Tales of the Blue Giant - A tales of transfers, troubles, and tumblings.

[MinimalMinmus]

Hello and welcome to my narrated 1.12 Let's Play with New Horizons! For those who don't know this mod, it can be found here:

 Like Alternis Kerbol, it has the quirk that Kerbin, which is still the planet we start on, is not a primary, but a moon of a gas giant. Here, Kerbin is orbiting Sonnah, a rather chill blue gas giant with quite a set of rings, and five satellites in total:

-Mun

-Aptur, a pseudo-subsatellite outside of Kerbin's SOI, but in a 1:1 resonnance with it

-Kerbin

-Eli, a mid-size moon

-Serran, a habitable moon with an atmosphere resembling Kerbing, but with no life.

The system contains all bodies from vanilla KSP, but remixed, along with some crazy destinations, such as Titanus, a super-Earth, and Ernus, a very dense planet that's pretty much Moho after it drank its weight in red bull. Now, without further ado, here are the rules!

Spoiler

Values are based on hard, but tweaked down, with a few extra rules such as signal for control, g-force limit, and some seriously bad antennas to spice up the thing. Also, immediately after starting I put myself to -500 reputation, but not before, cause it glitches some contracts. Hence, I'm starting with that:

Furthermore, since my game is quite glitched from the many mods I'm using, I'm not disabling reverting and quicksaving, but with the caveat that I may only use it if the game glitches (and maybe with rovers, cause those things are hard to drive safely. You tell). Apart from that, all mistakes are final, and mistakes there will be, don't you worry about that.

Really, quite a few rules have been decided by glitches I couldn't fix: I use Strategia, but the contracts for the moons of Sonnah don't trigger, so I kinda pretend they do by giving myself extra money when relevant, I'm kinda dealing with the fact kerbals can EVA from the start for some reasons (thanks custom barnkit...). Oh, and my launchpad's glitchy too! Yay!

Oh, and last one: I can't use any indicator before getting a mission control and TS to level 2. Just for the fun of blind transfers!

Anyways, now that's out of the way... Let's roll.

Chapter 1:This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Spoiler

"In other news, a group of debatably sane scientists and engineers has been rumored to start a project to "explore outer space". Reactions have been varied, calling this project 'Unrealistic', 'Ludicrous' and 'Can't we start with inner space anyways'? Experts predict that..." Gene closed the television.

"So, to sum it up, Jeb, we built this pile of scrap we call a 'space center'."

"Yep."

"But we bankrupted ourselves doing so."

"Indeed."

"And now we have to build a rocket with literally the power of our thoughts."

"It certainly seems like so."

Gene threw his hands."Sonnah helps us all."

"Unfortunately our best and brightest say the thing's still a few million kilometers from kerbin, a bit far to help us..."

"Well if it can't, what are you suggesting then?"

"There were those chaps while we were building the thing, they called themselves the Kerbin World-Firsts Records-Keeping Society, they seemed to be quite interested by the whole "space" affair, maybe we could see if they could give us a financial hand?"

"I'll see what they offer", Gene said, defeated.

"So, how did it go?" Jebediah asked, then answered himself. "Bad." Gene was livid.

"They said our project isn't serious enough! They won't give us any of the bigger advances! What are we going to do now, we haven't got enough for even a capsule!"

"Alright, calm down! How many funds did you manage to get?"

"2300" Gene's tone was one of defeat. "Let's face it, this whole thing is going nowh-"

"Oh quit it! I have a backup plan. You see, I know a guy who can bundle us some prototype parts, and..."

"THAT'S YOUR PLAN?!" Gene was feeling faint. "That's a lawnchair on a barrel of explosives! I can't let you climb on that, that would be a death sentence!"

"Actually," It was Bill, the engineer, talking. "this thing will barely climb at all. The idea is just to show these guys at the KWFRKS that we're serious about the whole "space" thing. We'll just be showcasing our capabilities."

"Are you sure that will work, Jeb?"

The kerbal replied "Only one way to find out!"

"3... 2... 1..."

*THUNK*

Jeb looked beaming from the top of the 'rocket'. "That sure is a win in my books!"

"Don't forget to tell us everything you see and do. The eggheads are constantly pressuring us to give them new data to chew."

"Well, right now I'm... on the launchpad... landed... It kind of smells like burned things? I... don't think I needed the rocket to figure that out, honestly. Anyways, time to check out the contracts now!"

"SEE! I told you that would work!"

Gene was, in a word, confused. "But we barely... Oh well"

"And now..."

"Now what?"

"We build a space program!"

*******************

MISSION 1 0 REPORT we can't have THAT as a mission 1! -Jebediah

Objective: Launch our first vessel, get our first data from Kerbin, and scrounge enough cash for an actual mission.

Result: Success

Comment: Maybe next time we should actually start to... you know... launch stuff? -Valentina

 

Edited February 17, 2022 by MinimalMinmus

[MinimalMinmus]

Chapter 2: Baby's first (very large) step

Spoiler

Val was reading the mission objectives. Soon she'd be launched in the air in the brand new pile of explosives the eggheads had cooked her. Better ask Gene before the mission started.

"Boss, I have a few questions. First of all, why the side SRBs this time?"

"Long story short, the guy from the KWFRKS in charge from awarding the first launch was a weirdo who refused to give us the price last launch because "We only left the pad once! Real rockets do it twice!" I'm not convinces he understands what exactly a rocket is."

"...Right. What about the part where you absolutely insist that I land back to the pad? We have no control surfaces whatsoever on the craft!"

"Well... just launch straight, okay? And don't sneeze, this could make you deviate!"

"...Alright. I better launch soon."

"Telemetry is go, boosters are nominal, door is sealed... I think it's time to launch."

PSHHHHHHEWWWW *THUD*

Val sighted. "And now it's time to launch... again."

"KSC to Valentina, you have cleared the tower... that we don't have."

"Okay Mission Control, I know it's a weird place to ask, but I'll still do it. What's in that goo that makes it so weird?"

"Trust us: we're not sure ourselves. We've put a bit of it in your cabin, so that you can watch the effects in real time."

"WHAT! I told you, I'm allergic to it!"

"Uh oh..."

"Urgh, I'm feeling light-headed already, stupid... purple... stuff. I'll just deploy the parachute and... aah..."

"Oh no."

"AAAH-CHOO!"

"..."

"Bless you."

MISSION 1 REPORT

Objective: Launch our actual first vessel, get a lot of world first milestones, get back on the pad.

Result: Quasi-success We had to pay the towing company a whole 10 bucks to put it back on the pad. Unacceptable. -Mortimer

Comment: Time to ramp things up! -Jebediah

Don't get too excited, next mission is a contract, or Mortimer threatened to "get physical". I didn't ask to elaborate. -Gene

 

[roboslacker]

I am enjoying the narrative

[MythicalHeFF]

I love the New Horizons planet pack, it’s easily my favorite one of all time along with OPM. I did a whole career playthrough of it back in 2017 with version 1.3. I’m curious as to how you got it to work in 1.12?

[Maria Sirona]

(Liking & following sounds)

Edit: also, i assume Sonnah is either semi-directly above or on the complete opposite side of Kerbin as i can't see it in any of those pictures? Is Kerbin even tidally locked?

Edited February 26, 2022 by Maria Sirona

[Watermel00n]

On 2/21/2022 at 2:22 AM, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

I love the New Horizons planet pack, it’s easily my favorite one of all time along with OPM. I did a whole career playthrough of it back in 2017 with version 1.3. I’m curious as to how you got it to work in 1.12?

Apparently i've seen a fix but i dont know where it is. Check the new horizons thread.

[MythicalHeFF]

On 2/26/2022 at 8:53 AM, Maria Sirona said:

(Liking & following sounds)

Edit: also, i assume Sonnah is either semi-directly above or on the complete opposite side of Kerbin as i can't see it in any of those pictures? Is Kerbin even tidally locked?

I don’t believe it is tidally locked, at least not from my memory of playing the mod

[Akagi]

any updates @MinimalMinmus?