[Station Building]

Where do you build your stations for non-Kerbin SOI locations? If it is a multiple launch platform do you build it in LKO and then send it all the way to its destination? Or do you send each part on its own to the destination, rendezvous and complete the build at destination?

I'm working on a standardized station platform that I can send to each of the planets and am debating how I'll go about it, pros and cons either way.

[Reading the dV map]

I understand the dV map to get from Kerbin to LKO is 3400, another 950 gets me to the sun and then 90 more will get me to a fly-by Eve with another 80 to get into orbit and 1350 to circularize just over the atmo. So to get into orbit of Eve I would need 5850 (plus margin) to simply get to the orbit of Eve.

If I want to return from Eve to Kerbin what parts of that do I need to account for? Do I need to add the whole thing back or can I forget that 1330 that was used to circularize?

[How did you kill your first kerbals?]

I can't recall my first, but the most frequent deaths are due to forgetting parachutes. It happens more often that I'd like to admit to.

[Landing on Duna]

@Cavscout74 wow those look great. I've only ever installed the Kerbal Engineer and Alarm clock mods. Is Dr Jet's a "must have" or a really "nice to have" or is it something more towards the oh this is neat type thing?

[Landing on Duna]

Just now, Foxster said:

put the landing struts on the outer stacks.

With this being my first landing attempt onto Duna I was 100% unsure of the fuel requirements (I've seen the dV maps but those are ideal and not my lead foot inefficient landing skills.) so without knowing how much juice I'd need I actually assumed I'd drop those during the landing. I've also been playing with ideas of having a sort of 4 outer engines and then have the science collection all within a central stack and if I do I'll for sure put the struts outside.

[Landing on Duna]

Success!! Thank you all for the advice, stiffened the dampening and brought the springs down to 0.5, also used the radial out SAS and all combined I landed upright for the first time. Though I've not tried to get out with this lean.

 

[Landing on Duna]

I have sent a large mission to Duna of 7 Kerbals with a station and 2 landers. Each of the landers is similar to a basic Mun lander that you'd have launched on your first trip to the Mun or Minmus. I'm having a difficult time landing on Duna. My speed isn't an issue, each attempt I'm successful in the ship landing on its side...I'll hit the ground at 0.5-2 m/s. Then I'll bounce a bit usually manageable but then it simply keeps bouncing and each bounce gets worse due to the hilly terrain.

So my question I guess is 2 fold, should I adjust my landing gear to be more stiff? Or is it more my landing site location? Should I find another spot that might be more flat? I keep landing in the lowlands, midlands and highlands.

[What did you do in KSP1 today?]

Yesterday I sent a science collecting mission to the Mun with the goal of biome hopping to collect a load of science data. Arrived at the Mun lower on dV than I'd have liked. Came down and landed with a hard bounce, attempts to correct used lots of fuel. Looking at the dV I didn't have much over 400dV so I decided to put it down and send a rescue. On the landing I again came in poorly and actually lost my poodle out from under the landing legs and 3 of 4 solar panels.

So onto the rescue. I sent an unmanned rescue mission to get the science, what little was collected, and Kerbals back. I got to the Mun and was able to rendezvous with a "station" in orbit to top off my fuel levels. I then proceeded to land (in the dark without lights) on my side. Fortunately I'd just saved prior to the docking with the station. I revert to there and spend a while watching as my 45* orbiting station didn't go over the landing site really well at all. Took 10 days to get to a point where the landing site and the orbit would intersect in the Kerbol light. Landing went WAAY better only 1.4km away from the crashed ship.

Kerbals return on the rescue ship first stopping to top off/empty the Mun Station and head back to the Kerbin Science station depositing the data there to go over in the lab. Ended up unfortunately taking a bunch of fuel from Mun I'd not needed and my Kerbin station's tanks were full so it burned up in atmo.

Now I await the science processing and prepare my plans for my first manned Duna mission.

[Refueling]

17 minutes ago, Freds said:

I find it a tedious routine the mining/deliver around Kerbal.

I played Eve for 8 years as the logistics director and freighter pilot for a few large coalition level alliances in their sov space, tedium is my game. Haha.

For a contract to get a station into Kerbin orbit I tried getting it up to 75km circular orbit and I managed to get it to a 75.0045km/74.9924km orbit. Now the question is, can I manage to rendezvous with it to complete the construction with some additional functionality.

[Refueling]

Is the idea of having a fuel mining operation on Minmus/Mun then having a freighter take it to LKO lose efficiency and I might as well just launch from Kerbin? I know I'd save on money spent, I can send rockets up that aren't fully fueled and simply use the "free" fuel off of the station.

[Refueling]

7 hours ago, Zhetaan said:

Try switching to map view once you get your rocket mostly horizontal (on most ascents, this should happen around approximately 30,000 km altitude)

I attempt the 90* turn but when I do I have been going very gradually as I've found if I go more than say 5-10* over prior to getting to the upper atmo I'll start to flip head over heels. My typical setup is a central Jumbo tank with mainsail and then I'll strap another jumbo and mainsail on the sides. My guess here is that the payloads I'm sending up is too heavy. Any tips on maybe a better method of ascent? Should I maybe cut back to a smaller fuel tank and make it 4 coupled tanks to lower the center of mass?

Sidenote: last night I successfully sent a biome hopping mission to Minmus and collected a boat load of science. Now I need to get a bit more cash to unlock the last lab upgrade.

[Refueling]

18 minutes ago, mystifeid said:

ferry ore to an ISRU on a Kerbin station

I'm not sure I understand that acronym, ISRU?

And is it more efficient to harvest on the surface and convert in orbit? Or would it work alright with harvesting and converting on the surface. As I said I've not unlocked the tech yet for harvesting so I haven't seen the scale of the parts required.

13 minutes ago, bewing said:

I prefer as low an orbit as possible for my LKO stations. Often, this means a 74km x 70.5km orbit. First, because I use it as a deorbit platform and I use passive deorbiting. That is, I lower my station's Pe to 65km, decouple the thing to be deorbited, and then raise my station's Pe back just over 70km again. This works best if I'm orbiting just above the atmosphere in the first place. Also, of course, the lower the orbit, the easier it is to reach. Also, my fuel tankers that come from Minmus use aerobraking to capture themselves at Kerbin. Since the aerobraking is free, it works best to make it as low as possible.

Yeah I get the low orbit and I like the idea of a low cost deorbit method but I'm not yet to a point where I can easily/consistently hit that 75km/85km initial launch orbit, I seem to always get my original Ap to about 250km before I circularize the orbit. I've also not tried to use an aerobrake and am not sure how to do it, I've not yet YouTube'd a tutorial on the basics. I understand the concept of using the atmo to help reduce your speed.

[Refueling]

I am going to place a refueling station in Kerbin's orbit. The goal of which is to have a platform to host a debris tug/deorbit platform, refuel interplanetary missions and as a central hub of the Kerbin SOI.

I have 2 questions, first I am inclined to setup a mining outpost on Minmus, is there a good arguement against Minmus and in favor of Mun? My thought process is the easier takeoff and landing of mining barges to the surface of Minmus is more beneficial than the slightly easier act of getting to Mun.

My second question is the orbit of this station. At first I thought maybe a circular orbit at 250km. But am now more inclined to run it in an elliptical orbit of 150km-350km. I'm not efficient enough in my launches to reliably get to a 150km station in one shot. Is a circular orbit more preferable than the elliptical? Should I aim more towards a 250km or 350km circular or is elliptical ok?

Other notes: career play on normal/moderate setting with Comms Net enabled. I haven't just yet unlocked the mining equipment but will shortly.

Thanks in advance!