My Gilly Adventure: Please stop by and give feedback! (Career Mode, pics)

[Naten]

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Part 1: PART 1? You're in Part 1!

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5: Kethane!

armstrong

naten innovations

•jebediah - bill - bob - hadgun - danbrett -||- jorfred•

Armstrong was assembled in LKO, intended for Gilly landings. It took a while, and some tech had to wait while other missions flew for the tech tree, but it's finally almost ready!

It carries 4 true "Science Paratrooper 1" spacecraft, or "SPara1's." A probe marks the top with an "SPara2," which carries much more instruments for potential data recovery.

To come with Armstrong, a miner, and a proposal for a Skylab-style space station named none other than "Gillylab."

"Jeb. Do you copy? This is Bob. Instrument panel says we're in escape trajectory."

..."Great. Mission Control, BBQ shutdown OK? Echo trajectory. Repeat: Echo. Eve intercept."

...

..."Jeb, copy that. Shutdown clear in 5."

...Psssssssssssfrt...

...

Jeb looked out his window to see a sea of black with a variety of small pinprick-sized, twinkling stars all across the sky but in Kerbol's glare. He was excited, too; for he was a Kerbal on the Armstrong spacecraft, heading to Eve, then to Gilly, where a miner will refuel it, and potentially a proposed space station..., "Gillylab," kinda like Skylab... it would be amazing...

ONE MONTH EARLIER

Jorfred Kerman has just found out he's the Kerbal who will fly the Kethane Gathering Unit, yet to be named, of course, to Gilly. It will mine Kethane for fuel and bring it to Armstrong. It would be his time to shine.

He climbed up into the rocket, and as the clamps separated, the boosters of the Hades-H2A rocket lit and pushed the craft into the sky, hot and ablaze.

Soon after, the side rockets separated, leaving a full fuel tank for the core. And then, orbit. With the remaining fuel, Jorfred put himself into a near-escape trajectory. (Code Echo Hotel, or Escape ~Halfway.)

And then, he said goodbye to the booster. It served him well.

Jorfred got pretty close. A plane change here and there, and maybe a few correction manouvers, and then... done!

Jorfred told Mission Control, and took out his 3DSPAAAAAACE!, for this would be a long ride.

Jorfred had finished but 1 level of Billigi's Mansion when he found that the "BBQ" propulsion module was being launched today.

The lighter Hades-1LS boosted it into orbit.

In the dark, the autonomous vehicle... well, autonomously docked with Armstrong, and slipped between its long propulsion modules without leaving a scratch bigger than a Kerbal's noggin...

So Jorfred congratulated the robotics team, and gave them a pat-on-the-back which totally did not snap the transceiver.

"Is this better? Oh, you can't hear me. Let me just put that there and plug this in here, aaaand..--OW! Ow, mah fayis! Mah beyootiful fayis!"

"Mission control, we read distress. Situation?"

":blush:...

...Oh, you didn't just hear that. :P"

"Jorfred, we're gonna burn for Eve now, Armstrong out."

"Copy that."

Using the Oberth effect to all possible advantages, Jeb piloted the ship into an escape trajectory in around but 5 burns. He performed struttage with KAS and fuel ductage with KAS, so I hereby revoke your "HAX0R" call rights.

And then the Armstrong was just on Jorfred's miner's tail.

Eve is impending. So is Gilly, and all of the sweet, sweet Kethane...

So let's go!

Stay tuned, folks,

-Naten

Edited February 8, 2014 by Naten

[Naten]

In Kerbol orbit, Armstrong continues with Jorfred's miner to Eve. Armstrong has an encounter first, but to achieve their encounters and enter Eve's SOI, both craft must do a plane change.

With the addition of Kerbal Alarm Clock, I can keep better track of things.

Jorfred performed a plane change soon after leaving Kerbin's SOI.

In but a couple of days, Armstrong performed its own burn.

Then, Jorfred got an encounter and confirmed it with the Map View.

Followed by Armstrong, as it also got an encounter.

Jorfred will arrive after Armstrong, which is quite a shame, as Jorfred was hoping to surprise them with a load of Kethane and fuel!

[Naten]

Armstrong set up for an aerobrake, and Jeb's excited.

A brisk aerobrake should do the trick!

That was fun... but it's dark.

Now, Armstrong performs a plane change to get a Gilly encounter.

Soon after, it performs a correction burn to get to Gilly.

And now, a Gilly encounter is confirmed!

The crew then got their first look at the planet, except Hadgun, who planted a flag there and returned, alive to tell the story!

"That's Mt. Potato over there, and that's Potato Mons, and that's Mare Potato. Oh, and the Mashed Valleys. Let's land there!"

Hadgun found it fun to tell the crew about his experiences!

BBQ soon fired up and blasted annihilated kerosene into space.

After a long burn, Mission Control became filled with laughter, confetti, high-fives and handshakes. They subsequently congratulated the crew; as a Gilly orbit had been confirmed.

Same thing happened in Armstrong, everyone cheered and congratulated and thanked Mission Control, the eggheads and the engineers. Their mission's hardest part was over!

Stay tuned, everyone; the Kethane miner isn't even here yet!

[Naten]

Jorfred Kerman was excited to see Gilly. He always liked potatoes small, cute little captured asteroids!

Meanwhile... we go back to Jorfred in his miner en route to Eve...

Jorfred's trajectory was very good, an aerobrake would be redundant to capture!

Jorfred performed a quick burn to put himself into an Eve orbit...

and then he had a Gilly-intercepting trajectory already.

At ApoEvion, he burned retrograde along somewhat of the direction of Gilly's plane, as he was in a retrograde orbit and Gilly was prograde. This would just not do.

Why, you say? As Gilly is in the opposite orbital direction of what Jorfred was in before this burn, relative velocity would be massive, requiring a huge-er burn than normal, and because the twin NERVA's only output soo...much...(Oh, wait, maybe little)...thrust..., that could mean missing Gilly and Jorfred getting less happy! Less happy means more soiled Kerbal diaper, and that not guud!

WARNING! IMAGES OF PLENTY INCOMING! HIDE YO WIFE, HIDE YO HUSBAND, HIDE YO KIDS, HIDE YO COMPUTER!

Jorfred performed a plane change...

...and then set up a burn for a Gilly intercept encounter soon after.

So he burned and burned (not really, the burn was only like 18 m/s, literally. Even with but the tiny thrust of NERVA's [compared to other rockets], it was quite fast, actually..... ) until he was bored. But then he realized (see, I told ya) that it was only a few seconds long.

I think he read "Est. Burn: 3 seconds" as "Est. Burn: 3 hours..."

Now, he was on an approach to none other than...

POTATO! Gilly!

When he got there, he performed an intermediately long burn to become captured by Gilly's minuscule gravity and get into a normal, non-hyperbolic trajectory. Basically, he's capturing himself with the gravity.

He was even greeted by his very own Everise, as Jeb, Bill and Bob, and the rest of the Armstrong gang, were probably eating mashed potato some snacks.

He finally got into a polar escape trajectory, and just burned back into orbit. He's so high up around Gilly, he has to perform plane changes like that...

If you're wondering why he's so high up, two words: timewarp.

Up high, we can warp time away, scanning for Kethane, and leaving Armstrong in the dust.

Oh, yes, I forgot; the Kethane scanners were on the whole. time...!

That was intended...

Well, actually sorta not kinda was not wasn't kinda sorta intended.

I left them on, I think. I meant to have them scan whenever possi-bru, so that's why there was a bit of scannage goin' on at Eve.

Can you send back Kethane data for Science points, like in that new mapping mod I've played with a bit? If that's implemented *cough*Majir*/cough*, I'd love it!

At the moment, I'm letting the Kethane miner scan away at Gilly while I've been typing this. Stay tuned, next episode, we can go mine on Gilly, maybe in the next, send the proposed Gillylab over!

Until next time,

-Naten

+Jorfred

[Naten]

Jorfred was finally ready to go to the surface. He'd been sitting up there for days, in orbit, waiting for Kethane scannings to be mostly complete and all over...

And then they were!

Kethane! I choose you! *bfft*

Now Jorfred's de-orbited, and now he's heading to the surface.

I set a maneuver node near the ground of the descent's path so Kerbal Alarm Clock would tell me when and make sure I know it's going to crash before it actually does crash!

Meanwhile, on the Armstrong...

*tcht*

The "Low-Grav Lander" (LGL) Zulu separated from its normal place after being filled to the brim with RCS fuel. It (pretty quickly in Gilly's low gravity, actually) glided off into the Void, in the shadow of the potato Moon of Eve: Gilly.

"See ya later Armstrongator."

"...in a while, Zuludile"

And then we set up a node for a burn of Zulu to slow down over the mining base, well, both that and as a "precise time on the orbit/trajectory"--kinda alarm. Thanks for this awesome plugin, Trigger Au! (for Kerbal Alarm Clock, obviously... )

Meanwhile, Jorfred is pretty, pretty sure he's coming in over the right deposit.

Note: the comparatively monstrous velocity is from us thrusting downward: Jorfred is quite impatient, as am I.

We're almost there, Jorfred! Almost there...

Almost... there...

*ZzZzZz*--...Eh, wha?... ugh.....*...ZzZzZ...*

**Missing Screenshots**

Hello, sorry everyone. This is Naten. I've lost a couple of screenshots and the game randomly closes for me, and it happened to me right now as I was editing this and it was minimized. Please don't go; it'll be up in the next part! Thanks for the wait, sorry and regards, as well as cheers...

-Naten and Jorfred

Edited February 8, 2014 by Naten

[Naten]

In the Zulu lander, Danbrett landed by the future site of the Gilly base/outpost thingy, and where the miner is now.

He touched down soon after and planted a flag. Here they are:

Now the Kethane miner's full, and Gillylab is on its way!

[Vanamonde]

That is a lot of rocks. What do you have surface scatter set to?

[Naten]

I think 80 or so, and Render Quality on Fantastic.

[Naten]

I'm going to launch Gillylab now. Stay tuned!

Feedback is slim, any opinions out there? Hot threads and just one comment is a bit saddening.