Some crazy base assembly.

[Mapoko]

Hello.

Due to some unplanned things I ended up doing some funny things in low gravity and thought I want to share.

This is my humble MSD - Minmus Science Drill

The rover went low on fuel, but with the absence of KAS/KIS and the space crane not built yet I had to improvise.

Retracting the solar panels, engaging RCS, some hovering and upside down hover maneuvers and ta-daa !

(Planning to Klaw the big fuel tank you see some day.)

After refueling everything went according to plan - Success !

Jeb heard of those feats and decided to try it out himself, so he went into "The Data Truck" stationed on the Mun, went to the LKO Science station to feed the scientist's brains with fresh data and refuel, then went to achieve his goal!

He landed near the drill and almost did destroy one of the rover's panels.

[Picture missing, sadly]

Then decided to do the acrobatics himself !

Success! *gulp gulp gulp* some fresh fuel and feeding Minmus Scientists brains, then off to Kerbin !

Sorry if that seems silly to veterans, but it is still exciting for me to do improvised stuff.

[Wallygator]

I think that's pretty cool. Nice Job!

Need to work on your exposure settings but other than that you deserve a resounding golf clap!

[Merinsan]

Docking in gravity is hard, no matter who you are - though I do suspect the new pilot abilities help.

[Temeter]

Docking in gravity is hard, no matter who you are - though I do suspect the new pilot abilities help.

You could go for a claw, although i'm not sure how stable that is. I wonder what unlocking their joint would do... *goes away to test stuff*

[Dilli]

Reading Brotoro's Lythe mission logs the claw works well for surface docking (when it doesn't summon a kraken), provided the active ship is doing the clawing.

[Mapoko]

The Minmus low gravity certainly helped to achieve that, but I believe the craft have enough RCS TWR.

I managed to get into Minmus orbit with only 180 monoprop, so I think this maneuver can be preformed on Mun too.

Heck, I even managed to put the whole structure (needed some engines tweaking) into orbit.

But the beauty of it is that it was not planned. I have not launched anything for awhile and trying to reuse and repurpose what I have floating in space.

Klaw is an easy option to connect stuff just to refuel, but to actually use it as a joint - well, you have to me even more precise than docking aligning your angles, because ... you know ... the Kraken.

I am waiting for the KAS update, because I like the fuel lines, winches and other stuff. But for Stock Klaw is the way.

I will post more funny situations when I come to them. I hope you enjoyed it and had some laugh.

P.S.: Is there a way to make those solid ? Tried Density to 100%, but I guess that is not the option :

Edited May 5, 2015 by Mapoko

[Herr Rictus Bingo]

Wow that's really cool job Minmus is perfect for big base, I just have a problem with that, when i put too many craft near each other in the same place KSP become laggy

[Teutooni]

Awesome! I think that's half the appeal of the game - figuring out a solution when in a situation you did not plan for. The other half is designing missions that don't get you into such situations.

[PerfectDeath]

Keep an eye on your part count then, once your total part-count within around 2.5km gets too high things can slow down. So, avoid using small parts in large numbers.

For example, for solar panels the single ones consume about the same as the larger ones. Same goes for batteries and such.

[Mapoko]

Nothing new around this base lately, except I managed to roll one of the debris tanks away.

Although unrelated, but ... I had a long burn and I decided to go to the bathroom, leaving it on full throttle. The result :

And solar panels are not helpful anymore.