voicey99

You don't have to process on site (the MPU will push any raw resource from full, connected and PL-enabled containers), but it cuts down the work required at your central operation for the more advanced products. The MPU would restart in the morning but the drills, like vanilla ones, would need to be manually restarted. At the volumes of power you need (240/s for the drill pair), you either need a reactor or a really big-ass solar panel and the entire world's lithium reserves' worth of batteries. Reactors are generally just as if not more cost-effective per unit of of power production as panels.

This is an example metals-producing base I built earlier TM: It probably isn't the best setup but it has two automated drills for mining metallic ore and feeding it into a mobile processing unit (bottom), which then processes it into metal and shoves it to the planetary stockpile (from one of the cylinder tanks via the MPU's inbuilt push capability). It is powered by the reactor on top (just visible). The grey box on the front is a thermal control system, which has an unlimited max cooling and can cool up to 3GW of heat per part (vanilla radiators do not play nice with MKS drills), though it only works on the surface. There is a small container of machinery at the back for refilling the MPU every so often, and a nuclear fuel canister for both types (enriched and depleted) to facilitate reactor maintenance. The reactor will need manual refuelling every 4-5 years to refill its fuel an remove waste and the MPU should receive maintenance about every 10yrs to refill the machinery and push its production back up to 100%. It is possible to make maintenance-free automated bases in MKS, but for that you wouldn't be able to process raw resources in-situ and power would be a constant struggle as the drills would continue to hoover up large amounts of power at night. Maintenance only needs to be done every few years on designs like this, so it shouldn't be too much of a chore.

I'm sure it's been mentioned before and passed over, like most suggestions for major mods. I didn't take it as condescending, what I meant was that kolonising to the Mun seems like a bit of an unnecessary self-imposed challenge. But then again, I am unashamedly lazy and take pride in under-engineering everything wherever possible to safe those precious FFFs. I know what you mean (I study physics), but while the inertial mass indeed hasn't changed, the weight has and the weight is what determines whether something can be lifted or not. An object of mass 15t could be lifted off the ground with 147kN of force on Kerbin, but 7.37kN on Minmus, hence it would be much more liftable albeit just as slow to get moving and stop.

Tundra parts are anything up to 15t, so KIS is basically out of the question when it comes to the really heavy stuff. Lift capacity should (as in, I think it ought to be a feature) take into account local g, so you would need less kerbs to lift something particularly weighty on a low-g planet and more on a higher-g one. I've also been playing for exactly one year as of today, so I (usually) know what I'm talking about as well. It's still easier to be able to be able to cut the engine and maneuver during the landing though (or maybe I need to use a proper VTOL for this). The DIYKit thing is from Ground Construction, a custom version of which comes bundled with MKS. You assign a ship model to a kit in the VAB, ship it over, add materialkits, wait a bit and *pop*, out comes a shiny new ship in its place-at least, that's what I understand of it.

Minmus' 0.05g proves much easier to land vessels in as you can slow down close to the surface, reposition just off the ground and then gently drift down and bump onto the surface, which is especially useful with heavy/unwieldy base-delivery craft with low TWR and slow turning. I guess this would be of less importance to KIS-built bases as it doesn't matter which way up the container lands. I've always built my bases with konstruction ports (which allow merging of vessels) and are notoriously finicky, primarily because I've never tried KIS with large Tundra modules-at least Minmus' flats allow for easier lining up. Before MKS, I just used klaws until the Flopping Fish Kraken got hungry.

Also a side note: wouldn't Minmus be a slightly more forgiving place for a first colony? The terrain is flatter and the gravity much lower, both allowing for significantly easier construction.

.....so it is. I'll work on putting that in eventually.

Does that mean you haven't checked the whole planet yet? A view of Kerbin is also good because it gives you LOS for comms with no need for a relaysat. MKS is a very complex mod with lots of poorly-explained mechanics, and even USI-LS can be confusing at times. Good luck learning experimentally (I gave MKS a pretty full overview here).

Dirt refining is only really suitable for obtaining small quantities of all resources, for more substantial amounts you're going to need drills at some point. Just put the base wherever it's flat (both places have the resources for fertiliser in the beginning) and drop in some unmanned outposts around the place. And what do you mean, the crater doesn't have any dirt? The biome probability of dirt is fixed at 100%, so all biomes should have it (in varying amounts).

If you're making stuff for offworld construction, neither of those sites has what you need. You will need metallic ore, substrate and minerals, so either way you will have to ship resources in from an outpost. DStaal also seems to be very quick on the like clicker.

I believe extreme base lag is a Kopernicus problem (as in just having Kopernicus is enough to cause surface bases to chug like a steam train, part-heavy or not). I've had issues with my Minmus bases lagging to hell as well (and my computer is certainly no potato), but removing Kopernicus fixed it (pity I like OPM too much to play w/o it)

You were saying something?

Grammar [a certain german dictator] intensifies. Cupolas (no apostrophe), viewports (no apostrophe, also not a proper noun so no capital). Ahem. Regarding hab, some parts give raw hab and some give a multiplier to this hab (plus sometimes a little bit of raw hab as well). The cupola (also doesn't really need a capital letter) is a habitation multiplier. The multiplier it provides is dependent on how many crew you have on board-it's stated multiplier of 1.65 and crew capacity of 2 means it multiplies all habtime on the vessel by 1.65, but if you have more than 2 kerbs on your vessel it multiplies all habtime by [1.65*(2/kerbs on board)], so the multiplier it provides declines as the crew complement grows. All hab timers should be global and independent of which part they are sat in. Note: Pilots ignore habtime if they have over 1yr of it, and all kerbs ignore it if they have over 50yrs (1yr if kolonisation rating >500%). All values given in the part menu in the VAB are in kerbalmonths (1K-M = 30 6h days). @halx Not sure if it's what you're looking for, but try this mod.

... you didn't try turning it on? *Cupolas

I would think it's probably cheaper to go for a slightly longer route. You can get your 9 kerbs to Urlum in 4y with just over 5kms and only 30t of hab kit, and my bet is the reactor, thrusters and their fuel are absurdly expensive.

DF has its restrictions, like you need to constantly provide power for the pods (else they ded) and you need resources to freeze kerbals, but IMO it's still a bit too easy. If you're planning on building a station around Urlum, you're going to need habtime anyway and unless you plan on constantly ferrying colonysup up from Tal or Priax. It might be worth investing in either shipping in or making on Tal or Priax the just under 100t worth of hab kit required to get your 9 kerbs over the 50yr hab threshold required for perma hab so you don't have to worry about it. What are you using to fuel your ships??? Getting to Urlum in 1yr requires 30kms of ΔV! Even my usual foot-down attitude only gets me there in 4yrs.

Did some testing and you need about 40t worth of hab kit to take 9 kerbs on a 10yr journey. I was more trying to say that taking kerbals on long journeys while trying to keep them from going nuts is what drives you to make more interesting ships to lug all that hab kit around and to me cryo freezing is a 'cut the knot' approach. Still, please don't take my word for anything and use DF if that's the way you would want to play. You might also be able to simply give them no hab for the entire journey and then dock with the base (assuming it has hab), at which point they will be ungrumped (also assuming mechanics allow that).

Personally I think the challenge is fun (and long journeys are much better with kerbitats than colonysup) but if you insist on circumventing it, try DeepFreeze-it's fully compatible with USI-LS.

No, it isn't. 0.50.18 was the last 1.2-compatible version (it's downloadable in the releases history on git). The SpaceDock page hasn't been updated in ages.

Now 1.3 is out, when this mod eventually (hopefully) updates will it skip out 1.2 and release straight for 1.3?

Is there a cfg module that can be added a part file or MM patch to manually make a non-USI part a logistics consumer that can scavenge resources? EDIT: It's ModuleLogisticsConsumer. I was misspelling it as ModuleResourceConsumer.

The version of GC that comes with MKS is exactly the same as the standard GC as far as mechanics go. You should probably ask this in the GC thread.

Me neither, since I like to challenge myself to ship all the modules in from KSC. Even of that means a 8-yr wait (with the moar power doctrine to get there faster) for the kerbals on Plock to get a new TV.

This, from back in Feb.

The MPU is the Mobile Processing Unit, an MKS-brand ISRU that can make LFO/LF/MP/all second-tier MKS resources that only require a single raw ingredient (chems, fert etc., but not refined exotics). It is also designed for unmanned bases, always having a relative crew efficiency multiplier of 100% (see the 'harvesting/conversion multiplier' on this wikipage for what it would be for the stock ISRU). It also has inbuilt PL push function, meaning you don't need a logistics module on your base (or a pilot/quartermaster-you don't need one normally, but I want to specifically debunk the common misconception that you need one for any logistics capability (you did before 0.50.9 but no longer)-both MPUs and the manned log. modules can push to PL unmanned, but the manned ones need a pilot/QM anywhere on the vessel to pull back out of it. MPUs cannot pull at all). I don't see a problem with the MKS categories. Kolonisation for general (kerbal welfare, utility and base-building structural) parts, logistics for storage and transfer (notable exception: logistics module) and manufacturing for resource extraction and processing. What do you mean by 'standard menu' anyway?