Alternis Kerbol Travelling Circus -- Episode 34: Over the Hills and Far Away

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, B-STRK said:

I'd probably point out to Crisdous that death with little to no estate (given all the debts involved) IS the ultimate ship lift. No way to enforce a court judgment in the afterlife, and nothing on Kerbin the creditors can go after, leaving them up an escape trajectory without a Poodle. That's the ultimate win. 

Hehehe, as I always say, the object of the game is to run out of life and money simultaneously so the check that pays for your funeral to bounces 

As to the adjudication of Crisdous' estate, Kerbal property law is feudal, same as with most of the English-speaking world, meaning it obeys the law of "conservation of debt".  So upon her death, her legal "ghost", her estate, sprang into being and is currently being dragged through the courts.  She was bourgeoise so her various mills, condos, and limos are being liquidated to pay off first the sovereign's heriot, then her other creditors in order of social preference.  I'm afraid there won't be much left for the bookies, but the taxkerbs, bankers, and jilted business partners will all likely get their share.  Of course, the bookies will then look to Crisdous' heirs, perhaps going so far as to kidnap and sell them to the Circus if they can't get cash any other way  

So who are Crisdous' heirs?  That's a good question.  Worker-caste kerbs have no families but simply for administrative purposes they must have some sort of social structure in lieu thereof, which I haven't really fleshed out.  It probably has something to do with which particular sproutbed they came from.

 

2 hours ago, B-STRK said:

I think there may be a mod that has oceanic scoops (not for ore, though, but it's a start for some MM magic). I think Karbonite did, maybe Mining Extension too? (Again, must check.)

Thanks.  I seem to recall such things as well.  I'll look around.  I might just kludge something together with Ubizor Welding and MM it into a converter.

[KAL 9000]

WHAT CAN WE DO TO APPEASE BARIS?!

[obney kerman]

7 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

WHAT CAN WE DO TO APPEASE BARIS?!

BARIS is worse than the kraken.

[B-STRK]

1 hour ago, KAL 9000 said:

WHAT CAN WE DO TO APPEASE BARIS?!

 

1 hour ago, obney kerman said:

BARIS is worse than the kraken.

@Angel-125, methinks you have created a new deity/mythological being/omnipotent force/figurehead of a new kerbal religion/competition for the Kraken here. 

I think this gives you rights to take over the pyramid in the desert. Its flat top is already perfectly suited for appeasment offering of kerbals! 

[Cydonian Monk]

At this point I half expect any life found on Laythe to be a sneaky kerbal-eating bacteria that somehow survives everything BARIS throws at it and returns to Kerbin, resulting in the extinction of all known life. 

[Geschosskopf]

4 hours ago, B-STRK said:

@Angel-125, methinks you have created a new deity/mythological being/omnipotent force/figurehead of a new kerbal religion/competition for the Kraken here. 

I think this gives you rights to take over the pyramid in the desert. Its flat top is already perfectly suited for appeasment offering of kerbals! 

Does this story really seem so grim?  That's depressing.   See, I'm trying to write the heroic saga of the Great Enterprise of Bettering Kerbal Civilization, a story of noble struggle against long odds and many setbacks, but ultimately providing at least some marginal net benefit to Kerbalkind as a whole.  IOW, I want my readers to find it inspirational, encouraging them to face adversity with similar determination.

From Despair, Inc.

 

3 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

At this point I half expect any life found on Laythe to be a sneaky kerbal-eating bacteria that somehow survives everything BARIS throws at it and returns to Kerbin, resulting in the extinction of all known life. 

Hmm, I hadn't considered this, but it does sound like a good way to quickly wrap up this story.  I'll have to keep this in mind as an emergency bail-out mechanism  

Edited October 13, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[B-STRK]

34 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Does this story really seem so grim?  That's depressing.   See, I'm trying to write the heroic saga of the Great Enterprise of Bettering Kerbal Civilization, a story of noble struggle against long odds and many setbacks, but ultimately providing at least some marginal net benefit to Kerbalkind as a whole.  IOW, I want my readers to find it inspirational, encouraging them to face adversity with similar determination.

From Despair, Inc.

 

Hmm, I hadn't considered this, but it does sound like a good way to quickly wrap up this story.  I'll have to keep this in mind as an emergency bail-out mechanism  

Oh, I wouldn't call the story grim. Far from it, every chapter is not just one more achievement for the Circus or kerbalkind, but also your mastery of mission planning, craft design, integration of mods into playstyles, and other various lessons (which notes we are so totally cribbing like it's finals week because Giants: Great For Standing On Their Shoulders ).

But really, one has to admit: the Circus has never faced as formidable a foe as BARIS. Normally by now a kerballed interplanetary expedition would be on the way. No such foe has been seen since the unpredictable aerobrakes, nor the overheating inflatables, nor the psychological dice even. Though overcoming The Circus' Greatest Challenge Yet may yet be the sweetest victory. (Or would that be the distilled hydrazine?) 

ADDENDUM: not kidding on the learning and being inspired part. Your tutorials are still up there for good reason. And where else did I find the inspiration to try my hand at an Elcano?  

Edited October 13, 2017 by B-STRK

[Kerbalstar]

14 minutes ago, B-STRK said:

Oh, I wouldn't call the story grim. Far from it, every chapter is not just one more achievement for the Circus or kerbalkind, but also your mastery of mission planning, craft design, integration of mods into playstyles, and other various lessons (which notes we are so totally cribbing like it's finals week because Giants: Great For Standing On Their Shoulders ).

But really, one has to admit: the Circus has never faced as formidable a foe as BARIS. Normally by now a kerballed interplanetary expedition would be on the way. No such foe has been seen since the unpredictable aerobrakes, nor the overheating inflatables, nor the psychological dice even. Though overcoming The Circus' Greatest Challenge Yet may yet be the sweetest victory. (Or would that be the distilled hydrazine?) 

ADDENDUM: not kidding on the learning and being inspired part. Your tutorials are still up there for good reason. And where else did I find the inspiration to try my hand at an Elcano?  

@Geschosskopf I wholeheartedly agree with this!

[Geschosskopf]

@B-STRK and @kerbalstar, thanks for your very kind words  

 

3 hours ago, B-STRK said:

But really, one has to admit: the Circus has never faced as formidable a foe as BARIS. Normally by now a kerballed interplanetary expedition would be on the way. No such foe has been seen since the unpredictable aerobrakes, nor the overheating inflatables, nor the psychological dice even. Though overcoming The Circus' Greatest Challenge Yet may yet be the sweetest victory. (Or would that be the distilled hydrazine?) 

I'm not looking to throw in the towel any time soon.  This game is definitely not turning out the way I originally envisioned, but it's turned into something I'm really enjoying.  One of the things I was doing in my late absence from KSP was Darkest Dungeon, and I've discovered that BARIS has turned this game into a space-based version of that.  Which is WONDERFUL because I love that game.  Who'd have ever thought KSP could become a rogue-like?  

But BARIS is certainly no ordinary foe (at least as I have it set up).  I've become convinced that it is, in fact, nothing less than the incarnation of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, always reducing everything to its lowest energy state.  And in dealing with 2LoT, you can't win, you can't break even, and you can't even quit the game.  Which means there can be no end to the havoc BARIS will wreak upon the Circus.  But that's OK.  I have the game set up so I'm not worried about money and I have an "endless supply of expendable labor".  I can fight a war of attrition for quite some time, even against 2LoT.

However, the payback for this isn't the money or lives lost to BARIS, it's the real time required, so the story moves slowly, and the utter loss of certainty, so I'm pretty much making all this up as I go along from what BARIS gives me.  As a result, in an effort to get some sort of coherent story out of this, I've quit thinking in terms of Mission A leads to Mission B leads to Mission C, which is what I've usually done.  With BARIS, it's unlikely that I can follow any such plan.  Instead, I'm thinking more of the context of the AK system, so that when BARIS presents me with a random set of circumstances, I'll be able to roll with it in a consistent manner.

Just to be clear, however, BARIS is HIGHLY customizable.  It certainly doesn't have to be as bad as it is for me here.  So don't read this thread and think the same things will happen to you if you install BARIS.  It can be anything from a minor annoyance to a major pain.  If you want it as a major pain, though, be warned:  don't make definite plans.  Accept that you've turned KSP into Darkest Dungeon and enjoy the new experience  

Edited October 14, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[JAFO]

Just wanted to say that this thread kept me up until 5am.. you have my undying thanks! 

[KAL 9000]

@Geschosskopf: 

 

[Geschosskopf]

@KAL 9000, yup, definitely

 

EPISODE 14: Takin' Care of Business

Spoiler

 

Strangely, in this episode, the weaponized version of 2LoT (aka BARIS) had little impact on Circus operations.  Maybe it's a case of persistence over resistance finally getting a bit of reliability into rockets.  Of course, this won't last.  Technology advances and the new stuff will surely be as accident-prone as the old stuff was up to this point.  Despite any gains in reliability, however, the Circus still had its share of woe.

The 1st order of business was to try again to send a MagSat to Jool.  This managed to get up OK, even surviving getting through lifter separation and a purely gratuitous explosion.

 

Then it was time to lug a new batch of experiments to MOLE 2.  Along for the ride was Alice, to swap out with Bill. St. Crisdous and, later, St. Jeb watched over this flight and no harm came to anybody, although Bill might have argued this point as he was being dragged off to his debriefing/dissection.

 

At this point, the Circus wanted something in the water off KSP to compare to an identical vehicle in Laythe's ocean later.  Thus was born the Laythe Hydrometer, a simple probe with some Science! instruments aboard to get some additional return on the mission.  Unfortunately, the 1st test article on Kerbin blew up on the pad.

 

Soon after this, it was time for the Jool MagSat Mk 2 to burn down to a low-orbit Pe at Jool.  It also needed to have a 28^ inclination.  Despite leaving Kerbin at a 45^ inclination, this only amounted to 11^ relative to Jool once out of Kerbin's SOI, so a large inclination burn was also required.  This used up the probe's transfer stage but, fortunately, BARIS paid no attention to this staging event.  As it turned out, with its Ap still out by Kerbin, the Jool MagSat only needed to get so close to Jool briefly to get the required low-orbit Science!  It could then raise its Pe to between Minmus and Laythe for the long-term duration and still have the required eccentricity for the contract.  This might hopefully allow it to stay in the Jool system long enough to bring in some big bucks.

 

The Laythe Hydrometer Test Article Mk 2 then finally succeeded in lobbing itself a short distance into Scrap Metal Bay and the Boffins took careful note of how it floated.

 

Then it was time to send another MagSat to Minmus.  This was identical to the Jool MagSat.  Given the experience of Jool Moons Probe, Mission Control knew they had to slow the probe way down relative to Minmus to have any chance of capturing there prior to zipping through its tiny SOI.  Due to technology limitations precluding just brute-forcing this, the Boffins intended to use whatever gravity assists they could find off Mun and/or Laythe en route to Minmus.  As it happened, hitting Laythe to start with was a good 1st step, dropping the probe's Pe down near Minmus and its Ap somewhere between Mun and Kerbin.  But the Boffins hoped for even more than this.

 

Before that could happen, though, the recent mucking about at Laythe had shown that Kerbin's SOI was too small for the highly polar relays there to talk over or under Jool to Laythe.  Almost, but not quite.  Thus, relays were needed elsewhere in the system to provide bank shots around Jool.  This led to the requirement to put relays at Mun, so the Boffins redesigned the Laythe relay (2 medium antennae) to put 2 such probes stacked in the same fairing, and sent it off.  Again, BARIS was silent.  And again, NO, the lifter stage is NOT hitting the soundstage wall.

 

In the fullness of time, MagSat Minmus finished its fly-by of Laythe which, strangely enough, set it right up for a 2nd fly-by of Laythe, which would drop the probe's Ap down to Laythe and put its Pe well inside of Minmus, but still well outside of Jool.  The Boffins were more than happy to just let the probe coast for all this, totally powered down and all valves closed.

,

 

After the 2nd Laythe fly-by, the probe did some minor burns at its new Pe (to lower its Ap out of Laythe's reach) and Pe (to bring it back up closer to Minmus).  But as it happened, the probe and Minmus were so far out of sync that Mission Control was afraid to wait long enough for them to come together naturally, fearing BARIS would strike.  The probe's transfer stage had saved so much fuel with the Laythe gravity braking that it could now make a major adjustment to get a Minmus encounter and then be jettisoned.  This dead stage is now in an orbit inside of Minmus so hopefully Jool will kick it into interplanetary space or even interstellar space soon..

 

Despite nearly matching Minmus' orbit on the way, MagSat Minmus still had to do an 800m/s burn to capture, starting IMMEDIATELY upon SOI entry.  Even with a TWR of nearly 50:1 at Minmus, it was still a near-run thing to capture at all.  But it did.

 

But then depression set in.  With the Minmus MagSat's Pe as low as was considered safe (2.5km) and its Ap as high as the SOI allowed (19.9km), the probe just could not meet the required eccentricity for the magnet survey contract.  Not even close.  After all the careful planning and gravitational ballet, nothing to show for it.  Bummer.  Mission Control covered itself in sackcloth and ashes.  There was much smashing of monitors.

 

On the plus side, however, at least the real Laythe Hydrometer managed to get underway with no problems.

 

And at least the Mun Relays were doing well, too.  The carrier made a minor burn to arrive over Mun's north pole in a nearly 90^ polar orbit.

 

The carrier released the probes and they went as high as Mun's SOI allowed.  Everything had gone great with this mission so far.

 

The 1 minor disappointment was that just before the carrier vehicle was going to impact Mun in a glorious explosion, Mun slipped into Jool's shadow so there was nothing to see of the terrain up close, just the explosion in the dark

 

Still, BARIS had somehow allowed a fair amount of work to get done without interference.  And EPIKFAIL chipped in with some cash for orbiting Mun and Minmus, plus going suborbital at Mun (but not landing).  Now the way is clear to really start exploring Laythe.  The Circus has some rather audacious plans for that.

 

Tune in next time for more of the slow spiral into damnation.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[Just Jim]

What, no funeral flag???  

[Geschosskopf]

4 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

What, no funeral flag???  

I think this is 2 in a row where no astronauts have died, although only 1 in a row for no purges

 

[Just Jim]

33 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

I think this is 2 in a row where no astronauts have died, although only 1 in a row for no purges

Hmmm... according to Yin & Yang, everything is in balance, so I foresee a bad one coming up in the not too distant future... 

[Angelo Kerman]

BARIS must be satiated for the time being... Love those comm sats!

[Geschosskopf]

13 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Hmmm... according to Yin & Yang, everything is in balance, so I foresee a bad one coming up in the not too distant future... 

I'm sure of that  

 

12 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

BARIS must be satiated for the time being... Love those comm sats!

Thanks.  I'm kinda proud of the compact design of those commsats myself.  I think this is going to be my standard design for "short-range" relays for a while.  They have MOLE 1.8m tank, battery, and probe core.  On top of this is a column of cubic octagonal struts just tall enough for the 2 medium relay antennae to not clip the top of the probe core.  On the other 2 sides of this column are solar panels from @SuicidalInsanity's Mk 2 Extensions.  They're in streamlined pods, which is kind of a waste, but I chose them because the panels are on long stalks so can stick out past the edges of the relay dishes.  The whole commsat is only barely wider than 2.5m so the fairing doesn't have to bulge very much.

You'll note a number of BARIS-inspired design Darwinism on my ships these days.  These commsats have 2 relay antennae (and all ships have MANY direct antennae) for redundancy.  Also, I saw you mention that DSEV parts are more reliable than MOLE parts, so I've been using them as much as possible.  And I'm suing lots of small engines where I can, instead of 1 big engine, again for redundancy.

The one main issue with your stuff I'm having right now is that MOLE 2 is making SERIOUS lag (this game is still in 1.3.0, BTW).  This wasn't the case when I 1st built it, it's only happened since I brought up the crew and turned on its various functions (lab, botany lab, greenhouse, and hab recyclers).  This seems to be accompanied by a memory leak, too.  If I visit MOLE 2 (with a ship or just via the tracking station), the lag there persists in the rest of the game, and even after I quit KSP.  I generally have to reboot my system, so I plan MOLE trips for just before I need to quit playing or take a break anyway    But that's why I haven't been going there very much.  I'm thinking of shutting most of it down except for marooning a couple sciencemates in the lab to make bonus science.  And maybe rearranging the modules so I can boost it to a higher orbit to do other experiments.  It's currently doing the last batch it can do where it is.

[Angelo Kerman]

That’s odd, I don’t do anything out of the ordinary with MOLE and its converters. The biggest difference would be the science system but even that is based on stock converters. What all do you have on the station?

[Geschosskopf]

3 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

That’s odd, I don’t do anything out of the ordinary with MOLE and its converters. The biggest difference would be the science system but even that is based on stock converters. What all do you have on the station?

 

From top to bottom down the central axis:

• Core Module
  • 1.8m docking port
  • An assembly of 3x 1.8m tanks full of Research Kits and 2x 1.8m 2-axis solar panels and 4x Station Lights
  • 1.8m airlock with a bunch of KAS drills, struts, and pipes in inventory
  • 2x Habitats with soil recycler's running.  Have 4x Station Lights and 4x stock DTS-M1 antennae on them.
  • Titan Instrument probe core/SAS
  • DSEV 4-way hex hub with crew tubes turned on.  This has 4x 1.8m docking ports around the sides, only 2 of which are being used.  Has some Stockalike Surface lights at the corners.
  • Another Titan instrument package
  • 1.8m LFO tank with 4 stock Thud engines
  • 1.8m docking port (connected to Docking Module)
• Docking Module
  • 1.8m docking port (connected to Core Module)
  • Titan Instruments
  • DSEV hex girder with crew tube and all the external trusses turned on..  Has some OX-Stat solar panels, lights, MOLE 5-way RCS thrusters, and 2 stock mono tanks radially attached.
  • DSEV 4-way hex hub with crew tube turned on.  Has 4 docking ports around the sides:  Hex 2.5m 1.8m, stock Clamp-o-Tron, and MOLE Mk 1.
  • MOLE battery pack
  • 1.8m docking port

Left Side:  Plant Module, from left end to inner:

• 1.8m docking port
• 1.8m tanks of water and fertilizer
• Botany Lab Greenhouse with stock mono tanks and Station Lights, and MOLE 5-way RCS thrusters
• 1.8m airlock full of KAS drills, pipes, and struts
• Botany Lab with stock batteries and Station Lights and MOLE 5-way RCS thrusters
• Titan Instruments
• 1.8m docking port connected to Core Module

Right Side:  Lab Module, from right end to inner:

• 1.8m docking port
• 1.8m tank of Equipment with stock mono tanks and MOLE 5-way RCS thrusters
• 1.8m airlock full of KAS drills, pipes, and struts.
• MOLE with stock batteries , stock antenna, Station Lights, and 5-way RCS thrusters..  Also has a goo, a thermometer, and 2 glycerol tanks stuck on the outside.
• Titan instruments 
• 1.8m docking port connected to Core Module

There is a crew of 7 Kerbals:  6 scientists and 1 engineer.  The engineer is in 1 of the habs running the recycler.  The scientists are 2 each in the MOLE, the Botany Lab, and the Greenhouse, running all those things.

There's really only a couple hundred parts here.  All the RCS tanks are shut off, all but 1 of the probe cores is hibernating and torqueless, and most of the Snacks! tanks are also shut off (I've got WAY more Snacks! thank I'll need for a while).

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 15: The Five O'Clock Whistle

Spoiler

 

(aka "What happens when you stay home with the flu")

Anyway, when we left off last time, the Laythe Hydrometer was getting pretty close to its target, so it arrived promptly at the start of this episode.  Note you can see Laythe's Crater Lake clearly on the landmass to the left.

 

As luck would have it, no sooner had the probe achieved orbit than Laythe hid behind Jool and everything went black.  As the mission required coming down in daylight, there was nothing for it but to hibernate the Hydrometer for a couple days.  While twiddling their thumbs, Mission Control decided that the Laythe SpySat had been in low orbit long enough to be sure there were no native radio signals, so decided to boost it into an elliptical polar orbit so it could do a better job as a relay.  This maneuver, however, required staging off the transfer stage and finishing the burn with probe's own engine.  This staging event awoke BARIS from its slumber and most of the antennae on the SpySat, including the big relay, all developed problems.  Oh well, at least nothing exploded so there was still some hope.

 

Finally, Laythe quit being coy and emerged from Jool's shadow, so Mission Control was able to pick a landing site for the Hydrometer.  They were trying to be as sneaky as possible just in case there were eyes down there, so they needed to come down in the ocean out of sight of land.  They also wanted the re-entry to be in the daylight to be less visible.  They soon found such a place and sent the Laythe Hydrometer down.  The flames proved to be both very brief and very small, so probably nothing saw them, if there were indeed eyes down there.

 

Having come so far, Mission Control wasn't going to stage the chutes but manually deploy them again.  However, they waited until under 2000m to even open the drogues, and didn't deploy the mains until 300m, when the probe was below the horizon from the nearest landmass.

 

Once safely down, the probe did its mundane science and even checked the performance of its solar panels on the Laythe surface.  EPIKFAIL was very impressed with all this.

 

With that out of the way, the Boffins took over and did what they'd designed the Hydrometer to do--test the floatiness of Laythe's oceans.  So they closed everything up, jettisoned the heat shield (which exploded below several seconds later), and turned off SAS to let the probe float naturally, just as the test article had back on Kerbin.  It turns out, there's not a lot of difference.  If anything, Laythe's ocean is slightly more floaty than Kerbin's.  That was good to know.

 

All this info was radioed back via the SpySat's big relay.  There was much rejoicing that it still worked at all.

 

So that's it for the Laythe Hydrometer.  Everything on it was shut down and hibernated, and it's hoped that lying flat like it is, no Laythians, should there be any, will notice it.  Of course, the hypothetical Laytheans might be marine organisms, in which case, the probe will be very obvious.  Especially given the big splash of the OMS stage and the explosion of the heat shield.  But Mission Control, biased heavily by their own species' perspective and the idea of panspermia, thought it much more likely that any Laytheans would be fellow troglodytes, in which case they'd definitely not want to open a tunnel on the sea floor, which could drown their whole civilization.

By now, the Boffins had designed a better ship to move entire MOLE crews around.  This one could even carry Science! as well.  Given that Mission Control was considering attempting to raise MOLE 2 to a higher orbit and that all experiments that could be done at low orbit had been done, they decided to bring everybody and the last Science! back down.  By now, most of the crew had been up there 200 days anyway and the Scientists thought it would be good to debrief/dissect them all to get a larger sample size on the effects of space on Kerbals.

To this end, Mission Control OK'd the MOLE Shift Change Mk 1, an 8-seat rocket.  And because there were only 7 aboard MOLE 2, they stuck Adaid in to fly it up.  Adaid was a long-suffering test pilot who had never been to space, the dread of which had been dwelling on him for months.  He was glad finally to be getting on with his first rocket ride.

 

Things did not go well.  Shortly after liftoff, one of the SRB-stuffed radial decouplers for the main SRBs exploded, setting that booster free.  But, having had months to prepare himself mentally, Adaid had composed a prayer to St. Crisdous for just such occasions.  He began reciting it once the initial shock was over.  It seemed to pay off and immediately became a ritual amongst the more devout of the astronaut corps.

 

But Mission Control wanted to get on with bringing the MOLE 2 crew home, so had the Boffins rush the MOLE Shift Change Mk 2 through integration.  The very next day, Adaid was sent up again.  Things went rather better and, in fact, Adaid was finally able to score a bullseye on the image of Jool on the soundstage wall, something those controlling every launch had so far failed to do.  He thus collected what was by now a rather sizeable pool wager of grog rations.  and even lifter separation caused no problems, just a nice gratuitous explosion.

 

During the rendezvous with MOLE 2, a few glitches did crop up, especially with RCS thrusters, but Adaid (now with 1 star from having been in orbit) was able to work around them.  The Shift Change Mk 2's arrival at MOLE 2 was greeted with much rejoicing by the crew.

 

As the MOLE Shift Change Mk 2 pulled away from the station in the dark, as was only right and proper, Adaid was struck by how the station's lights illuminated the diorama sculpted on the soundstage wall a short distance away a duchy-sized region of the surface 180km below.  Strange.  The Scientists back at Mission Control immediately put some interns on a bus to the antipodes see if there was anything unusual about the ground over there.

 

Regardless of that, the MOLE Shift Change Mk 2 had a relatively uneventful re-entry and managed to come down within sight of KSC.  Once the chutes were open, the long-exiled crew broke out their saved-up grog rations and were ranting and roaring like true Kerbal spacers by the time the recovery boat arrived.  They didn't even need anesthesia for their debriefing/dissections. 

 

So now KSC is repopulated with experienced astronauts and various targets await.  This will hopefully start to get more interesting soon.

 

Tune in next time for more of the slow spiral into damnation.

Edited October 19, 2017 by Geschosskopf

[obney kerman]

12 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Adaid was struck by how the station's lights illuminated the diorama sculpted on the soundstage wall a short distance away a duchy-sized region of the surface 180km below.  Strange. 

That does look fake... *Tinfoil hat on*

[Geschosskopf]

1 hour ago, obney kerman said:

That does look fake... *Tinfoil hat on*

Given the number of failures, there will surely be legitimate doubts that the Circus has gone anywhere at all.  So I'm kinda making the whole "fake space program" thing a running gag in this story.  Of course, given that very few Kerbals even know the space program exists, there aren't enough naysayers in the actual game world to become a thing.  So I'm just mentioning the "fake" stuff in hopes it makes my rather lame story more entertaining.

That pic of the station lighting up Kerbin is by far the best natural "fake" I've ever seen (there are better contrived fakes--see the "Fake a Moon Landing" challenge).  And it's really strange how this light issue looks in the game.  When I first noticed it happening, the camera was aimed down the length of the Shift Change Mk 2, so the illuminated area of Kerbin was more edge-on along the left edge of the screen.  From that angle, the illumination was very, very dim.  It actually looked like a distant nebula, a faint green cloud wrapped over a fuzzy star.  So great was this illusion that I fell for it, and was wondering where it came from because I'm using the stock skybox.  I was wondering if AK included a custom skybox.  So I rotated the camera for a better look and realized it was Kerbin, only now the light was making it look like a model about 10m behind the station.

[B-STRK]

46 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Given the number of failures, there will surely be legitimate doubts that the Circus has gone anywhere at all.  So I'm kinda making the whole "fake space program" thing a running gag in this story.  Of course, given that very few Kerbals even know the space program exists, there aren't enough naysayers in the actual game world to become a thing.  So I'm just mentioning the "fake" stuff in hopes it makes my rather lame story more entertaining.

That pic of the station lighting up Kerbin is by far the best natural "fake" I've ever seen (there are better contrived fakes--see the "Fake a Moon Landing" challenge).  And it's really strange how this light issue looks in the game.  When I first noticed it happening, the camera was aimed down the length of the Shift Change Mk 2, so the illuminated area of Kerbin was more edge-on along the left edge of the screen.  From that angle, the illumination was very, very dim.  It actually looked like a distant nebula, a faint green cloud wrapped over a fuzzy star.  So great was this illusion that I fell for it, and was wondering where it came from because I'm using the stock skybox.  I was wondering if AK included a custom skybox.  So I rotated the camera for a better look and realized it was Kerbin, only now the light was making it look like a model about 10m behind the station.

The lighting thing is quite common, and not just to Kerbin. I've had the amber emergency light from USI Exploration alternately bathe Kerbin in amber fro 175km, the Mk1 spotlight light up the KSC subcontinent, Aviation Lights and Kerbal Electric light up the interior of IVAs, and in the latter case, even light up the surface of Minmus. From behind the planet. In map view. 

Since KE uses its own lighting module (and I heard Aviation Lights uses something independent of any lighting module, at all, but I might have heard wrong?), I'm thinking it must be "KSP Unity, it so silly" dealing with all manner of lighting.

And--I know I'm diving into a probability mechanics fallacy here, but just having fun with it--seeing the order of events this chapter and the last, maybe that's the secret to appeasing BARIS (apart from the invocation of the saints and regular parts testing): feed it something unmanned first to satiate its hunger, then hope it's too satiated to go after anything kerballed, at least not to the extent of devouring their ships whole.  

Yep, I know I'm diving into a probability fallacy here. Who was it again that said that dice don't have memories? 

[Geschosskopf]

8 minutes ago, B-STRK said:

The lighting thing is quite common, and not just to Kerbin. I've had the amber emergency light from USI Exploration alternately bathe Kerbin in amber fro 175km, the Mk1 spotlight light up the KSC subcontinent, Aviation Lights and Kerbal Electric light up the interior of IVAs, and in the latter case, even light up the surface of Minmus. From behind the planet. In map view. 

I've often seen this happen at airless bodies, especially small ones in dark places, but this is the 1st time I've seen it so strong on Kerbin. 

I think this pic is largely the result of playing in AK.  When planets are in Jool's shadow, it's like their night sides get a double dose of darkness, from both themselves and Jool.  The darkness is so intense it looks tangible.  Thus, any light source on a ship seems to have a magnified effect.

 

8 minutes ago, B-STRK said:

 I'm thinking it must be "KSP Unity, it so silly" dealing with all manner of lighting.

As with many other laws of physics  

 

8 minutes ago, B-STRK said:

And--I know I'm diving into a probability mechanics fallacy here, but just having fun with it--seeing the order of events this chapter and the last, maybe that's the secret to appeasing BARIS (apart from the invocation of the saints and regular parts testing): feed it something unmanned first to satiate its hunger, then hope it's too satiated to go after anything kerballed, at least not to the extent of devouring their ships whole.  

Yep, I know I'm diving into a probability fallacy here. Who was it again that said that dice don't have memories? 

I dunno.  BARIS just seems to be streaky.  Sometimes ships have little or no problems, other times they have many simultaneous problems.  But it does seem to help to have more stuff in space, including debris.  The more stuff you have, the more targets BARIS has to smite when it dishes out wear-and-tear failures every day.  Thus, it's less likely that something you really care about at the time will fail.  But that does nothing to stop the launch /staging failures.  The only thing that seems to help there is having a Kerbal with at least 1 star on board to kludge around the problem.

[Cydonian Monk]

18 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Adaid was finally able to score a bullseye on the image of Jool on the soundstage wall, something those controlling every launch had so far failed to do.  He thus collected what was by now a rather sizeable pool wager of grog rations.

Perfect. 

 

That lighting bug is more a Unity thing than KSP. Has to do with the planet textures being in scaled space (on the soundstage wall) instead of “real” space. Any light source that’s “bright” enough will do it once the planet changes from a rendered mesh to a texture with a normalmap. I suspect this is the reason KSP lights got nerfed. The values needed to satisfy the light deities seem to change with every release and Unity version.

Engine Lighting mod was good about glowing the planet up too. (And I futzed around with my build of it for RSS/RO in KSP v1.1.3 long enough to just say ‘eh, whatev’ and move on.)

I wouldn’t so much call it a bug as an unintended artifact. “Working as Coded” as we say in the business.