This is the last Season 2 stream on GopherCraft's multiplayer server, and it opens with a new goal: "What we're actually going to work on today is trying to figure out how docking works." A small crewless test ship goes up to dock with itself and finds out that its probe cores have no power. With docking put off, The Success 2013 XLT flies to Eve with Magvy Kerman and Halney Kerman for a second try at the planet. It reaches orbit, heads down, and burns up in Eve's air. The stream ends in the Research and Development building with new parts for docking unlocked.
Docking Martins Science I
The first stop is the parts list in the Vehicle Assembly Building. The commentary reads the tooltips for the Clamp-O-Tron docking ports, including a junior size and an inline one, and builds a test ship around them: a Hitchhiker module, docking ports, RCS thrusters and an RCS tank, and a probe core, which the commentary calls "a little robot." The plan is to split the ship in orbit, then nudge the two halves back together. Nobody rides along. "This is a crewless mission, thank you." The VAB title bar reads Docking Martins Science I.
It clears the pad and climbs, and then the problem shows up. "I did not put a robot on the second ship, which is the one that has the RCS tanks that I wanted to test." That flight is dropped, and the ship goes back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for a probe core on the second half.
Turning, but not moving
The second version reaches orbit about 100 km up. The engines come off, the halves split, and the Focus label reads Docking Martins Science II Ship. Then the test runs into trouble. The RCS thrusters turn the ship but do not change its speed. "When I use the arrow keys, it's still just doing navball stuff. It's just rotating it. It's not changing my orbit." A probe core's menu reads "Not Enough Electric Charge", and the commentary works it out: "robots need electricity."
Back in the VAB, batteries and solar panels go on, and the title bar now reads Docking Martins Science III. A tour of the Research and Development tree follows, through docking ports and the Advanced Grabbing Unit, but nothing there fixes the speed problem. A viewer suggests the game's orbital rendezvous tutorial, and the commentary agrees to try it later. For now the plan is to "just get more science" and unlock better docking parts. Science III stays on the ground.
The Success, one more time
The Success 2013 XLT comes out of the VAB with Magvy Kerman and Halney Kerman in the portraits. It lifts off on a big cluster of boosters and reaches orbit with a deeper gravity turn than usual. On the way, a viewer says RCS can change speed after all, "it just takes longer," and the commentary finds a second set of keys for it: "Aha! So it's like a second set." That gets saved for the next docking try.
Before leaving Kerbin, the science buttons in the Mobile Processing Lab will not work. The lab is "not currently manned," and a round of crew transfers sorts it out. The burn out of Kerbin's orbit is followed by a long time warp around the Sun. "It's going to only take a year for the ship to get there." Data goes home by transmitter along the way, and the encounter with Eve shows up on the map. "Now we have an encounter with Eve." The ship slows down into orbit around Eve.
Down into Eve's air
The plan this time is to land. The engines go, and the commentary counts on "a heat shield in the bottom of this guy and a whole bunch of parachutes." The battery drains fast after the outer solar panels come off, until the commentary finds the cause: the lab is still researching. "Stop researching. There we go. Now our battery's fine." The solar panels fold away for the way down.
It drops into the purple edge of the atmosphere, and the overheating messages start to stack up. "Everything overheated." The ship explodes.
The Flight Results read "Outcome: Catastrophic Failure!" The log lists the Atmospheric Fluid Spectro-Variometer, the Mobile Processing Lab MPL-LG-2 and the Mk1-2 Command Pod exploding due to overheating, and "Halney Kerman was killed" and "Magvy Kerman was killed." Total mission time: 1 year, 146 days. The commentary guesses the ship came in too steep, and has a plan for the next visit: "Next time I come I will just orbit the Eve and not land."
Where it ends
Science has climbed from 304.8 at the start of the stream to 943.4 in the Research and Development building. Meta-Materials, the node with the Rockomax HubMax Multi-Point Connector, gets bought, and the counter drops to 393.4. "I think I can use this for docking, I just have to attach docking ports." The commentary promises "silly docking stuff" next time, and the stream ends at the Space Center at night, then the end cards.
This is the last Season 2 video on the channel, so that docking test never appears. In this video nothing docks and nothing lands on Eve.