I thought about titling this thread "This is no time for caution" but then people would have thought I was recreating the Interstellar docking scene when in reality this just reminded me of it
Anyway, with 1.5 on the horizon I decided to wipe off the dust and do a mission of some kind without the original intention of posting it anywhere. However, that quickly changed. For some backstory behind the mission, essentially I wanted to take an old shuttle I never finished out for a test drive by essentially copying the Apollo setup thing from my ancient Saturn V I made way back in the 1.4 public beta, over to my shuttle. However, I quickly remembered why you never do a proper mission on an unfinished L/V:
(above screenshot is a reenactment due to me having not taken a picture of it when it happened)
Well, damn.
Normally, I would have aborted the mission entirely; however, I had an idea.
My original plan to salvage this was to simply transfer fuel from the lander and command module tanks into the shuttle's main fuel tank, however the bottom half of the cargo bay obscured them too much for me to do any fuel transferring from there. So I had another idea..
Behold! Quite possibly one of the riskiest things I have ever attempted in this game:
To the untrained eye this may not look like much of anything, however this is indeed a very bold move for one reason: Altitude.
The plan now is to dock the lander/CSM to the docking port where the cargo bay door is supposed to go when open, however the door is not needed at this time and is floating away. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, however as you may have noticed I am cruising at a lovely 28.6km and rapidly descending. I had to act and it had to be fast.
At this point, I am rapidly losing altitude and if anybody were watching it may have looked like a hopeless endeaver. However, a few moments later aaand...
Docked!
At this point in time I am experiencing rather significant drag due to me being 25.6km above the ground. However, at that point the hard part had been dealt with. Now to the more or less easy part: getting to orbit.
At this stage of the mission it isn't quite as interesting, but I'll show it anyway. As soon as I was docked, I started transferring fuel over to the shuttle and burning at a rather steep angle in order to gain altitude. I was still rapidly losing ground, but that was hopefully about to change.
And indeed, it did change. Shortly after, I started gaining altitude again. Eventually, I saw something I had desperately hoped to see:
With just a sliver of fuel left, I made it to orbit. Something that, had I aborted the mission when I ran out of fuel, wouldn't have happened.
And that concludes the story... for now. The plan now is to continue the mission by sending a refueling craft over to restock on fuel and continue onwards to the Moon.
Let this be a lesson for when things are looking grim. Sure, there's the option to simply abandon hope. But with quick thinking you can get yourself out of a tricky situation, and perhaps even look cool while doing it.
Anyway, with 1.5 on the horizon I decided to wipe off the dust and do a mission of some kind without the original intention of posting it anywhere. However, that quickly changed. For some backstory behind the mission, essentially I wanted to take an old shuttle I never finished out for a test drive by essentially copying the Apollo setup thing from my ancient Saturn V I made way back in the 1.4 public beta, over to my shuttle. However, I quickly remembered why you never do a proper mission on an unfinished L/V:
(above screenshot is a reenactment due to me having not taken a picture of it when it happened)
Well, damn.
Normally, I would have aborted the mission entirely; however, I had an idea.
My original plan to salvage this was to simply transfer fuel from the lander and command module tanks into the shuttle's main fuel tank, however the bottom half of the cargo bay obscured them too much for me to do any fuel transferring from there. So I had another idea..
Behold! Quite possibly one of the riskiest things I have ever attempted in this game:
To the untrained eye this may not look like much of anything, however this is indeed a very bold move for one reason: Altitude.
The plan now is to dock the lander/CSM to the docking port where the cargo bay door is supposed to go when open, however the door is not needed at this time and is floating away. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, however as you may have noticed I am cruising at a lovely 28.6km and rapidly descending. I had to act and it had to be fast.
At this point, I am rapidly losing altitude and if anybody were watching it may have looked like a hopeless endeaver. However, a few moments later aaand...
Docked!
At this point in time I am experiencing rather significant drag due to me being 25.6km above the ground. However, at that point the hard part had been dealt with. Now to the more or less easy part: getting to orbit.
At this stage of the mission it isn't quite as interesting, but I'll show it anyway. As soon as I was docked, I started transferring fuel over to the shuttle and burning at a rather steep angle in order to gain altitude. I was still rapidly losing ground, but that was hopefully about to change.
And indeed, it did change. Shortly after, I started gaining altitude again. Eventually, I saw something I had desperately hoped to see:
With just a sliver of fuel left, I made it to orbit. Something that, had I aborted the mission when I ran out of fuel, wouldn't have happened.
And that concludes the story... for now. The plan now is to continue the mission by sending a refueling craft over to restock on fuel and continue onwards to the Moon.
Let this be a lesson for when things are looking grim. Sure, there's the option to simply abandon hope. But with quick thinking you can get yourself out of a tricky situation, and perhaps even look cool while doing it.