A Life of Piracy

[Jetski]

A life of Piracy for Jeb and Bill

This is a series of reports on the adventures of Bill and Jeb, as they embark on a life of piracy in space.  This challenge is the starting point, using this savegame, and the goal is to explore the Kerbol system using KIS and KAS to pirate parts and fuel from existing stations, ships and debris.  From the challenge page:

Bill and Jeb are just two down on their luck guys.  Jeb crashed his last test craft and Mortimer finally canned him.  Bill was caught making hydrazine for personal use with company property and forced to resign.  However neither one of them want to spend the last of their days on kerbin.  As a requirement of Bills resignation he gets to design one final 18t craft for personal use.  Bill and Jeb launch into space to begin a life of Piracy.  Unfortunately Bill and Jeb are still good guys and don't want to hurt other kerbals so they are torn.  Bill realizes that there is so much space debris in orbit that there is no need to steal they have plenty of materials to build whatever they want.

Rules:
-Using your current or most cluttered career
-Using KIS/KAS utilize space junk to explore the solar system.
-Abandoned stations with no kerbals aboard are fair game
-Fuel can be stolen from mining stations guilt free
-If you absolutely have to fuel can be stolen from active stations but Bill and Jeb will feel really bad.
-Any kerbals Bill and Jeb rescue first join Bill and Jeb.

Their starting ship had to be 18T or less, so they launched in a spaceplane with very few parts to start, and had to dump the wings just to get into orbit.  Without further ado, here's the first installment!

Part 1 album here

Part 2 finished

Part 3 finished

Conclusion (probably)

Thanks for reading!

Edited July 23, 2017 by Jetski

[Geschosskopf]

Hehe, that's an interesting challenge.  You seem off to a good start.  Look out for @Cydonian Monk, though

 

[max_creative]

Arrr matey! Wait... Have you checked emiko station and the diamond back recently? 

[Jetski]

Part 2 complete: Jeb and Bill had a nice peaceful transfer to Duna, then Ike.  They had an argument, and Jeb insisted that this pirate life was no good at all if they couldn't land.  Bill agreed reluctantly, and stripped down the Klack Pearl for a risky landing with no landing gear.  Jeb set her down perfectly on the Rapier, balanced not 10 meters away from the mining camp.  After siphoning the fuel tanks full again, Bill had a brilliant idea: what if we built a DUna lander out of parts from the Ike mining rig, and raided the Duna mining colony?  After some heavy lifting, they stuck a Poodle to a fuel tank, and strapped the cupola to the top.  Jeb burned out into a holding orbit in the Pearl, and Bill blasted away, leaving a wake of wreckage that used to be the Ike colony.  

After some aerobraking, Bill managed a nearly perfect landing at the Duna roving miner colony, actually leaning the side of his ship against the wheels in a friendly sort of way.  He then promptly stole anything that wasn't nailed down, and some stuff that was.  Fuel, landing gear, fuel cells, docking ports all got slapped onto the makeshift lander, then he blasted back to Ike to meet up with Jeb.  Our heros are now waiting in a nice orbit of Ike for their transfer to Dres.  Jeb heard there's a Dresteroid miner there just ripe for the plundering.  Bill is busily hotwiring the fuel cells to produce more hydrazine...

Part 2 imgur album

 

Edited July 23, 2017 by Jetski

[Nich]

Another great entry

[Mister Dilsby]

This is loads of fun! Tempted to install KAS and have a go at this but I already have enough going on  Might be really interesting to mess around with someone else's old save and see what you can find. Or perhaps a mod that takes random pieces from your VAB and SPH files and scatters them around the Kerbol system--now that'd be piracy!

[max_creative]

Ye be doing great me heartys! Ok enough pirate talk. I bet once I set up my Moho base you are going to have a lot to do there (not at the base, but the mohole. It's going to be my giant space garbage can.

[Windspren]

You might want to get the OSE Workshop mod. It adds a 3D printer part that allows you to make small parts out of Ore. It would be useful if you needed a few extra struts, but might take away from the scavenging aspect of the story.

[Acme Aerospace]

I am loving this, fairly constant uploads, great story, fun, and I don't think I have seen anyone do it before. Keep up the good work.

[Jetski]

Part 3: Among the Dresteroids

Bill and Jeb caught the first window out from Ike, leaving behind a thoroughly plundered local system.  During the burn for Dres, Jeb realized that Bill had refused to leave behind over 4000 units of Oxidizer, a key ingredient in his secret hydrazine recipe.  Certainly it wasn't going to do any good running the three remaining NERVAs, and the weight almost made them unable to orbit Dres.  FInally, orbit was made, and the last drops of LF were spent getting a high orbit near the busy Dresteroid miner.  Bill sobered up quickly when he realized they were dead in space, and hacked the local probe control channels to take over the miner remotely.  When Jeb argued that this was "cheating", Bill simply replied with the word "pirate!".  Under remote control, the miner finished chomping its second asteroid, and met up with the Klack Pearl in a high orbit.  After draining the tanks, Bill sent the miner back to find a class D asteroid to mine.  WIth their tanks at least half full, Bill and Jeb were able to catch up with the miner and fill their large "travel tank" (formerly Mun Orbital Station).

Both celebrated with some hydrazine, but perhaps they should have been paying more attention...

Jeb proceeded to almost miss the Jool window, and Bill was so lazy he just Klawed the miner to the back of the Pearl as a booster.  The misalignment and poor flight planning resulted in burning all the fuel in the miner, and another 900 dV from the main tank just to get a Jool intercept, more than twice what should have been required.  Feeling apologetic, Bill scavenged enough parts from the drained miner to make a very pretty little Klaw RCS tug, which should help with moving parts around in the future.  Tug strapped securely to the stern, the Klack Pearl rides now for a Jool intercept!

Part 3 album

 

Edited July 23, 2017 by Jetski

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

That's a great challenge, and this is a great report!

 

[max_creative]

 I would like except I'm out today. Also just a comment, in my opinion, dres is overrated.

[Jetski]

22 hours ago, Kuzzter said:

This is loads of fun! Tempted to install KAS and have a go at this but I already have enough going on  Might be really interesting to mess around with someone else's old save and see what you can find. Or perhaps a mod that takes random pieces from your VAB and SPH files and scatters them around the Kerbol system--now that'd be piracy!

@Kuzzter Feel free to grab the savegame from the OP if you want to give it a shot, no debris but enough bases and stations to go around.

@Laythe Dweller, I thought about a construction mod, but really this way is more fun.  I really wish I had packed extra struts and fuel lines instead of the useless winches and harpoons.  I forgot stock struts and fuel lines can't be reused or moved in KAS, bummer.  Would kill for a single fuel line at this point, but that's half the fun!

@max_creative, yeah, Jeb and Bill couldn't be bothered landing on Dres, even though they could have easily.  I mean, why bother?  Plenty to do in the Dresteroids, and Jool is beckoning!

Edited March 18, 2016 by Jetski

[max_creative]

Drestreoids are fun. Dres is not fun.

[Nich]

You forget your lore from @Kuzzter's Duna Ore Bust Bill has the ability to modify space time (persistence file) and I think I would be fine if you replaced any scavenged struts/fuel lines with KAS struts/fuel lines although the entropy gods may not be happy with the lack of conservation of mass (why do they have different masses?)

Edited March 18, 2016 by Nich

[max_creative]

Oh yeah! 

[Jetski]

The Moons of Jool

During the long voyage outward to Jool, Jeb put in a request to make the Klack Pearl "more Piratey", so Bill went to work.  A few Gigantor sails and some Twitch cannons later, they were feeling much better about things.  They decided to find a good pirate base in the Jool system if possible, somewhere they could live the good life and only occasionally pillage passing ships.  Their first stop was Pol, where Jeb scared the daylights out of Bill by landing the entire ship on her engines.  Bill reminded him that Pol is mainly known for steep terrain, and the ship was basically scrap thrown together in deep space.  Nevertheless, they safely landed and planted a pirate flag, but decided that they needed a better base than Pol.

A quick scan of the outer system showed a large orbiting station, ripe for plunder.  Using Bills new Klaw tug as a docking port, they clipped on and Bill went to work.  He quickly slapped together a little one-Kerbal ion ship, and volunteered to investigate the moons, while Jeb stayed behind and kept an eye on the Pearl.  Jeb looked at him suspiciously, but decided to send him on his way.  First stop was Bop, where Bill had already located a nice mining ship filled to the brim with all he needed to replenish his hydrazine still.  After some hacking and burning, he scrapped the ion ship and loaded the parts onto the miner chassis, and took off to explore the rest of the system in comfort.

He took a low pass over Tylo, and decided no way was that going to work for a pirate base.  Too big and scary by far.  Next stop was a flyby of Laythe.  He collected scouting data - looks promising!  Next was a landing on Vall.  Once down, he tore up the miner, removing the ore tanks and ISRU, and converted it into a good little in-system tug, which he then flew back to meet with Jeb.

Back at Jool station, Bill and Jeb decided Laythe would be their pirate hideout, and set to work converting the Klack Pearl for atmospheric descent.  Bill stripped her down, added wheels (pirated from the Duna roving base) and some Vernors for attitude control.  Then he turned the science section of the Jool base into a NERVA tug to pull the Pearl down to Laythe.

Laythe entry was exciting to say the least, but Jeb was able to land the Pearl on her tail with the help of some chutes stolen from the rescue pods of Jool Station, then fall forward onto the oversize landing gear. Gear up and the Pearl sits happily in her new home on Laythe, while Bill and Jeb enjoy some well-deserved hydrazine and snacks.

Part 4 imgur album

 

 

Edited July 23, 2017 by Jetski

[Nahim]

This is so fun to read!

Did we will see some Duna marauder love?

[max_creative]

Arrr now go give eeloo and Moho some love! (And some more to dres)

[Jetski]

6 hours ago, Nahim said:

This is so fun to read!

Did we will see some Duna marauder love?

Check out Part 2 for the raid on the Duna rover facility, and the blatant cannibalization of the Ike mining colony.  

@max_creative I'm considering continuing on, Jeb and Bill have a huge amount of resources left in high Jool orbit, and the little Eeloo landing craft and rover would be an easy target.  Bill has been dying to see what he could do with a command chair. Also he heard there's a huge fuel tank slowly orbiting Eve...

I was starting to get some serious kraken attacks on the ship, mainly the Rapier engine - I think too many construction projects is straining the parts physics engine. If you look at the last pic, the engine is tiny compared to the ship, and the thrust is doing weird things to my acceleration.  If I go on, I'll have to delete the engine and cheat back into orbit or something along those lines.

Edited March 19, 2016 by Jetski