KSP 2 Colony Speculation (CHECK BOTTOM FOR GOOGLE DOCS LINK)
Introduction
Ground colonies
Orbital colonies
Mobile colonies
The relationship between them (the colonies)
An interstellar convoy (what it could look like)
Introduction
Firstly, this “guide” if you will, will include my speculations about colonies in KSP 2, and has very little factual basis other than what we already know from the developers. That aside, the way I see it, a colony will contain the following thing
A main command center.
Used for colony builder menu.
Likely will be self-sustaining (if you have nothing else, it will still work as a “base”).
Required to build anything else, likely where you will have to manage your supply routes, exports, and imports.
Will be utterly basic, but includes basic resources (see later).
Habitation modules.
Just holds kerbals…
Can store food resources (?).
Required to hold larger populations.
Allow for kerbals to multiply.
Greenhouses for snacks.
Science modules
Needed to refine science.
Colony science coupled with communications could allow progression through research tree (?).
Could be used to make more efficient colony parts along with engineers (?).
Science kerbals speed up or allow these modules to work.
Engineering modules
VAB/SPH
Will be used to make crafts.
Requires building resources which need to be created and stored.
Smaller VAB/SPH modules at first. Can be expanded.
Could store landed crafts (Hangar module?)
Fuel/ISRU/Material refinement
Used to build various modules.
Turn raw material into usable material.
Heat problems (?).
Store all resources until further use.
Certain small particle accelerators (for making isotopes of hydrogen required for inertial confinement engines).
Anvil/refiner for metallic hydrogen.
Mining modules
Gather natural resources from planet
Colony building module
Could be a part of the VAB/SPH (?).
Builds modules.
Requires engineer kerbals.
Utility modules
Electrical production, structural elements, communication antennas, etc.
To have a functional colony, you would need a combination of these modules. Mentioned several times however, are resources. The resources that will likely be in the game could be grouped as follows:
Electrical resources
Power units like amp hours (kamp hours, amp kours? Could just be power units)
Fuel resources
Methane (Natural).
Oxygen (Natural, derivable from water).
Metallic hydrogen (derived from hydrogen resources such as atmospheres or water).
Inertial confinement pellets (derived from hydrogen for deuterium, and again hydrogen for the tritium).
Others (Unknown)
Natural resources
Uranium (seen to make some parts)
Hydrogen or molecules containing hydrogen (i.e. water)
Unknown natural resources, likely required for the other engines like the “torch ship” engine.
Kerbal resources
Snacks
Each is required for certain purposes, and each can be obtained naturally with the use of certain modules. Additionally, resource spread is likely to be a major factor when placing a base. It could be random so you will need to bring resource analyzers in order to see where it is most efficient to settle your base!
Ground colonies
Ground colonies are likely the most stable type of colony that will be possible, because they are the most independent. Once you launch your interstellar convoy (or local convoy), it will include everything you need to start one. Ground colonies will likely be affected by several characteristics of a planet. Firstly, what is the terrain like of a planet, is it hilly, flat, or varied.
Secondly, what is the climate like and what is its tilt. If it is on a tilt, then temperatures may vary, and sun position may vary, and light that passes through to the base could vary by time (solstices), and irregular orbits could mean a different amount of light available. Clouds could block sunlight. Bad environments for RTG’s could be a problem, and early on, fuel cells could be bad for a developing colony that is still growing (not enough fuel). Thirdly, what is the resource spread of a planet? What abundant resources does it have and does it have any resource dense areas? These are the things I think should be considered when making a ground colony, especially since this will likely be what affects any other colony in the object's SOI. When you’ve decided where to build it (we will discuss this in the interstellar convoy section), it would help to plan out where you’ll put things. You may want the flat land nearby for a runway, and instead build the habitation and other modules on the bumpy terrain with structural elements. Your refinement locations should be in the more resource dense spots of your area, and all of these elements would need to be connected. For vehicular excursions, you would want certain vehicle hangars, and airlocks to go to important locations such as the refinement cells.
Orbital colonies
Orbital colonies, despite seeming like the meta type of colony that could replace ground colonies, actually hold a significant dependency on ground colonies. While they do not have terrain physics challenges and can be more compact, they actually have their own engineering problem of not having any resources. All of its fuel and building resources are only obtainable from other ground colonies with refineries. While having advantages over ground colonies, such as that they are (by far) the most efficient way to make interstellar craft (you just make the modules and put it together), it also is more of an extension of ground colonies. Orbital colonies will likely serve the role of a colony that would be mostly responsible for all of the interstellar/big craft construction, as well as minor roles in energy production and communication (thick atmospheres could severely limit the range of antennas.
Mobile colonies
Not a physically confirmed thing, but an interesting one nonetheless, a mobile colony would be some sort of large scale self sufficient rover that could house smaller crafts and would be mainly used for excursions. For example, for a deep science excursion, you could send a big rover to a biome and when it gets there, you would use a science rover that is slower but holds lots of science equipment, an exploration rover to look at the terrain, and the main craft which relays communications to these two crafts and also gathers resources and data about the resources in the area. This is entirely speculation, and has not even been talked about by the developers, just me pitching an idea that came up when thinking about this.
The relationship between these three colony types
As stated for all of them, each colony (note: any information stated about the mobile colonies could be ignored) has its own requirements and dependencies, and so I think that it would have a structure as follows. The main ground colony will be supporting it all once large enough, it would start to construct an orbital colony, which would have supply chains with three crafts you would need to build, a fuel tanker, a resource shuttle, and a kerbal shuttle. To fuel up the large ships the station would make, you would need a lot of fuel that needs to be automatically brought to the station via a fuel tanker. The resources required to build the ship would be brought by the resource shuttle, and since most of the kerbals will be on the ground colony, a kerbal shuttle would be required for any kerbal excursion to another star or planet that comes from the station. A mobile colony would be self dependent, but most of it is more of a utility thing in order to explore a planet and get information. It serves the ground colony, but is very unrelated to the colony type theme here. Mobile colonies could however be the root of a colony, meaning the command center is mobile and will explore a planet to find a good spot, then it will anchor itself and become the command center.
An interstellar convoy
When making an interstellar convoy, your first goal will be colonization. You do not want to send multiple crafts to the star system to colonize it, so you would need to send all of the essentials, mainly a rover to explore the surface to find a good spot to make a base, the modules for a base, specifically a command center, VAB, habitation, life support, fuel refinement and utility, and the last two things you need is a shuttle to bring the kerbals down to the surface to the base (the modules are likely condensed meaning you can’t have kerbals in them until they are put together in a colony), and perhaps a the rest of the core spacecraft can be left floating around in orbit around the planet to be used later when constructing an orbital station so that you have immediate materials you can break down for resources.
Authors note
Thank you so much for reading this, I wrote this specifically as a brain dump so that I would have all of these thoughts just sitting in my head, and I just thought to share them. For context, I've played the game for about 3k hours, and this is what I think could happen and I would be happy to see. I hope you found the information both interesting and informative, and please comment below your speculations about this and what you think about this information. Please tell me also if you think this is accurate, what you want to see and if it made you have any other ideas.
Edit: Sorry for the garbage bullet points. I don't know how to get them to work, so here's a link to copy a google doc with this same article for better readability https://docs.google.com/document/d/11vY7E_sHpzds16tFb1hvvHJiqznsM1wydgpgWapWYbw/copy#
