The Kethane Travelling Circus 2, Episode 6: Off to JOOL!

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 4: The Outer Flotilla

The Outer Flotilla is responsible for Tylo, Bop, and Pol. Tylo is a bit of a bother. There's no real purpose for landing there other than to say I did, but I want to say that so I spent a LOT of time trying to design a lander for it. However, my current inventory of tanks and engines just won't make a 1-piece lander. Either I can get the necessary delta-V but not quite enough thrust, or I can have the thrust but not quite enough delta-V. So after days and days of design, test, redesign, changing landing and ascent profiles, etc., I finally gave up on a 1-piece lander. Eventually, the boffins rolled out a 2-stage lander that would actually work. Here it is:

This works like the Apollo lander, using the lower stage as a lanchpad for the upper stage, which is then itself junked once in orbit. I'm not very proud of this design because while it works, it's a 1-shot thing of zero practical value, which I try to avoid doing. But it works (on a very tight margin) so will have to do for now. I hope to come up with something more my style in the future.

Which brings us to Bop and Pol. All ships that operate out there, as well as the JERK crew buses, burn xenon. Even the landers can use ion engines thanks to the low gravity. But these places are far away from the center of action and Bop requires substantial plane changes, so even though xenon-burners have bags of delta-V, the boffins decided that securing a refueling site on Pol was necessary afterall. So they came up with this:

This is the Pol Fuel Depot. The transfer stage, which 1 of each docking ports, goes out with enough xenon and mono aboard that actually getting more from the surface probably won't be necessary for a long time. However, for that eventuality, it has a Kethane mining lander attached. This little thing weighs only 6.7 tons so can fly on 2 Near Future ion engines, but still carries the whole suit of small drills, small refinery, and tanks for every type of fuel. Why carry the refinery up and down? Because I needed some structure to mount the drills and legs on and this was actually the best thing available, and that led to everything else. The main problem with this design is that the refinery unit is almost totally buried so it's difficult to get the mouse in to turn it on and off .

An interesting feature of this design is that the lander can move the whole assembly. On a test hop to Mun, I used just the ion engines to bring it back to LKO. The Munar ejection burn was 7.5 minutes to do just 235m/s (moving a 23-ton total mass), so this isn't something to be used only in emergencies. I was surprised the ion engines didn't affect the sloped tank immediately behind them at all, and that they still provided thrust with that tank in the way.

Now, as to why I don't really want to land on Pol.... As noted in passing previously, the Jool 2 probe showed humping Kethane from Pol to the inner moons just wasn't viable, but it's even worse than that. To determine just how bad things were, I had the probe do a test landing, which turned up some unexpected problems. First off, that place has MILLIONs of spiky things on the ground, which turned the game into a slideshow as soon as they appeared during the descent. It was so bad I had to go back to the main menu and cut the ground scatter density from 100% to 50%. So then I tried landing again and found a major bug; in some places, the collision mesh is WAY above ground level. Being unable to accept this as a natural part of the moon, I F9'd and landed elsewhere. But that pretty much makes the place unacceptably risky as the main Kethane source, even if the logistics weren't already against that.

Still, the scientists have to go there and they need a lander for that, so the boffins built this:

The Pol lander uses a single Near Future ion engine, which provides plenty of thrust for its 4.5-ton mass (most of which is the lander can). It's primary purpose is to investigate why the probe's initial photos of Pol's surface showed millions of spiky things, many of which had mysteriously disappeared once the probe was on the ground . Does this mean the whole moon is alive? This supposition caused much dire speculation and dark mutterings. Could it a hideous spawn of the Daemon Sultan Azathoth? (see picture). If so, that might explain the rumored appearance of Cthulhu during interplanetary flights. Nobody wanted to think such things, but even the speculation that Azathoth might inhabit the Joolean system had to be investigated out of caution.

Such terrible thoughts found further traction when the Jool 2 probe took off and headed for Bop. Mapping was routine but an anomaly was detected near the north pole. So down the probe went again and discovered something extremely bizarre:

During the descent, the boffins thought it might be a Tribe battleship from their favorite komputer game, Gratuitous Space Battles. However, once they could see it up close, they couldn't decide whether it was animal, vegetable, fungus, or mineral. They'd have had a better idea if the probe had had lights, but it had never been intended as a lander so it didn't. Still, it was something that had be investigated so the boffins redesigned their Bop lander into a full-blown science return mission. Like this:

The actual lander is the long, skinny part. It's essentially just a Jr. Bay and 2 goos with the other instruments stuck on it, and a Near Future ion powerplant, with a rotating spotlight on top. The scientists will ride down in the lawn chairs. The rest of it is the return vehicle. After ascent and docking, the scientists will move into the 2-man lander can, which has been gutted to make it a long-term bunkhouse. It will stop at Vall to refuel and then off to Kerbin. There, the main tank and engine will be jettisoned along with the nuclear reactor atop, and the can and the science bits will parachute to the surface.

The scientists of the Outher Flotilla have a long and dangerous job. First they have to land on and return from Tylo. Assuming they survive that, they next have to see whether Pol is really the spawn of Azathoth. Assuming they survive that, they then have to go see what's on Bop, which many are already saying looks a lot like a Kraken or even Cthulhu. That's why the team that will recover them (should they actually make it home) is already receiving training in the use of tranquilizer dart guns and the application of straitjackets .

So, Tylo lander and its tug, Pol Fuel Depot, Pol Lander, and Bop Lander. 5 launches to make 4 ships. IIRC (can't be bothered to look), this makes:

Outer Flotilla: 5 launches, 4 ships

Vall Flotilla: 8 launches, 6 ships

Laythe Flotilla: 20 launches, 13 ships

Total: 33 launches, 23 ships. Should prove interesting. Now that all the design and testing is complete, it's time to do this. Geez, sounds like a lot of work. But on the bright side, this could be one of the greatest fails in the game history

Edited November 19, 2013 by Geschosskopf

[Brotoro]

I aspire to being a Boffin.

[Geschosskopf]

Episode 5: Launch!

So today me and my other nephew got the KTC off the ground. This entailed 32 launches of 16 separate ship designs. 8 launches were tugs so there were also 8 dockings and the result was 24 ships in parking orbit ready to go to Jool and its various moons. This flurry of rocketry began on Y2D40 at 1918 local KSC time and took about 2x 24-hour game days, which meant 4x day-night cycles of game time. It also required 6.5 hours of real time, so that's where things sit, everything ready to go.

Most of these ships have been seen before, at least once in orbit on test flights, so the pics here will just show some of the different lifters used (many used the same one) and views of others during launch instead of in orbit.

1st to go was Airbase Laythe 1. 4 of these went up, along with a tug for each. This alone took an hour of real time.

On the left is the Fuel Float, 2 of which got launched. It still has a chemical transfer stage. On the right is the JERK launcher, which has now replaced its chemical transfer stage with a nuke. It's also now got a small docking port on the rear end where it connects to the transfer stage. 2 of these went up.

And here is something new. It occurred to the boffins that while they were going to all the moons, they weren't doing anything at Jool itself so they quickly cobbled this Jool Probe together. It's its own transfer stage, powered by 2 Near Future ion engines and a mid-sized reactor. It consists of 2 essentially identical science payloads. The top one will parachute into Jool as far as it can, relaying data to the lower section which will take samples during aerocapture and in LJO, after which it will come back to Kerbin.

And here's Station Laythe (formerly Station Jool) on the pad with its hearty crew of 16 Kerbals aboard. These hands are:

• Squadron Leader Jorfurt, mission commander, who PROBABLY will remain in this thing all by his lonesome forever
  
• Flight Leader Dilnard, XO, who will go down to Laythe and control daily operations there, probably forever
  
• LOSER crewmen Elbas, Geofcan, Kervis, Philfield, Donfred Gerger, Sidbree, and Seecas, who will remain on Laythe forever as the 1st colonists
  
• Vall Xenoarchaeologists Lenzer and Mergas, who will come home after learning all they can at the Vall Henge
  
• Outer Xenoarchaeologists Lembin and Burgin, who will land on Tylo, Pol, and Bop, studying each in turn, then come home in the Bop Lander
  
• Vall Stokers Gilfrie and Sidvis, who will remain pumping gas on Vall forever
  

Apart from the xenoarchaeologists, all were pressganged, although only the stokers were pulled from beneath bridges this time. The LOSER crews were nabbed in routine gang-related drug busts while Jorfurt and Dilnard were doing long stints in Klub Fed for insider trading and running Ponzi schemes. The scientists are from top Kudzu League universities whose liberal arts background didn't qualify them to be KTC boffins but, because they think Kerbin revolves around the Kudzu League schools, they got their politician relatives to at least get them rides. Each of these Kerbals was hand-picked by the sadistic Mission Director from scores of applicants based on their unique combinations of stupidity and cowardice .

Here, one of the 4 LOSERS proves that, yes, it can launch atop a rocket

The rather bizarre launcher for the 3-fold symmetric Pol lander.

The Tylo Lander and its tug about to dock.

And after all the smoke had cleared, I ended up with the above. 24 ships in orbit and the last of the lifters (for the VHS) starting its reentry dive. I should mention that lag is becoming an issue in LKO.

Anyway, this all happened 108 days prior to the next Jool window. Which was great because it gave the 16 Kerbals time to study their instructional videos. But meanwhile, the Eeloo probe was only (by now) 29 days out from its SOI change. So, I fast-forwarded to then and brought that in to a big elliptical orbit. So big, in fact, that before I can do anything about it, it'll be time to eject the KTC off to Jool. So once again, the probes are being bothersome.

Still, this is the 1st thing I've sent to Eeloo so it's worth a pic of its own:

Anyway, tune in next time for the mass exodus.

[Geschosskopf]

EPISODE 6: Off to JOOL!

After about 6 real hours of non-stop launching and docking, LKO was filled with the 24 ships of the Kethane Travelling Circus and their jolly crew of 16 (mostly pressganged) Kerbals. So now it was time to send them on their way. This required 4h 40m of real time before they were all done. Several of the burns were 4-5 minutes but most were 8-10 minutes, and one (the ion-burning Jool Probe added at the last minute) took 19 minutes. Won't be doing that again.

Just as I launched the ships in alphabetical order so I wouldn't forget any, I started with Airbase Laythe #1. Here it goes:

But after this, it was all random. Looking straight down in the map view, the ejection node needed to be about 4 o'clock relative to Kerbin. Given that the burns were rather long, I needed to set them up when a ship was about 8 o'clock. So I'd burn 1, click at 8 o'clock, and switch to the next. When I started, ships were so thick in orbit that I didn't have to look for one, there was always one in the right place. In fact, it wasn't until only 2 or 3 were left that any had to wait very long to burn.

Because the nodes were at 4 o'clock, most of the burns happened on the night side of Kerbin so made for crappy screenshots. Thus, I didn't take many, especially because you've seen the ships before already. However, the newly renamed Laythe Station with its massive load of Kerbals started burning just barely in the light so I got the above pic of it.

Anyway, after devoting 280 minutes of my life to this chore, I finally had everybody heading more or less the right way. The last ship finished its burn before the 1st left Kerbins SOI, and in fact only a few have gotten past Minmus. This made the map view look pretty cool, like this:

I have no idea what their spacing at Jool will look like and I don't much care at present anyway because pretty much all of them will need at least 1 good tweaking burn en route. I suppose this is an achievement of sorts but right now I'm pretty tired of the whole thing. I hope it starts to get fun when the ships arrive at Jool and do what I spent so much time designing them to do .

Here, Jorfurt and the lads take a last look back at Kerbin from the vicinity of Minmus' orbit. They're thinking much the same thing, hoping things become more fun as they go along. As most of them are jailbirds this trip, they're used to being in cells for months so are adapting fine. It's the 4 xenoarchaeologists I'm worried about .

[Brotoro]

You deserve some kerbal snacks for doing all that work launching your armada. I hope you survive the arrivals at Jool

[Briareos]

I'm loving these updates. Keep 'em coming!

[Geschosskopf]

You deserve some kerbal snacks for doing all that work launching your armada. I hope you survive the arrivals at Jool

Thank you, sir .

I think the stage is set for a disaster of Biblical proportions, but that's part of the fun .

[User Unrelated]

Now, all you need is a few choice failures at Jool, and this could probably be made into some sort of feature-length film haha

Great work! Can't wait to see what happens next

Now, what you need to do, is take your current ribbon thing

take the image

and photoshop a massive pile of 24 ship icons on the right side of the kerbin ribbon (like, stacked up spilling off the top of the ribbon)

[Commander Zoom]

"Travelling Circus" is right. Dang.

[Neywiny]

Any body here?

[Captain_Party]

Argh... Better not be dead.

[Geschosskopf]

It's dead, killed by 0.23. In particular, it went like this:

Kethane for 0.22 wouldn't work in 0.23. But the 0.23 version of Kethane won't work unless all other mods are updated to 0.23, too. And several of these other mods introduced game-breaking changes when updating to 0.23, or weren't updated at all, so that's that. 100 hours of preparatory work down the drain. Oh well.

So at present I am once again starting over from scratch. This time I'm using as few mods as possible. Kethane and KAS are necessary, and I've also got Firespitter because I REALLY want seaplanes on Laythe and it gets updated regularly and without game-breaking changes. But nothing else. And it's boring and I hate orange tanks so I haven't bothered writing any of it up.

[Captain_Party]

Geschoss, we wouldn't mind if you maybe just started from where you left off... Maybe HyperEdit all the ships into the positions you had?

[Geschosskopf]

Well, I would if that was possible. Problem is, most of the ships won't even load because of part changes in their mods between 0.22 and 0.23.

So I've learned my lesson. No more relying on mods to get from Point A to Point B. Just a few mods from now on that add a bit of functionality and stuff to do.

[nianor]

Glad to see that you at least have plans for the future.

[Neywiny]

Anybody here?

[Captain_Party]

Mate, he responded less than a day ago. Read the previous post.