[Min KSP: 1.12.2] Pathfinder - Space Camping & Geoscience

[RocketSquid]

Is there a way to improve the reliability of the hot springs?

[capi3101]

15 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

Is there a way to improve the reliability of the hot springs?

Are you playing with BARIS? If so, I'm not going to be of much help.

Best way I've found to make use of Hot Springs is to not time warp too fast when you're relying on them for a significant chunk of your power. Having more than one helps too. And then having a high-experience/low-stupidity Engineer in each one helps even more.

[RocketSquid]

4 hours ago, capi3101 said:

Are you playing with BARIS? If so, I'm not going to be of much help.

Best way I've found to make use of Hot Springs is to not time warp too fast when you're relying on them for a significant chunk of your power. Having more than one helps too. And then having a high-experience/low-stupidity Engineer in each one helps even more.

I am playing with BARIS, but at the same time my settings might be such that it doesn't affect the hot springs at all. If engineers in the hot springs reduce the failure chance, I'll make sure to send one up. As is it seems like keeping a hot springs operational would eat up a pretty big portion of my equipment manufacturing capacity, but Mun (in my save at least) doesn't have much in the way of uraninite, so nuclear reactors are only an option if I use some combination of mods to drag a little bit of uranium from ore or set up a mining platform on the other side from my colony and ship in the uraninite with USI planetary logistics or something. Of course, by the time I end up building this base fusion may have been invented.

Edit: I just checked, there's actually some low-grade uraninite near the planned colony site (like the 30% level, as opposed to 90% near the poles), so I could ship it over with resource distribution or planetary logistics. Looks like the hot springs isn't necessary. Of course, if I really want a lot of energy, I'll still need a larger reactor than the one in the nukeworks or the micro-ISRU. Maybe use a few in the castillo, or put one a fair distance away with a ton of shadow shields.

Edited April 8, 2019 by RocketSquid

[capi3101]

4 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

I am playing with BARIS, but at the same time my settings might be such that it doesn't affect the hot springs at all. If engineers in the hot springs reduce the failure chance, I'll make sure to send one up. As is it seems like keeping a hot springs operational would eat up a pretty big portion of my equipment manufacturing capacity, but Mun (in my save at least) doesn't have much in the way of uraninite, so nuclear reactors are only an option if I use some combination of mods to drag a little bit of uranium from ore or set up a mining platform on the other side from my colony and ship in the uraninite with USI planetary logistics or something. Of course, by the time I end up building this base fusion may have been invented.

Edit: I just checked, there's actually some low-grade uraninite near the planned colony site (like the 30% level, as opposed to 90% near the poles), so I could ship it over with resource distribution or planetary logistics. Looks like the hot springs isn't necessary. Of course, if I really want a lot of energy, I'll still need a larger reactor than the one in the nukeworks or the micro-ISRU. Maybe use a few in the castillo, or put one a fair distance away with a ton of shadow shields.

Hmm...I was going to say that you could always go with the SolarFlare for fusion power, but then I re-read your post. You might consider installing SAFER reactors if they're available to you. They would have to be brought in from Kerbin if you wanted them fueled ahead of installation (the fuel does not increase their weight significantly - 1.6 tonnes a pop) but they do provide steady power for a very long time and don't require an engineer's presence. The installation and delivery might be a chore. Of course, if you're not actually on site yet, you can just haul the things with you. 

Quick word of advice - get a probe over the planned site with an M4435 Narrow-Band Scanner, or get something on the ground there with a Surface Scanning Module and do a thorough check-through of all resources (if you go with the narrow-band scanner, go to KerbNet access and cycle through the resources that way). Anything that says "unknown" means "it ain't here." I've gotten nailed a couple of times on landing at a site that looked like it'd be okay from the data from an M700 orbital pass only to find something crucial missing when my kerbals were already there with no way of getting back home...I'll fully admit that Piper Alpha on Mun's surface in my current career save exists in its present state due to frequent Exotic Mineral fill-ups via KML...

Scanning results for a narrow-band or surface pass, incidentally, are going to be universal to the entire biome. So if you're scanning Mun's Midlands and you get "unknown" for uraninite, what that means is you won't find it anywhere in Mun's midlands whatsoever. You wind up getting much the same data out of the scanners as with a Pondarosa/Casa Geology Lab - I think the only thing they won't tell you is GeoEnergy - with the benefit of not having to spend Equipment inflating them. Just a thought.

If you do send up an engineer, double-check their stupidity stat; you want that pretty low if you can help it.

[aceman67]

7 hours ago, capi3101 said:

I've gotten nailed a couple of times on landing at a site that looked like it'd be okay from the data from an M700

Isn't the entire point of Pathfinder's system is that it's mobile? No option to pack up and drive to the next Biome? (This comment is meant entirely in Jest ).

[RocketSquid]

 

9 hours ago, capi3101 said:

Hmm...I was going to say that you could always go with the SolarFlare for fusion power, but then I re-read your post. You might consider installing SAFER reactors if they're available to you. They would have to be brought in from Kerbin if you wanted them fueled ahead of installation (the fuel does not increase their weight significantly - 1.6 tonnes a pop) but they do provide steady power for a very long time and don't require an engineer's presence. The installation and delivery might be a chore. Of course, if you're not actually on site yet, you can just haul the things with you. 

Quick word of advice - get a probe over the planned site with an M4435 Narrow-Band Scanner, or get something on the ground there with a Surface Scanning Module and do a thorough check-through of all resources (if you go with the narrow-band scanner, go to KerbNet access and cycle through the resources that way). Anything that says "unknown" means "it ain't here." I've gotten nailed a couple of times on landing at a site that looked like it'd be okay from the data from an M700 orbital pass only to find something crucial missing when my kerbals were already there with no way of getting back home...I'll fully admit that Piper Alpha on Mun's surface in my current career save exists in its present state due to frequent Exotic Mineral fill-ups via KML...

Scanning results for a narrow-band or surface pass, incidentally, are going to be universal to the entire biome. So if you're scanning Mun's Midlands and you get "unknown" for uraninite, what that means is you won't find it anywhere in Mun's midlands whatsoever. You wind up getting much the same data out of the scanners as with a Pondarosa/Casa Geology Lab - I think the only thing they won't tell you is GeoEnergy - with the benefit of not having to spend Equipment inflating them. Just a thought.

If you do send up an engineer, double-check their stupidity stat; you want that pretty low if you can help it.

The SAFER is an option (I think), but as-is there’s no place for it in the landing craft, unless it’ll fit in a buckboard. If I’m going to have to transport it seperately I’ll use a much bigger reactor.

I’m planning the base for the east crater. While I did send a mission there already, due to poor planning I had yet to unlock scanning equipment. Sending a small unmanned rover shouldn’t be too tough. 

I have a couple engineers with very low stupidity, but they also have no experience.

2 hours ago, aceman67 said:

Isn't the entire point of Pathfinder's system is that it's mobile? No option to pack up and drive to the next Biome? (This comment is meant entirely in Jest ).

The main difficulty isn’t moving it (that’s just a matter of having enough extra lander fuel), it’s finding a spot. If the site proves not to have the resources I need, then there aren’t any sites with the full array and I’ll need to set up a whole other base.

As is, it looks like I’ll need some way to land a lot of equipment; a base below a certain size is outright unhealthy. All the life support equipment needs to be set up ASAP.

Edited April 8, 2019 by RocketSquid

[capi3101]

2 hours ago, aceman67 said:

Isn't the entire point of Pathfinder's system is that it's mobile? No option to pack up and drive to the next Biome? (This comment is meant entirely in Jest ).

Well, see I did this very thing...three times with the same base. Roved a couple hundred kilometers on Mun, hit four different biomes, and all four proved unsuitable...which is when I discovered the phenomenal cosmic power of Kerbal Markup Language, held aloft my magic sword and said "By the Power of Grayskull!!!! I HAAAAVE DA EXOOOTICCC MINERAAAAAAAAALS!!!!!!"

8 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

 

The SAFER is an option (I think), but as-is there’s no place for it in the landing craft, unless it’ll fit in a buckboard. If I’m going to have to transport it seperately I’ll use a much bigger reactor.

I have a couple engineers with very low stupidity, but they also have no experience.

The main difficulty isn’t moving it (that’s just a matter of having enough extra lander fuel), it’s finding a spot. If the site proves not to have the resources I need, then there aren’t any sites with the full array and I’ll need to set up a whole other base.

As is, it looks like I’ll need some way to land a lot of equipment; a base below a certain size is outright unhealthy. All the life support equipment needs to be set up ASAP.

What does your landing craft look like? Are you doing a rover or a lander? If you're doing a rover, I'll point out the Buffalo Wagon - in Storage configuration, it can hold quite a lot of stuff. SAFERs will fit in there easily. Pretty sure they won't fit in a standard 100 Buckboard - a 200, maybe. They do attach radially to craft, I'll mention that; I've got four of them slapped onto the sides of my space stations these days and that provides enough power to operate the orbital mass drivers continuously. 

Wagon also holds 12,000 units in Equipment configuration. Just saying. Really the best bang for your buck there.

As for your engineers having no experience, that's no problem. Configure a Casa as a Habitat. Inflate, mash "Level up Crew". Instant 1-star experience. Every little bit helps.

I don't play with life-support mods my own self; would love to hear about your experiences there. Which one are you using?

[RocketSquid]

36 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

Well, see I did this very thing...three times with the same base. Roved a couple hundred kilometers on Mun, hit four different biomes, and all four proved unsuitable...which is when I discovered the phenomenal cosmic power of Kerbal Markup Language, held aloft my magic sword and said "By the Power of Grayskull!!!! I HAAAAVE DA EXOOOTICCC MINERAAAAAAAAALS!!!!!!"

What does your landing craft look like? Are you doing a rover or a lander? If you're doing a rover, I'll point out the Buffalo Wagon - in Storage configuration, it can hold quite a lot of stuff. SAFERs will fit in there easily. Pretty sure they won't fit in a standard 100 Buckboard - a 200, maybe. They do attach radially to craft, I'll mention that; I've got four of them slapped onto the sides of my space stations these days and that provides enough power to operate the orbital mass drivers continuously. 

Wagon also holds 12,000 units in Equipment configuration. Just saying. Really the best bang for your buck there.

As for your engineers having no experience, that's no problem. Configure a Casa as a Habitat. Inflate, mash "Level up Crew". Instant 1-star experience. Every little bit helps.

I don't play with life-support mods my own self; would love to hear about your experiences there. Which one are you using?

I’m using a lander, and it is a monster. It’s intended to carry eight crew and 24 standard containers (so boxed parts, buckboard 1000s, ponderosas, etc). I used structural panels to build a walkway for crate retrieval, and I’ve added a konstruction krane to the side to lift things up to the walkway. The poodle I was using initially proved inadequate, so I added eight terriers. Until the base is set up, it will be hooked up with a KAS hose to provide power and life support. 

The problem with rovers is that the only real way to land them is some sort of wild saddle-truss based rocket. With that being said, I will have to land a bulldozer at some point.

The biggest change life support brings is that surface bases are dramatically easier than orbital bases. A cropworks will provide food for about twenty kerbals, a pigpen can purify an absurd amount of water, the OPAL gives enough water for around 30 kerbals or greenhouses and the waste it produces is good for the plants, the watney water splitter gives enough oxygen for even the largest of bases, and the watney’s built-in fuel cell gives more water than will ever be needed for life support. 

I also have Kerbal Health, which is the real problem. Even if I get the life support down, unless the base is comfy enough the kerbals will go on strike.

Edited April 8, 2019 by RocketSquid

[capi3101]

26 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

I’m using a lander, and it is a monster. It’s intended to carry eight crew and 24 standard containers (so boxed parts, buckboard 1000s, ponderosas, etc). I used structural panels to build a walkway for crate retrieval, and I’ve added a konstruction krane to the side to lift things up to the walkway. The poodle I was using initially proved inadequate, so I added eight terriers. Until the base is set up, it will be hooked up with a KAS hose to provide power and life support. 

The problem with rovers is that the only real way to land them is some sort of wild saddle-truss based rocket. With that being said, I will have to land a bulldozer at some point.

The biggest change life support brings is that surface bases are dramatically easier than orbital bases. A cropworks will provide food for about twenty kerbals, a pigpen can purify an absurd amount of water, the OPAL gives enough water for around 30 kerbals or greenhouses and the waste it produces is good for the plants, the watney water splitter gives enough oxygen for even the largest of bases, and the watney’s built-in fuel cell gives more water than will ever be needed for life support. 

I also have Kerbal Health, which is the real problem. Even if I get the life support down, unless the base is comfy enough the kerbals will go on strike.

I'll advise caution with the KAS hose - those things are Kraken bait. Are you planning on leaving the lander on site? If so, 6-8 SAFERs radially attached should provide your power needs easily. If not, then you'll need to be able to detach them easily; they're heavy enough fully fueled (1.6 tonnes) that it takes two kerbals to move them around. Still probably your best option.

As far as rovers are concerned, I was able to land the TBD 7a on Mun with an integrated skycrane design - half-a-dozen Twitch engines slapped onto the sides and a Tundra 400 set for LF/O. Used a Poodle attached to the rear-end for most of the landing but then cut it loose and used the Twitches for the final touchdown (design did include an OKTO2 slapped on top of the control cabin for use as the control point during the landing). It was stupid, but it worked and therefore wasn't stupid...

 

[RocketSquid]

52 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

I'll advise caution with the KAS hose - those things are Kraken bait. Are you planning on leaving the lander on site? If so, 6-8 SAFERs radially attached should provide your power needs easily. If not, then you'll need to be able to detach them easily; they're heavy enough fully fueled (1.6 tonnes) that it takes two kerbals to move them around. Still probably your best option.

As far as rovers are concerned, I was able to land the TBD 7a on Mun with an integrated skycrane design - half-a-dozen Twitch engines slapped onto the sides and a Tundra 400 set for LF/O. Used a Poodle attached to the rear-end for most of the landing but then cut it loose and used the Twitches for the final touchdown (design did include an OKTO2 slapped on top of the control cabin for use as the control point during the landing). It was stupid, but it worked and therefore wasn't stupid...

 

The lander is only connected until the base has a power supply of its own; after that it flies off.

If I attached the SAFER with a clamp-o-tron Jr. I could probably grab it with the krane.

I’m trying to avoid the SAFER because it gives less power than the nukeworks and can’t refuel itself, but on the other hand it doesn’t need setup and comes pre-fueled.

Yeah, that works, currently what I have is a saddle truss based design which should also work. I’m going to have to land the bulldozer.

I’m also considering landing some huge boxes of equipment nearby in order to speed up the initial setup.

Edited April 8, 2019 by RocketSquid

[DStaal]

15 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

Yeah, that works, currently what I have is a saddle truss based design which should also work. I’m going to have to land the bulldozer. 

There's an engine module for the Buffalo that can be used for landings, IIRC.  I'd suggest getting TCA as well, to make things easier.  (If I'm remembering wrong, take a look at the Feline Utility Rover - it's got some engines and fuel tanks designed for side-mounting, with the ability to decouple afterwards.)

[capi3101]

17 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

I’m trying to avoid the SAFER because it gives less power than the nukeworks and can’t refuel itself, but on the other hand it doesn’t need setup and comes pre-fueled.

Fair enough. Those are the main drawback of SAFERs, though they can tide you over until you can get a NukeWorks and/or SolarFlare going at least. They're better than trying to rely on solar for the job for sure.

[RocketSquid]

32 minutes ago, capi3101 said:

Fair enough. Those are the main drawback of SAFERs, though they can tide you over until you can get a NukeWorks and/or SolarFlare going at least. They're better than trying to rely on solar for the job for sure.

Yeah, I quickly realized that solar would be impractical for anything past the setup phase. Fuel cells would be a more viable option than solar for this site unless I want to fill thirty chuckwagons with batteries

33 minutes ago, DStaal said:

There's an engine module for the Buffalo that can be used for landings, IIRC.  I'd suggest getting TCA as well, to make things easier.  (If I'm remembering wrong, take a look at the Feline Utility Rover - it's got some engines and fuel tanks designed for side-mounting, with the ability to decouple afterwards.)

I fussed around with those at first, but in the end they did not have enough thrust for what I wanted. I have the feline utility rover mod, but it also runs into the problem of too much rover and not enough rocket. 

On a related note, one of my earlier plans involved a gargantuan rover based on the Bison parts. I might use it for minmus, but as planned it would basically have to be constructed in-orbit.

[RocketSquid]

DRAT! According to the scans taken by the munokhod rover before it flipped over and I accidentally blew it up trying to get it upright, there is no uraninite whatsoever in the eastern crater. I'll need to send some more probes to figure out where the nearest source is, and then I can send in my new rover, the Pitchblender, to follow an automated path between the colony site and the orebody. At first, though, I'll just ship up a buckboard full of uraninite with the lander. That should give a good few years of power. 

Meanwhile, I've begun drawing up plans for a series of mobile bases which can avoid this problem altogether. They'll be somewhat less comfy than a stationary base, but they'll also be able to move to where whatever resource they need at the moment is, as well as exploring many biomes. 

[capi3101]

32 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

DRAT! According to the scans taken by the munokhod rover before it flipped over and I accidentally blew it up trying to get it upright, there is no uraninite whatsoever in the eastern crater. I'll need to send some more probes to figure out where the nearest source is, and then I can send in my new rover, the Pitchblender, to follow an automated path between the colony site and the orebody. At first, though, I'll just ship up a buckboard full of uraninite with the lander. That should give a good few years of power. 

Meanwhile, I've begun drawing up plans for a series of mobile bases which can avoid this problem altogether. They'll be somewhat less comfy than a stationary base, but they'll also be able to move to where whatever resource they need at the moment is, as well as exploring many biomes. 

That well and truly sucks...shipping in the uraninite will probably work though. Long term, you might need to consider a second Mun base where there is uraninite ore, and Pipelines at both ends to shoot resources between the two as needed. I kinda have something like this going on between my Duna and Ike base right now (though since Pipelines are limited to the same SOI, the movement of goods depends on a Mule-based resource craft and automated mass driver-equipped space stations in orbit. Mules don't take any equipment to reconfigure, incidentally (caveat there - not sure if that applies to electrical charge or not; certainly applies to Minerals and Uraninite though).

[RocketSquid]

7 hours ago, capi3101 said:

That well and truly sucks...shipping in the uraninite will probably work though. Long term, you might need to consider a second Mun base where there is uraninite ore, and Pipelines at both ends to shoot resources between the two as needed. I kinda have something like this going on between my Duna and Ike base right now (though since Pipelines are limited to the same SOI, the movement of goods depends on a Mule-based resource craft and automated mass driver-equipped space stations in orbit. Mules don't take any equipment to reconfigure, incidentally (caveat there - not sure if that applies to electrical charge or not; certainly applies to Minerals and Uraninite though).

Depending on the tech level by the time I get the pipeline set up, I could also use USI planetary logistics. That has the advantage of being free, but it requires a good deal more science than I have now. It is another module to set up, but oh well.

[GraczNet]

Is it working with USI LS? Is there any patch?

[shdwlrd]

@RocketSquid are you using ScanSat? It's easier to use to find good deposits of resources than the stock system. You can adjust the projection to show only the highest levels throughout the biomes. Also, the thing I've noticed for base building is that you will rarely find everything you need in one small area.

[Angelo Kerman]

52 minutes ago, GraczNet said:

Is it working with USI LS? Is there any patch?

USI support was dropped awhile ago; I didn’t use it and it changed too much to upkeep. So there is no USI support out of the box.

[DStaal]

6 hours ago, RocketSquid said:

Depending on the tech level by the time I get the pipeline set up, I could also use USI planetary logistics. That has the advantage of being free, but it requires a good deal more science than I have now. It is another module to set up, but oh well.

Last I checked, USI Planetary Logistics wasn't quite free either - there's a penalty loss of some of the resources with it.

[RocketSquid]

48 minutes ago, DStaal said:

Last I checked, USI Planetary Logistics wasn't quite free either - there's a penalty loss of some of the resources with it.

Planetary is free, Orbital is very expensive, at least according to the wiki.

[NHunter]

After performing a bunch of dark rituals in the name of the Great Kraken, I managed to get the omnistorage work as I need it to. 

Now, while designing my permanent surface base, I ran into the following issue:

1. Attaching Rangeland box to a walkway end-node:

Spoiler

2. Assembling it:

Spoiler

Shouldn't the box's attachment point be higher so that, when assembled in a configuration like this, the pad ends up lying on the ground instead of hovering in the air? Or am I missing something there?

Edited April 9, 2019 by NHunter

[GraczNet]

2 hours ago, Angel-125 said:

USI support was dropped awhile ago; I didn’t use it and it changed too much to upkeep. So there is no USI support out of the box.

Thanks for answer.

[RocketSquid]

16 minutes ago, NHunter said:

After performing a bunch of dark rituals in the name of the Great Kraken, I managed to get the omnistorage work as I need it to. 

Now, while designing my permanent surface base, I ran into the following issue:

1. Attaching Rangeland box to a walkway end-node:

  Reveal hidden contents

2. Assembling it:

  Reveal hidden contents

Shouldn't the box's attachment point be higher so that, when assembled in a configuration like this, the pad ends up lying on the ground instead of hovering in the air? Or am I missing something there?

I’m pretty sure the rangeland isn’t supposed to be attached directly to the base. That’s a KAS port.

[capi3101]

35 minutes ago, RocketSquid said:

I’m pretty sure the rangeland isn’t supposed to be attached directly to the base. That’s a KAS port.

Non-functional KAS port, though; the Rangeland model dates back from the era when KAS/KIS and Pathfinder got along with one another. So yes, these days a Rangeland will "float" rather than sit on the surface.

Down here, you'll float too...

It still works as a launch/landing pad, just looks a little funky is all.