Self-Sustaining Base

[funkcanna]

Hey,

One of the features I've never used is mining so I want to give it a try and want to make a Self-Sustaining Mining Base using the USI Life Support mod.

Is this possible? I tried finding guides on this but couldnt find much.

Also id like to mine (Stock and Karbonite) but again, I have no idea what to do.

Im sure I'm missing a tutorial somewhere!

[cantab]

With USI LS alone you can't make a fully self-sustaining base, you will need shipments of Fertiliser to keep the large greenhouse running in Agroponics mode.

I believe UKS makes it possible, but not easy, to make a self-sustaining base.

[funkcanna]

What other mods would I neeD?

[genericeventhandler]

I'm attempting just this using Kolonization. It's a little daunting to be honest, I have my first shipment of buildings on the way to minmus at the moment.

[funkcanna]

What exactly is the process for self-sustainability? How do you create supplies?

[Snark]

I've been playing with UKS for a while now, along with TAC-LS.

UKS has its own life-support model with a somewhat simplified resource cycle. If you've got TAC-LS installed, too, then the resource cycle is slightly more complicated, but it works well (RoverDude wrote UKS to be TAC-LS compatible and it handles it well.)

Both ways allow self-supporting bases, but it's a bit complex and takes a lot of setup and effort. Here's the walkthrough I used to learn how to make it work:

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Life-Support

In UKS-without-TAC-LS, the cycle looks like this:

1. Kerbals use Supplies and produce Mulch

2. Agricultural/aeroponics modules uses Mulch to produce Organics

3. Kerbitat uses Organics to produce Supplies

4. ...which you feed back to your Kerbals.

The cycle with TAC-LS involved is pretty similar, just replace "Mulch" with "Waste Water, Carbon Dioxide, and Waste", and replace "Supplies" with "Oxygen, Water, and Food".

The cycle is not 100% efficient-- that is, if it's a closed system, you lose a little on each cycle and you'll gradually run out of stuff. However, there's a way to add more stuff to the system without having to ship up more resources from Kerbin: The Aeroponics Module has a "Cultivator" function which, if you feed it Water and Substrate (which can both be mined), will generate Organics.

So your basic self-sustainable base will have the necessary modules to do the resource loop described above, and will also have a modest water & substrate mining setup so that it can generate fresh Organics to replace gradual losses. (It doesn't take very much mining to do this, quite a small mining operation will suffice.)

Be aware that running these modules to do the various resource conversions takes a lot of electricity, so you'll definitely want to have a nuclear power module as part of your setup.

[funkcanna]

Awesome thanks!

[Sharkman Briton]

Good luck!

[Snark]

Other handy resources:

Resource consumption rates per kerbal, useful for doing math when you're figuring out how much crew your base can support:

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/One-Kerbal

The other thing to be aware of is that the amount of crew matters, the skill levels & professions of the crew matter, and the amount of "living" and "working" space matters. It's a complicated set of math rules, documented here,

https://github.com/BobPalmer/MKS/wiki/Efficiency-and-Load

...but what it boils down to is this:

1. You need Kerbals to run things. The more kerbals you have, the faster your modules will process resources. (But only up to a point, so overloading your base with crew won't help.)

2. Your Kerbals need "work" space and "living" space. If they don't have enough, their productivity suffers (i.e. your modules will slow down their resource processing). Only certain parts count as "work" and "living" space. Main thing is to make sure you have enough of these.

3. Each Kerbal has to pull his or her own weight. That's because adding the Kerbal adds a boost to your productivity, but also adds a resource drain as they consume supplies. Each Kerbal has a personal productivity that's determined by profession and level, and (this is the kicker!) there's a certain "threshold" above which your kerbal is a net producer, and below which your kerbal is a net consumer. So you'd better have enough producers to outweigh the consumers, or your base won't self-sustain no matter how much hardware you throw at it.

So for point #3, your crew needs to consist of "good" kerbals as much as possible. This works as follows:

- Pilots are terrible

- Scientists are okay

- Engineers are best

- The higher the level, the better (no matter which profession it is)

One engineer is worth three pilots. Pilots are pretty much useless. To have a self-sustaining base, you want to have as few pilots as possible, and as many engineers as possible, and you want everybody's levels to be up. I've been running a base with all level-3 kerbals, consisting of about half engineers and half scientists with a tiny scattering of pilots, and it does okay. The Training Akademy is your friend here, since you can use it to train everybody up to level 3 as long as you have some "seed" kerbals that learned their profession the hard way and can teach the others.

[Geschosskopf]

My experience:

Total self-sufficiency is a pipedream, not worth the vast expense and hassle it requires. While in theory UKS can make a base self-sufficient for life support, its base modules still wear out from use and require periodic resupplies of Machinery and EnrichedUranium. You can, of course, use UKS to make these things on-site but this requires a huge, highly complex, 3-tier manufacturing plant, probably dispersed across several bases where the various resources are, and each of these will need its own life support loop. So you end up with this huge, expensive micromanagement timesink when all you wanted was just a simple fuel base to support your actual gameplay missions.

Bottom line is, it's no great hardship to send out occasional life support resupply missions but it's a pain to build and run a fully self-sufficient UKS base. And if your UKS base isn't self-sufficient for Machinery and EnrichedUranium, you'll have to send out resupply missions anyway even if it handles its own life support. So you might as well skip all the UKS hassle and just use a life support mod by itself and send out supplies of that.

USI-LS by itself, given its greenhouse parts, is quite efficient enough to not need resupplies more than once every few years. That's plenty of time to meet transfer windows. And if you want to rotate your crew out periodically, you'll be going there anyway so might as well bring out supplies while you're at it.

[Snark]

Total self-sufficiency is a pipedream, not worth the vast expense and hassle it requires.

Well, it's all in the perspective. A big part of the joy of KSP (and what keeps it so replayable, for me at least-- 16 months so far and still not tired of it) is the way you can set your own goals (and mods can help with that).

I've been spending the last couple of months playing a game with UKS/TAC-LS installed, precisely because of the challenge. Yes, setting up a self-sustaining base is enormously complicated and difficult. That's why I installed UKS, I wanted the challenge. For me, that's the point. To paraphrase Kennedy, we play KSP not because it is easy but because it is hard. Each time I start a new savegame, I have a particular combination of mods and/or self-imposed rules in mind to make it something new, challenging, and different from previous saves. I wanted to do an extra-hard one that would take an extra long time to complete, which is why I chose UKS. I've really been enjoying the challenge. The beauty of KSP is that everybody wants something different out of it, and they can all get it. UKS is clearly not for everyone, but it certainly fills a niche and it's very well done for being what it is.

While in theory UKS can make a base self-sufficient for life support, its base modules still wear out from use and require periodic resupplies of Machinery and EnrichedUranium. You can, of course, use UKS to make these things on-site but this requires a huge, highly complex, 3-tier manufacturing plant, probably dispersed across several bases where the various resources are, and each of these will need its own life support loop.

Yup. That's pretty much exactly what I was looking for. It's fun.

So you end up with this huge, expensive micromanagement timesink when all you wanted was just a simple fuel base to support your actual gameplay missions.

Except that "a simple fuel base to support actual gameplay missions" is not what I wanted. If that's what I wanted, why on earth would I install UKS? For anyone interested in UKS, the base is the gameplay mission, here. (Also, the base doesn't take a lot of micromanagement to maintain. To set up, yes-- that's kinda the point. But just running it takes very little management. It's self-sustaining, after all.)

Bottom line is, it's no great hardship to send out occasional life support resupply missions but it's a pain to build and run a fully self-sufficient UKS base... So you might as well skip all the UKS hassle and just use a life support mod by itself and send out supplies of that.

Well, that's true... but why not just skip the life-support mod hassle, too? That would make the game simpler and easier, right? No hassle of sending out resupply missions. But that would defeat the purpose, here: people install life support mods not to make the game easier or more convenient, but rather to add a level of challenge. UKS and self-sustainability is the same idea, just taken to an extreme. Is it for everyone? Definitely not. Heck, it's not even for me, if every one of my games was that way-- when I decide that I'm "done" with the current save game, my next one will be some other combination of mods and self-imposed rules. I probably won't do another playthrough of UKS, at least for a long while. But it sure is fun to do this once!

And if your UKS base isn't self-sufficient for Machinery and EnrichedUranium, you'll have to send out resupply missions anyway even if it handles its own life support.

Yup, which is why my base manufactures all its own machinery and mines & refines its own uranium. Yay!

...All of which is not to say that I'm arguing with you. Every single point you make is completely valid. And UKS is definitely not one of those mods that ought to be part of the stock game; it is a hassle, and it is a timesink that means you spend more time on logistics than on flying rocketships. It just happens to be one of the many, many chapters of the KSP story that some people will like and others won't. As long as the person trying it out knows what they're getting into, it's all good.

If someone is considering UKS because they know it's hard and want the challenge -> great.

If someone is considering it because they think "oh, great, I'll save on launches and don't have to spend all that time launching resupply missions" -> totally wrong.

In my own case, I took it on because I wanted to do a savegame that has a really epic "story arc" and would take me a long time to play through until I decide I'm "done". It goes like this:

1. initial start of game, climb tech tree just far enough (and make just enough money) to establish an initial base foothold on Mun or Minmus (I chose Minmus)

2. from that point on, no more launches from Kerbin at all

3. build up the base until it's completely self-sustaining, and manufactures its own ships (I'm running Extraplanetary Launchpads)

4. assemble a gigantic, fully self-sustaining deep space exploration ship in Minmus orbit

5. set out on a decades-long exploration trip to the outer solar system (I'm running Outer Planets Mod)

6. after it's fully explored, come home in triumph

I'm currently about 2 months into the save, and have just finished step #4 and started #5. It's a blast. I figure I can squeeze out another couple of months finishing step #5, easily. Once I get to #6, I'm done and it's time to move on to some other KSP permutation.

[cantab]

It's a worthwhile point that you can do a lot with partial-efficiency recycling. In USI-LS just stack up on the fertilizer and you can leave your Kerbals on their base for years, even decades. (If only there was a bigger fertilizer container). In TAC it's a bit fiddlier, but I think you can get it so food is your only consumable and it's not *that* hard to ship a big supply of food out.

[Geschosskopf]

...All of which is not to say that I'm arguing with you. Every single point you make is completely valid. And UKS is definitely not one of those mods that ought to be part of the stock game; it is a hassle, and it is a timesink that means you spend more time on logistics than on flying rocketships. It just happens to be one of the many, many chapters of the KSP story that some people will like and others won't. As long as the person trying it out knows what they're getting into, it's all good.

Well said.

I just felt compelled to bring up the drawbacks of UKS because the OP was just wanting to set up his 1st-ever fuel base and had no knowledge of UKS. And UKS is definitely not something to get into lightly. IMHO, UKS is best thought of as a game unto itself because once you get into it, you're not really able to do much else except tinker with it constantly. If that's what you want to do in that particular game, that's great. I've played numerous UKS-centered games myself and they can be quite fun. But OTOH if you want to go exploring, which is kinda implied by the desire to build a fuel base, then UKS is probably best avoided.

[Snark]

I just felt compelled to bring up the drawbacks of UKS because the OP was just wanting to set up his 1st-ever fuel base and had no knowledge of UKS. And UKS is definitely not something to get into lightly. IMHO, UKS is best thought of as a game unto itself because once you get into it, you're not really able to do much else except tinker with it constantly. If that's what you want to do in that particular game, that's great. I've played numerous UKS-centered games myself and they can be quite fun. But OTOH if you want to go exploring, which is kinda implied by the desire to build a fuel base, then UKS is probably best avoided.

Yes, that's a good point!

It's still not completely clear to me what the OP's goal is-- "never used mining, want to try it" could mean "I'm tired of shipping up fuel from Kerbin" versus "I want to do something new and challenging". The former would not be a good fit for UKS, the latter would be. Based on the subsequent comment about trying life support, I was guessing it was the latter, but could go either way.

So, back to the OP: Whether you try UKS or not totally depends on what experience you're looking for. If you just want to save on shipping tonnage (e.g. fuel) up from Kerbin, and want to spend most of your time exploring and flying rocketships, then UKS isn't good for that. If what you want is a challenge that's all about putting a base together (as Geschosskopf said, pretty much a game unto itself), then UKS can be tons of fun. It's all a matter of what experience you're looking for.

It's a worthwhile point that you can do a lot with partial-efficiency recycling. In USI-LS just stack up on the fertilizer and you can leave your Kerbals on their base for years, even decades. (If only there was a bigger fertilizer container). In TAC it's a bit fiddlier, but I think you can get it so food is your only consumable and it's not *that* hard to ship a big supply of food out.

Another excellent point. It's also worth pointing out that if you're using TAC-LS, it has some parts that can recycle wastewater back to water, and CO2 back to oxygen (not 100% efficiency, but fairly high). So if you want somewhat of a life support experience without the complexity of UKS, you can stretch your resupply schedule (e.g. don't need to take as much water/oxygen along since they're recyclable, just be sure to bring plenty of snacks).

Edited August 29, 2015 by Snark

[Geschosskopf]

It's a worthwhile point that you can do a lot with partial-efficiency recycling. In USI-LS just stack up on the fertilizer and you can leave your Kerbals on their base for years, even decades. (If only there was a bigger fertilizer container). In TAC it's a bit fiddlier, but I think you can get it so food is your only consumable and it's not *that* hard to ship a big supply of food out.

Yeah, in USI-LS, the lack of a bigger Fertilizer tank is a pain. Still, you only need 1/5 the Fertilizer as you do Mulch. The 2.5m greenhouse starts with 500 Supplies and 500 Fertilizer. This means you can recycle all your Supplies 5 times, and get a 6th time for free becuase this runs at 120% efficiency. So your original 500 Supplies is effectively 3500 (500 to start with and 3000 recycled) before you run out of Fertilizer. And once the Fertilizer's gone, you can squeeze nearly 500 more Supplies out of it running at 50% efficiency. So a single 2.5m greenhouse will feed 1 Kerbal for nearly 10 years.

HOWEVER, the 2.5m Supply tank holds 4500 Supplies, weighs about the same as the 2.5m greenhouse, only costs $1000 compared to $5000, and has stack nodes on both ends, making for easier ship design. So the 2.5m greenhouse, and thus Fertilizer, are only really necessary if you plan to feed a large crew for a long time.

NOTE: When planning long-term missions using USI-LS, use a waste allowance of about 10% of your supplies on top of any safety margin you want to build in. This is because USI-LS has random events where a week or 2 of Supplies will "fall out the airlock". While the daily chances of this happening are quite small, it's practically inevitable at least once during a mission lasting years.

Another thing about life support mods in general is to always put probe cores on your ships. That way, if the crew starves, you can still bring the ship home .