How do I build a surface base/outpost?

[Neil Kermstrong]

I got a contract that asks me to build a surface outpost in minmus, but I have no idea on what method or how I should build it.

[Superfluous J]

A "surface outpost" can be anything, from a dedicated structure to a ship that just happens to have everything they're asking for on it.

The most straightforward way to complete the contract is to build a ship that has everything the contract wants, and then find a way to land it all in one piece where the contract wants you to put it.

Constructing one is one of the harder things in the game, mostly due to the user interface and lack of flexibility of parts. If you have infinite patience you can learn how to dock things landed (I suggest starting on Minmus' flats because they're - well - flat) and if you don't mind modding KIS/KAS and a few other mods can connect vessels together without having to line up docking ports to somewhat ridiculous exactness. If you have the Breaking Ground DLC, you could also put your docking ports on the ends of robotic arms to have a bit more flexibility in trade for a possibly more confusing UI.

And then of course there's always the Claw. Land two ships, each of which is half of your "surface outpost," and drive one into the other with an open Claw.

Edited September 21, 2020 by Superfluous J

[bewing]

The contract tells you all you need to know in the fine print. It needs a solar panel, an antenna, some number of kerbals, fuel storage, and maybe a minimum amount of fuel.

Generally, the easiest way to meet any fuel requirement is to mine ore and refine the fuel with your "base" craft.

 

[Neil Kermstrong]

3 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

A "surface outpost" can be anything, from a dedicated structure to a ship that just happens to have everything they're asking for on it.

The most straightforward way to complete the contract is to build a ship that has everything the contract wants, and then find a way to land it all in one piece where the contract wants you to put it.

2 minutes ago, bewing said:

The contract tells you all you need to know in the fine print. It needs a solar panel, an antenna, some number of kerbals, fuel storage, and maybe a minimum amount of fuel.

Generally, the easiest way to meet any fuel requirement is to mine ore and refine the fuel with your "base" craft.

 

 

Well I want to make a base that will be helpful for my gameplay, and not something just for contracts (my old space station for example i only built it because of contract but when I finished it I still expanded the station)

 

6 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Constructing one is one of the harder things in the game, mostly due to the user interface and lack of flexibility of parts. If you have infinite patience you can learn how to dock things landed (I suggest starting on Minmus' flats because they're - well - flat) and if you don't mind modding KIS/KAS and a few other mods can connect vessels together without having to line up docking ports. to somewhat ridiculous exactness. If you have the Breaking Ground DLC, you could also put your docking ports on the ends of robotic arms to have a bit more flexibility in trade for a possibly more confusing UI.

And then of course there's always the Claw. Land two ships, each of which is half of your "surface outpost," and drive one into the other with an open Claw.

actually those KIS/KAS and claw ideas are amazing, I might consider using them (you just reminded me that when you connect two vessels with KAS the game considers it is just one, like if I docked it)

I think I can land multiple different structures one close to eachother (or use motorized wheels) and then connect them all with cables

[bewing]

27 minutes ago, Neil Kermstrong said:

Well I want to make a base that will be helpful for my gameplay, and not something just for contracts

Unless you are roleplaying heavily, there is very little use for a base on a planet or moon, except to mine for fuel. And then you need a way to transfer fuel from the base to any craft that lands nearby. Where "nearby" depends on your skill level, or the automation that you are using.

 

 

[Neil Kermstrong]

46 minutes ago, bewing said:

Unless you are roleplaying heavily, there is very little use for a base on a planet or moon, except to mine for fuel. And then you need a way to transfer fuel from the base to any craft that lands nearby. Where "nearby" depends on your skill level, or the automation that you are using.

 

 

Honestly I want to do it more because I like and because of the first time

By the way I just landed the root of the outpost and was already enough to finish the contract

[Dr. Kerbal]

Just biudla a small craft that can land on the planet or moon. attachech anything the contract wants on the base. land the base on the planet or moon. then rename it to a base.

[jimmymcgoochie]

I usually just build the smallest possible contraption that fulfils the requirements and send that- a current contract wants a base on Eve with space for 5 kerbals, a docking port, an antenna and some power generation; I stuck 5 Mk1 crew pods together with the other gubbins to meet each requirement then stuck that to a rocket and sent it into space. Although now that I think about it, I’m not sure if there was a power storage requirement for that base too so I’d better go and check that BEFORE it leaves for Eve 

Some mods provide good incentives for having surface bases e.g. Kerbalism has many science experiments that can be done while landed on different places and which can take years to complete, while other mods that provide parts for bases have their own science experiments to run there or dedicated surface installations that can be used to build new ships somewhere other than Kerbin- launchpad on Vall anyone?

Edited September 22, 2020 by jimmymcgoochie

[NHunter]

On 9/20/2020 at 3:51 AM, bewing said:

Unless you are roleplaying heavily, there is very little use for a base on a planet or moon, except to mine for fuel. <>

Expanding on that:

Unless you use Extraplanetary Launchpad / some other mod that lets you build ships away from KSC. An EL site on a low-gravity world like Minmus allows you to build and launch ships that can't be launcher from Kerbin at all or are too difficult to launch from Kerbin even with orbital assembly taken into account. And if you're in career, it also saves you money. Larger interplanetary and interstellar ships are big and expensive. And require even bigger rigs to put them into space from Kerbin. Being able to skip that makes your life easier, though, of course, you first need to build a surface base that is capable of building stuff first. (This is also how most interplanetary missions will be done in real life in the future: industrialized Moon will be used to build and fuel ships, which will then be crewed in Moon's orbit before departing for their destination)

With mods that let you construct stuff offworld you need a base that is capable of producing and storing fuels and materials needed for ship construction (production chains may vary). All in all, it will probably be something way bigger than a simple outpost. Most of these mods will at least recommend KIS/KAS, so you can use it to connect various modules of your base together, so you're at least spared from having to dock them together with docking ports.

----------------------------------------

And to answer OP's question:

• First and simplest, you can just build a ship that will be the entirety of your 'base' (mostly useful for fulfilling contracts) and just land it on the target planet.
• You can also build a base that consists of several parts. Usually used with mods that make surface bases actually useful, though can be used in stock as well if you want a refuelling outpost that can store large amount of fuel and transfer them to another ship on demand. Your options here are:
  • Docking ports. Probably the most cumbersome of approaches to connect parts of a base as it requires that at least some parts are mobile and all of them have compatible docking ports sitting on the same level when landed on target body.
  • CLAWs. With these you don't really have to care about aligning your base's parts as much, though CLAWs might not work well on smaller parts. You will also need half as many "connector" parts as CLAWs don't need a mate to connect two ships.
  • Docking ports/CLAWs + Robotics (either from DLC or from mods): gives more freedom in how you place and connect parts of the base (to the extent where parts may not even need to be mobile if you can precise-land them within each-other's reach). You will have to deal with robotics' interfaces, though. And those might be confusing.
  • KAS. Has pipes that can connect two ships together and may be extendable to considerable distances. Pipes within KAS itself have a source and a socket (you pick a pipe from the source part and insert it into a socket. once done, ships can be set to 'docked' and the game will treat them as one until you undock them). Other mods based on KAS may allow building connections between two identical parts.
  • Who needs connections anyway? If you're using MKS, logistics module will allow resource transfer without physical connection between parts of the base. Potentially on a planetary scale.

 

Edited September 22, 2020 by NHunter

[Neil Kermstrong]

Hey guys, now I've decided and after landing the core I will connect some ore tanks to the base with docking ports and use a rover with KAS to transfer ore.

I am also building a space station in minmus that will receive that ore and convert it into fuel, so my future interplanetary missions will be way easier. It might be finished by tomorrow

[jimmymcgoochie]

37 minutes ago, Neil Kermstrong said:

I am also building a space station in minmus that will receive that ore and convert it into fuel, so my future interplanetary missions will be way easier. It might be finished by tomorrow

Build the fuel refinery on the surface, not in orbit: ore is really heavy, so it makes sense to convert it into less heavy/dense stuff like fuels as close to the source as possible and then fly those into orbit instead of the raw ore. The refinery gets a constant supply of ore, fuels are always produced and can be shipped out as and when you need them to be, either because the fuel tanker vessels are full or because you have a ship waiting to be refuelled, plus you’ll usually find good ore concentrations on at least some of Minmus’ flat regions which are easy to land on, drive on and build on.

[Neil Kermstrong]

1 hour ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Build the fuel refinery on the surface, not in orbit: ore is really heavy, so it makes sense to convert it into less heavy/dense stuff like fuels as close to the source as possible and then fly those into orbit instead of the raw ore. The refinery gets a constant supply of ore, fuels are always produced and can be shipped out as and when you need them to be, either because the fuel tanker vessels are full or because you have a ship waiting to be refuelled, plus you’ll usually find good ore concentrations on at least some of Minmus’ flat regions which are easy to land on, drive on and build on.

Well I already have two ore refinery parts in the station, because I thought it would be easier to carry the ore to the station because minmus has low gravity ( and because of that it would be easier to transfer the ore )

I guess I'll add a new module in the outpost.

Also what do you think about using a space shuttle or SSTO for refueling the station? Might be a good idea, because it's pretty easy to land in the flats and can carry lots of fuel

[Mikenike]

On 9/19/2020 at 6:36 PM, Neil Kermstrong said:

I got a contract that asks me to build a surface outpost in minmus, but I have no idea on what method or how I should build it.

Look at @Just Jim's Emiko Station base if you want something a little more permenant. I would of course delete the booster pack because it isn't needed. (Unless you want to try and move Minmus). I'd suggest a MK3 shuttle ssto

[Grogs]

I originally started operations on Minmus with a dedicated miner/ore hauler that took the ore up to the station to be converted into fuel. It worked fine originally when most of the stuff I was fueling was Rockomax-32 and 64 tanks. Once I started moving to the bigger S3 tanks, the land-mine-rendezvous-dock cycles got to be very boring and repetitive.

 

I switched over to a rover design with drills and convert-o-trons. Now I just land any size ship nearby, hook on with the claw, and refuel it in one go. If it's something too unwieldy to land on Minmus, I keep some dedicated tankers at the station and refill them as they're emptied.

[JakGamingKSP]

Pretty Simple with what i say, slap some 1.8m tanks on a science lab (mobile lab), slap on some thuds, communotron, cupola on both ends and you got yourself a base