Kerbal Kolonization

[babale]

In the next couple of days, I will begin uploading a new LP series called Kerbal Kolonization. These videos will document my adventures as I seek to colonize each of the planets in the (much expanded, thanks to a number of mods) Kerbol system.

As a sort of companion to the LP videos, which will focus on gameplay and the reasons behind the way I build and launch crafts, I will also be posting a story-based series that follows the journey of the Kerbal Space Agency as it lifts Kerbalkind out of its cradle and into space. You will soon find links to both the videos and the series here on this page.

Before I start the playthrough, there are two things I need to do. First, I want to let you guys know what my goals and rules for the journey are. And second, I have a couple of questions I’d like you guys to answer, since I want this playthrough to have community involvement.

So, first things first, my mod list:

Convenience Mods

These mods improve gameplay without adding new parts or changing the way the game is played. Mostly information mods or mods that let me do things I can’t easily do otherwise.

Kerbal Engineer – to let me know everything I need to know about my craft in order to fly it.

Kerbal Alarm Clock – makes time warping much easier!

Trajectories – a great mod that accounts for the effect of atmosphere and planet rotation on craft trajectory. Helps land exactly where I want and aerobrake more accurately.

Precise Node – I don’t know how I ever played without this mod, especially because I play on a laptop and so have no mouse wheel. Makes nodes a lot more useful!

RCS Build Aid – every one of my ships spins when I use RCS. Every last one. With how much docking I will be doing, RCS Build Aid is a must. Will see how well it works.

Chatterer – makes the game much more fun to listen to. Great simple mod!

Planet Mods

I’ve been playing KSP for a long time and have grown all too familiar with most of the game. There are still places I haven’t been, but nothing excites me like landing on a planet for the first time! That’s why I got these mods, to make things a little more interesting.

Trans-Keptunian, Outer Planets

Part Mods

These mods are what makes this playthrough unique. Landing a base on another planet is easily in the base game; life support and base building mods make this a lot more challenging and fun!

TAC Life Support – my favorite life support mod, combines simplicity with depth.

USI FTT, MKS, and Karbonite – Roverdude is an amazing modmaker and these three mods are what really allows this playthrough to happen. Karbonite, MKS, and FTT let me harvest resources, use them to keep my kerbals alive with TAC, and (with Extraplanetary Launchpad support) make my bases into real, productive outposts instead of dots on a map.

Extraplanetary Launchpads – Combined with Karbonite, Extraplanetary Launchpads lets me build real bases that produce real, useful things. I love it!

Procedural Fairings – with the amount of payloads I have to launch, ugly rockets are inevitable. Procedural Fairings help with that, and also with Deadly Reentry.

Deadly Reentry – stock aerodynamics are perfectly fine by me as far as flying planes goes – keeping it simple isn’t all that bad in my book. But slamming into an atmosphere at 6 km/h should kill you, and with Deadly Reentry it certainly does!

SCANSAT – a great mod that combines amazingly well with Karbonite and gives awesome information about landing that can be accessed while flying a rocket!

Other

Finally, I also use Mission Controller. More on the contracts it provides below.

Next up, the rules I’ll be playing by in this playthrough:

Goal

The goal of the campaign is simple: To colonize every planet and moon in the system. That’s easy to say, but what does that mean? There are 4 criteria I will require myself to fulfill before declaring a planet to be colonized:

1) It houses at least 2 kerbals in a self-sustaining habitat that doesn’t require more than an occasional (every 10 years or more) small resupply rocket. For example, if a planet too far from the sun for solar panels has no uranium, uranium will be shipped over occasionally to ensure that the base doesn’t run out of power.

2) It can produce vehicles capable of reaching any other spot on the body or heading back to Kerbin with no outside input. It has sent at least one rocket full of expensive, finished goods back to Kerbin to justify the cost of setting it up.

3) It is in some way unique. Every colony needs something to set it apart from other colonies. Maybe the Laythe colony floats on water, or maybe the Minmus colony sits on giant wheels and roves around the surface. No two colonies can be the same.

4) It looks awesome!

I will consider the campaign complete when every moon and planet has been colonized; every gas planet has a station orbiting just above its atmosphere; and two solar stations orbit the sun, one as low as is safe and one in the asteroid belt.

Rules

I will be playing this campaign in career mode, with no use of cheats, debug mode, or any unbalanced mods once the game begins.

I started the game in career mode, but edited the save file to start with enough science to unlock all nodes and begin with a fully-upgraded science center. I did not buy any items and edited funds to 1,000,000 kerbucks.

I will follow the following rules:

1) No reverting once launched, except to rectify a bug (explosion on launchpad, etc.). Building a rocket, hitting launch to see, for example, how long life support will last, and reverting is acceptable.

2) Quicksaving is allowed, but if I crash due to pilot error or bad design the results stand.

3) No resource gathering on Kerbin’s surface – those resources are owned by someone!

4) All contracts are acceptable until the first station is built. At that point, only the “Explore [body]†contracts, civilian contracts, and contracts having to do with bases or stations may be accepted.

5) Probe cores cannot fly astronauts. If a craft is manned, it must be flown by a kerbal. Non-pilot kerbals may not use probes for their enhanced SAS abilities – probe cores must be shut off unless a pilot is on board. This makes pilots much more valuable!

6) No strategies from the administrative building. Since I don’t need science, they would be overpowered.

So that’s that. I’ll hopefully start posting videos soon! Until then, here’s my question for you guys. What naming scheme should I use for my stations and bases? I’m open to suggestions!

[babale]

It's got a bit of a delay, but here's episode 1!

[Specialist290]

Thread moved by user request.

Sounds like an ambitious goal you have there. Hope everything goes smoothly!

[babale]

Episode 2 is now up! We put a space station in Kerbin's orbit!