FlyingPete

I built and expanded a base once on Minmus in several phases. So there was a load of junk building up nearby. To prevent excessive lag, I used the (claw-equipped) fuel truck to grab the debris and cart it off to a junk heap a few km away from the main base.

When you can't win at Chess Cheks, you try to avoid defeat by playing for a stalemate...

I've personally never bothered with staging/docking mode, personally. Here's the setup I use last time I wrote it down: So having pitch and yaw on the same stick isn't ideal for aircraft, but you can get used to it, and it avoids any weird control changes when you leave atmo. Two translation axes share controls with rover wheel controls, but you virtually never need to use both RCS and drive at the same time, so you can just switch RCS off while driving. When docking, have the pilot hold the correct attitude, then you can move from the left stick to the pad for translation, while still maintaining control of roll on the right stick for when this matters. The other buttons may take a few iterations to find the best setup, but this works well enough.

Got back into my early career save I started a while ago. I'd been to the Mun a couple of times, landed on it once (and ran out of fuel and had to send a rescue mission to pick the pilot up in orbit) and was lacking in science to build a better Mun rocket. So I took my existing Mun rocket to Minmus instead. Jeb managed to make Minmal orbit and onto a landing approach with fuel remaining in the launcher's upper stage. That had to be dropped (and landed non-explosively on the surface) so the spacecraft could be landed on the surface. Jeb took an EVA flight from the Greater Flats to the nearby Lowlands for some extra science. Turns out the heat shield was the wrong side of the decoupler, but a flyby of the Mun to save fuel and reduce orbital velocity helped, and burning off the extra fuel on re-entry was enough.

PS3-type controller works for me. You then have two analog sticks plus the pad- enough for rotation and translation axes. D-pad for up/down/left/right, left stick for pitch/yaw, and right stick for fore/aft and roll. R1 and L1 are throttle controls, and either L3 or R3 for precision controls. Map the rest of the buttons to whatever's convenient.

"Gentlekerbs, you can't fight in here! This is the war room!"

This is my first playthrough of the game for a while really; the first since communications were involved. I'm at the point of beginning explorations of the Mun, and obviously on the Farside communications with Kerbin are blocked. So I need some relay satellites. Positioning- I was thinking of two satellites in polar orbits 90 degrees apart, at an altitude where at least one satellite has a clear line of sight to the far side and to Kerbin or the other satellite. There should be very few times where a base/lander is out of contact with Kerbin with this setup. Any more efficient setups? Communications- any advantage to one type of antenna over another? I presume not for short-range operations in the Kerbin system. For operations around other planets, I guess it's worth equipping the relay satellites with something long-range, and since space stations etc are only communicating with a relay they only need the smaller antenna. I'm guessing that the satellites don't need to be anything more than a basic probe core, batteries, solar panels and an antenna.

The most successful rover for general driving about on Minmus I've built was a 2-wheeler segway design, with small landing legs fore and aft to prevent it tipping over when unmanned. Having all the (mininal) weight on two wheels helped with traction. Lean forwards with reaction wheel torque prior to acceleration and it's stable. Descending slopes can still lead to unplanned takeoffs so practice your ski jumping skills to ensure a safe-ish landing. I do something similar on my gamepad- RCS translation and wheel controls are on the same axes. If you're using RCS, then the wheels will be off the ground anyway, and if you're driving around you can turn RCS off.

I tend to assign rover wheel throttle/steering to the d-pad. You can just turn off RCS if the particular vejicle has it to avoid conflicts.

I use a PS3-type of gamepad rather than a stick. Put pitch/yaw on one stick, roll/fore-aft translation on the other. Up-down/left-right translation goes on the D-pad and engines on R1 and R2. I've found this setup to be the most intuitive for rockets and acceptable for aircraft. The alternative is to use a stick or yoke/pedals for rotation and a second one for translation with the other hand.

Landed Val on the Mun in early career. Ran out of fuel but managed to use the Get Out and Push method to reach a safe orbit. Transmitted enough science to be able to send Jeb in a better rescue craft

You're probably right- after all, you're only throwing away tanks, a decoupler and maybe some sepratrons which is next to nothing. I threw together a TSTO once to test the idea of dropping the airbreathing engines/empty tanks and intakes. In an ideal world these would be remote-controlled for either a parachute landing downrange for recovery. But with them de-spawning it was simply too much to throw away.

Titanium looks good How does it compare economically to using a conventional rocket? If you can make it out of atmo before separation, and circularise before the tank de-spawns from existence, I guess you could switch back to it and follow it down for parachute recovery hence 100% recoverability. That does require a fairly precise ascent profile though.

I remember a fairly old design posted on here (which I now can't find) for a vertically-launched spaceplane/shuttle with an external tank. The difference was the drop tank was mounted on the nose of the orbiter, rather than to the side or behind- the latter two either suffer from offset thrust or are hard to make stable due to the wings up front. The idea being that the orbiter's wings are usefully acting as stabilisers/control surfaces during the atmospheric phase. When the drop tank's fuel is exhausted, it is jettisoned clear of the orbiter which continues on its internal fuel (with the same engines.) I guess the suborbital tank could be parachuted down for a non-explosive landing/recovery. I don't really bother with spaceplanes usually, but I liked the concept. Anyone had success with this type of spacecraft in recent versions?

Build a common base section on rover wheels with docking ports, some battery storage and a probe core. Use this for all modules and build whatever you want on top (fuel modules, living quarters, science lab, ore containers etc) This way the individual sections can be driven into place and interlock with the others. Since everything is based on the same core module, anything will connect to everything. Disable the wheel motors on each section once they're in their final position. This also allows for the base to be reconfigured later on.

Always thought this star system looked interesting. Looking forward to further endeavours

Looks good! I like the use of a common wheeled base section to each of the modules- should make constructing the base a bit simpler without worrying too much about lining up docking ports vertically, particularly with the flat being level. On Minmus I presume traction is low enough to make a double-port docking. I suggest making a mobile tanker that has a grabber claw as well as the same docking port- that way you can refuel nearby ships from the base Just needs a little short-range lander to make hops around Minmus to each of the biomes so your scientists have something to do. I might have to steal this design for a modular base now

Slightly tangentially to the question, but when I build space stations I tend to send up a space-tug early on which is left at the station. Basically just a probe core, batteries, reaction wheels, solar panels and RCS/fuel. Any additional modules can then be sent up as dumb objects. The carrier/launch vehicle gets parked at a safe distance, and then the mini-tug is deployed to collect the module and move it to its final position.

Is it worth considering an almost-lander, which will take a couple of Kerbs suborbital over Tylo without landing? You could get a bit more science that way. An unkerbed lander could still detach and transmit some data from the surface.

I've used it before in an earlier version. Seemed like all the contracts that were coming up weren't cost-effective to even bother with, and I was at the point where I was about to start in-depth exploration of the Mun and Minmus. I used leadership initiative to increase the value of exploration. With a reusable lander and space station in orbit of Minmus, all you need is periodic resupply/crew rotations and to bring the science home. At this point I didn't have mining tech, but Minmal gravity is low enough that not much fuel is needed. If a contract asks to deploy a small probe around Minmus, you can piggyback it on a supply ship rather than launching a dedicated mission. The payout is less because of the strategy but it's cheaper to send as you're going there anyway. This should give enough of a science boost to gain the tech you need to reach Duna without having to grind away at tourist contracts and convert the funds into science via outsourced R&D. It depends on how you want to play. I'd like to see a funding model whereby you get a certain amount of funds from central government. If you do lots of exploration, the Kerbin Government budget increases. Sit around waiting for government funding to come in and it would decay away to nothing. The idea being to stop players timewarping for infinite funds. You could then take private contracts as well to supplement your income. For now, using Leadership Initiative tends to slightly rebalance the game in this direction.

Valentina Kermulan: "But by now, surely..." Valentina? Kerman: "...That's right! We don't know what's happened to the Admiral!" Just got the "don't call me Shirley" reference here

"Ha ha, you fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous of which is "never get involved in a space war around The Green Planet," but only slightly less well-known is this: "Never go in against a Kerbulan when DEATH is on the line!" - Vizzini Kermulan

Another Squad monolith orbiting Jool is an obvious addition. It could be a Moon which isn't marked in the tracking station. The Magic Boulder orbiting Ike shows it can be done. I know there are no LaGrange points modelled in KSP, but having the Monolith 'on rails' at where the Jool/Laythe L1 point would be should be doable and makes getting to it and studying it less than simple. "Crew Report from Strange Object: The Object appears to be full of stars. The computer is also refusing to follow instructions" "Temperature Scan from Strange Object: There is no temperature recorded at all. You get a headache trying to figure this out" I'd also like to see different biomes in Jool's atmosphere if that's possible. So you could gain science from "Northern Storms" "Equatorial clouds" and "Great Green Spot" with a big science multiplier for data recovered from the lower atmosphere. ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT TYLO. ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.

Now awaiting a ceremonial burial in space scene, with a eulogy from Admiral Shirley and Scotty Kerman playing the bagpipes.

I think this depends on his courage/stupidity stats- with a high level of courage and a medium to low level of stupidity, he would be able to see that staying loyal to Kerbfleet is the best course of action, and have the bravery to carry this out.