Kerbal: Project B.E.A.S.T: Part 12

Good luck, brave Kerbalnauts.

why do we save the kerbals? not because it is easy, but because it is hard

We rescue kerbals not because it easy, but because they are adorable and stuck in space!

great minds

Yeah, that was creepy...

We here now.

6am eastern time post. 3am pacific viewing time

Guys, in an orbital inertial frame, just fly toward the other craft, then slow down relative to it. your orbit will shift automatically to match the target.

Man with how they're trying to logic this out theyre making it so much harder on themselves. Get close, match speed, then accelerate slowly toward target. Its not "easy" but they are so overthinking and complicating it. Their understanding of the intercept icons and reliance on manuever nodes probably isnt helping that either.

For the better part of this episode, there is WAY too much thinking going on. For everyone who complained about the editing in the first episode: reap what you sow.

Vinny sounds like my grandpa with a frog in his throat.

guys dont worry if the other ship is moving away at 1 m/s, the kerbals jetpack can make up the difference very easily, no reason at all to "stabilize" the orbit

honestly the jetpack can probably make up a delta upwards of 100 m/s and a distance of several kilometers, no need to get within centimeters

Yes! Finally monday >:)

@vinny I think the ending of the video might be messed up? You sign off twice?

I imagine Vinny trying to park a car - he gets it in the space first time, but it's 2cm out of alignment so he drives back out of the space, tries again, misses the space completely, drives around the block, tries the space again but drives right through and out the other side... half an hour later he's back where he was in the first place and decides it's good enough.

I love these guys but the mountain they make out of this Kerbal molehill is hilarious.

In which literal crawling speed is too damn fast

speaking of mountains

Vinny, you can use H and N to thrust forward and back with the RCS thrusters, letting you adjust the speed without having to turn the ship back and forth.

its taking them more time to stabilise this orbit then it would to take out a kerbal and jet pack it over......
man i been screaming these last 2 eps so much stop making it so hard you guysss =p
5km is super close in space. 30 meters is even closer in space. Adjust your speed once your that close to the ship don't try to match orbits while your still 40km away then you never get near it....

Haha, the metric system is confusing them so much. I love it.
It seems that they have no concept of how slow anything below 10m/s really is. That's literally slower than a professinal sprinter runs. I can handstand walk faster than 1m/s, and I can't even do a handstand.

...Dear... god...

I love it when Austin laughes like the Joker in the teaser, while that Kerbin is falling to his death. Great things await us!

@vinny@austin@alex The big seperated part went faster because it had more mass. The smaller section had less mass and slowed down faster and blew up behind you. Also, the lines and nodes freaking out are just rounding errors caused by a lack of precision. That should hopefully get better with the move to 64 bit.

You were also still using RCS to aid manoeuvring which changes your speed / position and causes the orbits to shift slightly.

These recent videos are a very clear indication of how America's refusal to adopt the metric system is detrimental to society. They are constantly missing the forest for the trees, yes, but the hilarious irony of their laser focus on as many numbers as possible is that none of them have the slightest comprehension of what a metre looks like, or how far it is in relation to anything, so all of the things that they've learned (or that they think they've learned) aren't of any real use to them.

Alex had the right idea at first, wanting to just point the ship at the dot in space and go towards it, but then he got as scared as everyone else of going EVA without being perfectly parked next to MunShot CFL; and then he and Austin and Vinny all separately thought of throwing caution to the wind, only to get talked down.

It doesn't help that their perspective is constantly thrown off when they're in orbit, but even if they could properly see the crafts at all times, because they don't have an visual understanding of a metre, they aren't actually really learning anything from flight to flight. Also I wonder if they'll find the drogue chute again in the next video, since they do have a tendency to discover things just after they would have been the most helpful.

Oh god....

Their biggest issue is how much they undervalue the jetpack, right? They said multiple times that they weren't close enough but they can be super far away and be fine with the jetpack, it's so overpowered in this game.

@alex See, if you picture the other ship as Big Daddy and you guys as Regular Daddy...

I feel like at this point they should watch Scott Manley's video given that they're well beyond the chance to rescue this final Kerbal the way that Scott did.

@vinny@austin@alex

Yeah, you were overthinking a lot.

Also, I was so sad: Vinny even mentioned the pushing and pulling of the retrograde/prograde markers in the beginning and then, when it was time to do that he just completely forgot. I am not mad, just disappointed.

Also, it's only your relative speed to the target that matters. You keep mentioning, that you are going so fast. But the same is true for you as a person right now. You are going insanely fast relative to the sun, but that does not matter, when you run into a doorway, does it?

That thumbnail for the show makes me very nervous!

@alex When returning to Kerbin, bring one side of the orbit to 80K, then bring the other side to 80K. Now you are in a close circular orbit and can select where and when to land without having too much speed and without being bound to manouver at the apoapsis or periapsis.

Also 1 meter is about 1 yard, so 100 meters and 1 meter per second are very safe velocities and distances for EVA travel.

Good luck!

@diz:

Or use the last of your fuel to slow down. Think of it like a parachute made of fire.

10 meters away and 0.4 m/s...

"do you want to just jump out?" "naaaah, too dangerous..."

It's amazing how they make the easiest thing in the game looks impossible...

@roy42: They don't know what a meter looks like because they were raised and taught in a system that doesn't use meters - it's not that crazy that they're having a hard time adjusting to units of measure they've never used in their life. Also all hyperbole aside it's hardly detrimental to society in the slightest. If you grow up knowing that an inch is this much and a foot is that much, then all that has changed is the nomenclature used to label those values. You could take the 12 inches in a foot and then divide that into 17 equal pieces and say that it is now called a Zonk, and that each Zonk is 5.3 Konks, but the value would be the same, just the name that has changed.

While it's an undeniable truth that dividing by 10 is way easier than the imperial systems wacky rule of 4, if you're taught from childhood to use that wacky system it not only makes sense but you do the math in your head automatically.

I studied architecture in both the US and Europe, and had to switch systems halfway through. I spent more time in the US and so to me standard doorways are always (roughly) 7' x 3' as opposed to 2 x 0.8m. Simply because I spent more time in one system than the other, inches just seem a lot more natural whenever I eye something. That said, using the imperial system in AutoCAD was a real pain in the ass because typing in ( d 2.25 ) is a lot faster than typing in ( d 2'-1/4" )..

All in all I just wanted to say that the whole mocking attitude that Europeans have against the imperial system is, while not completely unfounded, a little misplaced.

@sankis:The bulky ship is probably not helping as wel...

I understand that the beast crew isnt used to metric - but just use the 3x rule. 1m/s is roughly 3ft/s (3x) - think how SLOW 3ft/s is - it's walking speed.

Also, same deal with 30m - it's roughly 90ft! You can power walk that in like 15s!

Sigh, I doubt they'll ever grasp this stuff... I guess that's what gives this series some of its charm?

I mean, I hope that most people didn't get as angry as I did when Austin and Alex shouted Vinny down when he wanted to make a 30m jump at a relative speed of 1m/s >_> (after spending a whole freaking 15 mins correcting to get just 40m closer to the ship).

@roy42: Yeah, it seems landings have gotten a lot harder? Do you really need the drogue now, when you use the bigger capsules? Because I had sone nasty crashes on landing, when I played recently.

And you are right. As a european, I was literally yelling at my TV "0,1km is a hundred meters! IT IS NOT FAR. YOU GOT IT."

I love this series so very much.

I'm not so sure its even a matter of distances or speed for them, but rather their lack of confidence in Vinny's EVA skills, especially when they have put more than an hour of work into getting to a point where even the slightest error could render all their effort in vain.

I'm always a bit confused out about how discussions of the metric system always ends up being a hot-button issue on the internet.

Another great episode guys! Keep doing what your doing, its great to see the thinking that goes into what you do.

Man, I actually thought they learned something last episode. At least they nailed the landing.

Are you guys just trying to pad out your videos with your landing "technique"? Seriously. When you approach you periapsis at 30,000, just burn retrograde to slow down. If you're still scared that the engine will blow up then retrograde burn before you are in atmosphere at say 100,000. You guys come into atmosphere at 2800 m/s which is way too fast. You have to be below 2000 m/s or more ideally 1800-1600 m/s to land without stressing at the parachute button.

Space is hard y'all

Still love this series, but man, I hope they start reading some of the comments here before their next batch of episodes, because their overtly "safe" approach is slowly killing me.

That landing was perfect, though.

Man I'm having flashbacks to Metal Gear Scanlon when Drew over-complicated every single thing (MGS 3 in particular was frustrating). Just like last episode, they get it super close to what they need, then take a ridiculous amount of time screwing it back up and fixing it and screwing it up and fixing it, only to end up right back where they were to start and it just works because it always would have just worked.

For example: Ships are 15 meters away, drifting apart slowly, at maybe .1 m/s. I'm like, good gravy I never get them that close, hop out and fly that bugger over. Nope. "We need to stabilize, we can not make it if they're slowly drifting away." I usually try to get within 1km and fly Kerbals. 1000 meters! And still have plenty of Jetpack left.

Gaaaaahhhhhhhhhh it's so frustrating. But yet I can't stop watching, because when they actually succeed despite their best efforts to screw it up, it's exhilarating.

This is great..... I really can't wait for the next episode though. Looks like they get into some neat parts.... and man I really don't have confidence in them getting the guy out of kerbin's orbit without doing some research XD

Can't tell you how many times I yelled "Just fucking jump out of the ship!" That Scott Manley episode was a mistake.

These guys seem afraid to fail. The dirty secret is, the only way you truly grasp something you're learning is that you will screw up 75% of the time. Take risks!!