Going to The Mun

[NewtSoup]

I shall call it Babylon K.  I just need a Kerbal named Sinclair Kerman to command it.

[bewing]

8 hours ago, NewtSoup said:

The contract specifies "lastly, put your station in orbit of The Mun".

The wording on the contract is iffy, and the devs know that. What that contract means, of course, is that when it's in orbit of the Mun, it has to have that much fuel remaining in it. You can assemble it from modular parts, so long as all the parts are new. You can generate fuel for it on the Mun, and fly the fuel up to the station, just so long as all the parts that dock to each other, and all the parts that dock to your station are new. Or the station itself can land, and do the mining and conversion, and refuel itself, and fly back to orbit to complete the contract.

And that's how I do those contracts. I include building a drill ship and maybe a conversion/ore/fuel transport ship in the contract. Mine the ore on the surface. Get it converted, and maybe do multiple trips to orbit to refuel the station.

 

[WanderingKid]

9 hours ago, NewtSoup said:

I shall call it Babylon K.  I just need a Kerbal named Sinclair Kerman to command it.

We live for the K, we die for the K.

[Weywot8]

10 hours ago, NewtSoup said:

I shall call it Babylon K.  I just need a Kerbal named Sinclair Kerman to command it.

Highly amused, and entirely doable too, thanks to this mod. Assuming he's going to be a badass Kerbal pilot?

Quote

To Edit a Kerbal, click the edit button next to their name. Kerbal names in Red are assigned to a Vessel and cannot be modified.

Name, Courage, Stupidity, and the badass flag can all be modified.

 

[NewtSoup]

On 09/07/2017 at 0:52 AM, bewing said:

The wording on the contract is iffy, and the devs know that. What that contract means, of course, is that when it's in orbit of the Mun, it has to have that much fuel remaining in it. You can assemble it from modular parts, so long as all the parts are new. You can generate fuel for it on the Mun, and fly the fuel up to the station, just so long as all the parts that dock to each other, and all the parts that dock to your station are new. Or the station itself can land, and do the mining and conversion, and refuel itself, and fly back to orbit to complete the contract.

And that's how I do those contracts. I include building a drill ship and maybe a conversion/ore/fuel transport ship in the contract. Mine the ore on the surface. Get it converted, and maybe do multiple trips to orbit to refuel the station.

 

I don't have the tech to drill yet.  But that's probably not an issue.  I still have almost 10 years to complete the contract and by then I will most likely have all the tech. In theory then I could just send up empty tanks to be filled at a later date. 

Anyhoo this is my basic design for Babylon K  - The idea is that this station will have modular parts, each with their own guidance so that they can be swapped for superior parts later if need be and so that the station can undergo some basic re-configuration.  For instance the cupola module will only live on the nose when in transit to keep the centre of mass inline with the centre of thrust from the poodle engine in the engine module.  The cupola and engine modules each have large reaction wheels. 

To get it into space I will most likely empty the liquid fuel and just launch the main body and either the engine module or the cupola module.  All other modules will have seperate launchers and will dock in orbit to build the station. 

I wish I had a Rockomax Tri-coupler but there doesn't appear to be such a beast so, sorry for the part clipping.

[NewtSoup]

Thanks bewing for getting me fixated on the idea of a station that can do interplanetary transfers.  Oh the design has no antena yet.  Unsure what to use.  

[Spricigo]

5 minutes ago, NewtSoup said:

design for Babylon K

WARNING:

KSP's vessels are structured in a tree hierarchy . That means that each part (except the root) has exactly one parent part. that means that probably one of your tricouples is attached to a single part while you expect it to be attached to all three stacks. You may fix it with struts or a mod but in stock game it will cause structural and aerodynamics issues.

I'd consider something (adjusted for your requirements and available technology) more like this:

Spoiler

 

PS: If you like, it holds 14 astronauts. Change the parachutes for nosecones (you can decouple then when in space) and add a docking port. Make a 2nd module with complementary fuel tanks and battery, dock then in orbit and delivery it in the required orbit.

[NewtSoup]

Yep, it all fell apart on the launch pad.  Tricksy little tri-couplers.  But that's what first desgings are for.  I am not deterred I shall modify the design and make it work.  It's going to be big!.. Huge!

[NewtSoup]

Ok so I re-jiged and refit the K and decided to swap the single poodle for 3 skippers and see if I could get it into orbit directly with no expensive lifter added 6 big boosters in pseudo asparagus - that is 3 had full power and the other two had 50% for a longer burn.  I've seen more Kerbal things go up so if others can do it. So can I!

 

And the result! - Just look at that orbit! and just 80m/s dV remaining.  Now to refuel and maybe even change those modular mainsails for a triplet of poodles.  Recovering the skippers of course.
It's soooo beautiful I could cry.



It was a surprisingly un-twitchy ride up.  The "steering" has a lot of play in it due to the engines being held in place by docking ports but I kept the velocity below 250m/s @ 70 degrees until 10km and out of the thickest part of the atmosphere so I didn't fight it too much.. Then pushed down to 90 degrees until 20km and then held at about 10 degrees until Apoapsis hit 75km.  Finally held prograde and did short low power burns to conserve fuel until the periapsis matched apoapsis.  There will be more to come!.

Edited July 11, 2017 by NewtSoup

[NewtSoup]

Just successfully detached and re-attached one of the skipper engines so I know it's possible now - Lots of testing to be done in LKO now.

Edited July 10, 2017 by NewtSoup

[NewtSoup]

On 09/07/2017 at 0:52 AM, bewing said:

The wording on the contract is iffy, and the devs know that. What that contract means, of course, is that when it's in orbit of the Mun, it has to have that much fuel remaining in it. You can assemble it from modular parts, so long as all the parts are new. You can generate fuel for it on the Mun, and fly the fuel up to the station, just so long as all the parts that dock to each other, and all the parts that dock to your station are new. Or the station itself can land, and do the mining and conversion, and refuel itself, and fly back to orbit to complete the contract.

And that's how I do those contracts. I include building a drill ship and maybe a conversion/ore/fuel transport ship in the contract. Mine the ore on the surface. Get it converted, and maybe do multiple trips to orbit to refuel the station.

 

A question for the future on drilling and ore and whatnot - Is it possible to refuel everything from the outer planets and moons?  Liquid fuel, Oxidiser and Monopropelant?

 

[bewing]

14 minutes ago, NewtSoup said:

A question for the future on drilling and ore and whatnot - Is it possible to refuel everything from the outer planets and moons?  Liquid fuel, Oxidiser and Monopropelant?

 

Yup. The standard drills and the standard converters do exactly that. You need an engineer, enough EC to feel like you're not cheating, a specially designed vessel or two, and a lot of gametime -- the process is slow. Fortunately, you do not have to watch it happen in realtime because it all runs nicely in the background while you are off flying rockets around.

 

 

 

 

[bewing]

3 hours ago, NewtSoup said:

I wish I had a Rockomax Tri-coupler but there doesn't appear to be such a beast

BTW, that part is called the TVR-300L.

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, NewtSoup said:

Is it possible to refuel everything from the outer planets and moons?  Liquid fuel, Oxidiser and Monopropelant?

1.No*.  2.Yes. 

*Just for the sake of completeness: Xenon cannot be produced by mining/processing in stock KSP.  Keep in mind,  given the fact that Dawn Engine have the highest Isp by far (4200s vs 800s of NERVs)  literally an order of magnitude higher than chemical rockets), you hardly need to refuel an Ion-propelled vessel. 

[NewtSoup]

So I built a refueler after a few research and testing missions.  It looks like this:


 

The entire body is recoverable with a plethora of parachutes.  The info for the kickbacks says they are supposed to be recoverable but they really aren't as they have to be jettisoned in the atmosphere.  Annoying really as they are not cheap.  But it flies well and is easy to get into orbit.

On Approach to Babylon K

 

A successful docking 461m/s dv left plus the entirety of the forward tank.  In this picture I've previously decoupled the Solar Panel Arrays and moved them to the rear ports by the engine cluster.

 

A  couple more trips and then I can set about replacing the skippers with poodles more suitable for vacuum travel.

And I just had a neat idea about using 2 docking ports at a time to add radial gantries to proved extra expandability.

[something]

Congrats, that's exactly how my first munar landers looked like. Same tripod architecture with some science stuff in the center and a LVT-30 engine to get back home again. If I am not mistaken, it should be sufficient to go with just 4 of those fuel tanks, if you do leave the materials bay...could be wrong though, long time since I landed that way.

On 7/8/2017 at 1:33 AM, NewtSoup said:

This is what finally got me there and back and 745 science off one trip which is the really important thing!

 

Oh, and nice OS there, although I have a bit of a different taste when it comes to the desktop environment (KDE+Ubuntu here)

 

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, NewtSoup said:

The entire body is recoverable with a plethora of parachutes.  The info for the kickbacks says they are supposed to be recoverable but they really aren't as they have to be jettisoned in the atmosphere.  Annoying really as they are not cheap.  But it flies well and is easy to get into orbit.

Keep in mind that all the stuff you include in your rocket  for recoverability add mass, that requires more fuel to move around and consequently increase the cost. Often instead of build for recoverability is better to just go cheap&cherfull. Off course you don’t need much to recover something from LKO. You may also consider using a  mod to recover some funds from dropped stages either automatically or allowing control.

[NewtSoup]

1 hour ago, Spricigo said:

Keep in mind that all the stuff you include in your rocket  for recoverability add mass, that requires more fuel to move around and consequently increase the cost. Often instead of build for recoverability is better to just go cheap&cherfull. Off course you don’t need much to recover something from LKO. You may also consider using a  mod to recover some funds from dropped stages either automatically or allowing control.

Yeah,  the dV cost of carrying the 12 radials needed to recover the vehicle is only ~75m/s which is nothing compared to making sure a full Rockomax X200-32 fuel tank gets to the station.  It costs F73,300 to launch and I get about F54,000 back on recovery if I manage to drop it into the water near the Space Centre.  I'm considering it worth it  

Thanks for the links.  I enjoy reading tips like that.  I may take up a mod that allows me to recover parts jettisoned in the atmosphere, I feel that's justifiable for me.  So far I'm just using Kerbal Engineer Redux,  Maneuver Node Evolved, and [X] Science! 

I love this game. I've not got this big a kick out of a game since Elite BBC-B ( and no, Elite Dangerous just didn't cut the biscuit )

Something has just occurred to me - The Skipper engine modules.  I was planning to recover them when I replace them with Poodle modules.  However, I wonder it it just might be more prudent to leave them in orbit around Kerbin.  they are in fact drones in their own right with a docking port on the nose, all they need is a fuel tank and some sciencey stuff to be put to further use.

[NewtSoup]

5 hours ago, something said:

Congrats, that's exactly how my first munar landers looked like. Same tripod architecture with some science stuff in the center and a LVT-30 engine to get back home again. If I am not mistaken, it should be sufficient to go with just 4 of those fuel tanks, if you do leave the materials bay...could be wrong though, long time since I landed that way.

 

Oh, and nice OS there, although I have a bit of a different taste when it comes to the desktop environment (KDE+Ubuntu here)

 

Thanks.. I was taking the materials bay home with me.  The engine on the bottom is a terrier which had plenty of ISP to get off the Munar surface.  I made sure I had enough dV to get back into LKO rather than entering the the atmosphere at 3km/s on a low PE transfer orbit.  Or rather I diidn't, I just over engineered to to the point by happy chance I was able to get it into  LKE.. I've since taken out the staging for future missions and keeping the dV.. I like my cushions.

I tried Kubuntu, but it promptly fell over and refused to work with the software centre ( it was always blank ) so I installed Ubuntu and it just worked so I stuck with it.  Looking forward to the next release though as they'll be going back to Gnome and dropping the Unity thing which I find a bit of a pain ( I installed a classic gnome menu in the mean time  )  I do prefer KDE though.  Unity is a bit too "Macish" for my taste.

[Spricigo]

7 hours ago, NewtSoup said:

Something has just occurred to me - The Skipper engine modules.  I was planning to recover them when I replace them with Poodle modules.  However, I wonder it it just might be more prudent to leave them in orbit around Kerbin.  they are in fact drones in their own right with a docking port on the nose, all they need is a fuel tank and some sciencey stuff to be put to further use.

The Skipper is heavier and less efficient. Keeping it for a job a Poodle can do will result in higher costs. The higher power of the Skipper is not much relevant for this case. 

Try to always have the minimum necessary for the task at hand (with some safety margin),  it will make your life much easier.  

 

 

[NewtSoup]

So, I've been absent a while ( work and whatnot ) But I have made progress, slow progress but progress.  I actually found a Kerbal named Sinclair Kerman ( I didn't use the create a Kerbal cheat, honest ) and Ferried her to the K.  I also added a Lab because, well, I realised that I forgot to give the station any ears.  So I thought "why not?" and put an inline lab in with 2 of the biggest antenna I had available.

 

Then of course I realised that if it had a lab then the lab would need data to process and scientists.  Thankfully a few rescue missions supplied enough scientist and a couple of engineers and so I was able to give the K a Science Gathering Lander with 2.2k dV and enough TWR to land on most of planets and moons ( not Duna, Laythe, Tylo or Eve though )  This was put "in line" again just for mass balance when travelling and so the final version of Babylon K looks like this, along with it's all female crew complement.

 

So, it's finally To the Mun.

Oh and I got distracted briefly too when a contract came up for a Minmus station that included a lab and so I did this:

 

 

Yes that's a fuel tank stuck out the side.  It was used to give the lander enough dV to take itself and the Lab to Minmus station.  Why did I take the Lab there separately?  Because I forgot it was to be included in the contract.  Doh!

[NewtSoup]

To the Mun!  Commander Sinclair ramps up the poodle pack gently to full power and begins the Kerbin Mun Transfer.

 

Looking Back Kerbin seems to be a much smaller place than expected.  Still, the crew are in good spirits.

Finally, we have completed the contract.  At least 7500 units of electric charge, space for at least 13 kerbals ( 27 actually ) a stable orbit and at least 6000 units of liquid.. DAMNIT!

Kerbin,  We need you to build us a Mun base for refuelling.

 

 

[NewtSoup]

So here we are, at the final installation of my Going to the Mun, the question is long answered and I've posted a lot on my progress.  I've learned a lot along the way.

Rather than build a base I cobbled together a mobile mining unit that can again travel with the K if necessary.  Getting it to orbit was squirly to say the least but it finally made it.



It has a 125 ore processor and 4 junior drills.  Though you can't see it it also has a mk 1 lander can, a probe core and a ton of batteries.  The core of the machine is a Rockomax fuel tank and it's powered by four Terriers.  It  has a docking port fore and aft so that it can be stuck on to the K inline for interplanetary travel if it become necessary.



And there we go.  With the Mobile Miner docked at the K the additional fuel in the tank has completed the contract to put a station around The Mun and I leave the story here.  I may continue it in a different thread out of the Gameplay Questions section.

Addendum : I had also put a survey satellite in orbit around The Mun - this too can be docked, though it has to go on the side or a docking port Jr.  It's fairly light but I'm pretty sure the engines and reaction wheels will be able to cope with a small amount of off centre mass.

Edited July 24, 2017 by NewtSoup

[Spricigo]

6 hours ago, NewtSoup said:

It has a 125 ore processor and 4 junior drills. 

  according to the wiki:

Quote

 

The conversion rate of this module is far less efficient than that of the bigger Convert-O-Tron 250.

• Especially note that it requires 100kW of cooling to maintain its operating temperature, but the unit is strictly limited to 50kW of cooling, maximum. This means the unit will always overheat and lose efficiency if you leave it running. The intended use is to pulse the conversion operations, rather than leave it running for extended periods.
• This converter discards 80% of the ore it processes, and only converts 20% of the ore into fuel.

Despite its product description, the Convert-O-Tron 125 does not receive any bonus when operated by an engineer.

 

 

[NewtSoup]

23 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

  according to the wiki:

 

 

I shall replace it as and when I can with a 250 then