GRAND THEFT ROBOT

[Mikki]

GRAND THEFT ROBOT
The naked truth about Jebediahs early years in the KSC,
and how he became a serious kerbonaut

                                                                               Thanks to sirkuts amazing mod, he made this happen!




Some years ago, Jeb and Bill took a ride with a ridicilous engineered kart, and as so often Bills only comment on this beautyfull summerday was simply: "Watch out Jeb, this scrappy rustpile ain`t got brakes!!!"



Jeb and Bill came soon closer to an unidentified object, Bill spyed it from far away... "What is diss?"
"...?... Me no engineer..." Jeb and Bill became courious about the funny thing laying around aside the SPH...  



Bill was surprised as he saw Jebediah allready taking seat at the frontend of this mysterious mechanism, all good things are two and so he took company with Jeb and boarded aswell the weird thing...



Both had no idea what they where about to do, but a truthfull Kerbal has the duty to explore all the things beneath the sky, no matter how dangerous and stupid it is... or should they better try to make their first orbit around Kerbin?



Jebediah found the key to the machine under the drivers seat, and he began pulling and pushing all the joysticks and switches in front of him... Bill said nothing, except: "Halleluja!"



"Errrm Jeb... you know what you`re about to do sure?"
"What?... What do you mean with i know about doing things like that...? Even i don`t have the slightest idea what i`m doing all the time around these funny buildings here, what the sunovakraken am i doing here???... Bill!!!"
Jebediah and Bill where allready trapped in front of this humongous nicely-welded monstrosity, Bill grabbed his last snack out of his helmet and asked Jeb for sharing it with him during their last trip to the abysses of the mighty kraken...
"No thanks Bill, i`m busy at the moment, but thanks..."



"...ahhh.... Bill... it`s a bot... I just found the forward switch... looks like we need more juice, can you manage the powersource? There are some fuelcells slapped on it, LFO is in, this is an expensive method of moving stuff around... Take a look at the powerconsumption, this thing just sucks out the batteries!!!"

It continues further below!

Edited January 20, 2016 by Mikki
Would be cool if a mod can squash the typos8O OMG! Credit to sirkut:D

[Mister Dilsby]

What in space is that thing--some kind of Kerbalized Voltron lion?  

[Mikki]

I was tinkering around with infernal robotics and discovered the sequencer which allows to make some real crazy stuff. Years ago i had to do with robotengineers too, and i made myself aswell some automatic welding programs for not closer described companies... civil stuff. No evil things.

[Starhawk]

Whatever it is, it's very cool!

Since Jeb is Jeb, if the object can move, he'll be able to operate it.

That was fun.  Thanks.

Happy landings!

[Mikki]

Thank you for having fun reading my bad and trivial english... we use to have humour in scandinavia, more real crazy opinions about life and other unnecessary things... 

Okay, the "Truth":



Jebediah and Bill listened carefully to the amazing noises their new toy generated, speechless observing the enourmus energydrain of the magnificient construction...
After a while and several meters later Bill realized that they still had no clue what they are doing at where they might be going to...:
"Ahhh... Jeb..."
"Hmmm... What is this switch here?... yeah Bill, we are moving forward, some 1.6 meters a second, that`s alot"
"Jeb, where are we going now...? Would be better we shut down this thing and park it there where we found it..."
"First, we must make a full inspection of this machinery, looks like this a new piece of strange tech... You cannot ride a giant bot all day... hmmmm... so many switches... so little brain..."



So Jeb and his fellow friend Bill walked ahead, slowly, swinging their helmets along with the gentle movement of the animal-like mechanical device...
"What is an animal?"
"I really don`t know Jeb, must be a funny thing without wheels or boosters...
Maybe the spacekraken is an animal... it has limbs too!"



All the KSC was empty of other Kerbals due to a mass-snack-eating-event at the beach, so Jeb decided to walk towards the VAB...
"Turns great!"



Right after Jebs thoughtfull comment the giant thing failed to step accuratly as supposed, and it began seriously stalling to the left.
"...yeah Jeb, turns great!!!..."



"Instead of wrangling wildly the joysticks you could read the operators manual first..."
"Okay, looks like we must have done something wrong. What does the manual say in this case?"
Bill took a sharp look in the tiny book and said: "Hit actiongroup 0 for recover and engage SAS at full power, then roll to a side of your favourite choice."
"Well that sounds easy,... what is this asayass?"
Bill showed Jeb the SAS button and pressed it.



Jeb rolled the machine to the right and in a glimpse of a moment the whole thing was again nicely level with the rest of the kerbalverse. 
"Woooow, good thing asayass!"
"True."



"What do you think, shall we move on?"
"Sure, let`s sing `Row your boat`!"
"Sure!"
Our Kerbals kept smiling and started to sing:
"...row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merely, merely... lalalalaa..."
Good times in the KSC.



"Look out Jeb, you`re gonna mess up the lawn..."



"Oooops..."
Jeb and Bill were still struggling to keep the metallic kamel under control, but this time they managed to make it really worse.



"Uh, oh, Bill, what says the handbook?"
"The book is now laying on the lawn, look above, errm, down... no... look up!"
To their luck the appropriate page was opened, and Jeb squinted all his both eyes to decifer the meaningfull words:
"Engage SAS at full power, roll the machine from one to another side, then back to level."



"That was fun, what is a kamel?"
"I really don`t now Jeb, maybe some kind of a rollercoaster..."
Our Kerbals continued then their truly slow escape with the rollercoaster-like thing.

It goes on further below!
 

Edited January 20, 2016 by Mikki
spell, tell and all that stuff;D

[Matuchkin]

I am really looking forward to what you can come up with. Love the robot.

[Mikki]

16 minutes ago, 073198681 said:

I am really looking forward to what you can come up with. Love the robot.

@073198681

Hi there, at the end of this story i will post the craftfile here, if you grab the mod from @sirkut with the sequencer API you should be able to use this and have a look in how i made it.
The forward motion alone has far over one hundred single steps/positions, it moves like a kameleon, but very safe, real crazy. It can stand up after falling on the back, you will see...
it has ISRU, indefinite power, and it sucks alot! The power levers just go nuts... 

[Matuchkin]

Very nice. Looking forward to trying to operate this thing.

[Mikki]

3 minutes ago, 073198681 said:

Very nice. Looking forward to trying to operate this thing.

Very easy once programmed, its all on actiongroups ... deadsimple once it runs... 

[Matuchkin]

The joints on this robot's legs makes it look like it actually has muscles...

[Mikki]

After a while and another song they finally arrived at the tunnel...



"Bill, i think i park this thing under the research buildings tunnel, so the owner gets busy searching for it some more..."
"..."

 
After that, Jeb and Bill went to the astronautcenter by foot to have a snack, botriding made them hungry.
Later the same evening they came back to see if the robot was still there, and so it was, and they decided to have another ride with it.
Looks like Kerbals really don`t mind alot.
But anyhow, now the journey began to escalate...



"Me wonders how far this thing can get with the fuel..."
"And me wonders if it can walk under water..."
The fellow reader may have realized that this story happened when our Kerbals were very young, we will simply ignore their amazing stupidity.
Later that night, after a real slow but quite relaxing walk they arrived at the beach, Jeb found out how to manipulate the limbs of the machine and held a spotlight in to the sea:
"Looks wet, are you ready?"
"Sure, i bet it can walk!" said Jeb, as he prepared himself for scuba-action...



Our little nightstalkergang was going to have a swim in the sea,
but not as expected...



The whole thing plunged into the water and Jeb had quite a work to salvage themselfes back to the coast, and Bill gave some opinion to Jebs behave for making bets around all kinds of stuff:
"Good thing you didn`t bet for bucks, you wouldn`t get filthy rich today..."
"Yepp, i bet i will never bet again..."
After that serious moment of becoming more mature Kerbals they held a break and observed the stars above the dark horizon far away above the sea...



"What do you think Bill, are there other beeings out there somewhere?"
"Sure, there is a never ending manyfold of unknown events in the universe, look at ourselves, we are just a tiny part of it."
"Cool! Let`go further, we must find a snack for the machine, feels like it walks better with a well filled belly..."
They turned around to the KSC and engaged the orescanner, looking for a place to put down the drill.



Kerbol arose the next morning in the east, allways just in time as usual, Mun and Minmus in shape of a single pixel aswell took a glimpse from the opposite side of the dark blue sky on our little journeykerbs ...
"What is a pixel?"
"I really have no clue Jeb, but i know how ore smells like, let`s move to the northeast!"
Jebediah turned gently towards the mysterious black monolith on the KSC area, and soon as they arrived began Bill to fill up the ore tanks and generated some fuel for the robot.



"Don`t go to close to the block Jeb, weird things use to happen near it, don`t touch allright?"
Bills voice became somewhat concerned as he saw Jeb starring on the black polished even plane...
"No problem Bill, i just want to have a clo..."
Suddenly Jebs voice cutted off...



"... uuh...oh... okay... i understand now... true."
"Jeb? Are you okay?"



Jebediah didn`t answer, Bill found his friend contiousless laying aside the monolith...

The story continues further below!

Edited January 20, 2016 by Mikki

[Just Jim]

OK, this is really inventive!  Sort of a giant robot-dog mech suit???
I can't wait to see more!

[Geschosskopf]

Amazing machine

[Mikki]

 After a endless seeming time, Jebediah woke up again and starred right in Bills eyes:
"Oh my gosh, it`s full of stars!"



"What was going on Jeb, you have been knocked out more than one hour?...
What `is full of stars` ?"
Jebediah gave no answer, he just turned around to the mining robot and told Bill to follow:
"Bill, hurry up, we have some work to do!"

On the way back to the SPH they came along the radardishes of the observation array, and finally Jebediah began to talk again:
"Bill, we must push our limits ahead! I had a dream of a huge vessel around Jool, Bill, that was us! I must talk to the scientists, we must build a giant spacecraftcarrier and go out there to see what`s going on! The enginee..."
"Calm down Jeb, it`s late at night, folks are asleep... tell me about that vessel, where was it going to?"
"It was going to aerocapture Jool`s atmosphere, just like in the movies, but this was real! I know now how we can do it, and i saw another moon around Jool, we must get there and have a swim in it`s ocean!!!"
"A moon around Jool with liquid ocean? You are nuts."
"Maybe, but going not there is more nuts..."



"Bill, there is another bot following us..."
Bill didn`t answer, their little adventure was not left unnoticed by the owner of their faithfull metal horse...
"Bill, what is a horse?"
"Jeb, i really don`t know how you invent all these funny words, i would suggest you to visit the flightdoctor to check the content of your uppermost limb that sticks in your helmet."
"Ahh.. you know i am sane, the doc says allways `our imagination is the mirror of our future`..."
Bill and Jebediah became more company...

"What do you think, are we getting in trouble?"
"Not really, they knew it was us, since we left our little KSC scooter here... I didn`t break anything, and the tanks are full again. It`s even cleaner than before!"
Jebediah moved the robot exactly to the same spot where they picked it up yesterdays, while wondering about the robots following them...



Jebediah and Bill disembarked the vessel, looking at the other robots slowly arriving...
"Hi there..." said Jebediah cautiously, and Bill freezed like a tiny moon around Eeloo...
"...There is no moon around Eeloo, or is one?"
The robots gave no answer, they just freezed aswell, but suddenly a squeekie voice came out of what appeared to be the head from the bot to their right:
"Hi there, we were waiting for you since we recognized you both borrowed the testbot for a ride, we hoped that all was going well while you two were travelling... good thing that infernal robotics API, makes things lots easyer and relaxed... Oh sorry, i forgot to tell who we are, it`s me, Valentina and i think the other bot is operated by Bob, but it looks as he can`t find the commsbutton..."
Another squeekie voice came out the second bot:
"Yeah, can`t find it, just pressed and pushed all the switches and levers now..."
Jebediah and Bill were quite reliefed as they heard the voices of their friends, but some ominous feeling still left in their bellys...
Jebediah took a word: "Aaah.... okay, yeah it was fun, thanks for the nice welcome here so late... I eagerly must talk to Wernher, Gus and Mortimer, i have a idea how we can get our space program really lift off!"
"Okay, let`s meet up again when the others come to work in a few hours, we are wondering with what you will come up! Looks like a slow ride on this mining bot was good for your health, you look both very greenish tonight!"



...THE END really...? Yepp, really.

Sooooo, this was the end of my little adventure during the last days with the Kerbals, any similaritys ore or coincidences with other Kerbals and/ or other space programs are random, this story is dedicated to all the kids and youngsters playing KSP, growing up in a complex world finding their ways to their own futures.

I`m not a big fan of "GRAND THEFT AUTO^TM ", anyhow,  i chose this title just for the attention... , real life is much more challenging than any imagination or some "questionable" idols can suggest. 

And finally as promissed i share the craftfile for the bot Jeb and Bill were using here, it contains some basic movement API`s, they can be activated by actiongroups, in case you have the newest INFERNAL ROBOTICS ALPHA release, MODEL REWORK and SEQUENCER API installed, maybe you need KJR, don`t know for sure.
Please don`t ask me things about using infernal robotics properly, read for yourself in sirkuts original mod thread.
(You can find it also in the Spacecraft exchange with detailed operating guide.)

DROPBOX Download, (ROBOTIC MINER)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/7rnvduwz1yanfvy/ROBOTIC MINER stock panels.craft?dl=0

I hope some of you were amused by my little story , happy walking!

Edited January 20, 2016 by Mikki
spell, tell and all that stuff;D, and typos 8O, added craftfile with stockpanels...

[Starhawk]

That seems somewhat ominous.  Great image with the other robots following.

Our heroes don't seem too worried, however, so it'll probably be OK.

Happy landings!