer.  Many maladies are caused by the soul leaving the body or other influences on it, so I find and return the lost soul, and remove whatever outside impediment is afflicting it.  When the body can no longer house the soul, then I guide the soul to its final destination,which is usually with the Ancestors in the Underworld.  I can journey to the Underworld myself, to ask the Ancestors for advice, and also to the Overword, to seek help from the gods.  In all these things, I rely on help from you, Blob, and Mask.

IMP:  Very good.  Do you know why we made you a shaman?

ORBLES:  To be honest, I have been half-thnking all this is just a pyschosis brought on by the cryosleep.

IMP:  Understandable, and also close to the truth.  You are, after all, the 1st Kerbal shaman since the time of the Pyramids, when Kerbals for some reason turned their minds away from the spiritual so much that we could not reach any of them.  You'd never heard of shamanism before, had you?  No.  And you're right, you owe your new vocation to the cryosleep, a sort of living death that opened your soul to the Spirit World.  Out of all your crew, you were the only one with enough vestigial spiritualim left to become a shaman.  So Mask, Blob, and I grabbed you while we had the chance.  Eons ago, we were charged by your ancient, forgotten creator gods with creating and assisting shamans for the benefit of Kerbalkind.  Thus, we had no choice.

 ORBLES:  Lovely.  First, my body got shanghaied and sent to Sarnus, now my mind's been shanghaied,too.  But I guess I should take this as a sort of compliment.

IMP:  You should.  However, I must admit, you're way behind the power curve.  Used to be, we recruited shamans in the sproutbeds so they got way more training before facing stuff like this.  And we picked recruits with much more spirituality than you posses.  And, of course, we spirit guides are long out of practice at all this.  So things are going to be difficult.

ORBLES:  This just keeps getting better.  But what's all this got to do with Truiki?

IMP:  Well, there are countless spirits.  Most have their own concerns so never deal with Kerbals at all.  A few, like myself, Blob, and Mask, are under orders to be helpful.  And there are a few more that interact with Kerbals for their own purposes, which usually end up being harmful to Kerbals.  Some of this latter group sometimes try to make their own shamans for their own benefit, but never quite succeed.  Either they never had the power at all, or they used to make shamans for a now-extinct race so their powers don't work well on Kerbals.  We face such an entity in this case.
           And here we are.  Now, keep down so they don't see us.

 

 

ORBLES:  The Kraken!  And Munmy!  Wow, I thought he was just another psychotic like me.  Oh, wait...

IMP:  Yes, very much like you, in both the shamanic and "psychotic" senses.  As you now know, psychosis is just a worldly symptom of unusual "soular" activity.  Like what you're doing right now.

ORBLES:  ....

IMP:  You now understand the salient points of this situation so I'll just fill in the details.  The Kraken is a powerful spirit of the void who was given a fairly free hand in ordering the motions of celestial bodies.  So much autonomy, in fact, that he wants to become a god himself, especially as the real gods have long been silent.  To achieve this, he needs spiritual energy.  He has thus long been consuming spacefaring Kerbals.  Kerbals might not be very spiritual but they still have highly nutritious souls.  He eventually amassed enough energy to create the Outer Planets as a test of his growing powers, and that, long story short, is how you and I met.
     But to go further, the Kraken can't grow any more powerful merely on the occasional shipwreck.  He needs actual worshippers, he needs to become a mainstream religion ingrained in Kerbals from sprouthood.  And for that, he needs a priesthood.  So, just as Blob, Mask, and I recruited you, so he recruited Munmy as the best he could manage.  But he can't make shamans so his priests are merely propaganda mouthpieces, to whom he only shows his better side.  But he's addicted to Kerbal souls so he snagged Truiki's as a snack.  He plans to convince Munmy to kill her as a sacrifice, thus making the treat doubly tasty, and also to test his power to control Kerbal minds.  If left undisturbed, he will succeed.

ORBLES:  So, to make my own psychosis complete, you want me to kill Munmy?

IMP:  That is certainly an option, but there are others.  The way this shaman gig works, you make the decisions.  Us spirits are both metaphysical muscle and advisers but the only decision we make is choosing recruits.

ORBLES:  Oh joy.  I've always wanted the power of life and death over others.  NOT!  So, what other options are there? 

IMP:  Well, the Kraken is more powerful than myself, Blob, and Mask combined so a frontal attack from the Spirit World won't work, nor can we pry loose the Kraken's hold on Truiki's soul.  We can at most provide a distraction.  Thus, the decisive blow must be aimed at Munmy somehow.  But simply killing him would leave Truiki's soul at the Kraken's mercy, and he would certainly eat it immediately.  Fortunately,Munmy is as yet far from equating the "Good Lord Kraken" with Kerbal sacrifice, so you have some time to think up a plan.  Now let us go before they notice us.  The other thing requires your attention.

So Imp led Orbles to a different corner of the Spirit World where they were soon joined by Blob and Mask.  These 2 were just returning from a recon mission of "the other thing".

 

 

MASK:  Orbles, I must grudgingly admire the indoctrination methods of your "Travelling Circus".  Without them, this situation would never have arisen.  That doesn't make things any better, but it's still quite impressive.

BLOB:  Yes, Gergas is stone dead, yet he has not popped into spores as is the way of Kerbals, but instead enthusiastically continues his assigned mission.  Not even the sorcerers of old could achieve that.

ORBLES:  Wait, Gergas is dead?  I was just overhearing him trying to talk to Mission Control on the radio.

IMP:  Gergas's cryopod malfunctioned.  He died shortly after your ship reached Eeloo.  But that didn't matter to your DeepFreeze, which couldn't tell the difference and so brought him back to life anyway. Dead from freezing, dead from other causes, it makes no difference to that machine.  Truly an amazing piece of engineering, certainly the greatest achievement of Kerbalkind.  Terrible, but great.

ORBLES:  Well, this sounds simple.  Just round up his soul, herd it to the Underworld, let Elite and Midi bottle his spores to take home and maybe plant some on Tekto, and problem solved.

MASK:  That's where it gets complicated.

BLOB:  See, there's a jurisdictional problem.

IMP:  Remember, the Kraken recently created everything from Jool outwards.  But he's not a god, at least not yet, so can't claim it as his own demesne.  Thus, the real gods have to decide which one is the Kraken's landlord.  And until they do, the souls of those who die in trans-Joolian space are cut off from both the Overworld and the Underworld.  That means the Way is blocked, whether you pop into spores or not.  And because this version of your universe is about to be wiped out by a supernova anyway, the gods have tabled discussion on this issue until the moment of re-creation.

MASK:  But that decision was made prior to Gergas' death.  Had he not been so compelled by his mission to remain in the Middleworld, you could probably have snuck him to his eternal reward through a back alley of the Spirit World.

BLOB:  However, his un-life drew the attention of the gods, so that now trans-Joolian space is totally blockaded.  A type of quarantine, if you will.  And if you think the Kraken is bad news, you should see the Gods' Own Honor Guards.  Gergas' soul is now nailed to the World Tree, blocking the Axis Mundi to all.

 

 

ORBLES:  Hmph.  Well, in that case, Gergas is not my problem, unless I die at Sarnus.

IMP:  Sadly, no.  Gergas will likely make walking corpses out of his shipmates.  You might, at the end of the mission, have to face them in the flesh.  But even if you don't due to reentering cryospleep for the trip home at different times, if Gergas, not to mention his whole crew, returns to Kerbin while his soul remains stuck at Sarnus, there's no telling what might happen.

MASK:  But on the plus side, that problem, should it even occur, won't last long.  This version of your universe is on its last legs.  Surely you can feel it's weakening pulse?

ORBLES:  More good news....  Well, I can't do anything about Gergas for the time being, so we'll concentrate on Munmy, Truiki, and the Kraken.  Learn what you can from this end.  I'm going back to the Middleworld to see what I can do on my end.

 

 

Edited February 29, 2016 by Geschosskopf
add spoiler

[Mister Dilsby]

Sitting down to eat and cannot write the long and gushing praise this update deserves, except WOW Oo 

And I can't believe you let them... squeeze the Shaman like that. 

[Geschosskopf]

Wow, 5000 views!  A new record.  Thanks, readers!

1 hour ago, Kuzzter said:

Sitting down to eat and cannot write the long and gushing praise this update deserves, except WOW Oo 

And I can't believe you let them... squeeze the Shaman like that. 

Damn, and not a single picture of a rocket in the whole post.  High praise indeed.  Thanks.

But what do you mean, "squeeze the shaman"?  The only force applied to him was tensile, not compressive   And in all cultures the world over who have or had shamans that survived into historical times, dismemberment was always part of their initiation.

Edited February 28, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Well that was... interesting, to say the least XD

Poor Gergas.

So: Gergas is the dead one, Orbles is the Blob and Mask guy, Munmy's the Kraken worshipper. We have a drunk, and a high person. Oh, and the Gardener one. Is that right?

Edited February 28, 2016 by Choctofliatrio2.0

[Geschosskopf]

12 minutes ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

So: Gergas is the dead one, Orbles is the Blob and Mask guy, Munmy's the Kraken worshipper. We have a drunk, and a high person. Oh, and the Gardener one. Is that right?

The crews are as follows:

Eeloo Crew:

• Truiki:  Sprouthood regression.  At risk of being sacrificed to the Kraken.  Possibly fixable with shamanic intervention.
• Munmy:  Evangelical Krakenist, potential murderer.
• Orbles:  Underpowered, untrained shaman with good intel sources

Tekto Crew:

• Gergas:  A highly motivated, highly dedicated zombie.  But hey, at least he's no burden on the life support systems.
• Elite:  Long-term, possibly permanent cryosleep hangover.  Can barely function
• Midi:  Glycerol junkie, total indoctrination failure, highly attitudinal.

HOPELESS Crew:

• Sanny:  Complete and total secular space mystic.
• Lizula:  Existentialist to the absurd extreme.  Sees no point to the existence of anything.  And is holding the joystick....
• Jaysef:  Long-term, possibly permanent hallucinations with which he has yet to come to terms.

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

HOPELESS Crew:

• Sanny:  Complete and total secular space mystic.
• Lizula:  Existentialist to the absurd extreme.  Sees no point to the existence of anything.  And is holding the joystick....
• Jaysef:  Long-term, possibly permanent hallucinations with which he has yet to come to terms.

Oh yeah, forgot about them. Thanks

[Geschosskopf]

On 2/28/2016 at 10:34 PM, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

Oh yeah, forgot about them. Thanks

Well, they're the stars of this episode so you'll not be forgetting them in the future

-----------------------

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming of rockets and gratuitous explosions.

EPISODE 19: A Song for the HOPELESS

Spoiler

 

Once Sanny had gotten over her initial wake-up daze, she soon was forced to remember an unpleasant fact from before the Dream Time.  That is, she was NCOIC of the whole 2nd Sarnus Expedition and her other crews were having problems.  The radio was full of chatter about Gergas' health problems, Truiki's mental problems, and the slow pace of refining fuel on Eeloo.  This was interrupted at random intervals with garbled, often incomprehensible questions, and orders from Mission Control based on the situation never less than 2 hours before and pretty much meaningless by the time she received them.  So eventually she told everybody she was a sciencemate, not a doctor, and EVA'd to escape all the negative energy on the radio.

Sanny remained outside listening to static for nearly all of the 3-hour trip to Orvoik, only returning inside for the capture burn.

A decade or so earlier, SE-1 SCANsat Sarnus Moons had determined that Orvok had 3 biomes:  Plains, Scarring, and Dark Terrain.  Shortly thereafter, SE-1 Sarnus Science Probe had landed at the Orvok Anomaly in the Dark Terrain, and determined it was very jagged.  "Scarring" didn't sound very lander-friendly, either, so for the 1st landing Mission Control had dictated going for the Plains.  Fortunately, the trip from Eeloo to Orvok was just long enough for that message to get through.  However, once HOPELESS was committed to its descent, the Plains didn't look very inviting, either.

But the view of Sarnus on the way down was literally to die for.

And for those who cared, it was even more spectacular from the ground.

The crew quickly discovered that jetpacks were the only viable means of getting around on Orvok.  Just taking a single step, a Kerbal would be catapulted high into the sky, leaping tall, spiky hills in a single bound.  Orvok was definitely the source of the legend of the "Seven-League Boots".  Due to his ongoing hallucinations, Jaysef had to be buddy-EVA'd back to HOPELESS by Sanny

So then it was time to check out the Scarring biome, picking a spot on the way to the Orvok Anomaly.

The Scarring had slightly spikier terrain than the Plains but was the same color.  Lizula managed to find a reasonably flat spot to land on, however.  You can get pretty selective about your landing sites with RCS in Orvok's minuscule gravity.  Once down, Sanny couldn't wait to get outside.  Jaysef didn't want to risk an EVA accident so stayed inside.  Lizula couldn't be bothered to undo her seatbelt.  So Sanny stood alone under the gleam of the rings and drank in the energy for nearly an hour before her craving to see the Anomaly forced her inside.

So now it was off to the Orvok Anomaly, easy to find because SE-1 Sarnus Science Probe was sitting right on it.  LIzula pointed in that direction and idled along horizontally just above the crags.  It was a short trip of only about 13km.

Lizula, being pretty competent by now thanks to both real and brain-pumped training, had no difficulty in flying directly to the probe.  However, Sanny decided the hillside was WAY too steep to land on and directed Lizula to land at the bottom of the hill, where anomalous shadows of both the Monolith and the probe were projected onto the far side of the hill, through the terrain itself, with a magnifying lensing effect.  This anomaly of an Anomaly really got Sanny excited.

Once again, Jaysef stayed inside by choice, Lizula because she saw no point in getting out of her seat.  But Sanny couldn't wait to see the Anomaly up close and raced up and over the hill on her jetpack.

And found all not to her liking.....

 

 

The 2 LV-Ns and their radial fuel tanks continued to cartwheel wildly but with an average upwards vector.  They soon became new moons of Sarnus.  The rest either fell apart spontaneously, crashed and exploded, or, like the main brain of the probe, eventually rolled to a stop.  Rather a sad end for a probe well over a decade old, which had fulfilled not only its original mission but several additional missions heaped onto its sturdy shoulders.  An hour later, back at Mission Control, dozens of Boffins wailed, dressed in sack cloth, and covered themselves with ashes. Meanwhile on Orvok, Lizula considered stewing and fretting over the meaninglessness of it all, but ultimately decided that was pointless.

Regardless, once the poor probe was gone, Sanny was ecstatic (in the totally secular, non-shamanic sense) over the Monolith.  As in, her spirit didn't leave her body and go to the Spirit World, the Overworld, or the Underworld.  She was just very happy.  And that's her loss.  But you couldn't tell her that at the time.

Eventually, this caused a problem.,....

 

After several anxious minutes that nearly ended HOPELESS's mission in alternating ways, Jaysef eventually coaxed Sanny to return to HOPELESS.  And then Sanny instructed Lizula to rendezvous with Tug HOPELESS for the transfer to Hale.

Strangely, EPIKFAIL didn't recognize the rendezvous and docking in Orvok's orbit.  Maybe this was because both pieces started out as the same ship?  That was the conclusion drawn by a bunch of retired astronauts and the ghosts of many others who had done things Apollo-style in ancient days.  They stormed the offices of EPIKFAIL and burned them to the ground.

And now, COPROLITE is only hours away from Tekto.  Tune in next time for that.

 

 

Edited March 2, 2016 by Geschosskopf
add spoiler

[Mister Dilsby]

Well, I see you've neatly averted the whole Chief O'Brien trope by putting an NCO in charge of the entire flotilla  Am liking Sanny best of the bunch, the flower-child energy soaking might make her a bit flaky, but at least she won't try to kill everyone else.

[Geschosskopf]

18 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Well, I see you've neatly averted the whole Chief O'Brien trope by putting an NCO in charge of the entire flotilla  Am liking Sanny best of the bunch, the flower-child energy soaking might make her a bit flaky, but at least she won't try to kill everyone else.

Hmmpf!  When I was a mere corporal, I often ran an entire regiment while the brass were all asleep.  Worst that ever happened was I caused about $1 million in damage to the windows of a small town near an artillery range 

Lizula doesn't TRY to kill anybody, She in fact has zero volition and only moves at the impetus of others.  She just doesn't care about anything at all, including whether anybody lives or dies.  But because she has zero volition, she can't be bothered to kill herself (which would be, after all, just as pointless as living), so only becomes a threat due to hasty and too-literal reactions to the orders from others.

Edited February 29, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[KAL 9000]

Moar pls?

[Geschosskopf]

Hopefully tomorrow.

[Geschosskopf]

Ah, spring has come to the bayou.  The red oaks are leafing out, the birds are nesting, the frogs are singing, the crawfish are building chimneys, and I put my plastic pirogue in the water for the 1st time this year and paddled around barefoot most of the afternoon (thumbs nose at those living further north  ).  Granted, I did have to left it warm up a bit first, so I did all the flying this morning, there was just a delay between doing it and posting it...

EPISODE 20: Green Heaven

Spoiler

 

So it's about time to see what's up with the Tekto Crew, which was just about getting there last we looked.

Soon, COPROLITE and its jolly crew captured into an elliptical orbit, adjusted their inclination, and settled into a 215km parking orbit, poised to rendezvous with TRASHCAN-1.  There they waited to see just what sort of mission they'd be going on, short or long.  This would be determined by whether or not BATHMAT landed safely.  While they waited, the crew was bonding.......

,Meanwhile, back in the rings, HOPELESS had shoved off for Hale.  Once again Sanny preferred to make the trip on EVA, absorbing the positive energy from the rings instead of the negative energy of her subordinates.

The trip only took about 2.5 hours, just barely long enough for Mission Control to order HOPELESS to stand fast once at Hale to wait for the SCANsat to finish up.  Due to yet another case of something falling through the cracks, nobody had remembered in all the years since the SE=1 SCANsat Sarnus Moons had arrived at Hale to switch its scanners from biomes to altitude, until HOPELESS shoved off from TOEJAM.  So the job was only about 2/3 done at this point.

For future reference, it only takes about 200m/s to capture at Hale if you come from Orvok orbit, and it doesn't take much to capture at Orvok if you come from Eello, and it doesn't take much to capture at Eeloo if you can gravity brake that way off Slate after your Pe burn at Sarnus.  This is another reason (besides location, Ore, and reasonably low gravity) why I chose Eeloo as the spaceport of the system.  However, note that Eeloo as a moon of Sarnus has higher gravity than the stock version.  Jetpacks don't work there.  So be sure to put ladders on your ships.

Anyway, back to Tekto...

It was now time for the most ambitious and risky thing in the whole 2nd Sarnus Expedition, landing BATHMAT.  In case you've forgotten, BATHMAT is the habitat base for the Tekto Crew, built on a Karibou chassis with full IRSU capabilities.  All this is equipped with detachable wings so it can glide down to the surface (engines not included)  and hopefully land fairly close to the spot of good Ore marked by TOPER-1 of SE-1.  It can then drive itself the rest of the way.

In theory.  It worked (most of the time) in simulations but the descent profile was cutting it close and susceptible to error.  The thing had to slow down enough in the upper atmosphere to be able to dive vertically the rest of the way, slowing down constantly without needing airbrakes due to all its drag, in a race to run out of altitude before it ran out of airspeed and stalled too high above the ground.

To help with making this work, the Boffins relied on the Trajectories technology.  This wasn't exact but was close enough for government work.  So Mission Control plotted a de-orbit burn to drop BATHMAT a bit long of the target as experience had shown it usually fell short of the mark anyway.  Then it was up to BATHMAT's AI to take it from there.  Note how steep the path is through most of the atmosphere.....

So down went BATHMAT.  For most of the horizontal distance in the atmosphere, it was pitched up about 45^ with the airbrakes out killing off about 400m/s of it's 650m/s orbital velocity.  Then it pulled in the airbrakes and pitched down towards its target.

While still about 2000m up, its speed had dropped to 35m/s.  This was a bit worrying because it stalls at about 13m/s and it was still a long way to the ground.

However, the speed held to about 25m/s down to near the gound.  But as luck would have it, the ground beneath was sloping upwards, not conducive to good landings.  So BATHMAT had to pull up hard to stretch its glide towards the crest of the slope, losing a lot of speed.  It crossed the ridgeline with about 5m to spare and then stalled and fell the rest of the way.nearly straight down in a level attitude.

Fortunately, the Karibou wheels are tough and all survived the impact..  BATHMAT then drove the remaining 1.5km to TOPER-1 and parked itself.  An hour later, once the signals got back to Kerbin, the Boffins at Mission Control got up on their desks, took off their lab coats, and started spinning them around their heads.

So, the Tekto Crew would be able to stay dirtside for quite some time.  Thus, it was now time to bring them down in TRASHCAN-1, the SSTO that would also return them to orbit.  To this end, COPROLITE docked with TRASHCAN-1 and the crew moved over, turning on the lights as they did.  Departure was delayed a bit while Midi moved her Glycerol tank from COPROLITE to TRASHCAN-1.

This whole process caused EPIKFAIL to award the Travelling Circus with about $1M for rendezvousing, docking, station construction, and spacewalking at Tekto.  But more to the point, the jolly and bonded Tekto Crew started on down.  Thanks to an AI similar to BATHMAT, TRASHCAN-1 was so easy to fly, even a sciencemate could do it.

TRASHCAN-1 had a similar descent plan as BATHMAT but, due to being sleeker, didn't slow down nearly as fast and so overshot.  This necessitated a split-S maneuver to come back towards the base location.  And TRASHCAN-1 also needed to keep the airbrakes out during the vertical descent.  All this did nothing to make Elite feel any better....

Gergas was really grooving on the point-and-click nature of flying.  Once he leveled out near ground level, he punched the thermal jet throttles to the firewall, finally achieving a bucket list item he'd had.  Better late than never, right?

Gergas then circled back around and landed near the Tekto Base.  The TRASHCANs had drogue chutes to help them stop quickly, which was necessary because they were sent out fully fueled.  Thus despite the dense atmosphere, they had a lot of momentum to kill off.  That didn't help Elite's hangover, either.

Soon the Tekto Crew was out and various ships repositioned for the obligatory flag-plant pic.

But before Elite could lie down on an inflatable cot, BATHMAT's wings had to be taken care of.  First step was detaching them via the large and small hardpoints they were mounted with.  BATHMAT, the space termite, shedding its wings after 1 flight.

Then Midi went around BATHMAT disassembling all the discarded wing and airbrake parts, storing the resulting RocketParts in one of BATHMAT's tanks.  Maybe someday, these will be used to build a ship on Tekto.  Waste not, want not.

So finally, we have this episode's gratuitous explosions.  All the wings and control surfaces just poofed into clouds of dust like dying Kerbals but the landing floodlights and all the hardpoint decouplers exploded nicely.  Midi actually enjoyed this work.

Next, the hab and agroponics inflatable modules on BATHMAT were rolled out so Elite could finally lie down and try to sleep it off.  Meanwhile, Midi go the reactor, drills, and ISRU running to begin refueling TRASHCAN-1 for its ascent.  This was really not necessary but why not?  And so all the mechanical bits of Tekto Base were functioning as intended, even if its crew wasn't.

Tune in next time for a variety of things.  Maybe.  Or maybe just 1 thing done to excess.  Haven't decided yet.

 

 

Edited March 8, 2016 by Geschosskopf
add spoiler

[Mister Dilsby]

Amazing. Love the sleek TRASHCANs and the plane/rover/base/whatever that is BATHMAT. A fittingly strange craft for an addled crew.

[Geschosskopf]

4 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

Amazing. Love the sleek TRASHCANs and the plane/rover/base/whatever that is BATHMAT. A fittingly strange craft for an addled crew.

Well, thank you, sir!  TRASHCAN, as you can see, has very little wing and won't fly anywhere but Tekto.  But as Mercutio said to Romeo, " No, ’tis not so deep as a well nor so wide as a church-door, but ’tis enough, ’twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man."

I have to admit, however, that BATHMAT is my favorite ship of any I've made from this day back to 0.20 when I first became hooked on KSP.  It's just so clunky, so improbable, and yet so perfectly adapted to its environment.  Space Darwinism!

Edited March 3, 2016 by Geschosskopf

[Mikki]

Most amazing Tekto campaign!!! Elaborate crafts and real nutty crew... enjoyed the read and visuals, looks realy dark and cold out there... brrrrrr 

[Geschosskopf]

13 hours ago, Mikki said:

Most amazing Tekto campaign!!! Elaborate crafts and real nutty crew... enjoyed the read and visuals, looks realy dark and cold out there... brrrrrr 

Thanks!

Tekto is actually pretty bright despite the very small size of Kerbol at this distance.  Tekto's surface glows green and casts green light on anything on or near the surface.  And if you're on the surface looking up, it makes everything in the sky look green.  Sarnus viewed from Tekto is green, not orange.  But it's VERY cold there, just 17^ above absolute zero.  I doubt the DeepFreeze got my Kerbals that cold.

There are cloud mods that make Tekto's atmosphere pretty much opaque, a glowing green fogbank.  That certainly makes landing and exploration more difficult but then you miss out on the spectacular scenery, of which Tekto has lots.  So I'm not using them.

[Geschosskopf]

Well, I didn't get as much done on this as I wanted but I had a very busy weekend with training.  But anyway, on with the show....

--------------------------------

EPISODE 21: Voodoo

Spoiler

 

Meanwhile, back on Eeloo, Orbles had come up with the beginning of a plan....

 

For them as skimmed over my canon of the Kerbal life cycle, Kerbals grow from spores and eventually break free of their rhizomes.  Because they're illiterate, they have no reason to go to school so immediately enter the workforce in some sweatshop or other until they're fully grown, at which point they take up a productive trade of their choice.  Or get swept up as malingerers by the pressgangs, which is what happened to everybody on this mission....

Anyway, with Truiki now taking care of refueling FLAKEE, Orbles could now concentrate on Munmy and his Kraken fixation.  He had somehow to break, or at least shake, the Kraken's grip on Munmy's mind without endangering Truiki's soul.  That would take some doing...

Meanwhile, back at Hale, Sanny got tired of waiting on the SCANsat to finish mapping and ordered Lizula to set them down.  Given that their orbital velocity was only about 7.5m/s at an altitude of 11km, descent took a very long time, especially with Lizula grumbling about how Sanny could have just EVA'd and saved all the bother.  In fact, it took Lizula considerable effort to get HOPELESS "firmly" planted on the surface.  Hale's gravity was so weak that HOPELESS would balance on 1 foot and Sanny sent it spinning when she opened the hatch.  Lizula's attempts to simply rotate HOPELESS onto all 4 feet then kicked the ship back up into space.  Lizula had to align all 4 feet with the terrain and then use RCS to "stick" the landing, a feat made difficult by the darkness they were in.  They'd begun the descent on the day side but it took so long that it was night by the time they got to the ground.  But Lizula was by now a master chief bosunsmate so eventually succeeded and Sanny was able to debark without further problems.

Hale had 2 biomes, mostly dark rock with a few patches of light rock.  So after a long while, they slowly flew over to some light rock in the light.

Again, Sanny basked in Sarnus' energy flux for hours, marveling as Hale wobbled up and down through its slot in the rings.  So we'll leave her to it and get on to more interesting things.

Over on Tekto, Midi had finished refueling TRASHCAN-1 already and had collapsed into a Glycerol-induced stupor.  Elite felt a little better by now but was still pretty much non-functional.  Fortunately, she could let the life support systems pretty much run themselves, only checking on them every few hours.  With things about as well in hand as they could be, Gergas decided he could now go exploring, which was the main reason for the 2nd Sarnus Expedition anyway.  So he climbed into TOPER-1, taxied a bit away from base on the electric wheel motor, then took off gently (only needed 13m/s) so as not to make Elite's headache worse.

Gergas flew east, stopping briefly to check out the slopes and outcrop biomes, then came to the first of Tekto's lakes.  He landed on the strand nearby and took a short swim.  He floated about as high as on Kerbin.  The liquid was opaque dark blue from above but was a crystal clear light blue below the surface with very long visibility.

Gergas was on the SW corner of a large, ominously shaped island.  He decided to call it Skull Island and to check out the large depressions on it.

Soon he descended into the "mouth" of the skull, the only depression without liquid in it.  It turned out to be a volcanic caldera.  Gergas enjoyed the view of the multi-colored layers around the walls.

The other depressions proved to be similar volcanic calderas although deeper, going down below sea level..  The "right eye" looked pretty cool from the air.

Continuing east from Skull Island, Gergas flew through a canyon with very complex terrain in the bottom.

Then he crossed a neck of the largest sea on Tekto.  Looking north, there were some impressively craggy crags.

Looking south, it stretch far beyond the horizon with the peaks of a large island just visible in the distance.  The curve of the horizon was amazing even though he was only at about 6km altitude.

By now it was getting late.  Behind him, Sarnus, Slate, and Eeloo were setting, all tinted green by Tekto's mysterious glow.  Gergas was now cruising at about 10km and doing 170m/s, just below Mach 1.

But now Gergas was having some difficulty in controlling TOPER-1.  Somehow the airbrakes had gotten cross-wired with the cargo bay.  Sometimes they worked, sometimes only 1 worked and the other didn't or just jammed about 1/4 deployed.  Sometimes they moved with the cargo bay doors, sometimes not.  And various bits of wing randomly lost and regained lift as he cycled the bay doors in an effort to get the airbrakes unstuck from them.

Fortunately, Tekto's air is very forgiving of such things so Gergas had no great trouble landing, it was just annoying.  Still, he refused to let this spoil his mood and decided the real reasons he landed were because 1) it was starting to get dark , and 2) he was coming up on a biome he hadn't hit yet, the mudflats.  Then, with his own engineer down for the count, he radioed Orbles for advice  Orbles was rather evasive and seemed reluctant to talk to him, which Gergas didn't understand.  But finally Orbles said he'd never seen such a problem so advised just letting things cool off and see if they were better in the morning, and ended the conversation.

Back on Hale, Sanny had been gazing at the rings all this time, absorbing their energy and listening to the white noise, doing her best to ignore the blinking light in her HUD indicating Mission Control had sent her dozens of text messages.  Finally, she looked up from the rings at Kerbol and could just barely make out the gleam of Kerbin against its glare.

 

..................................

 

 

......................................

 

Tune in next time for more weirdness.

 

 

Edited March 12, 2016 by Geschosskopf
add spoiler

[insert_name]

hmm now there are two undead kerbals, wonder if we'll have the sarnus zombie apocalypse

[galaxyguy]

AHHHHHHH ZOMBIES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!