The Saga of the Sauron

[HansonKerman]

3 hours ago, VoidCosmos said:

Sounds interesting

ye. I read the Jool 5 Saga, and suggested the Mohole and Canyon missions this is amazing. That is truly a megalith

[RoninFrog]

Space potato number 2 again: Gilly!

Transfer windows are lame.  I refueled and immediately maneuver noded meself into yon interplanetare.  Pretty sure it would take less game time to line up a transfer window, but those things are really finicky.

It looks like I'll hit Eve at the next Apoapsis:

Hello, purple kerbal eater!  My trajectory put me within a few kilometers of the atmosphere, so my kerbals could wave to their stranded friends on the surface.  (Actually the Sauron is one of only two crafts in the game.  My stranded kerbals are in another save.)

I have a massive amount of extra dV, so let's burn it!  A 90° degree plane change should do it. 

There's a familiar looking hunk of rock:

From this angle, Gilly looks almost as big as Eve!  Funny how they put the smallest, most peaceful moon with almost no gravity and drab colors around the biggest solid planet with screaming fast speeds, dense atmosphere, a huge gravity well, chaotic aerobraking, and bright colors.

Gilly is really hard to nail a landing, since it rotates so fast and the orbital velocity is so low.  I landed pretty close to my old landing site by burning directly towards it from orbit.

I landed within 500 m of the old flag, so instead of getting all of the kerbals out, I only dispatched Lisvey to go read the plaque.  The ore is 0.01% better over by the Sauron than where Livsey is standing.  Gilly is a really small place!

Dres next, huh?  I hear it's got some good asteroids.  Too bad I don't have a claw to lug one around.

Edited May 4, 2020 by RoninFrog
Found a better screenshot

[RoninFrog]

Space Potato number 3: Dres!

Transfer windows, schmansfer windows.  I wanna launch! 

I dropped down to Eve real quick for a little speed boost before zinging myself on out into the final frontier:

The brave explorers set out on a grand journey to debunk the mystery of the existence of Dres, much like Kolumbus setting out on his journey to determine whether Kerbin was really flat or not.  What the kerbals found was mystifying.  Dres was strangely reddish with white poles- JEEEEEEBBBB!!!  Not AGAIN!!! 

Okay, okay, rewind the tape.  We got some explaining to do.

I didn't burn all the way to Dres' orbit when I ejected from Eve's SOI, and I couldn't do a plane change because Eve was not near the ascending or descending node.  All the Dres intercepts I could get in the next few years were not near the ascending or descending nodes either.  I didn't have enough dV to do a plane change in interplanetary space.  But guess what?  You guessed it:  I had a perfect Duna transfer window.  So to Duna we will go.  Actually, we've already been to Duna, so I decided to go to Ike.  I, for one, actually do like Ike.  Does Ike count as a space potato, or is it better classified as a satellite troll?

Well, that ore looks depressing.  The M700 is on 60% cutoff, and that's the only place on the planet highlighted.

The Narrow Band tells a different story, though.  Despite what the M700 thinks, the ore on Ike is absolutely incredible!!!  The entire planet, with the exception of that mountain range on the left and a smidge of the dark area on the right, is all above 14% ore!  Wowzers!  The best ore (estimated 14.6%) is right smack in the middle of that central mountain range.  So, when you've got a lot of extra dV, you can do things like this :

And this.  We don't waste any time around here!

Bam landed!  Kind of sloped, but the Sauron has a wide base and low COM.  Ike is usually really dark, but not in this area!

And, backwards flag time!  C'mon, Jeb!

Definitely going to Dres next time.  For reals.  No more transfer fails and Duna encounters.  Hopefully.

Edited May 4, 2020 by RoninFrog
Grammar derp

[HansonKerman]

11 hours ago, RoninFrog said:

smallest, most peaceful moon

part of why Gilly is my second favorite celestial body. Also thx for not calling it a captured asteroid

11 hours ago, RoninFrog said:

space potato

rock someone spilled milk on

Edited May 4, 2020 by HansonKerman

[RoninFrog]

Space Potato Number 3: Dres!  (For reals)

Ejecting from Duna from Ike orbit requires less dV than ejecting from Eve from Gilly orbit.  Weird. 

Jeb didn't listen to Bill's pleas to wait for a transfer window, and had to go most of the way around Kerbol before finding a good maneuver node to get to Dres.  Bill also noticed a strange craft on a Kerbin-Eeloo trajectory.  Gonna have to investigate that later. 

Just over a year and many gallons of fuel (and crates of snacks) later, the Sauron's trajectory looked like this.  So Dres apparently exists after all!  Some kerbals in the crew cabin still have their doubts, though.

There was still a lot of fuel in the tanks in Dres orbit, so the canyon will be the first stop.  Gotta find a good mining spot to refuel at after the canyon trip, though.  Dres has really good ore.  Not as good as Ike or as concentrated as Tylo, but still mostly near 12% and above 14% (estimated) in several places.

That there looks like a canyon.

Sacred bovine, that's a big ditch!  Jeb, are you thinking what I think you're thinking?  I have a feeling this landing isn't gonna end well...

Landed!  Terrible ore, thank goodness we won't be mining here!  We won't mention the quicksaves involved.  Like the aborted landings...

Spoiler

Or the time *that* happened...

Spoiler

Great shot of the flag.  Jeb gets some extra snacks for that.

Here's some scenes from the canyon exploration:

Spoiler

Jetpacked to the top of the canyon for a quick look-see.

Flying down the canyon at a breakneck speed:

Jeb tried to dab while jetpacking and slammed face first into the cliff on the right a couple seconds later.

Noticed this great shot while getting the kerbals out:

 

[HansonKerman]

9 minutes ago, RoninFrog said:

Kerbin-Eeloo trajectory.  Gonna have to investigate that later. 

<warning: speculation ahead.>
ooooo is the Saga going to get a story now? Would be cool tbh.

also, if Bill had a nickel for every time he thought Jeb repainted a planet using spacetime, he’d have ten cents. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice (P+F is gold)

[KerballingSmasher]

20 hours ago, RoninFrog said:

Jeb tried to dab while jetpacking and slammed face first into the cliff on the right a couple seconds later.

 I'M DYING XD 

[RoninFrog]

Chapter the last:  Eeloo!

The kerbals boarded the Sauron again, and they hopped around the world to a place where the dirt burns better.

Pretty good ore here.

Something had been bugging Bill for a while.  He remembered it had something to do with Eeloo.  So all the kerbals piled back into the Sauron, and they blasted off into the great, dark yonder.

This, my friends, is called an inclination change.

Jeb got a good intercept, but didn't see any craft near Eeloo.

"That's funny," thought Bob. "The M700 didn't have to scan."  Anywhere brown has good ore, so Jeb shot for the brown patches right in the center there.

The Sauron belches out fire as it descends towards the surface:

Ore here isn't great, but it's not the worst so far.  Even the mighty RA-100 doesn't have perfect reception out here.

The kerbals got out to plant a flag, and Bill kept glancing at map view to look for other crafts.  Nice job on the flag, Jeb!  I think he's got it down after so many flag plantings.

But what was this?  A light appeared over a ridge and a wheeled object was approaching rapidly.  Very rapidly.

Too rapidly.

While kerbals ricocheted off the Sauron and slowly settled to the ground, the rover righted itself and a couple kerbals popped out.  One was a pilot named Lodald, and the other was and engineer named Rayton.

  All the kerbals were all thinking different things.  Bob was thinking, "What? No science experiments?  Really, guys?"  Bill was thinking, "I knew it!  We weren't the only ones on Eeloo!"  Valentina was thinking, "There's a docking port on the front, and the rover doesn't have RCS to nose up, so it must dock to something on the ground.  It also has a Surface Scanner, so it must be looking for ore.  That means there must be an ISRU base in the vicinity."  Jeb was thinking, "Dude, look at those wheels!  And an engine?  I bet that thing can go ripping fast!  I wanna drive it!"

"Hey, you guys wanna see our base?" asked Rayton.

And there the kerbals would stay for a long time, having many adventures involving rovers, explosions, and flying kerbals.  So the mighty HMS Sauron rested from its travels.  

[HansonKerman]

16 hours ago, RoninFrog said:

Chapter the last:  Eeloo!

I refuse to let the Sauron forever be on Eeloo. But whatever because that was a great turning point. Now download smthin like GPP and let the Sauron go interstellar <insert vocoding>