IO

Create and maintain neatly looking satellite and relay constellations. Description Gives you gameplay reason to create cool looking satellite constellations. Includes: Contracts for setting up relays and relay constellations for different celestial bodies. Requires reaching the body first, but allows reusing an existing vessel as the relay (for lesser reward). Required antennae strength is automatically calculated. Satellite contract (replaces stock) with a new, custom system for orbit generation. Contracts are split into low, medium, synchronous and high orbits (also polar and kolynia). Contracts notes also include required deltaV for a given orbit (I always find it annoying that I have to either guess, or bring out the calculator). Kerbal Positioning System contracts: create GPS-like constellation in multiple stages. Contracts for placing Mun relay in quasi-L4/L5 point. Contracts for placing SENTINEL telescope in quasi-L3/L4/L5 point of a given celestial body (intended to replace stock SENTINEL). Contracts for station-keeping (WIP): you will be periodically asked to fix position of your satellites in a given constellation (or just verify them if they're within margins) for a small reward. Player is rewarded for precision with a small bonus. Can you match the orbit with <100m precision? How about <1m? Contracts that require you to place your craft in a specific position (and not only orbit) unlocks after you perform a rendezvous. Compatible mods Kopernicus - although the pack is mainly aimed at the stock Kerbol system and its extension, it should work even with some more unorthodox replacement/rescales. NearFutureElectrical and NearFutureSolar parts can be used when a contract requires power generators. How it works There's no way to specify an exact position/mean anomaly in the Contract Configurator, only an orbit, so I had to invent one. I wanted the process to be as frictionless as possible to the player, so blindly trying to match mean anomaly was out of the question. That's why I decided to reuse stock rendezvous system. Contracts will spawn a marker that you can rendezvous with the same way you rendezvous with a real vessel. That's because it is a sort of a dummy vessel: just without any visible or physical part. I recommend to rendezvous with the marker as close as possible first and then match the required orbit. This way the constellation will stay synced the longest. Dependencies Contract Configurator v2.10.0.0 (relatively recent version, I had to add a few things to make this pack work) Module Manager Download spacedock CKAN github source FAQ Changelog MIT License

Is it not possible to get CelestialBody's Orbit? Looking into the documentation I only see SemiMajorAxis() which is... not a lot.

Midland, why do you ask though? I didn't really take biome into consideration when picking the spot. I was mostly looking at proximity to equator and the scenery . Since I have tons of fuel leftover from the construction, I use it for biome hopping from the base. The main one is definitely Stockalike Station Parts Redux, 90% of the parts used are from there: tubes, adapters, habitats, control modules, lab, hydroponics and most importantly legs. Legs don't work like the stock ones, they are completely rigid but they can be adjusted to the surface. This was probably one of the most important thing in keeping kraken at bay. I used Kerbal Attachment System to connect the base with the reactor. Other than that I did use it pretty extensively during the construction: I would use a KAS hose to connect a module to my rover before the actual docking so I could control it (saving on probe cores and solar panel parts). The reactor is from Near Future Electrical and it's a little over kill for the base tbh, I could probably get away with a smaller one. The big dish is an antenna from Near Future eXploration. The old rocket way. Landing stage was always above the payload like so: It did make it top heavy, so I would usually put it down very slowly (I'd always bring tons of extra dealt v), and then decouple as the module touches the ground. I'd then land my "sky crane" nearby so I could drain fuel from it using KAS. You still need a relatively flat spot for it too work though. Also I always tried to land as close to the base as possible so I wouldn't have to spend too much time on ferrying modules around. Well there are mentioned earlier SSPX legs which make a pretty glitchless support. They only problem with ground support I have is not unique to them. When you have a large structure resting on the ground, parts of it will shift slightly when you go in and out of the time warp/rails. It makes sense: on rails there's no physics and parts align perfectly, and off rails parts will bend and sag slightly under gravity. So some parts may then clip into the ground in warp and then pop up when going off warp (or fly off if they clip it a lot). Luckily the legs let you shorten them evenly, so that fixes it. As for the mentioned in the original post method of construction. I originally planned to use two cranes/robot arm to move modules around, but the hinges didn't really work for me. They would seem fine at one moment, but if quicksave and reload they would vibrate themselves into oblivion. So for moving modules up and down I would just use the legs again. I did use a crane for connecting the tubes though. As the construction progressed I did get some kraken encounters: rovers convulsing when I attach a new module to the base with them docked. So I made an action group for quickly disconnecting/decoupling the rovers and that solved it. Other than that I say don't use robot parts. I have some robot parts for rotating the small dish and the optical telescope (so non-structural in any way) and they still managed to glitch themselves at one point. I had some robot part on my old base and they caused a glitchfest. I should also mention the ground anchor. I planned to used it because my previous base was on a slight slope and after every time warp it would slide down a little. I ended up not using it since it was too glitchy for me so the base just rests on the ground. Luckily, thanks to the spot being very flat, I don't have the sliding problem. I literally used ScanSat on max zoom and looked for a spot with <1m elevation difference. I don't think you have to go that hard, but be wary since a spot can look flat, but be on a very slight slope.

Coming back to the game after... *checks notes* 3 year break wow. I attempted to make a base with a very similar design back in the day, but low framerate + glitches made me quit. Now with a beefy PC I finally managed to build it. Experience from the first attempt was really helpful: I made sure to find a REALLY flat spot for the base. I tried to limit part count per module (I think it's under 350 total). I put time into researching least kraken-inducing way of construction possible. I must say it paid off, the process was relatively painless albeit long. I think it took me ~3 week IRL, although interwoven with some other minor projects to keep things interesting. Framerate this time around is pretty good, and the physics warp slows down to ~x0.5, so not great but definitely playable. Some more screenshots: Next project: Minmus mining base.