Bay 12 Games Forum

True, but it's still annoying, and we didn't need to immediately leave.

Plus, we took a ton of damage for actions we didn't ask for. Even if we probably would have had we been asked, it's annoying.

So that's the shard launcher.  Effective.

FTFY.

((Maybe it would be easier to see if it was lower-case?))

That would just make the fuel run out one engine at a time, rather than all at once. (Currently, the outer fuel tanks are all flowing into the central one.)
I guess that the lower consumption for a time might help some, but...well...symmetry mode makes asparagus harder.

I was speaking about how you will all die horribly allowing more people to join the game.

For a while. I don't think anyone likes those three, though. Hell, the threat of being harvested if we get too powerful should make people more interested in getting along together.

Kyle flips off the demons and look around the city for Nuriel.

People react poorly to this, perhaps not realizing he's flipping off the demons. Still, they're not violent.
Nuriel is not in plain sight, but people seem to be avoiding all of you, and demons seem to be staying as far away as they can without being unable to see you.

Lunette pulls out her wand and starts waving it around to see what she can detect.

She detects little magic, but there are demons scattered around.

ICARUS just tags along

So she does.

Andras and Loki help investigate.

They discover facts.

Sen Summons her Black Mass, Book of Binding, and The Nine Breaths of Silence attaching them to her belt clip. She readies a empty vial in her bag (which she has been carrying around since she got back) and makes sure that her Soul vials aren't broken. She then Begins to prepare a Binding spell [15+54]

Binding spell prepared. Probably won't be too good.
People back away from Sen even more than they do from the others.

That was epic.

Now to test my starship?. 790 tons of fuel and metal. Liftoff is slow, despite having 9.6 MN of thrust, but I know it'll get faster. I notice the outer fuel tanks (oh, right I need to show y'all what it looks like) wobbling, which is...disconcerting. It can't be that bad. Right?
The engines are overheating. That...that is an issue.
By three kilometers (above sea level), we're going at ~90 m/s, have dropped nearly 200 tons of fuel, and our engines are at something like 70% overheat. I think the heat is falling, and it definitely isn't rising. This is good.

While I'm thinking about it, here's a screenshot of the lower half of the spaceship with all its rockets firing.



I slowly, slowly turn my cumbersome creation at 10-11 kilometers ASL.
Around 35 km ASL, not quite three minutes into the mission, the Mainsails run out of fuel and are turned off. Though the TWR (ASL) is now less than one-fourth, we're continuing to accelerate.
52,300 meters ASL. Apoapsis goes past 70,000. I keep burning, so I'll have time to circularize. On the other hand, time to apoapsis is dropping...
Estimated burn time: Over eight minutes. Time to apoapsis: Half a minute. Shite. Especially since the starship doesn't have parachutes.
Five minutes into the mission. Been burning for something like 50 seconds, with about 7:20 remaining. Mass of the vessel is down to ~250 tons, less than a third of its starting weight. Thrust is down to 600 kN, a fraction of what it was at the launchpad. Too small.
5:27. We enter the atmosphere. Barely any of the orbital insertion burn has been completed. Periapsis: Still hundreds of kilometers underground.
6:05. 60,000 meters. Periapsis has risen a few dozen kilometers. Burn maybe a sixth or a seventh of the way through? Apoapsis jittering about but mostly going up.
6:30. 50k. Activating Ascent Guidance and killing node.
6:45. 42,240 meters ASL. Autopilot has been figured out and engaged, then quickly fixed since I set the orbital altitude to 10,075 kilometers on accident.
6:59. 35k. Surface speed increasing, but is it from horizontal speed...or vertical?
7:20. 23k. Re-entry effects. I take the chance to show off my attempted starship.



I'm pretty well doomed.

7:38. I disengage autopilot and turn on Smart ASS, hoping that a retrograde burn will reduce velocity enough that the splashdown won't be lethal. It's certainly slowing us down.
7:56. 9000 meters ASL. Still with a surface speed over 350 m/s. 280 horizontal, 200 vertical. Under 220 tons. Still dropping speed, mass, and altitude.
8:22. With our horizontal speed mostly negated (down to 40 m/s), I have the SASS turn us vertical to kill the vertical. In theory. WE've got 4,400 meters to fall and are losing them at about 150 per second.
8:33. Three kilometers to go. Velocity a bit under 133 m/s, mostly vertical.
8:41. Two left. Horizontal velocity recently reached a trough, and if going back up. Vertical still falling, at 114.4 now.
8:46. Fifteen hundred meters and counting.
8:51. Last kilometer. Falling at a hundred meters per second. With the deceleration, maybe I'll make it eleven seconds instead of ten.
8:56. 95 m/s. 500 meters.
8:57. 93 m/s. 400.
8:58. 92. 300.
8:59. 91. 200.
9:00. 90. 100.
9:01. Splashdown. No surviving debris.




Well. Next version:

1. More fuel for the Mainsails.
2. Some winglets couldn't hurt.
3. Struts!
4. Ejection system.