Big project ideas needed

[FlyingPete]

Now 1.0 has been upon us for a while, and hopefully all the major features are reasonably stable. I'm working my way through a science mode game which has its own challenge, but I figure it's time to do a large project in sandbox mode, just to see if it can be done. I like the engineering challenge of coming up with equipment that works. Been looking forward to resource mining for some time so would be good to get that operational.

Pre-1.0, I've been to Duna a couple of times, Jool and Eve (one-way). Never been to Dres, Moho or Eeloo as they don't seem too interesting (no moons or anything)

Here's some options I've considered so far:

- Exploration of Jool's moons. Bit of a ripoff of Brotoro's Long Term Laythe, but should be able to make it mostly self-sufficient with a good mining operation.

- Colonise Eve: Would have to be a colony as realistically they're not coming back. An orbital outpost running missions to Gilly is also a possibility.

- A surface base on Ike, with excursions to Duna to do some exploring there.

- Asteroid Nomads: Assemble a large mothership that goes cruising between asteroids, with a couple of attached 'landers' that can pillage them for ore. Hope the Kerbals like zero-g.

- Something else?

[Geschosskopf]

I say try to develop rovers that can jump the canyon on Dres

[Jett_Quasar]

I like the asteroid cruising idea - I've never even seen that done before.

Don't colonize Eve, take it from me, you don't want to do that.

JR

[HoloYolo]

Tylo-Single-Stage-to-Landing-and-reorbit?

[Thomassino]

Orbital city around Kerbin... yes I mean city not station. Physics bubble is 5km wide you can do pretty amazing and gargantuan structures if you can handle very very slow framerates and you are patient enough...

[FlyingPete]

I've made a start on an asteroid cruiser design. It turned out to be fairly simple to get this main section into orbit.

From front to back: Mk3 cockpit, passenger module, science lab (in cargo bay) ore storage and processing (in cargo bay) liquid fuel tank, LFO tank/adapter, nuke engine (x4) The dual docking ports on each side will allow addition of Mk2-sized side pods containing smaller cargo bays, some more tank space, a couple more engines and docking ports for the mining shuttles (yet to be designed). Then it's off to colonise space!

http://imgur.com/a/lasOr

[PanzerAce]

I'm building a sort of 'Grand Tour' ship. Running the Atomic age and Near future mods, the idea is to build a giant ship to go to every planet, with the ability to refine ore on the ship, parasite ships to mine the moons it vists, landers for Kerbals to visit surfaces, etc. The current design I'm running for the thruster section alone is ~400 tons when fully fueled. Still trying to decide if I'm going to run LH2 VASIMR engines or an LF nuclear lightbulb for primary thrust....

Since I'm also changing my mind a ton on the design, I went ahead and named the ship "Theseus"...

Edited July 27, 2015 by PanzerAce