Bay 12 Games Forum

Obviously, it's possible to jump right on top of the rocket car, EVA fuel or no. I've jumped too little and too much from the same spot. I just need to find somewhere in the middle.

I quickly determine that jumps are too uneven in length. So, instead of trying to jump onto the command pod directly, I settle for jumping onto the craft.


_{My master plan in action!}

I lined it up wrong AND overshot it, so two mistakes for the price of one. The second try was lined up better, but I still overshot. The third time...


_{Spinning! Surely this is a good thing?}

...he almost hits the engine. Back up some, and...I overshoot. One more try...


_YES!

Now, for the next (and one of the last) stage of our journey...


_{I considered just flying the rocket car home, but A. it's more useful here, and B. most of the science is in the other rocket.}

I try to turn, then remember: No electricity, no reaction wheels. Dammit. All I'll have is gimbal until I can get into the sun. Better just launch then. Right after I save.


_{That'll be...more than enough...}

I wonder if I'll be able to refuel this later...say, does adding the kethane mod into an existing game do anything funny?


<sub>Maneuver nodes don't make the world go 'round, but they're pretty darn useful when you try to go around the world.

Can't forget the pretty pictures.</sub>

Oh, did I mention that the jump gave our solar panels a boost? 'Cause it did. We're at full power again, baby!
I manage the burn rather well. No shifting up and down after the initial boost, no worrying, just shift, x, and I'm basically there.


_{And here I had half-convinced myself it would make it.}

Well, i always said it was just a what-if thing. I never intended to keep the results of that. Reload time.

I reduce horizontal velocity to just under 50 m/s. I know it can handle that kind of speed, repeatedly, from experience. Now I just need to avoid...you know...vertical splattitude. I reconsider when I see my horizontal speed climbing (really, why does it do that?); I shouldn't take chances.

Meanwhile, Bob seems to be okay.


_{Either that or he's suffering from oxygen deprivation. No way to tell.}

((...Okay, that was just an excuse to share that expression. It was just so...amusing.))

I work on reducing lateral velocity and vertical ("splatting") velocity. I'm pretty sure I've done pretty well.

And I did. It was a bit nerve-wracking, but I managed to successfully land! Sure, there was some tumbling...


_{Like a ballet on Minmus.}

...but the whole thing stood up well, even when it landed on the Stayputnik.


_{A preply to "Pics or it didn't happen". It's a frikkin' top.}

It's tough enough to spin around like a toperina and has enough torque to stand up at an angle if I want it to (or hit the t key while trying to kill the spin). Moreover, despite fuel-wasting screwups, come the end of the mission I still have almost over ¹/₃ of my fuel--enough to fly home, if I wanted. If anyone ever denies that I overengineer things, this car proves them wrong.
And a good thing, otherwise I would have plowed into the Minmal surface at orbital velocities, not been able to turn the radially symmetrical thing towards the base, and/or busted it doing so.

We glide at about 14 m/s, dropping because we always end up driving uphill, rising when I give it a boost. Naturally, the game gets funny a few times for a few seconds once we get within 2.2 kilometers, which must be KSP's "draw distance". Assuming you only count sub-lunar objects, of course. Hell if I know how far away KSP draws those.

I decided to mess around a little.


_{"It's...um...intentional!"}

Soon enough, we get there.


_{Almost home, little Bobby.}

Steering's kinda fun, as was judging distance in the time between when the markers vanished and when I remembered I could just hover over the thingies with my mouse. Not that it's perfect, I discovered...


_{"Mechanobraking maneuver!"
"You crashed."
"...Cut me some slack, Ground Control, I've been up here way longer than intended."}

I tried taking a nice screenshot of everything while it was all clustered, but tried doing so with Steam, which didn't work, so I tried to go to the steam community, which is Shift-Tab, and...well...that disrupted things. Still, I got the shot.
I probably won't be Steamshotting too much. It's too complex, and I evidently have a limited amount of space.


_{Anyways. Here's Bob, ready to leave, and me, checking Δv.}

I burn as I tumble upright, and achieve escape.


_{Did I word my request too vaguely?}

...Not what I had in mind. Well, once I escape Minmal influence, I can just burn retrograde and why am I not turning?


_{What happened to my--oh, right. I broke those, didn't I?}

Thankfully, I have thrust vectoring, which quickly points me the right way. And then, I just thrust until I've got basically a straight-line descent. Amusingly, I get a brief Minmal encounter.


_{"...Alright, I'll visit once more, but that's it!}

MechJeb suggests it'll be a couple days before landing, which will make Bob's round-trip be just over three weeks.


_{"Bob, in an hour you'll be welcomed back home."
"You know the first thing I'm going to be doing when I get back? After I recuperate, at least?"
"What?"
"I'm going to get to work on those samples, and on the analysis of what I could glean from that probe..."}

The rocket still has over 60% fuel, so I don't want to leave it behind, but...eh. What the hell. This sentiment quickly turned to "What the hell?!?" when it briefly froze my game.


_{That's right, you'd BETTER float away at a sedate pace!}

Well, Bob's in a tin can heading straight for Kerbin, already past 1.2 km/s, damn near straight down, accelerating at 0.2 m/s²; time to relax. And time-warp, of course.


_{I forgot to take more pictures of Kerbin on the way down...ah well.}

It's kinda surprising how fast we fall. 26 kilometers above sea level, and evidently the acceleration from that last partial hour of falling exceeded the air resistance so much that we're moving well over three kilometers per second! And look at this!


_{Mach effects!}

Man, I will never get used to aerobraking from near-interplanetary space. Well, probably; this was only my second time. I'll give it this: There's not much time wasted waiting for landing!

Let's see what we've got from that mission.



_{...Okay, yes, the image editing sucks, but between my effort (unsuccessfully) trying to put a cool craft on Minmus and that neat rocket-car, I feel I deserve a little compensation!}

Anyways. With that much new science, it simply wouldn't do to leave it unspent! But first, we need to pay off that Fuel Systems rain check. We don't want a repeat of that embarrassing little incident, so let's double-check our math when suggesting what to research next, natch?

Well, let's see what we've got, as far as research options go.


_{Man, if we don't clear out the lower areas of the tech tree, we're gonna need a bigger screenshot.}

Again, the tech choices (this time using the list function of the forum, which is the first time I've done so):

• Advanced Construction (90 Science): 2.5-meter tanks and adaptors, plus some other neat little toys. One of two remaining on its rung.
• Advanced Exploration (160 Science): Barometer; Extendable ladders.
• Advanced Flight Control (90 Science): The Mark Two cockpit (which has a spot on the front for something), the Probodobodyne OKTO (which has flats spots on each edge to put stuff on), and a new winglet and reaction wheel. One of two remaining on its rung.
• Advanced Landing (160 Science): Heavier landing legs, "Drogue Chute" (which would probably be more useful if we had Deadly Re-entry).
• Advanced Rocketry (45 Science): Longer fuel tanks, radial engines, and a couple power upgrades to what we already have. This will nicely clean up that corner of the tech tree. Prerequisite to some neat-looking stuff.
• Electronics (300 Science): A few experiments, a new antenna, and some "cryostats" for storing various stuff that I'm not sure what to do with. Interstellar stuff, probably.
• Large Electrics (300 Science): A large stackable battery, Gigantor solar panels, and--ooh, Interstellar parts! Specifically, various thermal generators (which we need a source of heat for) and heat radiators.
• Precision Engineering (160 Science): Small radial engines, one small inline engine, small fuel tanks, small decoupler.
• Supersonic Flight (160 Science): Bigger airplane parts and new air intakes.

There are also a few unavailable technologies visible. We need more prerequisites before we get them.

Now for your regularly scheduled unsolicited advice for what to order our R&D team to do.
Jebediah notes that Advanced Construction and Advanced Rocketry would let us build bigger, more powerful rockets. Bill, having watched Meleny and Bob's aerobraking, requests Advanced Landing; he notes that the heavier landing legs would also let us conserve fuel by hitting the ground a little harder (he stresses the little bit). Bob demands that we look into Electronics for all the Science it offers. Archibald suggests Precision Engineering and Supersonic Flight, the former for elegance and the latter to become the masters of our own domain. Meleny notes that the IR Telescope that comes with the Electronics package sound like they would let us look farther than ever before, maybe even seeing other words.
Director GreatWyrmGold notes a desire to clean out the lower rungs of the tech tree, although he admits that Advanced Flight control could wait. He agrees with Bob's sentiments on Electronics, and also notes that longer-term missions (let alone space stations!) will probably want more power and some heat radiation capability; hence, he urges us to consider Large Electrics.

Remember, we have 723 Science. Our research budget must be less than this.