Are we there yet?

Episode 20 of Wrong Way Up (the one with the "tightrope") starts with Splitsie, Capac, W4stedspace, Directed Energy, and Texfire taking inventory of available planes and facilities on the Jalopy. Splitsie and W4sted take the Neon Pumpkin to explore the unarmed Alpine Rescue Station they spotted and are greeted by a helpful Bot (Lefty/Eisen). Texfire and DE join and convince the Bot that Texfire is certified to drive the station's fire truck (Ryan Renault). The friendly Bot suddenly mentions an "overcode" and runs away. Splitsie parks the Jalopy at the rescue station and goes scouting in the Neon Pumpkin while the others repair the planes and drone printer.

(0:30) From his plane, Splitsie locates a canyon along the world seam which they will have to cross, and casually suggests to just inchworm across it on piston arms. Kanajashi Bot reports in in-game chat that he can see Splitsie from his runway and DE teases him for his ZIT callsign. Back at the Jalopy, Splitsie helps out while Capac and DE repair their planes, w4sted rebuilds his drone printer, and Texfire builds a lift to carry the fire truck.

(1:00) Splitsie accidentally catapults himself 240m while setting up rotor limits *on drills*... Texfire learns that his acquired fire truck is glitchy in multiplayer. W4sted has found out that RC drones disconnect the player if the drone is smaller than their parent grid, and works around the problem by introducing an even smaller subgrid between the drone and the Jalopy. Splitsie complains about what DE did (built noisy generators) "in the middle of the living room!!" and W4stedspace thinks he's talking to Charli the dog. They reminisce a funny recent Rimworld session where social characters nicknamed Capac and Naburine got married.

(1:30) They entertain themselves building inefficient "clangtastic" (quote: Texfire) spinny drills. As they spot a Bot transport (Gary Bus-y) nearby they can't react because Splitsie's PC crashes and Capac is stuck in Cockpit Block Placement Mode. On his scouting flight, Splitsie loses control of the Neon Pumpkin as his PC crashes again, and luckily, copilot DE performs a safe emergency landing. The override reminds W4sted of a story about a flock of escaped drones.

Splitsie has deterred the Bot vehicles but attracts the attention of a Fly-By Knight fighterplane and returns to base. DE, Capac, and Splitsie+Texfire lift off to engage the Bots in the air (where Tex sheepishly asks to borrow ammo from the enemy).

(2:00) The sky is full of planes: DE and Capac report midair ramming and Splitsie and DE almost collide. W4sted's drone printer is ready and his drones land several good hits. The Bots (Jexsam and Kanajashi) have lost one plane and another is damaged on the ground. Splitsie and DE make exciting emergency landings for repairs, and only Capac is still in the air -- thanks to the over-engineered plane he stole from Kanajashi. Everyone (including Chat and the Bots) enjoyed the display of piloting and design skills in the airbattle.

Looking at his shadow on the ground below, Capac realises that the "graphical glitch" following him is actually one of w4sted's drones trying to dock! Splitsie puts extra magplates on his tailwing and lifts off with Texfire, offering to catch the drone in midair, but the drone runs out of power, inches away from rescue. They all return to base. Capac performs a historic 270-degree-pancake-go-around, followed by a thruster-smashing landing. Next, they go investigate the two crashed Bot planes and take some salvage.

(3:00) As fog rises, they are finally locked and ready to drive on. Splitsie and w4sted brainstorm the best way to cross the ravine: Lock the hitches rigidly; build a chain of retracted pistons maglocked to the ground behind them; build a chain of extended pistons maglocked to the ground on the opposite side of the ravine; then, reverse all pistons... Capac cannot sell his counter idea of a harpoon. While they approach the ravine, they ignore Kanajashi's hints of an alleged pass, and instead listen to DE talking shop about plane wings. As the trailers tilt on the steep uphill slope, they fold open the runway as leverage. A moment later, they slide downhill, right up to the ravine.

Splitsie gets to work and builds three dozen inchworm pistons in all colours, undeterred by the increasing disbelief among Chat, Bots, and his crew.

(3:30) Near nightfall, they spot a Bot sneaking along the ravine. Suddenly the subgrid wheel script maxes out all power and can't hold them on the slope anymore! All hinges slack, the back piston chain drops and accidentally maglocks to the ground--which saves them from sliding into the ravine. Only Capac's plane slides off the runway. Texfire explains the peasouplike fog as a tinted peril-sensitive visor that protects them from seeing any predicament. Splitsie uses one of the climbing arms to pick up Capac's plane and drops it on the runway. W4sted extends the back piston chain to abseil the road train safely to the ravine edge. Next, they stiffen the trailer hitches. Under the Bots' protest, Splitsie uses admin commands to fast-forward to sunrise because in the dark, nobody can see anything.

(4:00) Simspeed has dropped to 0.8. The ravine is at an uneven world seam and they use the climbing arms to level the road train. Next, they unlock and reposition the back piston chain like an inchworm; DE whoops at the piston wobble. They expand the front piston chain and grab onto the north side of the ravine. They maglock the retracted back chain to the ground again for stability and release the two climbing arms.

(4:30) As incredulous Bots pass in a spy plane above, the Jalopy crew prepare thoroughly by counting pistons and setting up groups, tool bar, gyros, and velocities. Capac says "Elon Musk" in his chat has confirmed that this is the new design for the hyperloop. The road train slowly moves over the gap. Everyone is surprised it works and W4sted racks his brain to predict which imminent disaster they have overlooked. Capac and Splitsie tease each other: If Capac dares to click any Detach button now, Splitsie will walk over to his house and slap him.

In this moment, a plane elegantly passes under the suspended road train. DE dares Kanajashi to do that again so they can take screenshots!

The front tractor has reached the northern edge. The two piston chains are at their minimum/maximum and the chain starts sagging. They maglock the climbing arms to hold the tractor in place. Splitsie unlocks the fully retracted front piston chain (which flings its first subgrid vertically in the air, never to be seen again), makes the next inchworm step forward, and maglocks it again.

*Naturally*, Splitsie would dare to take off and land on the suspended runway, *if only* Capac's plane wasn't in the way... Splitsie pushes a wrong key and half of the front piston chain shatters and needs rebuilding. He turns around to see Kanajashi make acrobatic touch-and-gos on their runway!

W4sted adds a temporary piston support for the back trailers while he unlocks the back piston chain (which catapults Splitsie), retracts it, and maglocks it again.

(5:00) The Bots watch from a hilltop and w4sted wishes them to be struck by ejected parts "when this all explodes." W4sted and DE one up each other with demands to stay here and end the episode -- but immediately reveal that they were being sarcastic because they know pistons under tension do not react well to server reloads. Their next steps blow up the climbing arms magplates. Capac claims to have built another Capacodile but he is just hopping around in a crocodile skinned spacesuit. DE is amazed how this is at the same time the dumbest and most ingenious thing they have ever done in the game. They record a cool clip of w4sted dancing on the expanding piston chain. When Splitsie returns from Spectator mode he faces Jexsam Bot standing next to him on the tractor. Capac investigates a nearby explosion and finds dead Bots and missiles. As they reach the other side and grind down the piston chain, the sim speed recovers. They have crossed a 200m chasm without using static grids!

## References

1. ↑ They have reached the northern latitudinal world seam which marks roughly two thirds of the way to the north pole. A world seam is a straight-line edge in the planet's 3D cube model at the edges where the six maps are stitched together. There is one latitudinal seam around each polar region, and four longitudinal seams.
2. ↑ By now they have enabled Share Inertia Tensor on the chains, which prevents the physics engine from accumulating rounding errors and stabilises the wobbliness of the simulated tensile strength.