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Mun or Minmus?


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Both, the Mun and Minmus are within the Kerbin SOI and going there is cheap and easy. And while the Mun was the first ever celestial body I went to all this excitement concerning the Mun has come to a halt. Analyzing my recent missions, I realized that most of them went to Minmus instead of the Mun. I have a base on Minmus for fuel production, an orbital lab an armada of (VTOL) capable spaceplanes on Minmus but none of that on the Mun. In fact, most Mun missions are just flag spamming for new recruits to get them leveled up. Minmus just has a low gravity which makes returning stuff from it pretty easy, so I decided to build a base there...

Am I the only person to neglect the Mun almost completely?  Beyond getting the science from the Munar/Minmusian biomes - are you visiting both celestial bodies equally, or are you biased towards one of them?

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Minmus has more science, more resources, is cheaper in DV to get to, is easy to get into orbit of, and has these easy landing spots.

The Mun has more easter eggs, requires less planning to get to, and has extremely dramatic terrain (procedural generation FTW!), plus Kerbin is larger in the sky, making for better screenshots, and therefore is a better setting for mission reports.

I think they're fairly equal.

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I would go for minimus. It's a few 100 more D/V to get to, but it's easier to make landers that actually have a decent thrust to weight ratio, and it has the ice plains! perfect for bases and transportation. And the scenery is much better than the mun's, like how you can get a sight of kerbin no matter where you land, unlike the mun which is tidally locked. Plus the mun is a dull gray, but minimus is a ice-cream like moon! Finally, it's easier to dock with orbiting stations and refulers. Team MINIMUS

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It depends on what I'm doing, but for the most part, I look at Minmus as much easier, especially in the beginning of a career, but the Mun as much more exciting. Minmus can get kind of boring later in a career, but the Mun, however, is full of surprises, and there are places even the most seasoned players avoid. So I go to Minmus to build and refuel, I go to the Mun to play around and get a little crazy... 

Edited by Just Jim
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I too went to Mun first. I didn't go to Minmus for quite some time and I still remember how it felt to "finally" get there. I didn't know at the time how it was essentially the same as Mun to get to and easier to land on and return from.

These days, I too ignore Mun for the most part. My basic career path is to get enough science to get ISRU (the lion's share from farming Minmus) and then set up an ISRU base (on Minmus) to fuel interplanetary ships (that are - if I'm using Extraplanetary Launchpads - built on Minmus). Mun is - at best - a SOI I fly through on the way to Minmus to help my Kerbals get 3 stars of experience.

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I have two reasons for Mun:

1. I "race the clock" and rarely speed up time for many days on end. I usually work on some other mission, and speed up the game only an hour or two at a time. You can get to Mun in under a day for ~830 dV. Getting to Minmus takes days.

2. I also like to have my interplanetary station at Mun, because refueling at Mun is like getting 600 dV for free when you go interplanetary. You can do this from Minmus, but the Minmus orbital period is much longer, so you can miss ideal launch windows, and you don't get a nice, flat, ejection.

 

 

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My plans for my present career is a Munar refuelling station utilising an ore shuttle or three between the station and the Munar surface. Mine the ore on Mun, ship it to the Munar Station where it's processed and then use it to fuel interplanetary ships which would also be constructed in Munar orbit.

 

That's the theory any way.

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I think I'm split pretty even between the two as I find pros and cons to both.

Minmus pros: less dv, easy to land, marshmallowy

Cons: annoying mid course plane change, everything bounces around on the surface, have to be a little more careful on return reentry

Mun pros: simple to get to, stabler surface ops, more majestic, grand, mysterious

cons: Precise landings can be stressful, tidally locked (less an issue with commnet i guess), lots of dv 

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Minmus, but only because of the caveman challenge, since it's so much easier to build a rover/science return capsule thingy for Minmus within the part and mass constraints. Beyond that, their differences might as well be so much Swiss cheese. My goals are in interplanetary space and I like one-off launches, never having been one for orbital assembly or fuel depots or mining bases.

Minmus's smoother terrain is nice, though.

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I'm somewhere in-between because I prefer Minmus, yet I go for the Mun more often because it is more challenging, and I want to visit every easter eggs in my savefile (by planting a flag on everyone), so obviously it's 6 EE versus 2 for Minmus. Also, the mission time to Mun is generally about 3 days, versus 2 weeks for Minmus.

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On ‎12‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 6:26 AM, Draco T stand-up guy said:

My plans for my present career is a Munar refuelling station utilising an ore shuttle or three between the station and the Munar surface. Mine the ore on Mun, ship it to the Munar Station where it's processed and then use it to fuel interplanetary ships which would also be constructed in Munar orbit.

 

That's the theory any way.

It's more efficient to refine the fuel on the mun, and shuttle it up, as you need a larger engine to lift what you mine, the weight of the refinery is a smaller % of your available thrust (though fueling from the mun is less efficient than minmus in total).   On Minmus, the opposite is true, due to the lower gravity.

 

When it comes to Refining operations, I prefer setting it up on the Mun, as the Mun is easier and quicker to get to than minmus, and thus allows a higher throughput of fuel movement to LKO with a set number of Tankers. 

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I spend more time around Minmus since its low gravity and flat surfaces made it easier to set up a mining base there, plus my Minmus Station contract required that the station be significantly larger than the Mun's and hold more fuel, necessitating that I put more priority on it. That multi-day travel time (plus the several aerobraking passes necessary to lower your apoapsis to LKO) is annoying, though, so I'm looking forward to getting my Mun mining base up and running (I've got the drill, tanks, converter and electrics landed already, but it's very tall and on a slight slope which make the whole thing lean over dangerously when I have a fuel tanker lander docked to the top. I've got some new modules that I'm going to attach to the sides of the base that should increase stability, but I'm vacation right now and away from my main computer so that mission is going to have to wait until I get back.)

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I landed on Mun a couple times but after my 3rd straight failure to land and return I gave up on it and headed for Minmus. Minmus is harder to reach because it is farther away, has an inclined orbit relative to Kerbin and less gravity means your transition burn has to be more precise. Once there, getting down and back up is so much easier because of the lower gravity and smoother terrain. I have been to every biome on Minmus but have only visited Mun about three times.

For a new player i might suggest just skipping Mun altogether and go to Minmus first then come back for Mun later.

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For a new player playing Career, I would recommend orbital science around the Mun first, as orbit there is easier.  then plow that science into a lander for Minmus to do biome hopping.  Finally, use that science to build a Science lab mother ship and a small lander refueled from the station to gather all the biome science from the Mun and process for science and funds.

 

The Mun is a great training ground for extra terrestrial bodies like Moho, Ike, Dres, Eeloo, Val, and to a lesser extent Tylo and Duna, as the efficient method of landing there works for all these bodies.  For the first 5 bodies, a lander that works on Mun can be used on them with only minor mods for TWR, Delta V, and managing Electric charge and communications.  I like to take a new lander design there to optest it in career before sending one out on a multi year journey just to find out the design is missing some important features 

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Minmus is definitely "OP" compared to the Mun in terms of getting science or refueling/mining.  Eventually you'll want the science from both, but Minimus is an easier start for sure.  

However, I think the Mun is more useful as an interplanetary launch point (if you're into that sort of thing).  Since the Mun has a much shorter orbital period, you should be able to eject closer to the ideal launch window timing.  I would imagine the increased Oberth also compensates for Minmus' location higher in in Kerbin's gravity well.  

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The Mun, because I can test lander and rover designs for Moho, Ike, Dres, Vall, and Eeloo there. It's close by, the gravity is similar, and the terrain is brutal. It'll even work for Duna and Tylo in a pinch. I just set the percentage on my engines to match the TWR I'd get on those worlds. (Tylo: 0.167/0.800 = 21%)

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So far it seems as if the player base is fairly equally split between Mun and Minmus. Something around 6 favor the Mun, to 5 in between and 5 favor Minmus (if I counted correctly). Certainly, this is no representative user base, but well, you gotta take what you get...

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I prefer minmus more than the mun.  Minmus has much lower gravity and many flat grounds (especially ones at ASL) which make it much easier to land and do hops to gather some sweet science.  I actually go to other planets before the mun, unless i am doing a fly by or just getting into orbit.  Only exception is if I am trying to do a whole bunch of minmus/mun tourist contracts and there are a few tourists who want to land on the mun

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