DStaal

I think adding ModulePowerCoupler to everything is probably a bit overpowered. It really should only be on a few parts that are designed to receive power. I'd definitely have it on the central hub, but what else I'm not sure. (The small fuel cell actually would be good, but there should probably be one standard-sized part with it as well.) Note of course that having just one on your ship means the whole ship can get power.

Karbonite engines are typically higher thrust and lower fuel efficiency than stock, with a fairly heavy fuel. Typically you'll get better dv with LFO than Karbonite. They've always seemed fairly balanced to me, but I haven't looked to closely at them. But I don't think they've been touched in a while, so if you have suggestions on balancing them it might be worth taking a look.

And an idea on the whole Kolony rewards thing: How much difference would it make if rewards came in in a more 'staged' fashion? At the moment, you start accumulating rewards from day one, basically. (For that matter, if your first ship contains USI parts, you start accumulating rewards the moment you enter orbit.) Would delaying the start of rewards help any of the balance issues people are perceiving? What I'm thinking is having something so that rewards don't start actually accruing until Kolonization is at 150% or so - your initial set-up and settling in time doesn't gain you anything.

Which leads to yet another option, if the design allows it: Inflating before you land. PL doesn't work in orbit, so if you launch and then on the way to your destination turn on warehouses and inflate, you'll still have all the MaterialKits available. Of course, you need a design where this won't cause you further issues... Oh, there's still plenty of reason: Shipping empty tanks and filling with Karbonite on-location for your return home is still far more fuel efficient than shipping the Karbonite (or other fuel) all the way there just for the return trip.

Another useful tool in these situations is the Ranger ILM: It's got a warehouse, can hold MaterialKits, doesn't take MaterialKits to inflate, and *it's storage grows when it inflates.* This means you can 'pull back' some of the MaterialKits from PL by deploying an ILM. @BigJammy, I'm interested in one aspect of your design there: Are the Karibou crates better than the smallest size of Kontainers? I hadn't checked closely, but I believe two Karibou crates should be exactly the same size as one small rectangular Kontainer. Yep, that would be a good fix. Though I'm not sure my ticket is the right place: There may be technical issues that prevent one that don't apply to the other. Filling them is available by design. Karborundum tanks originally could not be filled in the VAB, but for various reasons that's been changed. Karbonite has always been fillable.

And because the DV requirements are lower, your burns are shorter - which means you can spend more of the flight time in timewarp.

I'd argue it's even *more* about fuel consumption. If you didn't have to worry about DV costs, you could speed up transfers by several orders of magnitude - accelerating halfway there, decelerating the other half. Hohmann transfers are pretty close to the slowest direct way to get there - but they are efficient.

Hmm. I'd like to consider that a bug: If the Warehouse module doesn't exist, I think they should be able to get stuff. I'd only block when it exists *and* is disabled - then you don't run into things that 'hold MaterialKits, but can't be used'. Other's thoughts? If people agree with me, I can open a GitHub issue.

Agreed. Though really, what we need are *ramps*, so we can get down out of the storage bays.

I believe those are the JX2:

I tend to think of the Ranger Comm as basically a place to clean out experiments - you can do research with it, but as you said it's fairly limited. But it's nice to have the ability to clean out and reset all your experiments, board/EVA, and have an antenna, all in one part.

I'm using this pack and KRnD together with no issues. So something else must be in play somehow here.

Thanks. I should be able to calculate from that.

Ok, our Kerbal engineers have been working through the nights to get things done, and have a variety of craft to show for it. First off, the Minmus supply base has been started. Here's the core: And initial water mining: And Ore/LFO mining: These are all robotic initial deployments. Space is provided for eventual manning by technicians, but it will take them some effort to set up. Neither of the miners is especially high-volume at the moment either - this was as much a test of our ability to land KPBS ships as anything else. (And of course both miners were launched in the same mission.) Here is the supply base as it stands at the moment: Eventual consolidation is likely. On to more exciting things! Lander designs have been created for consideration! First off, there was some discussion over whether the large Karibou was really appropriate for places like Gilly or Hale - It provides a good base of operations, but several of the moons are so small that the ideal base of operations is actually the mothership. So, an experimental light-duty lander was created: This is a purely Karbonite-fueled design (unlike most of the designs which have mined Karbonite and refined it into LFO). It even has Karbonite-based EC power production, and can top off from fairly small concentrations, given the number of drills and the relative size of the tanks. However while it does stock some emergency supplies, it contains no more than a week's worth, and no one wants to be cooped up in those tiny capsules for long. Crew is three for a full mission - although it's possible that it might be sent down with just a pilot if some planet's supply of Karbonite is especially low. (Or high - in that case it might refill reserve stock on the mothership.) On the other hand... As you might be able to guess from it's location in the photo, the combination of it's light weight and Karbonite engines' high thrust output means it has a positive TWR even on Kerbin. Slate and Tylo were written off when creating the Karibou lander as to massive to design for - if they have locations with high concentrations of Karbonite, this ship might be sent to them, instead of sending a larger lander. And it carries the same science load of the small rover, so sending that can be avoided. (It also carries a complete surface experiment kit for deployment, though deploying it means either leaving it behind or returning to collect it.) On to the next: The initial design for a craft to land on the higher-gravity atmospheric worlds: Nuclear powered, with a crew of 6. Habitation and supply life is exceptional, able to maintain it's crew for several years if needed - largely because of the luxurious living quarters in the habitat. No direct parachutes, but it does mount a ballute for high-altitude deceleration. Capable of taking off (once refueled) from anything smaller than Kerbin itself - which is every world we've mapped in the system aside from Eve. (Plans for Eve at this point is to deploy an automated rover - and not retrieve it.) A lot of research was done into lightening the structural components and enhancing the engine to make sure it could fit the mission profile. (With Kerbal Research and Development.) Unlike most of the fleet it mines Ore for refueling instead of Karbonite - the ore is processed in a manned station designed by Wild Blue Industries, the reason for the high crew count. However, there is one concerning issue: It's top-heavy. Even with full fuel tanks and on the launch pad, it needs reaction wheels to keep from swaying in the breeze. This concerned engineers enough that airbags were installed near the top in case of a tip-over. This would likely preserve the crew from the fall - but the rocket would not be able to re-launch. A wider base would be nice, but the widest legs available to us are already in use. The concern therefore is that if it is landed in a location that isn't absolutely flat we may not be able to retrieve the crew - and precision landing on unknown atmospheric worlds has never been attempted before. So while this design is workable, it's concerning. USI's freight division heard the worries, and decided to step in an offer an alternative, a belly-lander: This is an early-concept version, with tweaking yet to be done. It mines Karbonite extremely rapidly - it can refuel itself in under 70 days, even at the 2% concentration of the KSC. And it has the TWR to land or launch in VTOL configuration, and shut off those engines to continue an ascent in a more standard vertical configuration. (Again, note that it's TWR is high enough that I was able to move it around the KSC.) It also offers much easier EVA access to the ground than the more standard tower-launcher craft. The main concern here is the sheer size of it. It is considerably longer than any of our current craft to date, as well as being in a 3m form factor. However, it's still considered an attractive option. As a final shot, here's all the new landers bunched together for size comparison's sake:

I use them to give a bit more spacing between the payload and the fairing base, especially if the payload is slightly larger than the base I'm putting it on. (Probes with lots of radial attachments, for instance.)

Sorry if I miss-read. Then it sounds like it should be working. The question starts to be on details at that point: Do you have warehousing enabled (where relevant), are you more than 50% full, etc. I don't believe you need a pilot to 'set up', though I haven't tested yet with the latest version.

I'm documenting: Still in the 'designing everything' stages at this point. Suggestions/comments are appreciated.

Thanks. I'll admit what I'm aiming for is probably closer to Panachrist's ship: The plan is a full OPM tour, in one shot. I'll probably have some other engines for fine orbital maneuvering, but with calculating in habitation and supplies, I suspect a couple of my lander designs are pushing 200t, or close. (Though I'm only planning on carrying a couple of landers, and reusing them.) So the mothership that's going to be hauling them around is going to be huge. Still, 100,000 m/s should be enough.

Planetary logistics requires that you be landed to push/pull. (In fact, all of the current logistics mechanisms require that you be landed.)

Any of you have any tips on how to work out how much dv is available for a particular design with these engines? I know it's 'lots', I'm in the middle of deigning what will be a huge mission, and I don't know where to start calculating the amount of (or which) fuel I would need if I were to use these engines - which are likely ideal engines for this.

I'm not sure, actually. It may depend on how the model is set up.

On the other hand, that same feature means that TCA has trouble controlling a Karibou, when it's otherwise the best VTOL autopilot around. (And can automatically compensate for bad balance.) It kinda depends, in the end: If you're manually flying it, or using MechJeb, having just the one thrust limiter is a nice convenience. If you're using TCA, it's a fairly large inconvenience. So, which do you optimize for?

Actually, if you want to just make a change in one file it's even easier than that: Go to the file (RoverDude prefers you go to the file in the 'DEVELOP' branch), and click the little pencil icon near the top right. This will automatically create a fork for you, and open that file for editing - and when you hit 'propose file change' at the bottom, it'll turn that into a pull request. So basically: Click edit, make your changes, then click save.

It's similar, but it's closer to 'regrettably'.

There's actually a mod that makes that a lot easier: It lets you edit them directly in the VAB/SPH, and see the results. Then copy-paste into your cofig files.