Resources/tutorials for bases and landing them

[Starchaser]

I have a mun base mission now, and I was trying to get some ideas and do's and don'ts before flinging random parts skyward.However everything on youtube that I saw was pretty old and looked to involve some horrific aerodynamics for launching.

Anyone have any suggestions were else to look? The tutorial forum here also seemed pretty sparse.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Edit

My first attempt. I better be happy where I land it cause it drives like a pregnant brontosaurus on Kerbin

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2017 by Starchaser
add pic

[Geschosskopf]

Is this a "Build a new base on Mun" contract and not something you would otherwise do for yourself?  If so, then, PROVIDED there are no SILLY terms in the contract, such missions are pretty easy.  Just make the whole thing into a single, giant lander, and then fly it to Mun and land it like you would any other lander.  Then never look at it again

Note, however, that a lot of base- and station-building contracts have some VERY silly, impractical terms in them, which 1) make the project take lots of time and effort, and 2) make it cost so much that building it eats up all or most of the contract payment.  Terms to beware of are things like:

• Needs a large amount of 1 or more resources actually aboard
• Needs any number (even 1) of living Kerbals physically aboard, not just space available for them
• Must include a newly captured asteroid
• Must be at a specific (and inconvenient) location

All of these things usually mean you'll need several launches and more or less complicated missions just to get the base or station to meet the contract terms.  This gets very expensive very quickly, not to mention becoming a time-sink.  Especially for something you'll probably never use yourself.  So I recommend ignoring all such contracts, UNLESS you were going to be building something very similar anyway, for your own purposes.

But OTOH, if the contract only requires stuff like the following:

• An antennae, power, and docking port
• Space for 2-10 Kerbals (but NOT the Kerbals themselves)
• A few science instruments or other easily managed parts

Then, as mentioned above, just make it all as a single, giant lander, and fire and forget.

[Superfluous J]

And try to also take a "station around Kerbin" and a "station around Mun" contract, with similar or smaller requirements. You'll satisfy them getting the base to Mun.

[Spricigo]

It's like any other ship. Make it simple with balanced mass distribution to avoid off center thrust and cover the draggy parts with a fairing during the launch. For landing is good to have a wide base and low CoM.

Also, make the ship useful for something else if you can. (e.g crew space may be taken by tourists/rescuees; adding some instruments may allow you to get new science; ) But be careful to not use it just for the sake of using it, be prepared to ditch parts that become a hindrance and abandon the whole thing if your only use for it is finishing that contract.

Aside that, as always, more specific advice requires more specific information about the issue. 

 

[Starchaser]

my intent is to turn it into a mining/refueling operation over time, so I already did an orbital survey, and have a landing spot picked out

and I could have sworn I submitted my pic edit to my original post, before I headed out to see Thor. But I didn't, apparently.

 

 

[Starchaser]

My ridiculous monstrosity in space.

I must be getting better at something. I had almost no trouble getting it here, even with some decent level of torque on the craft.

 

[Starchaser]

Mission complete. 

And it entailed the greatest bit of seat-of-my-pants flying I've done so far. When I dropped my last big transfer tank, I switched to controlling from the cupola, and the thing went crazy, It almost seemed like it was trying to control like it was upside down, Upon time to reflect, the other stage was still firing, when I decoupled, and I was trying to do it at very close to 0 vertical movement. It might have given me some actual positive vertical movement, which flipped my pograde and retrograde and kept them moving as my new engines kept firing. All I could think of to do was put SAS in it's default mode and try to rotate to get my rockets under me, and cut my vertical velocity to near 0...I barely made it, but I had so much horizontal motion I thought it was going to kill my landing legs, but they survived 2 hard bounces.

I'm on a 10 degree slope though. I need to drive it somewhere safer

But I made sure I completed the contract in case moving it, I accidentally destroy it.