Advice on Interplanetary Missions

[nsgallup]

Other then missions to the farthest planets in OPM I do single launch missions

[Warzouz]

I usually send 2 missions

- one space station fully equiped (maybe with one lander)

- one separate mission with landers and return vehicles.

They all meet at target.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

It's more efficient to assemble everything in LKO and use one drivestage to bring everything over to the target.

So yeah, thats what I do

[Homusubi]

I tend to go with one launch - build a rocket capable of getting large payload to Minmus, make said payload a fairly large lander with mining gear, ISRU, and maybe a few NERVAs if you want to land anywhere other than the Eve and Duna systems. Refuel at Minmus through mining, fly to Ike with just the lander, refuel at Ike, then go onwards to Jool. Same thing with Gilly if you want to go to Moho. If you want to go to Duna, you can go straight there from Minmus without landing on Ike.

If I ever do assemble stuff in orbit, I do it in Minmus orbit as the possible delta-v wastage is smaller.

[Francois424]

I almost never construct in orbit of anywhere. If I can't launch it, it's not efficient enough

Though if I ever do another Jool-5 mission, I just may construct that bad boy in LKO, which is how I've done all of my "in space" construction so far.

Please do a new series on that. It's been quite a while since the last one.

Don't forget to record the video feed this time tho ;-)

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Personally, if going to Moho, Eve and Duna, I don't bother with orbital construction.

When going to Jool, it depends on what I want to do there. Most of the time I do not need orbital construction either.

I will do it if I bundle multiple missions in one go tho. Like deploying a 7 Jool satellite network for communications or doing Jool-5.

I will do it much, much more when KSP 64-bits hits and I start running with the outer-planets mod or 1/10th RSS. When it takes 15 years to get into position, you want to send everything useful in one go.

The only problem with building big ships in orbit is the damn severe frame loss that occurs (for me it starts getting annoying at 500 parts, 700 is barely tolerable, 1000 I've don't it ONCE and never again).

Fact is, I like big ships, too bad the game can't handle it.