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Scaling up life support mods?


paul23

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Well since I run a few "near future" systems which are aimed to have "bigger parts", I'm also wondering: are there any "scaled" versions of USI life support mod?

 

I'm mainly asking due to a contract I got from the contract plus mod: to create a space hotel, for 50 guests. The problem is: to make sure the supplies stay roughly "alive" I need a lot of recyclers + argoponics, which need a lot of power (batteries + solar panels). While the solar panel is often solved the rest are not, I need around 400k charge for the location (geostationary orbit), and at least 15 argoponic + recycler modules. And then storing the supplies and other parts will quickly jump me well over the 100 modules.

 

So are there any "scalable" systems which are aimed to keep many kerbals in orbit for usi life support?

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On 12/2/2019 at 3:18 PM, paul23 said:

Well since I run a few "near future" systems which are aimed to have "bigger parts", I'm also wondering: are there any "scaled" versions of USI life support mod?

 

I'm mainly asking due to a contract I got from the contract plus mod: to create a space hotel, for 50 guests. The problem is: to make sure the supplies stay roughly "alive" I need a lot of recyclers + argoponics, which need a lot of power (batteries + solar panels). While the solar panel is often solved the rest are not, I need around 400k charge for the location (geostationary orbit), and at least 15 argoponic + recycler modules. And then storing the supplies and other parts will quickly jump me well over the 100 modules.

 

So are there any "scalable" systems which are aimed to keep many kerbals in orbit for usi life support?

1. There is no need for the contract to put the hotel in KSO.

2. If you are using Nerteas' mods, you have large habitats available as well as nuclear power generators.

3. You need to provide the habitation capacity for the guests. There is no need for prolonged USI_LS support for them. When you build the hotel, you will get contracts to ferry tourists, 10 to 20 at a time. The tourists don't need to stay in the station for long (you will get contracts to bring them down again as soon as you send them up actually).

4. The mod procedural parts provides scalable life support and energy storage tanks/modules.

5. You don't really need 15 recyclers or agroponics plants to service 50 Kerbals, if you crunch the numbers. And the idea is not to make the station completely supply independent in the first place (since that would effectively remove supply missions from the mix and water down the challenge that USI_LS presents for the player). 

 

Hope that helps, cheers..C:

 

Edited by Dante80
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Well I plan to make such a station around Jool as personal thing, so supply missions are kind of a long term idea, and I think it's better to have enough miners at the several moons.

 

Which mod do you think about for large habitation? The stock alike station parts expansion? So far those only give me 4 player "cabins". (And a very, very efficient 1 player cupola/command pod/science provider).

I have also a mod that provides realistic "launchpad recovery" times of 1 month+ as it's surrealistic that you can launch multiple vehicles on the same day. 

Edited by paul23
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Nertea's Stockalike Station Parts Redux has 1.25m, 2.5m and 3.75m sized habitats, that can go up to 16 passengers each or so. Some of them come pre-packaged for launch and need engineers on site for orbit assembly. Keep that science coming!

Ven's stock Revamp also adds a couple of habitation modules, one of which is a can capable of holding 10 Kerbals. If you are using something like Restock and don't want to play with the whole mod, just choose to install the new parts.

Both mods have USI_LS support.

Now..for supplies. 50 Kerbals consume around 540 supplies per day. You can use personal RT-500 recyclers in the station to bring that down to 216 supplies per day, for a mere 25ec/s. An 18t 3.75m supply tank can support that population for 70 days. Adding 5 PPD-F412M agroponics modules will cost you 21t and another 16.5ec/s, but will get your net consumption down to 38 supplies per day for the station, stretching your supply tank out to 394 days. To get this you will need a total of 6382 fertilizer. Assuming then that you launch your agroponics modules full of fertilizer, you will need to bring a 2.5m fertilizer tank with you (and some change) for an addition of around 5.5t.

So, with this architecture, your support infrastructure will weigh around 50t total and need a constant 42ec/s to function.

Total part count for it is 57-58 parts. 50x RT-500 Recyclers, 5x PPD-F412M greenhouses, 1x 3.75m supply tank, 1x 2.5m fertilizer tank, 1x 1.25m fertilizer tank (optional).

For maintenance, you will have to do one re-supply mission per year or so, carrying 15k supplies and 6,400 fertilizer. Mulch is free.

It is possible to exchange ec/s and weight for part count total, by substituting the 50 RT-500s for 10 RT-5000s. This will make your colony completely stable, since your net consumption will be 156 s/d and your supply production will be 178 s/d.

In that case, your support infrastructure will weigh around 77t total and need a constant 204ec/s to function (much more difficult to do on Jool with a solar grid, but still tame for nuclear generation).

Total part count for it is 16 parts. 10x RT-5000 Recyclers, 5x PPD-F412M greenhouses, 1x 3.75m fertilizer tank. That is enough to last you for 925 days or about two Kerbal years.

For maintenance, you will have to do one re-supply mission every two years or so after that, carrying 15,000 fertilizer.

Hope that helps, cheers.

Edited by Dante80
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I guess indeed nuclear fuel is the solution for the energy. With solar power a 42 ec/s at minmus means -to survive the long cold night fof 4405 seconds- to take 180k charge storage. I've looked at near future electrics: nut that would still mean many charges.

 

Orbitting jool even gives more time in the shadow.

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There is an exploit you can take advantage of for EC storage:

EC is only consumed when the ship is in the current physics bubble.   If your station is not in the physics bubble at night (not in focus), it won't run out of EC, as long as next time it is in the physics bubble is during the day.

So, if you never visit your station at night, it only needs solar generation to match what it currently needs.

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