Oceans of Eve / The city on the Mun

[Patupi]

Yay! A Red Dwarf fan! Very nice tale so far, and split between The Munbase and Eve. Keep it up.

I like the 'Starbug Seven' Did you have difficulty getting the center of mass right, or just rely on torque to keep it straight?

Edited January 20, 2014 by Patupi

[The Error]

Cool. It seems Watsan is considerably more badS than one might think.

[Tw1]

I like the 'Starbug Seven' Did you have difficulty getting the center of mass right, or just rely on torque to keep it straight?

It's quite reliant on torque when using the vertical thrust, though I got as close to balanced as I could. The fuel pipes on the side are an attempt to make it burn fuel in a balanced way, but I still need to move fuel around manually to make sure it stays stable.

But the horizontal thrust is pretty close to aligned. It veers up a little when the monopropellant tanks are empty, and down a bit when they are full, so it's still best to fly it with SAS on.

[Tw1]

In the next installation, we will be landing!

Now, finalising the landing site:

I have 4 candidates. Leaning towards 1 ATM. Any thoughts, guys?

Edited February 4, 2014 by Tw1

[Patupi]

Does Eve still have that flat topped mesa somewhere? Used to be the highest spot. I have a feeling it vanished with 0.20/0.21 or something. But I'd think somewhere high near the ocean would give good views. Don't really need high elevation for launch assist of course... 'cos he's not coming back But for good views I'd say near both mountains and ocean and fairly high. But if there aren't too many mesas that could be tricky to land. Landing on a slope is not conducive to survival.

So, I'm leaning towards 3 just for the view at the moment.

[The Error]

I'd say 1 or 3, they look easiest to land on. Says the guy who's never landed on Eve.

[The Jedi Master]

4 looks the highest.

[Tw1]

4 looks the highest.

True, but hight isn't really an issue for a one way trip with a mobile lander.

The main factor for this will be which makes the most interesting point to start the journey through the oceans. And lack of steep slope.

[The Error]

Bumpity bump, is the landing zone decided?

[Tw1]

Bumpity bump, is the landing zone decided?

I've more or less settled on a landing zone now. That's the last step left to do before I write up the next bit. Apart from finishing an essay IRL.

Toying with the idea of raising the game reported temperatures a bit. KSP's temperature model is mostly placeholder, and Eve does have a pretty thick atmosphere..

Flicking through an old thread, I found a post from April where I mentioned the idea of exploring Eve by boat... I hope this works.

Edited February 13, 2014 by Tw1

[Krevsin]

Well, I can't wait to read the next chapter of this. It's rather well done.

[Tw1]

Just so you know this isn't dead...

As often happens, stuff happened. But, I have a new mouse, and I'm starting landing attempts as I type.

So depending on Uni stuff, etc, there will be a new part.. Eventually^TM

To be so bold as to imitate the style of czokletmuss, I present a teaser image...

Edit: With my precious Watsan Kerman dangling precariously over Eve, this seems like the perfect time to build some hype. So...

After many many months of planning...

After dozens and dozens of simulations...

After traveling millions of Kilometers..

Will Evepod set is wheels softly down in Eve's violet sands?

Or will it all end in complete (or possibly partial) desaster?

Find out... when the writer gets around to it!

Edited March 22, 2014 by Tw1

[WJDubs]

I hate to be that guy, but what mods do you use?

[Tw1]

I hate to be that guy, but what mods do you use?

I use a whole bunch.

Here's a shot of my gamedatafolder, as listing them is going to take ages.

"Bigelectrics" are parts that used to be included in the hybrid ion engine mod that I still find usefull. "TWRail" was my attempt to build a railways mod, that only got so far. The rest are all on spaceport or the forums somewhere probably.

Edited March 22, 2014 by Tw1

[FlamingPotatoes]

Can't wait for the next one!

[WJDubs]

Is that building on Page 2 from Kerbtown?

[Tw1]

Is that building on Page 2 from Kerbtown?

The meeting room? Nar, that's something I made in the SPH. But if you mean the city Gene and his dad were looking over, that was part of Kerbin city.

Also, doesn't look like this pic is going to fit in the next bit, so have it as another teaser:

Edited March 23, 2014 by Tw1

[The Error]

Argh, you rival czokletmuss in the levels of anticipation here!

[Tw1]

This took a lot longer to write than expected. Haunted I was, by the dreaded Writers Block, the Eater of Words!

Also, you may notice some kerbals randomly changing suit designs when they have no reason to. This is because I switched suits while in the middle of playing, and didn't realise the potential problem. I decided not to create an in universe explanation for this, so please pretend you didn't notice, ok?

* * *

Kerbal UN HQ, Kerbin city.

Commissioner for Industry and Ethics : " I like your new photos. You have great taste."

Gene's dad: "Thank you. My son got them for me."

Commisioner: "That's the B.R.C. isn't it? The Duna ship?"

Gene's Dad: "Correct. They will be due for their main correction burn in several hours."

Commissioner: "Tell me, did either moon base launch a Duna mission of their own?"

Gene's Dad: "They did, Prograde City has sent a kerbal in a Dashwing Starfighter, and The Minmus-"

Commissioner: "-Hold on. Dashwing? That one kerb vessel from that incident on the Mun?"

Gene's Dad: "This one's a more recent model, docked to an interplanetary-"

Commissioner: "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the only living space in those vessels the one small cockpit?"

Gene's Dad: "Well, yes, but..."

Commissioner: "Alfene, are you quite sure this... Mun base should be running interplanetary missions?"

* * *

Watsan spent several days on Gilly.

He got a good look at the situation.

And went right aroud the whole moon several times.

Eventually, it was time to return to orbit. The Gilly probe re-landed, its orbital scans complete.

Watsan boarded, and began his ascent.

However, his attention was soon drawn to a surface anomoly that had somehow been overlooked by both his ground servey, and the orbital scans. Intrigued, he flipped the spaceship over, and burned retro.

It seemed to be some sort of canyon. Yet it didn't register on the radar.

As he descended, the crack faded. Ground investigation revealed nothing.

So he continued on his way.

This launch had been timed so that it would cross planes with the orbit of Evepod soon after leaving Gilly.

This should make aligning for rendezvous much simpler.

One long burn, and Watsan was on course to aerobrake, in a little less than one day's time.

* * *

Mun. Several Kilometers south of Prograde City.

Bill: "I'd like to stay with the ship if you two don't mind. Something I want to check."

Jeb: "Alright! Come on Bob! let's go!"

The "breadboard" model rover needed a little convincing before it let go of its magnetic mount:

But they were soon on their way.

Their destination:

A set of typical highland craters, with a prominent "mountain".

This should make an interesting comparison to the craters at Prograde city.

(Which is also in highlands, btw.)

Jeb: Man, I wish I still had my tumbling rover. That would be so awesome on this slope."

Bob: "Jeb, that rover was written off!"

Jeb: "I know . I still don't get how cleaning fluid got in the motors. Eh. I'm rolling down the cliff anyway."

Bob: "What? Jeb!:0.0:"

Jeb: "Oh Yeah!"

Bob: "Well. While you're busy getting yourself killed, I'm going to take a nice, safe-"

He released the rover's brakes.

Bob: " Pa... aaaaahh!!"

The steering locked, Bob had no choice. The rover bounced down the slope.

Bob: "Help!"

Jeb: "Come on Bob, you can do this!"

Carefully, Bob applied the brakes. He found the switch to reset the steering, and guided the rover down the hill.

Jeb: "There you are! It was't that bad, see!?!"

Bob: "Next time, we're landing in the crater."

* * *

Some time later, Bob and Jeb made it to the foot of the central mountain.

Bob: "Hmm. This regolith doesn't seem that unusual.."

Jeb: "Race ya to the top!"

Bob: "But-- Hey! Wait!"

Bob: "Jeb! We were supposed to take samples."

Jeb: "Oh, I took care of that! Here, run them through the portable analysis thing. I'm gonna go take some from the other side."

* * *

Eve's upper atmosphere.

Watsan's aerobrake went almost perfectly.

The fact that the apoapsis was close to Eve's shadow complicated matters, but not enough to prevent him raising the periapsis above the atmosphere.

Now, achieving rendezvous. As you can see, the orbits aren't very well matched.

Watsan performed a number of burns to bring the orbits closer. Aligning them was not simple, as the periapsis needed to be in the dark part of the orbit, but he managed to get close using burns abouve Eve's terminator.

Before too long, he had the orbits pretty close. Then, it was just a matter of tweaking, and waiting until he got a close encounter.

Watsan began the breaking burn while still quite far off.

And killed the relative velocity with out needing any thrust from Evepod.

Back at last, Watsan gathered up his Gilly samples, and jet packed across. The Gilly probe was to be left in Eve Orbit, where it would serve as a secondary satellite.

Evepod was just as he'd left it. Life support on economy, Squishy in his jar... odd, Watsan was sure he'd placed that jar on the other side of the cabin. But, everything else was fine. He moved on to the food prep systems- time for a meal that was not noodle soup!

There was much to do over the next few days. The samples from Gilly had to be analysed and transmitted, and Eve orbital science had to be completed.

Then everything had to be packed away, so the Evepod could be readied for landing.

* * *

Mun

Bob: "I still don't believe it. Not one sample showed rock that wasn't hundreds of millions years old!"

Jeb: "Yep. Weird!"

Bob: "No residual heat, nothing. They look like impact features, but can't be!

Jeb: "Yep! Bizarre."

Bob: "I thought the environment around Prograde city must have been anomalous, but clearly, this phenomenon...... "

Jeb focused on the drive.

The terrain was tricky, and they'd already experienced several mishaps.

Jeb: "Bill, we're right behind ya. 'Bout a minute away."

Bill: "Welcome back."

"I've been making adjustments to our nuclear engines. I'm reasonably satisfied, but I plan to watch the readings closely during out next flight."

" I also made sandwiches."

Jeb: "Awesome!"

* * *

Bill: "Engines performing as expected. Ready for correction burn."

Jeb: "Correction burn in three! Two! One! BURN!!"

Jeb: "You guys should really see this. The stars are so awesome from this angle."

Bob: "Uh, Bill? Doesn't the end of the correction burn overlap the start of the breaking burn?"

Bill: "Ah.... Jeb! Change of plans. We need to break immediately."

Jeb: "On it!:

Starbug does not have the greatest TWR. Deceleration needs to start early, otherwise-

Bob: " Ahh! that was close! :0.0:"

Bill: "We're still going to overshoot"

Jeb: "Not if I can help it!"

Bill: "Jeb! Those engines are only meant for landings!, they're not efficient enough-"

Jeb: "Relax, we've got the fuel. Now sit tight, I'm gonna land this thing."

Jeb: "There. "

(Assume he got off after landing.)

* * *

In space high over Eve....

Everything was in alignment.

Conveniently, Eve was close to Kerbin's L4 point, so the signal home would be very clear.

Seetop Kerman: "Prograde City to Watsan Kerman. We concur with your last report. The current weather pattern seems stable. If all remains clear, on your next orbit, you are go for landing."

Watsan: "Watsan to Prograde City. Weather remains stable. Inspection of Evepod reveals no faults."

Watsan Kerman: "Conditions remain favorable. When I receive your next transmission, I will be in the middle of my deorbit burn. My next transmission should be from the surface. "

Seetop Kerman: "Best of luck Watsan. May the conditions be in your favour. We look forward to hearing from you."

Once the engines had burned their last, it was time to shed them. They will land separately, avoiding the risk of hot nuclear materials at the landing site.

Watsan worked fast- he disconnected pipes, unscrewed blots, and pushed those engines clear.

You can imagine parachutes being clipped into them.

This was a last minute addition, I didn't think to add them.

With the engines safely detached, Watsan hurried back to the capsule.

He would have had a far better veiw from the external seat, but the entry and descent were expected to be turbulent. Watsan's not stupid.

Just before entry, he set the mechjeb to orient the ship retrograde, and began spinning for stability.

Watsan: "OK. 15Gs coming. Ready Squishy?"

I did science spam a little. This doesn't count as a transmission.

The atmosphere continued to batter the shield until well into Eve's lower atmosphere.

However, as the plasma streams faded Watsan was met by a terrible turbulence, which sent the ship tumbling.

All this was while still at super sonic speeds.

Deployment of the drogues should bring some stability, but deploying them early would let the wind carry Evepod far from its intended destination.

He had to wait for the right moment.

These clouds were pretty disorientating. They move fast.

Upon reaching the right point, Watsan triggered the parachutes.

Evepod drifted down. A hazy, island filled seascape came into view.

For a moment, everything was proceeding as expected.

When suddenly-

Beep-Beep! Beep-Beep! Beep-Beep!

Everything tipped sideways.

Watsan glanced at his screen.

Structural failure on Gantry AR. 

Half the parachute assembly.. lost!

However, thanks to Eve's thick atmosphere, Evepod was still descending at an acceptable speed.

At 2km above the surface, the heat shield was discarded, the small explosive charge had an easy time splitting the thin remains.

And parachute set "B" was deployed.

Despite the wear and tear brought on by prolonged exposure to Eve's atmosphere, the drogue 'chutes were still causing the Evepod to tilt. It was not safe to land like this.

The first set of parachutes was always meant to be discarded, but after hearing the heatshield scrape across the hull, Watsan wasn't sure of the safely of decoupling the whole gantry. Instead, he manually entered instructions to cut each of those parachutes.

CutParacute AL1
CutParacute AL2
CutParacute AL3

This increased the speed of descent by about 1m/s, still within acceptable landing speed.

Then...

Thump!

And the wheels touched down in the hot, purple sand.

The remaining gantry was discarded.

Support Probe was almost directly above the landing site.

So Watsan began transmission.

Watsan: "This is Watsan Kerman to Prograde City. Watsan Kerman to KSC."

"The Evepod has landed."

* * *

Edited December 7, 2014 by Tw1

[Tw1]

And there we are. Watsan is on Eve.

Every bit of that landing was as it happened, nothing had to added for drama. Eve's just like that.

The next instalment will be a smaller one focusing on the first "Eve"VA, which should be coming Soon^tm rather than Eventually^tm..

I have not got a spoiler from the next bit, so instead, have some "deleted" photos and scenes:

Watsan while talking to Seetop:

Moar entry flames:

Confirmation of the heatsheild's impact:

An accident:

(OK, this one was never going to be in the story.)

♪I can show you the Mun...♫:

(More of this may still happen.)

Edited April 17, 2014 by Tw1

[The Error]

It...has...RETURNED!

[Tw1]

Now I have a teaser for the next part!

This doesn't mean that this pic will be in it though.

[Tw1]

* * *

Eve's surface.

The response to Watsan's landing was wide and varied:

Who you think said what.?

(I take no responsibility for kerbals who can't spell.)

Shortly after landing, Evepod shut down for a full system check. Watsan would assist with by performing manual inspection.

On top of this, he also had the task of finishing the EVA suit's conversion for Eve use, and adapting to life in high gravity.

Four days later....

It was shaping up to be a lovely morning on Eve.

The stream of cloud passing overhead was relatively thin. Later, the sun might even be visible.

Now was the time to take action.

This was the day Watsan would take his first steps on Eve.

Watsan: "Stop giving me that look."

Watsan: "It's only gravity. We live here now, you must get used to it."

"I'm heading outside now. Be good while I'm out."

Watsan entered the airlock, sealing the door behind him.

He sealed his Evesuit, ready for the pressure change.

Watsan turned one knob, and the precious Kerbin air was sucked out. Then, turning using a second knob, Eveian air was brought in.

Slowly, the pressure and temperature grew.

He pushed the lever, and the hatch moved outwards and up. Purple light filled the chamber.

He stepped outside.

Watsan:"I'm on the deck. The current air pressure is 4.77 atmospheres. Temperature is pushing 160 degrees C. I'm heading towards the ladder."

Watsan:" Going down the ladder now. Below me is a quartz type sand, of vibrant purple. About to take my first step."

He reached the bottom of the ladder, pushing against it to righten himself. Then, he pressed a button on his suit to bring his planned first words up on the helmet HUD. This would go down in history.

He stood up straight, then in his best speech making voice, read out:

Watsan: "<FILE NOT FOUND>! .... that wasn't what I was going to say. Huh...."

"I can't transmit this."

* * *

Across the Kerbin planetary system:

I'm about to rapidly switch between Prograde City and The Kerbin Space Center. Get ready.

Dontop was pacing up and down.

Dontop: "Anything?"

Seebus: "Nope. Not yet."

Dontop: "We were supposed to hear from him 30 minutes ago! If anything happened...."

. . .

Werhner: "No, the signal is still there. Nothing is up with the satellites, it is just that he has not transmitted a message."

Gene: "Hmm. Keep watching, he have just missed a transmission window. I hope."

. . .

[iNCOMING TRANSMISSION]

. . .

Mallie: "That looks like a file download.

Dontop: "Origin, Eve! Ha!"

. . .

Bobak: "Signal from Eve."

Gene: "Ahh! Here we are!"

Walt: "Good. Get get that downloaded, we're about to go live on international Television."

Played from the file:

Watsan:"I'm on the deck. The current air pressure is 4.77 atmospheres. Temperature is pushing 160 degrees C. I'm heading towards the ladder."

Watsan:" Going down the ladder now. Below me is a quartz type sand, of vibrant purple. About to take my first step."

*fsszt*

Watsan: "I have just set foot on the surface of Eve. I made it, despite doubts. I come in peace, in the name of science and discovery."

Watsan: "I hope to prove that with enough determination kerbals can survive the most harsh environments. It's a long journey yet."

Back at Prograde city, Dontop went wild! And at KSC, there was much high fiving.

Image from video by Squad.

* * *

Eve.

Watsan's EVA did not end with that transmission. As always, there were things to do.

First, a visual inspection of Evepod's outer hull, to confirm what the full system scan had told him.

There.

Minor damage to the right/starboard side driving wheels.

To a kerbal this is minor. You know that.

This would need a small repair before Evepod could get under way.

After inspection, he proceeded to the front, to plant a flag in full view of the main camera.

He named the site Hammerhead point, after its shape.

Then, it was time to investigate and document the debris at the landing site. Here is an inventory of the surviving debris:

This diagram shows the debris position in relation to Evepod.

Before finishing up, Watsan confirmed that he could safely climb to the top of Evepod, and back down again. He used this as an opportunity to inspect the roof components.

Total Eva time was 2 hours, 15 minutes. The suit performed well, having over three quarters of the chemical coolant and just under two thirds of the oxygen left over when a somewhat tired kerbal climbed back inside his mobile base.

* * *

Prograde City Data hall

Nothing from Evepod actually gets deleted. Every piece of data gets transmitted automatically at the end of the day.

This data arrives at Prograde City, where kerbal oversight is needed to ensure it ends up correctly recorded on magnetic disks.

Today, Joefell was carrying out this task.

Naturally, she came across that embarrassing detail:

Watsan: " <FILE NOT FOUND>! .... that wasn't what I was going to say. Huh.... I can't transmit this."

Joefell: "Hehehehehe. That so wasn't what was said on TV. Watsan, you're one sly kerb. "

She began the archiving process. Then, as the blunder was recorded, she switched the disk, and saved that to a second.

I wouldn't be surprised if that second disk ended up hidden down the back of the shelf, out of the way of prying eyes.

Joefell: "Don't worry Watsan. This secret is safe with me..."

* * *

Edited July 8, 2015 by Tw1

[The Error]

Yaaaay! Purple 'n' stuff!

Also, was soem really old krusty Kerbal the skeptic? Because he is a fool, methinks.

[KeithStone]

I've got to say, you have some INCREDIBLE builds in this story. I love your stage setup and the little details like microphones for the conference announcement. My only question though, is in part 1, what is the mod (or construction methodology) on the rail transport system for kethane? I didnt recognize anything from your mod screenshots that looked like it might be that system.