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Yes, you read it right. The challenge is, to build a fully stock hanging base under one of the Münar Arches. If you think it's hard, yes it it. If you think it's impossible, no it's not. Hanging base (mostly short description): A special kind of artificial structure, which only can be built on the surface of the Mün. The basic idea of a hanging base is, that it attaches itself somehow to one of the three Münar Arches, and hangs down from there. It doesn't really fit in the categories of the surface base or the space station, so it „hangs” between them. However in the Tracking Station from the gathered data, the tracking computer says it's „Landed”, but in fact – as the name suggests – it hangs over the surface, from the top of the Arch. This kind of base doesn't have more benefits than the „normal” bases or space stations, but it's a great challenge to build one. In the next coming parts I'll show you how I built my own, very first stock Hang-O-Base. But I also admit that I'm not the only one who ever built a base like this. If you look up TheSpacePirate on YouTube, you'll find that he also built a hanging base, a year earlier (14.04.2018 ) than me (10.02.2019), but both of us used the KIS/KAS mods. We also used different ways to build our bases. He used SSTO's and docked all the parts together in LKO, meanwhile I used one single rocket to launch the whole in one. Now, when the 2 DLC's are ready to support any kind of mad things you want to build, I decided to do it once again, without mods, fully stock... The rules: You may use ONLY STOCK parts (Making History and Breaking Ground dlc's are allowed) You may NOT USE any mods which adds parts, moving crafts (like Hyperedit, Warp drives, Vessel Mover, etc), or add "connectors", like KIS/KAS (visual mods - like Scatterer, EVE, etc - are allowed) You may NOT USE any of the cheats from the Alt-F12 cheat menu. You can launch the whole base in one launch or in parts. The ideal solution is up to you. Photos and/or videos about the named challenge from participants are necessary. To give you an idea, I share you a video and a photo about my base to prove it can be done.

This topic is to develop guidelines for optimizing a space station. I would like to limit it to stock parts, since mods can easily change the rules that will apply. So what makes your space station work well? Some guidelines I like to follow: 1) Keep the part count as low as possible. This has more to do with performance than gameplay. This is just to avoid performance lag as you dock new parts/ships. Keep this in mind as you add parts such as strut connectors, batteries fuel tanks, ladders & solar panels. They all add up. As rule of thumb go for the largest part you can manage. For example, one Z-4K battery bank has the same capacity/mass as 10 Z-400 batteries but in a single part. 2) Keep the heavy stuff in the middle. You have no doubt by now noticed that if you have a large station and dock something massive at far end it will flex so much that the station becomes difficult to control. The farther you get from the center of mass the more the wobble will be magnified. So if you have a central hub with six nodes it is better to dock six modules to the hub than to stack them on top of each other to form a lengthy chain. 3) Keep it balanced Same idea. If you have something heavy on one side and something light on the opposite side, it makes the station difficult to control. 4) Keep one source of torque in the middle. If you have more than one source of torque (remember, most command parts will have built-in torque), they can fight each other and create wobble. The farther it is from the middle, the more wobble it will create. Remember that you can disable torque if you have more than one source. 5) Don't overbuild. While big stations are impressive, make sure you're building to its purpose. So if you're building an orbital lab, do you need a Convert-o-tron? 6) Pay attention to tolerance You want to have sturdy parts in the middle or an accident could cause the whole station to come apart. For example, an adapter may have a tolerance of 6, while a girder adapter will do the same job but has a tolerance of 80 (and it's cheaper too).