Contract / Space Station / mining questions

[xiombargdei]

Hello !

I started playing again with the 1.0.2 release after a long break. I installed Mission Controller 2 among other mods. I'm in a carreer mode. Here are 3 questions for you :

1. At some point I was proposed a contract to build a space station around kerbin but decided to postpone it for after i went to Mun and Minmus. Unfortunately when i came back i was not proposed the contract anymore. instead I have contracts to build space station around Mun and Minmus which is far overkill for me now ... Can i debug the game or MC2 so i find the basic contract back and if yes how ?

2. What is a good space station design ? What is needed exactly ? I watched several youtube videos on this topic but everyone seems to have different views ... so i'm a bit lost. What would you recommend I start with ?

3. I heard mining planets and moons is now in the stock game ? What is the required tech for this ? Will i be proposed contract for this or do i need a mod(s) ?

Thanks

[FancyMouse]

1. Contracts have expire date (which is usually just a couple of days). If you don't accept by then, they'll just expire and new ones will spawn. Most contracts are randomly generated anyway, so just keep rejecting until you meet something that you want to do. That's fine.

2. Which means easily extensible is the most important part. Just tons of docking ports, then you can add whatever you want at any time. For me, my station has TAC life support, StationScience, RemoteTech antennas, each being its own module docked to the main station core. Very flexible.

3. Yes, and it's called Ore, using ISRU to convert to Mono/LF/LFO. There will be contracts asking you to extract x Ores (and optionally return to Kerbin) etc. It's kind of mid-career thing. All stock.

[Warzouz]

Well, hopefully, there is not one space station design. It depends of what you want.

The basics

- Lab, crew accomodation, antenna (not even necessary), solar panels and backup

- Build modular (docking rings)

I suggest to set appart the fragile solar panels and the docking ring zone, so you don't fly into panels by accident.

Advanced : that depends on what you usually do with space station.

Exploration

Personnally I mostly use them as refueling for planetary exploration. After my first trip to Mun, I built a space station there, set it into polar orbit and strip science from the Mun in one mission. I redid it on minmus, but on equatorial orbit. The station is sufficiently fuelled not to be refueled.

LKO Refueling

I have a small station, but I don't use it. I'm managing to build a bigger one. But again, I opted for the SSTO rocket to drastically cut on launch costs. So I'm not using the orbit empty interplanetary stage and refuel it on a station with minmus mining or asteroid. I find the round trip, to minmus quite tedious.

Even though, there are different ways to go. Again, think modular : you might want to add an ISRU (or maybe an additionnal one...)

Other ?

As for station contract, I found them ridiculous. I was asked for a 6000 liquid fuel around minmus. The full exploration of minmus only requires 1000, depending on you lander. I usually edit SFS files to fix stupid contracts. The 6000 units of fuel is more than I brought with me to Jool when I explore all the moons twice (full strip of Pol, Bop and Vall + half of Laythe and 2 landings on Tylo + 5 fly-by) All with 15T SSTO Landers (thus not fuel efficient).

[AzertyBot]

As for station contract, I found them ridiculous. I was asked for a 6000 liquid fuel around minmus. The full exploration of minmus only requires 1000, depending on you lander. I usually edit SFS files to fix stupid contracts. The 6000 units of fuel is more than I brought with me to Jool when I explore all the moons twice (full strip of Pol, Bop and Vall + half of Laythe and 2 landings on Tylo + 5 fly-by) All with 15T SSTO Landers (thus not fuel efficient).

I remember doing this mission, took me a bunch of minmus mining/fuel transport to accomplish

For stations i strongly recommand you to put a science lab in it (with experiments) as it's a huge science generator. Don't forget to equip your station with solar panels (put more solar panels the farther you are from the sun as their effectiveness decreases with the distance). A fast antena and a lot of battery will help you too, as the science transmit takes time and a lot of energy.

A probe core somewhere could also be a good idea, in case you need your kerbals somewhere else.

As others said : docking ports are almost mandatory.

[Warzouz]

Hmmm, science lab are great, but the science generation comes efficiently too late.

Problem 1 : having some experienced scientits comes late. You get level 3 kerbonautes only by leaving SOI after landing on Mun and Minmus

Problem 2 : stripping Minmus and Mun for science is enough to get the whole tech tree unlocked. Those missions can be done in several days. Lab would only generate very few science points.

What I did

- Step 1 : master new atmo and orbiting. Doing some Kerbin plane flights for fun and research to get most science experiments unlocked (except sesmic, gravity and atmo analysis).

- Step 2 : Sending a simple Mimmus mission : small lander and half an orange tank of fuel. Landed 3 times all biomes visited.

- Step 3 : Sending a real space station to Mun in polar orbit : 2 small landers. all biomes visited

- Step 4 : Kerbol SOI peek : send a bus full of kerbals to get XP to level 3

- Step 5 : All science expermients unlocked, new Minmus space station with more science (complement and missing experiments)

At this point, all tech tree unlocked and I'm few days from the first Duna window. During that time, my 2 labs generated less than 100 science.

My typical "Space station missions" is a dual mission : 1 for the space station with additionnal fuel. 1 with the return vehicle, kerbals and landers (even sats). I usually bring around 7-12 kerbals to get XP.

So Labs aren't that usefull to farm science. But I always add one for RP.

Now time to get an administrative strategy to turn science into cash. but my Duna mission is nearly ready. Same thing : Space station mission (with one big 3.75m fuel tank full) and another mission with 2 landers, 2 sats and return vehicle. I don't think I'll do a science stripping on Duna, but I should be able to land 4 or 5 times, maybe with one small hop each time (Duna lander has 2800m/s). For Ike, I've planned less landing, but more hops, as the station will orbit Duna, not Ike (Ike lander has 3000m/s).

I think I won't go to polar orbit, because of Ike exploration. Polar orbit is very nice for Eeloo. Boring for Mun (as it's tidally locked), I dealt with it by using 2 landers. No useful for Minmus as plane change are cheap. Probably a good idea for Dres (never been there). For Jool's moons, that depends how you explore them ; last time I went for a 500km equatorial orbit of Laythe, a VERY nice view.

[xiombargdei]

ok thanks guys for your answers Getting the contract done was important for RP reasons, but i guess this can wait for me to install Real Solar System and Survival mods and get some serious stuff done. For the moment i'll just unlock more of the tech tree and see how far i can improve my skills. A few more small questions though :

1. If i want a polar orbit on Minmus is it better to launch northward on kerbin then transfer to minmus, or get an equatorial orbit of kerbin first, then adjust trajectory toward Minmus ?

2. Why is there no biome map in game ? Or did I miss it ?

3. I use [X]Science mod to track the sience I have to get when i go somewhere, any better recommendations ?

[Warzouz]

1 : To get to polar orbit, you can launch with small inclination, but not kerbin polar. I usually start flat east and do some tweak during mun transfer burn. It's quite cheap. It's even easier with Minmus but polar orbit is less useful as landing costs little.

For Mun, polar orbit is efficient to explore biomes, BUT as Mun is tidally locked it turns VERY slowly and you can be stuck for as while on ground waiting for the mother ship/space station to fly over you location. It's boring.

Solutions :

- Do a very quick landing and take-off, so your plane change will be very small

- Plan your hops to follow the rotation of Mun, so you're under the station at next orbit.

- Use several landers to always have something to do. (option I took)

2 : There is no biome map. I use the debut menu to deplay them.

3 : As for tracking science, I use a printed 4 pages Excel sheet I did myself for the whole Kerbol system.