Bay 12 Games Forum

We now return to: Bay12 Space Program!

Much to my gladness, I can switch to things from the Tracking Station.

Once we descend to about 20 kilometers above the cyan Minmal surface, I have a bit of a burn to kill our horizontal speed.


_{It's a useful thing, not falling sideways.}

4,000 meters later, we're drifting sideways less than a meter and a half per second and pointing straight up, ready to kill vertical velocity. Our TWR is apparently exactly 29 at this point.
Ten kilometers above the surface, and we're falling at nearly 95 m/s (with a horizontal speed of almost 3.5 m/s, somehow). Over the next most-of-a-kilometer, I reduce it to less than three m/s.
4500 meters up, we've got almost 60 m/s of velocity. Decimating velocity, literally. Unless I've got the literal definition backwards.
Just under two kilometers up, and we're tilted at 70 degrees to bring us a bit closer to the poor marooned kerbonauts. Vertical speed around 40, horizontal around 8. At the end, we're going up and sideways at 25 m/s. Oops.
One kilometer. SASS off, following the Surface-Retrograde marker. (Which is something I'd like MechJeb to do, but whatever.) We burn to kill velocity, or at least reduce it. We go from 34 m/s (combined) to about 3.5, and also go up. Horizontal speed (currently) 2.3; I can probably just burn up from here on out.
500 meters. Burn from a bit over 20 m/s to less than 2 m/s. I can see my shadow.
200 meters. 15 m/s to zero(ish). We're definitely getting close.
100 meters. 8 m/s to -4. Oops.
40 meters. 7 m/s to less than one.
13 meters. 2 m/s to -2. Oops.


<sub>Told ya I was good at wasting fuel.

Aaand flawless landing!

Well, we're a bit far from the target. Also, we're on our side. But other than that, flawless!</sub>

Halfway through Day 23 of Minmushot, Jeb sees the rescue rocket coming down. He alerts his newfound companion...Archibald?!?


_{I know I didn't send you up...alright, you're getting a refluff and being added back into the canon. And you're getting a rename.
   
Little comic I just made.}

Jeb fills his pack with half of what little monopropellant he could scavenge from the debris of their two rockets and other useful trinkets before preparing to jetpack to the rocket.


_{It's funny because it's true.}

Jeb gets a decent arc going.


_{It'll take  afew minutes to get there, but that's pretty darn fast. It's like...um...ignoring vertical speed, almost 200 km/h. So, about terminal velocity.}

4.5 km above "sea level". The plateau is around four kilometers high here, so I should probably start slowing my fall. So I do. While checking to see if I have a visible shadow, I start going up, reaching a potential apoapsis of 4.8 km ASL. I slow down and--hey, what's that?


_{A photograb opportunity, of course.}

4,300 meters ASL. Slowing down to zero. Not rising this time. Again at 4,000. Again at 3,900. And 3,800. When is the ground? I don't want to miss it. And by "miss" I mean "unexpectedly hit".
Every hundred meters or so, I'm killing my falling and quicksaving. At random intervals, I'm fiddling with my horizontal speed. At 3,550, I fear I might not hit 3,500, so I kill vert. I'm wrong, but at 3,500 I see my shadow. And also that I'm moving horizontally (towards the ship) rather quickly. I slow both horizontal and vertical speed, then...


<sub>"Yes! I landed!"

"Yes! I'm closer to the rocket than when I landed!"</sub>

Jeb takes a surface sample, then plants a flag in honor of the rescue.


_{Will anyone ever read this? Archie, maybe.}

Nothing left to do but hop up to the cockpit, grab on, and--


_{"The rocket hit me!"}

--that second step is a doozy. Still, Jeb hops up, and slides smoothly into the cockpit on the way down.
Now for Archibald.


<sub>"...I cannot believe I'm going to be doing exactly what that maniac just did."

"Well...no time like the present."

In layman's terms: "AAAAAAAHH!"

"Wow the scenery is really pretty from up here AAAAHH!"

Almost done.</sub>

Archibald attempts a much more vertical landing than Jeb did, coming in over the site at a fairly high altitude before redirecting his flight.



_{More comic.}

Archie takes a surface sample (ooh, we seem to be on a biome boundary!). And then he tries to hop into the front cockpit, like Jeb...


_Comic!

Three or four hops later...


<sub>Please don't fall please don't fall please don't fall--YES!

Crap, I've been drawing speech lines the wrong way this whole time!

C'mon, Archie, you were on a ladder one second and the next you were sailing through the lack of air!</sub>

A jump, a rocket-pack-jump, and a careful rocket-pack-push later, Archie's in the rocket. And we can try to take off.


_{Once they calm down.}

I manage to torque my way back up to a more vertical position, despite the fact that qweasd didn't line up with the directions one intuitively expects. Thanks to hill and torque, I manage a 45-degree angle before I give up, thanks to the engine and stuff getting in the way. I check MechJeb; we have...1,143 m/s of Δv. Now let's check the Δv map and...


_{...That's a problem.}

Well, then. We don't have enough fuel to get back to Kerbin, even if we fly perfectly. We have a few options of how to remedy this:

1. Fly another rescue craft there, with more fuel and whatnot.
2. Fly a refueling craft there. If it has excess fuel, we can try using KAS fuel lines to refuel it on Minmus.
3. Fly it to orbit around Kerbin, fly another craft to meet it, and have the kerbals EVA to that OH WAIT I suck at rendezvous and microgravity EVA.
4. Try to knock off some weight, somehow. That big fuel tank in back, maybe.
5. Send a small kethane rig up, have it mine fuel, proceed to Plan 2.

So. Which of the four plans will we do?