AtomicTech Inc.'s Kerbol Konquest

[AtomicTech]

Content:

Spoiler

After the mid-course correction an almost, the intrepid crew of the Red Mars One mission had arrived at Duna's SOI.

KSC- Red Mars One, please be advised that we're sending you the latest burn data for your orbital entry burn. We've appeared to arrive at the right time so that we've been able to put you with in a decently close encounter with the Kalipso Station. On your entry burn, we'll have you deploy the relay so that we can begin to pick up data on Kalipso Station.

Alex- Copy that.

KSC- You'll perform the burn in about 4 hours. So please take this time to prepare the spacecraft for the burn.

KSC- Please be advised that you're about two minutes out from the burn. Please take your seats.

Fibin- Copy that.

Liz- I'll remain in the cupola to ensure the safe deployment of the Relay.

Alex- I'll pilot from the descent module.

Alex- LV-N Ignition.

Alex- About 311 m/s left in the burn.

Fibin- We can actually see some of Duna's Ice Caps from here!

Liz- Relay Deployment.

Alex- Burn completion.

Liz- Taking control of Relay to circularize its orbit.

Fibin- KSC, I'm ready to assemble the Mini-Sat. Just waiting on y'all approval.

KSC- You're go for EVA. Stay safe out there.

Fibin- I think it's done. I'll run the system checks. Liz, can you help with this? 

Liz- Copy that.

Liz- Fibin, I'm not picking up any signals.

Fibin- Crud. I'll see if rewiring does the trick.

Fibin- I had to reassemble it, but it's working now.

Liz- I can confirm.

Alex- Fibin, it's time to come back in.

Fibin- Copy that.

Alex- I'm picking up the small relay on my comms list. Good work y'all!

KSC- Same here!

KSC- We've prepared your Kalipso Station encounter. We're sending it up now.

Alex- Copy that.

Alex- Clean LV-N Ignition. About 77 m/s left in burn.

Alex- 35 m/s.

Liz- Without the relay, you can really take the in the glory of the stars. It's gorgeous!

KSC- Yeah! We should've sent up a cupola to Flak Station...

Alex- 13 m/s left.

Alex- LV-N shut off. Uh KSC, our PE is at -10km...

KSC- It's the only way we could set up an encounter. I wouldn't worry though. We've got more than a few emergency manuvers/actions, if needed.

Alex- I demand a pa--

*Transmission Cut-off*

Alex- LV-N Ignition. 9 m/s left.

Alex- LV-N Shut off. 

Liz- Alex, our PE is now at -24km. 

Alex- Fibin, Liz, be ready to haul your rear ends into the descent module.

Liz- Aye aye Captain!

Fibin- Gotcha Commander!

Alex- KSC, I'm going to begin the slowdown about eight kilometers out. Better safe than sorry.

KSC- Copy that.

Liz- KSC, are y'all picking up anything from Kalipso Station?

KSC- Yes actually! We've begun the LS system start-up.

Alex- 1.7 kilometers out, speed at 40.7 m/s at about 67% throttle.

Alex- Temporary shut down.

Alex- Re-light to remove that last smidgen of speed.

Alex- Ah, perfection.

KSC- It's going to be particularly hard to dock the Red Mars One to Kalipso Station. We've come up with an alternative plan however.

Alex- Go on.

KSC- We're going to have you fly over to the station using your EVA pack and board it. Red Mars One doesn't have an RCS system however, Kalipso Station does. 

Alex- So you want me to fly the station over?

KSC- Exactly!

Alex- Fibin, while I'm gone, I'm putting you in charge of the radio. Liz, you're going to pilot the ship.

Liz- Copy that, assuming control.

Alex- That station's deceptively close.

KSC- It's only 689.1 meters away.

Alex- Well, when you're in a spacecraft, that distance can be covered in no time. In an EVA Pack? Not so much.

Alex- Almost there. Only about 89 meters away.

KSC- Alex, Kalipso Station's reporting that its LS systems are functioning at nominal levels but please keep your EVA suit on just in case anything goes wrong.

Alex- Copy that.

Alex- I can start to see the inflatable rings. From here, I'm not picking up any signs of punctures or rips, but I can't guarantee that they aren't compromised.

Alex- Almost there.

Alex- Manually deploying comms dish before entering the station.

KSC- Copy that. We're picking up a direct signal.

Alex- I'm going to temporarily disconnect from the Red Mars One's radio channel using my suit and reconnect using Kalipso's radio.

KSC- Copy that.

Alex- This is Kalipso Station, come in Red Mars One.

Fibin- We read you loud and clear!

Alex- This is Kalipso Station, come in KSC.

KSC- We read you, your connection is loud and clear.

Alex- KSC, the station has no manual control points, so I'm in the lander directing the station's movements. 

KSC- Can we get a report on the RCS fuel levels?

Alex- Copy that. The monoprop levels are at 432 units and, according to the ship's logs, the last visit to the station was about 10 years ago for a refueling mission.

KSC- Interesting, we'll have to inquire about that.

Alex- Begin moving forward, using bursts of the RCS.

Fibin- I'm going to have to leave the Hitchhiker and move the docking port manually. It's not in a good position now and we'll likely break some solar panels if use try to dock at this time.

Alex- Copy that.

Liz- At 36.6 meters. Holding for Fibin's EVA.

Fibin- It should only take a moment.

Liz- Alright, we're now rotating the ship into a better docking position.

Alex- Copy that.

Alex- Thrusting forward at 0.5 meters a second.

Alex- Finished correcting rotation and fixed approach alignment.

Alex- Just about 14 meters left.

Alex- 12 meters.

Alex- 10 meters, speeding up to 0.8 meters a second.

Alex- 7 meters, I can almost here the pins locking!

Alex- Almost there! Overclocking electromagnet to 200% power.

Fibin- Doing the same.

Alex- And that's docking! Welcome to Kalipso Station!

*Wild Cheers from the KSC*

KSC- We're glad to hear it! You've got a lot of Kerbals about to turn blue!

Alex- Come on in folks! Make yourselves at home!

 

 

Edited December 10, 2021 by AtomicTech

[AtomicTech]

 

[Maria Sirona]

Wow, that's some great music! But where's the actual content of chapter 5?

Also tip: by hitting f2, you can toggle the UI on and off

[AtomicTech]

3 minutes ago, Maria Sirona said:

Wow, that's some great music! But where's the actual content of chapter 5?

Also tip: by hitting f2, you can toggle the UI on and off

I wanted to post the title cover then do the content.

Not done yet, however.

3 minutes ago, Maria Sirona said:

Also tip: by hitting f2, you can toggle the UI on and off

I'll have to make use of that!

I though that you could only do that with mods.

Edited December 8, 2021 by AtomicTech

[AtomicTech]

About 67% done with Chapter 5.

Edited December 8, 2021 by AtomicTech

[AtomicTech]

Content Coming Soon.

Edited December 10, 2021 by AtomicTech

[Maria Sirona]

By publishing the chapter banners early you are honestly just giving spoilers, i'd rather get to know what they look like when the actual chapters get published

[AtomicTech]

Just now, Maria Sirona said:

By publishing the chapter banners early you are honestly just giving spoilers, i'd rather get to know what they look like when the actual chapters get published

Fair point!

I just had already finished the banner and wanted to post it now so I didn't have to do it earlier.

I'll definitely take that into the account for the future!

[AtomicTech]

From this past weekend's gameplay!

Note, this image is in the far off future, so it doesn't spoil anything 

[AtomicTech]

I have some bad news and some good news. 

I'll get to the bad news first,

AtomicTech Inc.'s Kerbol Konquest won't continue.

The reason? I've moved to a new laptop and some stuff got screwed up and the screenshots that I had were kinda screwed up on the encoding.

Now the good news!

I'm currently in the planning phases of a new series, named Plock Planetary Expeditions!

The goal of this new series is to colonize the outermost planet of the Kerbol system as a launching pad for for interstellar exploration!

Edited January 5, 2022 by AtomicTech

[Maria Sirona]

If PPE will be its own thread, which it probably will, can you please post a link on this thread?

[AtomicTech]

Sure!

[AtomicTech]

Content:

Spoiler

*Click, clank, clack, clank clank*

Alex- And that's station sep. Fibin, how are we doing?

Fibin- Running the last checks. 

*Static*

Fibin- Hmm, the radio bands seem to be unsually weak.

Alex- I wouldn't worry about it. The solar scientists back at the KSC were prediciting an unusually high level of Kerbolar Activity.

Fibin- Here's your requested data....

*Technobabble Ensues*

Alex- We'll see you, if everything goes well, in about a month and a half. Take care!

Fibin- Stay safe!

Liz- See you! 

Alex- Prepping descent manuver node.

Alex- Liz, we're now out of radio contact, have you prepped the black box?

Liz- I have.

Alex- Ugh, I'm not excited that we're going to Duna's surface in a decrepid, rusty lander.

Liz- But the data said it was fine, didn't it?

Alex- The sensors, that could be completely busted, said it did. The last time I was in an aircraft this old, I had to bail out over the Katlantic and wait a few hours for a fishing boat to find me.

Liz- Fingers crossed then.

Alex- We've regained a very weak connection with the KSC, only good for sending flight data.

Liz- Activating Engine.

Alex- Man! This Aerospike has got a kick!

Liz- I'm prepping the data dump, anything you want me to add?

Alex- I, uh, have some personal files that I want to include.

Liz- Oh? Like what?

Alex (Blushing)- Uh, umm, some, uh, personal stuff. I kinda don't want to talk about it right now.

Liz- No worries, I understand.

Alex (Sighing)- Thanks for understanding.

Liz- Alright, it's sending!

Alex- Nine seconds till atmospheric contact! It's been a pleasure working with you, Liz.

Liz- Same here. Let's hope that we land in one piece!

Alex- CRAP! The chutes aren't deploying!

Liz- I'll try to reboot the system and see what I can do!

Alex- The engine throttle's also been acting up. 

Liz- I'll also take a look into that.

Alex- Holy Kraken! We're going to die here!

Alex- The chutes still aren't deploying and the engine's throttle is still acting up!

Liz- CRAP, CRAP, CRAP, Nothing's working!

Alex- AGHHHHHHHHH!

Liz (Wincing)- Oh Kraken!

Alex- Wait, why aren't we dead? Why are the clocks frozen?

Liz- Good question. Nothing seems to be moving. Hell, even the dust in the cabin's frozen in the air.

Alex- What the hell was ColonyCo working on?

*A faint buzzing noise begins to eminate from the cabin's hull.*

Liz- Do you hear that?

Alex- Yeah, it almost sounds like TV static.

*Alex and Liz both felt numb and distant*

Alex- Something's not right. I don't feel quite right.

Liz- Ugh, no kidding, I've got a killer headache.

An Unknown Voice- Instance One completed, loading Instance Two.

 

[Maria Sirona]

Spoiler

Oh, that ending is the explanation of how PPE begins! Genius!

 

[AtomicTech]

Later in my Kerbol Konquest series gameplay, from the events that never happened, I started to use Angel-125's MK-33 parts pack. I instantly fell in love with the low part count, simplistic SSTO design. I've already begun to start collecting screenshots for PPE and I've been using the Falcon, a MK-33 Spaceplane based off of my DKRS from Kerbol Konquest.

I've also found it quite troublesome to modify this design using the traditional runway take off, inefficient but fun. This weekend, I'm going to try using a Launchpad take off with my Nuclear MK-33, the Reliance, with better results this time, hopefully.

Note: I'm going to refer to the standard MK-33 as the S.O.L.V (Single-stage Orbital Launch Vehicle), and the Nuclear variant as the N.E.S.S. (Nuclear-performance Enhanced Single-stage Spaceplane), no doubt inspired by Earthbound.

Hmm, perhaps I'll rename Plock Planetary Expeditions to KerbinBound...

[AtomicTech]