StarDestroyer.Net BBS

There was a room, right next to the flight control bunker. It was a tiny room, perpetually dark, which had an airlock - or, rather, LIGHTlock - installed. Men worked there. And today, they were very excited men.

The details of the launch, the technical challenges of the trip and minutae of probe operations were not particularly important to them. They didn't much care about propellant flow or power management or communications, which made them annoying to every single engineerski sitting in the bunker. That was possibly one reason why these men were shoved here, to this tiny room.

The other one was the fact they were making blowups and reprints of photographs transmitted by the lunar probe, and the process often (though not always, depending on the technique used) involved sensitive photographic film.



The results, though, were magnificent.

And they would soon have MORE!
Syrgy Pavylyvych was thought to attend every launch. Perhaps it was his presence which allowed them to go so splendidly, or perhaps it was merely the high technical skills of the cosmodrome's specialists.

Some would say, though, that a suspicious trend could be identified, related to that cheerful Boratistani who joined the program a while ago. Comrade Manshuk, always so happy, always so optimistic and claiming he was what the program needed.

What was the trend? Well, while comrade Mametov was happy and well, the Onion rose to heights of labor and scientific heroism, impressing the world with its technological missilerist prowess.

But ever since comrade Mametov had that terrible, terrible hockey accident...



Things like these started to happen.




The NKVDVROM was already beginning a thorough investigation into comrade Mametov and everyone he ever spoke to, met in passing or acknolwedged the existence of. Which meant it would probably take a while.



The massive rocket strutted out of its launch pad, like so many others before it. Excited yelps of the new launch engineerski notwithstanding, it was indeed an excellent piece of engineering, but that wasn't what was special about this vehicle.

Inside the payload shroud on its very top, sat a lander housing an incredible device.



A remote rover of staggering sophistication, unlike anything else the world has ever seen. With this vehicle, called Lunokhod, the Zenobian Onion would once again awe the world.

But first, of course, it would have to get to the Moon. Soft landing it was a very unique technical challenge, but Syrgy Pavylyvych was certain his crew could accomplish it. They worked quickly, yet with precision, like a well-oiled mechanism. After a decade of work on all things rockety, they knew their tasks extremely well.



"We have ignition, comrade. Good burn, good burn. All systems performing to specifications."

"Look at it go!"

"Trajectory is exactly as planned, Chief Designer."

"Staging...we have staging...final stage ignition..."



Syrgy played with his pen, watching the camera feeds from the rocket, and the massive burn clock on the wall, which slowly counted the seconds down. Finally, it crossed zero, and there was a brief bout of stony silence.

"We have orbit.", the engineerski everyone was waiting for finally reassured everybod, "Good orbit. Rocket shut down safely."

"Excellent work, comrades. Payload station, are you ready?"

"Da! Will commence diagnostic!"

Syrgy started pacing across the bunker floor. He glanced at telemetry screens, which were filling with remote data transmitted from the probe. Would the spacecraft power up properly? Would it circuits work, having survived the vibrations and shock of launch? It was a brand new probe, after all. There could still be a problem they haven't found...

An engineerski tapped his screen with a pen, "Hmm. That's funny"

Oh no. Such words were never followed with anything good.

"Precisely, comrade. What's the problem?"

"Da, comrade Chief Designer...the probe has powered up, and all systems are operating...but its drawing far more power from the fuel cells than it should..."

"How much mo...oh, I see...", Syrgy read the figure from the screen, "...shut it down immediately. Maybe we can correct the problem, but not if it uses up all reactant, da?"

"Da.", the engineerski nodded and pressed a button, "Shutting down all systems...uh, no response?"

The engineerski tried again. Comrade Maisner walked up to him, flipping through a massive binder detailing the probe's software.

"Let's try shutting it down system by system...start with propulsion and work down from there, finishing with communications..."

Syrgy almost accepted a cigarette from someone, before that someone realized who he was giving it to an hastily withdrew. As the technical teams worked feverishly to conserve power, even comissar Omeganski realized something was wrong and began stalking the edges of the workspace. He wouldn't go in - he had an agreement with Syrgy Pavylyvyvh that he wouldn't butt in when the crew was trying to solve a problem.

"Okayski...we shut the probe down. To the printouts!"

A gaggle of engineerskis rushed to another side room, where a bank of printers continuously spewed out hardcopies of all transmitted telemetry data. They grasped at the copious papers and began poring over them ,looking for a fault.

Hours passed. Tracking stations across the work monitored the inert probe, as it flew around the Earth. Adjutants and secretaries wheeled tea, coffee and ponchiki in copious quantities. Comissar Omeganski has tripped on the huge pile of papers covering the bunker's floor and would've been devoured by them, if it wasn't for quick actions of one the Red Army's Hot Librarians.

Finally, with a yell of triumph, the engineerskis rushed to their consoles. They knew the problem! And it was a rather simple fix!

"Sending power-up command to probe...da, da...probe powering up..."

The telemetry screens flashed briefly with data, and then died again. The engineerskis yelled, as one, a horrible curse.




PIZDETS!

SHITS!

Well, the Zenobian luck had to run out sometime I suppose. Maybe this will let the Murcans catch up a bit. Maybe.

"Oh, NOW they need us? Now they want us to launch them spy satellites? Now when they realized what the Zenobian Onion can do with a well developed rocket problem, do they realize its potential uses?", Johny von Braun underscored every words of his rant by slamming a memo from the new President, Dick Trickson, on his desk, "Arschlochen! Verdammte arschlochen!"

Sam leapt out of his chair, before the Director said something that would get them all fired. Dicky Trick had already shown he wasn't to be trifled with, after all, "Director! Calm down, please. The Congress will have no choice but to increase out funding back up after the launch this season, jawohl? Err, I mean yes? Even the President will have to fold at that feat. The public will demand it, and the military...well, several generals already had to pack a few changes of pants for their visits here, if you know what I mean."

"I suppose you are right, Sam. Entschuldigung, I shouldn't have ranted like that. Do proceed with your presentation?"





The NKVDVROM was running rampant.

An as of yet unknown cosmonaut was told to have been involved in the program's sudden bad luck, and would be removed to the ass-end of Zyberia by the end of the season ; The entire cosmonaut corps shook in existential terror, or was quitting in disgust. Comrade Faaaabio was the first one to leave, saying he had enough of this comissarial bullshit. He was the only one who could get away with it, due to his hero status and massive chest full of medals.

Which didn't mean others hadn't followed. Comrade Beregovoy left as well, amongst much drama over personality conflicts which no one, least of all the cosmodrome's flight psychiatrist, actually knew anything about.

Even comrade Manshuk was tired of the constant questioning and grilling by the Comissariat, and decided spaceflight wasn't for him, chosing instead to joing the ranks of the great red army. He'd rather go and shoot at people in formerly Onion countries who tried to create human-faced socialism than stay, which saddened pretty much everybody.

Worst of all, the damnable Murcans were blaring all across the world that they were about to launch a new, absolutely radical, fully armed and operational space fighter! They called it a spaceplane, but Moosecow was absolutely certain it was a space bomber poised to attack the Onion and drop nyukyual ordnance with no possiblity of interception. They were demanding an answer, and demanding it now!

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GM Notes:

All crews I assembled are 100% compatible, though the flight psychiatrists on both sides have now turned to alcoholism and drug use themselves over the amount of dysfunctional hatred present amongst the flyboys.

Also...sad for the Zenobians, but Murcans now have a good chance to catch up, and who knows - perhaps even beat the Zenobians to a lunar probe landind! It's unlikely, but possible

PeZook, all my other dudes are still in basic training, at least for a season or two, right?

Since the Murcan Surveyor probe's reliability is still at 50%, since they never even began the design, since they'd face all the same problems of lunar reconnaissance and reliability that I do and then some, and since they have a smaller budget that makes spamming 15 MB moon probes a bit difficult at least until next year... I kind of doubt they can pull it off before 1971.

Comrade Mametov, we will miss you.

[Quietly and in private facepalms for no stated reason; thinks ugly thoughts about NKVDVDROM's harassing people because things went better with them around...

FaxModem1 wrote:Well, the Zenobian luck had to run out sometime I suppose. Maybe this will let the Murcans catch up a bit. Maybe.

This was not unexpected. Inherently, the probability of a lunar probe landing succeeding just isn't all that good- the max R&D level of 90%, checked at each of five probe stages, plus the lunar reconnaissance check, makes for an awkward combination. This one was kind of a gamble, I admit it- though the odds of payoff were favorable, they weren't especially good odds.

Now, having one of the Cosmos probes fail, that was a disappointing surprise...

Gzregorz nodded satisfied when he saw the new rooster on the board. After all, these endless sessions with the Comrade Brainsky had netted him a decent crew that weren't that bad.

And he would get to fly in a real spaceplane, instead of a capsule. Oh yes, he would.

But this time, there better be no fucking mice on his fucking spaceplane!

Simon_Jester wrote:PeZook, all my other dudes are still in basic training, at least for a season or two, right?

Nope, they've graduated. Note that some of them are even already assigned to crews!

(though for some reason they're far less compatible than Murcans ; poor Dr. Saakashvili now has a drinking problem)

Simon_Jester wrote:Since the Murcan Surveyor probe's reliability is still at 50%, since they never even began the design, since they'd face all the same problems of lunar reconnaissance and reliability that I do and then some, and since they have a smaller budget that makes spamming 15 MB moon probes a bit difficult at least until next year... I kind of doubt they can pull it off before 1971.

Well, I said it is unlikely

So, no chance of forming compatible crews of the other 'nauts, then, Gotcha. Will factor that into planning, and probably have to hire Group IV before planting the Red Flag on the moon.

EDIT: Also, clarification- any subset of a working crew is itself a working crew, right? So that I could take any Lapot crew, drop any member, and get a viable Voskhod crew?

Simon_Jester wrote:So, no chance of forming compatible crews of the other 'nauts, then, Gotcha. Will factor that into planning, and probably have to hire Group IV before planting the Red Flag on the moon.

I might find someone compatible with the duo who got dropped due to Faaabio throwing a fit and leaving, but otherwise yeah, no real chance.

Simon_Jester wrote:EDIT: Also, clarification- any subset of a working crew is itself a working crew, right? So that I could take any Lapot crew, drop any member, and get a viable Voskhod crew?

Yep, exactly like this. You CAN also form incompatible crews which will work for a couple of seasons (say, because you need a backup crew for that moon landing).

Note to all players: I will probably be completely unavilable for the following week, due to this silly "family vacation" thing.

I may or may not be able to do another turn before leaving on Saturday night. No guarantees.

Relax, you've earned it, have fun!

I will try to get a plan to you quickly.

Plan Pavylyvych Spring 1969

We are saddened by the departure of two great heroes of Zenobian space exploration in recent months, but the program forges ahead. Work on the supership proceeds apace, and despite technical difficulties the Unmanned Planetary Lab has provided us more information on our nearest celestial neighbor, the moon, than has ever been known before. In addition to the photography we have all seen of the dark side of the moon, the Luna 3 probeski radioed back information on magnetic fields, the solar wind, and numerous other spatioscientific questions.

There will be a modest period of digging in and making ready before our next round of high-profile missions. Everything must be done properly, but I promise that the rewards will be well worth the labor going into them!

*(admit the landing didn't work out as planned? Not on your life, this is Zenobia )

---

Budget: 139 megarubleoids

Hardware Procurement
24 MB for two Proton rockets
6 MB for two Cosmos probes
[Luna lander launch will be postponed until Fall 1969]

Total cost: 30 MB
Remaining budget: 106 MB

Research and Development
Begin Kicker-B: 18 MB
5 teams' research on Lapot shuttle: 35 MB
5 teams' research on Kicker-B: 10 MB

Total cost: 63 MB
Remaining budget: 43 MB

Schedule Missions
CANCEL Spring 1969 probe landing.
Schedule a lunar probe landing for Fall 1969.

Mission Go/No-Go Status
We are GO for lunar flybys on pads A and B.
We are NO GO for lunar probe landing on pad C

Man, I hate those lunar lander probes; no break even with the +5% max R&D and safety event that we were lucky enough to get.

Good thing that the rover probe was a test article and never meant the land on the moon, eh comrades?

I should ask, though, why we are cancelling this season's probe landing - the reliability won't be increased in the Fall, and any increase to the photo recon we get from this season's flybys should also be applied when the probe landing goes.

Scottish Ninja wrote:Good thing that the rover probe was a test article and never meant the land on the moon, eh comrades?

It was a correctly weighted mock up. It was used to test remote control of the clamps holding it down. A standard test, comrade...

Scottish Ninja wrote:I should ask, though, why we are cancelling this season's probe landing - the reliability won't be increased in the Fall, and any increase to the photo recon we get from this season's flybys should also be applied when the probe landing goes.

Because Zenobians don't spend like Murcans. The Lapot won't research itself, and we can't allow a space-plane gap! (My guess. If so, good call, comrade Director, we never know what ghastly event might occur.)

LaCroix wrote:

Scottish Ninja wrote:Good thing that the rover probe was a test article and never meant the land on the moon, eh comrades?

It was a correctly weighted mock up. It was used to test remote control of the clamps holding it down. A standard test, comrade...

Scottish Ninja wrote:I should ask, though, why we are cancelling this season's probe landing - the reliability won't be increased in the Fall, and any increase to the photo recon we get from this season's flybys should also be applied when the probe landing goes.

Because Zenobians don't spend like Murcans. The Lapot won't research itself, and we can't allow a space-plane gap! (My guess. If so, good call, comrade Director, we never know what ghastly event might occur.)

Yes, but we are spending the money this year anyway; the launch has been rescheduled for the fall, not next year. The money comes out of the same budget either way.

Scottish Ninja wrote:Yes, but we are spending the money this year anyway; the launch has been rescheduled for the fall, not next year. The money comes out of the same budget either way.

It can be rescheduled, again... Probes don't suffer morale loss...

When I play, I also have always all kinds of missions scheduled, just in case I do want to launch it. (Depending on how much other projects gain due the research, I might not have to spend as much on them next season, which frees money for the launch.)

Scottish Ninja wrote:Man, I hate those lunar lander probes; no break even with the +5% max R&D and safety event that we were lucky enough to get.

Oh, it makes a difference- but the odds just aren't that good; lunar lander probes are difficult.

Historically, the lunar probe landings were one of the few parts of the space program where BARIS-like failure rates cropped up in real life: the Soviet Luna probes attempted a tremendous number of soft landing attempts that failed before succeeding on the twelfth try with Luna 9. Some of those failed attempts still garnered plenty of useful information, but they weren't soft landings.

Of course, historically the Soviets flew the early Luna landers using boosted A-Series rockets and not Protons. The Protons carried the heavier Luna 15 and Luna 16 type craft, the ones with rovers and sample return capability, which PeZook has agreed is a better model for the in-game lunar lander probes.

Meanwhile, the American Ranger program had six failures in a row before succeeding in crashing three probes in a row into the moon- which was a feature, not a failure. Surveyor 1 and 3, both landing attempts, crashed likewise, although the other five (of seven) attempts were a success.

I should ask, though, why we are cancelling this season's probe landing - the reliability won't be increased in the Fall, and any increase to the photo recon we get from this season's flybys should also be applied when the probe landing goes.

Because I want to postpone the decision to pay for the next Luna lander mission until Fall 1969, rather than having to buy the hardware now and gamble on the mission now, before finding out what the next two lunar flybys accomplish.

There are no prestige repercussions to delaying until fall to fly a mission, since budgets are calculated in the spring. I seriously intend to launch that mission- I just want more time to make up my $)%&*@% mind.

Oh- if possible I'd like that Luna landerbot mission scheduled for Pad C, not A or B.

Uh, Simon, Surveyor 1 and 3 landed succesfully.

PeZook wrote:Uh, Simon, Surveyor 1 and 3 landed succesfully.

Sorry, I got it backwards- glanced at a list and saw alternating successes and failures and just assumed. You're right, it was Surveyor 2 and 4 that crashed.

Still, I think I made my point.

Ghetto edit:

LaCroix wrote:

Scottish Ninja wrote:Good thing that the rover probe was a test article and never meant the land on the moon, eh comrades?

It was a correctly weighted mock up. It was used to test remote control of the clamps holding it down. A standard test, comrade...

Da, da. Pay no attention to Comrade Director of Operations Dubolomov weeping in the corner and saying "my moon tractor, my beautiful moon tractor..."

Murcan Plan for Spring 1969:

Funds: 87 MB

R&D:

-Research XMS-2 with 3 teams (21 MB)
-Research Strap-Ons with 3 teams (6 MB)

Procurement:

-Purchase 1x Titan Rocket (12 MB)

Reamining Funds: 48 MB - EARMARKED for SATURN V project in SPRING 1970.

Mission Status:

-We are GO for Manned earth orbital Duration-C, Prim. Crew II, Bkp. Crew I, Booster Titan/XMS-2 on Pad B

Have a good vacation, man. You've definitely earned a break.

And yeah, remote-control soft landing is Hard. For that matter, the Soviets/Russians have yet to mount a successful missions to Mars. Apparently the Great Mars Goblin really likes the taste of Russian-made components. Must be all the red fuming nitric acid, gives them flavor...

You mean IRL, right? Because yes, that's true, the Russians have had utterly shitty luck with that.

Here, well.

[does Boris Badenov laugh]

Yes, IRL. *Facepalm* Damn you, Simon...

Sorry, Chaser. I didn't mean to cause trouble.