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My First Joolian Mission (1.3 & 1.4.x Sandbox / Heavily Modded)


scottadges

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This is really an "Aww, shucks" moment :) I'm grateful for the acknowledgment, though I really wouldn't consider myself an expert, not compared to many others around here with a greater wealth of experience such as @Geschosskopf (as you've mentioned as well).

12 hours ago, scottadges said:

[jealousy intensifies at the scale of the operation]

Ah, my old enemy, parts count! :P Would you consider bigger ore tanks for both tanker and station? Would trim it down some. (USI Kontainers, should be part of the USI Core mod. Probably lose out on the existing aesthetics of your stations--the largest barrel-type ore tanks are painted white, the largest ore tanks, period are the boxy containers), but for the largest capacity you'd be cutting down on parts needed for ore storage by half (at least). 

Also, any prediction on how many parts your mothership will be? Looks like you could be running well into the yellow come Jool-5, considering (unless you're using the Hangars mod to stow away smaller craft) you'll be docking an assortment of landers (at least three: Laythe, Tylo, and everything else-capable) and even support craft to it. 

Edited by B-STRK
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6 hours ago, B-STRK said:

Ah, my old enemy, parts count! :P Would you consider bigger ore tanks for both tanker and station? Would trim it down some. (USI Kontainers, should be part of the USI Core mod. Probably lose out on the existing aesthetics of your stations--the largest barrel-type ore tanks are painted white, the largest ore tanks, period are the boxy containers), but for the largest capacity you'd be cutting down on parts needed for ore storage by half (at least). 

OTOH, you can go for fewer/smaller tanks as well.

Just as in real life, maintaining large inventories in KSP, especially of raw materials and intermediate products, is bad.   For a shipyard, the only big tank you need is for RocketParts.  This necessarily must hold enough to build the biggest thing the shipyard will make.  But for all the other tanks along the way, from mining the initial raw material(s) through all intermediate refining steps, you only need a single tiny for each resource.  The various converters in the production line only require a thimbleful of their input resources to produce output, and they can't produce output any faster than the rate at which they consume inputs.  IOW, production lines are limited by the relative production rates of the various converters, not the size of the input tanks.

This means that the most part-friendly way to set up your RocketParts production line to have the whole thing on the ground.  It would consist of just the drills, converters, the tiny tanks for each raw material and intermediate product, and whatever power you need to run the converters.  All this eventually feeds into the RocketParts shuttle that goes to the orbital shipyard.  The size of the shuttle's tank depends on how many trips you can tolerate it making.  And because your shipyard is several days travel away from the mine, you can have 2 such shuttles so what while one is making the trip, the other is filling up.

Supplying fuel to the shipyard is even simpler.  The shipyard doesn't need its own fuel tanks at all because, unlike RocketParts, there's no requirement to have a full load prior to starting.  Thus, all you need is a fuel shuttle to dock to the completed ship and pump fuel into it directly.  The ground-based fuel infrastructure is similar to that for RocketParts:  drill, tiny ore tank, ISRU, and power.  That's it.  The ISRU outputs directly into the fuel shuttle when it's at the mine.  Again, you can have 2 fuel shuttles.  But you don't need any fuel infrastructure at all until the shipyard finishes building the ship.  (see corrections below).

So basically, the whole system would be:

  • Orbital Shipyard
    • The shipyard/launchpad parts and facilities for whatever crew they require
    • Sufficient RocketParts tankage to build whatever you're going to build
    • Sufficient tankage for other components, if needed (Equipment, whatever---depends on which mods you're using)
    • Sufficient power to run the shipyard parts and any life support for the workers
  • RocketParts Production Line (on ground)
    • Drill for the raw material (type depends on mods used)
    • All the converters to turn the raw material into RocketParts
    • 1 small tank for each of the raw material and all intermediate products
    • Facilities for whatever crew the converters need
    • Power
    • 2 dedicated shuttles with reasonably large RocketParts tanks
  • Other Construction Resource Production Lines (Equipment, etc.---depends on mods used)
    • As for RocketParts
    • Because you usually only need small amounts these things, hopefully they can be made by the same facility that makes RocketParts, and the RocketParts shuttles can also have small tanks for these products
  • Fuel Production Line
    • Drill, tiny ore tank, ISRU
    • Facilities for whatever Kerbals you want there
    • Power
    • 2 dedicated fuel shuttles with reasonably large tanks for the main fuel your finished ship will use, plus smaller tanks for secondary fuels and mono

The shuttles should be as simple and low part-count as possible.  They consist of just a conveniently medium-large tank for the product they're hauling, a docking port and RCS, their own dedicated fuel tanks and engines, lander legs, plus SAS, probe core, and power.  You want the product tank to be big enough that you don't have to make an unreasonable number of trips, but it doesn't have to be any bigger than the amount of finished product the ground-based production line can make in the time it takes the shuttle to make a round trip to the shipyard and back.  (see corrections below)

EDIT:  Corrections to the stuff about fuel and shuttles.

The shuttles require fuel.  So you have to have a fuel infrastructure from the get-go just to keep the shuttles moving.  Ideally, you can have a fuel production line co-located with the RocektParts production line.  If the Resource Location Gods were unkind to you, then you'll need a way to get shuttle fuel from wherever you make fuel to the RocketParts production facility, or an orbital fuel tank kept full by the fuel shuttles, at which the RocketParts shuttles top up during their trips.

The need for shuttle fuel also impacts the size of the delivery tank on the fuel shuttles.  The more delivered product fuel you haul to the completed ship per trip, the more fuel you burn moving it, so the longer it takes to reload the shuttle between trips.  The ideal size of the shuttle delivery tank is thus determined by how fast the fuel production line can make the shuttle's own fuel plus the delivered product.  You really don't want the shuttle's product tank any bigger than that,   You want the shuttle on the ground to fill up just as the other shuttle reaches orbit returning from its last trip.  That way, the downtime of both the shuttles and the fuel production line is minimized.

Sorry for the initially inaccurate info.  I've had the flu lately.

 

Edited by Geschosskopf
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1 hour ago, Geschosskopf said:

Sorry for the initially inaccurate info.  I've had the flu lately.

 

Ha! I think I can forgive your "inaccuracy". I mean, the info you provided was stupendous! I hope you're feeling better flu-wise.

My own testing & experiences are starting to line up with what you've very expertly laid out. I'm already thinking about how to redesign my infrastructure to focus on a ground-based production line from on your comments, where I would produce rocketparts as well as fuel. It makes more sense than: mining ore on the surface, fueling a ship to bring ore to an orbital refinery for Metal & RPs, then refueling again, then back again to the surface.

I'm going to keep playing with my ship designs to get something I like that is more efficient as you talk about. I've already re-purposed my original "mega-manufacturing-shipyard-fueling-depot-habitat" station into a more streamlined habitat/occasional fuel depot. I need a place to dump all these Scientists that the Astronaut Complex gives me when trying to get Engineers!

A related topic, I hear you RE: low part count with the most basic ships, etc. to get the job done. I just have an overwhelming need to make them look spacey... hence larger part counts. :)

Again, thank you so much for your input, experience, and willingness to share your thoughts. It's really appreciated!

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38 minutes ago, scottadges said:

I hope you're feeling better flu-wise.

Pretty much over it today, thanks :)

 

38 minutes ago, scottadges said:

My own testing & experiences are starting to line up with what you've very expertly laid out. I'm already thinking about how to redesign my infrastructure to focus on a ground-based production line from on your comments, where I would produce rocketparts as well as fuel. It makes more sense than: mining ore on the surface, fueling a ship to bring ore to an orbital refinery for Metal & RPs, then refueling again, then back again to the surface.

The biggest tip I can give you is always to remember that all this infrastructure is merely a support function for the actual mission, which is flying the finished ship to Jool and seeing the sights.  Therefore, any time and effort required on the infrastructure delays and detracts from doing the actual mission.  Thus, every effort should be used to reduce the infrastructure to minimize its impact on the main mission.  It's just a sideshow/preliminary after all.  If you waste too much time on it, you'll never get to Jool.

Thus, I highly recommend using one of the simplified alternatives to Extraplanetary Launchpads, where you can make RocketParts directly out of Ore, which GREATLY simplifies things.  Then you only need to prospect for Ore and all your production lines can be co-located, simplifying refueling the RocketParts shuttles.  There are several options for this, such as Simple Construction, which also has the benefit of using stock parts as the shipyard itself and the various converters, so no RAM hit for added mod part textures.

Alternatively, you can use Ground Construction, which takes a whole different approach.  I've not used this myself but I'm very tempted. In this, you actually build the ship on Kerbin and "freeze-dry" it so that it fits in a much smaller box.  Then you take the box to another planet, plunk it down and "just add water" to reassemble the ship in finished form.  Then pump in fuel, add crew, and launch from the ground.  Has to be done on the ground, not space, but that shouldn't be a problem if you're using Minmus as your base.

Finally, another really big tip is to use a mod that allows resource transfer between separate, disconnected craft and base modules.  Such as  Pathfinder or Ground Construction.  Bases where all the modules are connected in 1 big unit (by docking or KAS pipes) are extremely vulnerable to all sorts of Kraken problems.  MKS also has "wireless" resource transfer but IMHO is way too complex for the mere support function you'd be using it for in this application.

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On 10/18/2017 at 12:40 PM, Geschosskopf said:

It's just a sideshow/preliminary after all.  If you waste too much time on it, you'll never get to Jool.

It's so funny you say that, because that's how I was feeling during my 20+ minute docking adventure yesterday, which is what prompted me to rethink so many aspects of this mission. I'm spending so much time the past several days working on infrastructure and production line stuff, I haven't even finished designing the Zeus! 

At the same time, this whole process is teaching me a lot about KSP and it's actually pretty fun as far as 'the journey' goes. I've only been playing about 6 or 7 months, so I feel like there's so much to learn. (in a good way)

I am using Simple Construction. So far it's been pretty sweet. I did try out MKS (I love their unique parts!) and reading through some tutorials... it was way too much for what I want to do with this game. At least at this point. Once I finish this Jool mission, I might move into some simplified Life Support mods (I've looked at TAC-LS, which seems less-intensive than MKS/USI?).

I'll keep you posted! :)

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I can vouch for Ground Construction, as it's what I'm using for my own Minmus shipyard. (Only disadvantage is: no orbital construction so far...) If I my offer for your analysis a for-example in aggressive parts reduction: This GC shipyard complex behind the spoiler uses the same principles that @Geschosskopf mentioned, except that since everything is co-located in one base alone (construction, fueling, and LS generation), all the storage tanks need to be big for immediate launch-ready capability (fully constructed, fully fueled, fully provisioned once the Launch button is pressed). And I got the primary base which houses all of those functions down to I think around 50+ parts, using one big tank for each fuel resource, two for Ore and MaterialKits, and the big ISRU and big drills from Mining Expansion in place of their smaller counterparts (like about 4x the efficiency). :) Even had the leeway to add a Hangars-garage and a landing/refueling pad in the background for visiting vessels and tankers, and it's still enough for relatively steady green framerates, estimated five-to-fifteen-day construction times for my more complex vessels, and a space industrial refinery aesthetic to it all. Again, it was using the big parts when I needed the big parts, combining functionalities where and when I can, that aggressively cut down on this base's parts count. 

Spoiler

Rvj9jjI.png

If this base were EPL-based, on the other hand, and the construction yard's orbital, I'd probably lose the larger ore tanks, the white barrels in the center of the complex (unless I needed to stockpile ore for some reason) and the large fuel tanks (the tangerines at the back), transferring the latter's capability to the fuel shuttles. It's not like the extra gas will be necessary for a ground launch. That being said, to minimize the shuttle runs to and from the orbital shipyard those are going to be some big shuttles--or probably not. I suggest nailing down the design of the Zeus first--or at least finalizing just how much fuel it will need to get the desired dV, that will make it easier to nail down the capacities of your fuel shuttles to minimize the number of runs needed to fill Zeus up. 

I second the advice re: KAS piping. That's the other reason why the tanks are big, it's my solution to the threat of Kraken attacks on bases linked by docking. I can't get the wireless transfers to work at the volumes I needed, so all KAS piping is temporary and I focus on keeping a stockpile for immediate refueling, just connect, transfer the fuel to the customer, disconnect, launch. Also the other reason why I used the landing pad there: even the Kraken can't break that thing in two. Sinking it might be another thing entirely, however.

Oh yeah, speaking of which, for future reference, for really REALLY simplified LS, Snacks! Doesn't come simpler than that and it used to be even simpler than at present, so much so that it complicated my  Apollo 1.0 Challenge entry when I wanted to try for the Duna mission then. As for a  more accessible version of MKS, both Gesch and I would vouch for Pathfinder. Similar emphasis on in situ activities as MKS, but a lot of it has to do with exploration and geological investigation, as opposed to colonization (though this might change with future versions, based on Angel-125's latest updates). :) 

&   &   &

Speaking of which, Gesch, I can definitely vouch for GC. Even if it should be the sideshow for the main event, Duna, it's one of the most fun sideshows I had since Elcano. :) It also coexists peacefully with EPL in the same install. The disadvantages of note as an alternative to EPL, given your play preferences I believe are:

  • no Wild Blue integration (a question to ask Angel, I guess, especially now that he's into building up Pathfinder?),
  • no orbital construction (yet),
  • its rate of key resource generation (MaterialKits) is way slower than the same being generated by OSE parts (the mod also uses MatKits, so it's the perfect partner for GC due to shared resources), so unless OSE is present MatKit production will be the chokepoint of your shipyard operations; I should address this to Allista, shouldn't I?
  • while it adds workshop capabilities to most stock and many mod parts housing crews >1, they tend to be highly inefficient compared to the baseline Mobile Workshop, or the workshops that come with KPBS when both mods are present, and the Mobile Workshop being a massive rover is a PITA to get to the build site--though at least the mod also provides a nice integrated Skycrane that might have the power to do the job. So for parts count issues it's highly recommended that KPBS be present as well even if only for its easier-to-lug-around GC workshops (and the OSE generators it also provides when the latter mod is present);
  • watch out for the EC-resource-on-warp bug, it will shut down production when the warp drains the batts (recommend warp by focusing on another vessel very far away from the build base or warp in the Tracking Station so that the base's EC isn't being tracked live through warp);
  • and as you've mentioned, you're gonna have to take your DIYKits with you from Kerbin to the target build site, rather than the build-from-scratch-on-site approach of EPL.

The refinery complex and landing pad in the screenshot above was built out from GC kits, for which I used a combo of Pathfinder and KPBS as a temporary build camp. And the total complex built out and furnished this mobile orbital refinery below in about six days (three KPBS GC Workshops, and nine 5* Engineers, I forgot how many MatKits), the tank modules seen below are Size 3/3.75m and 4/5m, so that big can be done fast, just requires that the MatKits are available to feed production; hence the GC-OSE-KPBS combo to get it done fast.

Spoiler

e1jAHWR.png

 

Edited by B-STRK
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1 hour ago, scottadges said:

I am using Simple Construction.

Good lad :wink: 

 

1 hour ago, scottadges said:

Once I finish this Jool mission, I might move into some simplified Life Support mods (I've looked at TAC-LS, which seems less-intensive than MKS/USI?).

Hmmmm.  Life support is a big subject but here's the thumbnail version...

Bottom line, life support requires you to add more cost, mass, and usually more parts to all crewed things, to put time limits on your missions and to pack enough supplies to last that long, and imposes additional load on your system with all the background supply consumption/recycling operations.  All for something that does exactly zero to really alter your gameplay experience.  You get no more science, you get no advanced rocket technology, you just get more overhead.  So if you're not establishing a permanent colony, then it's just a matter of packing enough supplies and you never think about life support again (assuming you don't strand anybody by accident).  So the 1st and most important question is, why bother?

If you've decided to bother (which, strangely, I usually do these days), then you have to decide how much detail you want to go into.  There are both simple and complex systems, and the complex ones can easily come to dominate your playtime at the expense of doing the actual missions.  Especially if you're trying to establish a permanent, self-sufficient colony.  There's also the issue of whether or not you're cool with Kerbals having the same biological needs as humans, or whether they're as alien as they and their surrounding solar system imply.  The more complex life support systems all assume Kerbals have human biology, which I find annoying, so I mostly use the simple versions.

IIRC, there are 2 simple systems:  Snacks! and USI-Lite.  Both of these have Kerbals needing only 1 resource, which you are free to take as an abstraction of multiple unspecified resources to fit their alien metabolisms.  The more complex systems---TAC, USI, and Kerbalism---have food, water, and oxygen requirements scaled to humans.  I could be wrong about Kerbalism---I've never used it because it also has psych aspects that clash with my view of Kerbals.  But I have used all the others multiple times each.  Right now, I like Snacks! the best, not least because it requires the fewest additional parts to hold supplies.

If you're making any sort of base, station, or colony that will be occupied for longer than the supplies you can easily carry, then you get into the recycling and creation of more supplies, which is where all the work can come in.  All systems require continual inputs of raw materials---there are no closed loops.  Thus, the more steps you need in the process of turning raw materials into supplies, the more time you have to spend micromanaging all that instead of doing the mission.  It can, with some of the more complex systems, easily become impossible to do missions at all, like explore the planet around the base, because all personnel are required to run the life support and the life support can't support additional Kerbals to go exploring.

 

 

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6 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

Good lad :wink: 

 

Hmmmm.  Life support is a big subject but here's the thumbnail version...

Bottom line, life support requires you to add more cost, mass, and usually more parts to all crewed things, to put time limits on your missions and to pack enough supplies to last that long, and imposes additional load on your system with all the background supply consumption/recycling operations.  All for something that does exactly zero to really alter your gameplay experience.  You get no more science, you get no advanced rocket technology, you just get more overhead.  So if you're not establishing a permanent colony, then it's just a matter of packing enough supplies and you never think about life support again (assuming you don't strand anybody by accident).  So the 1st and most important question is, why bother?

If you've decided to bother (which, strangely, I usually do these days), then you have to decide how much detail you want to go into.  There are both simple and complex systems, and the complex ones can easily come to dominate your playtime at the expense of doing the actual missions.  Especially if you're trying to establish a permanent, self-sufficient colony.  There's also the issue of whether or not you're cool with Kerbals having the same biological needs as humans, or whether they're as alien as they and their surrounding solar system imply.  The more complex life support systems all assume Kerbals have human biology, which I find annoying, so I mostly use the simple versions.

IIRC, there are 2 simple systems:  Snacks! and USI-Lite.  Both of these have Kerbals needing only 1 resource, which you are free to take as an abstraction of multiple unspecified resources to fit their alien metabolisms.  The more complex systems---TAC, USI, and Kerbalism---have food, water, and oxygen requirements scaled to humans.  I could be wrong about Kerbalism---I've never used it because it also has psych aspects that clash with my view of Kerbals.  But I have used all the others multiple times each.  Right now, I like Snacks! the best, not least because it requires the fewest additional parts to hold supplies.

If you're making any sort of base, station, or colony that will be occupied for longer than the supplies you can easily carry, then you get into the recycling and creation of more supplies, which is where all the work can come in.  All systems require continual inputs of raw materials---there are no closed loops.  Thus, the more steps you need in the process of turning raw materials into supplies, the more time you have to spend micromanaging all that instead of doing the mission.  It can, with some of the more complex systems, easily become impossible to do missions at all, like explore the planet around the base, because all personnel are required to run the life support and the life support can't support additional Kerbals to go exploring.

 

 

The advantage of Snacks is that it tends to be generous in both baseline resource production and stockpile per part. As long as it's continuously fed with ore and EC as though it were an ISRU, one generator--the MPL for stock parts--will easily supply the needs of an expedition.  It's literally launch-and-leave (just leave a couple of scientists, I think). And command parts carry about 50 snacks per seat, crew tanks 200 per seat, for 3 meals a day, so relatively extended ops can be run out of a cockpit and crew tank (e.g., a mk2 cockpit and crew tank for three-four kerbals), even before adding equally generous dedicated LS tanks. Some would say it's OP in that role, given that more realistic food generation should be periodic rather than continuous, but for a first foray into LS it doesn't get easier than that.

And you're right on all counts about Kerbalism, Gesch, it's as masochistic as BARIS on hard mode.

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1 hour ago, B-STRK said:

I second the advice re: KAS piping. That's the other reason why the tanks are big, it's my solution to the threat of Kraken attacks on bases linked by docking. I can't get the wireless transfers to work at the volumes I needed....

Is that with GC's wireless or Pathfinders?  I've never had any flow rate trouble with Pathfinder's.  "BOOM! There it is!"  When this feature 1st appeared, it worked TOO well.  I had a base on Mun and my biome-hopping lander was on on final approach on the last of its fuel and throttled back to slowly lower itself on down.  Suddenly it got full tanks.  The engine couldn't respond fast enough and it crashed :)  So Angle-125 tweaked it so the ship had to be landed before resources would transfer.

The Pathfinder wireless system only works with Wild Blue tanks, though.  However, you can put Wild Blue tanks on anything, stock or from another mod.  This same Mun base used Keridian Dynamics to build ships, and I used the Wild Blue tanks to move resources and products around between the Keridian converters.  So I suppose this would also work for fueling ships built by GC.

 

1 hour ago, B-STRK said:

Oh yeah, speaking of which, for future reference, for really REALLY simplified LS, Snacks! Doesn't come simpler than that and it used to be even simpler than at present, so much so that it complicated my  Apollo 1.0 Challenge entry when I wanted to try for the Duna mission then. As for a  more accessible version of MKS, both Gesch and I would vouch for Pathfinder. Similar emphasis on in situ activities as MKS, but a lot of it has to do with exploration and geological investigation, as opposed to colonization (though this might change with future versions, based on Angel-125's latest updates). :) 

IIRC, the original Snacks! didn't have converters or recyclers at all, and lacked its own storage tanks (you only had pod storage) but otherwise was identical to the current version.  The lack of extra storage and the inability to make more Snacks! really made it impractical for anything except going to Minmus.  Duna was really stretching it.  A trip to Jool would have needed 4-5 entire Hitchhiker cans PER KERBAL.  

 

47 minutes ago, B-STRK said:

The advantage of Snacks is that it tends to be generous in both baseline resource production and stockpile per part.

I like Snacks! because 1) it's simple and 2) it's generic.  The actual consumables can be imagined to be anything your imagined alien Kerbal biology requires.  You can also stretch it even further by decreasing the number of rations per day to 1.  Which I tend to do because I envision Snacks! as a Kerbal version of MREs, and you can live tolerably well on 1 MRE/day :D 

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@Geschosskopf Actually that's why I said "volume." I was hoping that DSEV came with 5m profile tanks (again, minimizing parts count on everything). Though I know that I could add a WB tank to any of my present designs, then have distributed resources fill that up then transfer to the larger tanks, then repeat. Actually experimenting with that for a "detached" nuclear reactor using distributed EC. Would you happen to know if Pathfinder's distribution will also fill up non-WB tanks automatically by way of filling up attached WB tanks, or does it have to be manually transferred from there after the transfer, and if it can happen in the background? It's the manual transfer I'm worried about, because those LH2 tanks need active cooling thank to CryoTanks and even a small amount can use up a surprising amount of charge on top of all other processors, so automatic or background transfers especially for EC would be useful. (I remember back in the day someone used TAC fuel transfer to work this out, but this was when it was a part to add to ships to make it work, and only while in focus).

Oh yeah, I remembered that mission. Hence why it's now a commandment among kerbals: there's no such thing as too much thrust. :D

GC's wireless is actually similar to EPL, a one-time only resource transfer before launch of the constructed vessel. (Useful since GC's build range is 300m). It's not meant as a wireless logistics system. It'll handle any and all tanks between the builder and buildee; you'll only need WB distribution or any equivalent after launch for wireless logistics.

By the time I got Snacks for Apollo 1.0, it already had the MPL patched as the generator (hence why my Munbase in Sunshooter had an MPL component: it was the greenhouse). It was the lack of extra tanks that got to me as well--like you observed, it meant that to support a Duna flyby in Apollo 1.0 I'd have to toss about 3-4 Hitchikers for every 3 kerbals to be safe--way too large to simulate the 1-launch AAP mission. Which was why I switched to a Duna landing before I went into hiatus due to school. That issue of extra tanks touched off a pretty heated, almost nasty debate in the original thread, I almost thought a moderator would step in to calm things down some. I guess Angel decided as well when he took over that not having extra tanks was silly, additional parts to load notwithstanding.

@scottadges It's how I learned stuff too, watching the masters at work. Which is why the Reports are my favorite place to go to (apart from the occasional humor and comedic tossing about of kerbals). :)

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On 10/18/2017 at 11:39 PM, B-STRK said:

@Geschosskopf Actually that's why I said "volume." I was hoping that DSEV came with 5m profile tanks (again, minimizing parts count on everything).

Well, you can add the Wild Blue magic to any non-Wild Blue tank with a bit of cfg editing.  If you don't do that, you could use TAC Fuel Balancer to move resources from the Wild Blue tank to the non-Wild Blue tank.  TAC-FB allows you to greatly increase the rate of pumping, although the 2 tanks have to be part of the same craft.  So, you stick a reasonably small WB tank on a huge non-WB tank, and set the WB tank to have resources sent into it via its WB resource screen.  Then you use TAC-FB to have the WB tank feed the non-WB tank at high speed.

 

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  • 2 months later...

Hello all! It's been a while since I've been playing KSP and so I decided to dust off these older threads and jump back into the game a bit. I'm taking things more slowly and not so worried about my original Joolian mission window.

The kerbals will be focusing on Duna missions (see Mission Report: My Duna Expeditions if you'd like to see progress) to get better at spacecraft design as well as using multiple missions to complete key steps in the process. I'll be working through each mission type to help them learn: Probe Survey (unkerbaled), Rover Expedition (unkerbaled), First Kerbal Landing, Long-Term Hab & Infrastructure, etc.

From a "storytelling" standpoint, I think the shorter-term focus on Duna makes sense. The kerbals got very ambitious in planning a large-scale Joolian mission, where they put a lot of emphasis, resources, and time into the infrastructure and support craft. But they weren't quite sure the best way to get everything to Jool. They'll eventually get there, but there's a lot of learning yet to do.

Edited by scottadges
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  • 5 months later...

Here I am again, posting several months later about "getting back in to KSP" :P

Part of this is ebb and flow of life's priorities, some was honestly the upgrade from KSP 1.3 to 1.4.x which broke all my core mods... and some was burn-out in trying to tackle too many things at once in this game.

But I'm back again. Thinking of specific priorities, executing specific goals. It's more fun this way, rather than trying to design the huge orbital supply chain to go to Jool with everything that I absolutely wanted to send there. So to echo my last post, I'll do it slowly. Take it a piece at a time.

And we'll see where we get to then, shall we?

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