Freighter or flotilla?

[manaiaK]

In my main career game, I have six or so contracts stacked up to do stuff on and around Duna and Ike.

So far, I've only sent a probe there, and that was before I unlocked the orbital ore scanner, so I have ore surveys to do as well. There are a "couple of plant flag"/"return science from surface" contracts, a few 'put satellite in orbit' and a "grabber" contract (i.e. "pick up Romfrey and his heap and return them to Kerbin"). And what with the long gap between transfer windows, I'd like to do as much as I can in the way of collecting science.

So: is it better to build an interplanetary transport and make all or some of the individual craft small in-system things that are brought along on it, or just send everything individually from Kerbin, with the craft that have to come back given enough delta-vee to do so? Why? Bear in mind that I am a fairly new player with no experience in building megacraft.

Subsidiary question: I'll have about a year and a half in the Duna system before the return transfer window opens. Is this long enough to process the science in a lab or two, or is it better to bring it all back?

Edited October 22, 2015 by manaiaK
answered.

[Retread]

I would tend to build and assemble a single ship in orbit, if for the simple reason that that is the only way to ensure they all arrive within a reasonable time period of each other. Plus, big ships are cooler. On the downside, they are more difficult to design, take a long time to assemble correctly in orbit, and are more difficult to fly because their size often makes them less stable and they require longer burn times.

As for the science question, here's one time you get to have your cake and eat it, too. Processing science in the lab simply fuels up the lab's data store, which can then crank out science points. The data can still be returned to KSC for full value.

Edited October 23, 2015 by Retread

[manaiaK]

Thanks, Retread! I agree that big ships are cooler, but I suck at building -- it's very much an iterative process for me. Oh well, only one way to get better: keep practicing.

[problemecium]

Big ships are cooler, but admittedly hard.

What I recommend is breaking down the mission into its constituent components, e.g.:

- orbital science

- ground science

- mining

Then build a small, low-part-count, reusable ship for each.

If you want to send an awesome mothership, build a ship based on the payload requirements, i.e. able to hold each of the necessary sub-ships.

Then add fuel (I recommend the Mk3 aircraft tanks) until the necessary dV is obtained, with some margin.

Last, add engines (I recommend LV-Ns) until the ship accelerates fast enough to make the transfer burns not too boring. Adjust the fuel capacity as necessary to make sure you still have enough dV.

[manaiaK]

Thanks, para.

Analyzing the requirements in detail seems a tiny bit un-Jeb-like though . I imagine Jeb as just slapping something together in the junkyard and trying it out. None of this fancy-pants "planning" stuff. Oh well, I guess I'll send one of the other pilots... Val is experienced.

[Vegvisir]

Thanks, para.

Analyzing the requirements in detail seems a tiny bit un-Jeb-like though . I imagine Jeb as just slapping something together in the junkyard and trying it out. None of this fancy-pants "planning" stuff. Oh well, I guess I'll send one of the other pilots... Val is experienced.

That's my problem...seems this is a game where to succeed reliably, one has to plan and understand and all that. Fair enough. It's the sim part of it. I just put stuff together, press space bar and rofl around

[ForScience6686]

I choose individual ships to start. That way you get plenty of practice setting up interplanetary burns, your computer isn't lagging with the high part count.

[Acet]

I'm currently in the same situation and the way I ended up doing it was sending a mission upfront with just the scanner probes for Duna and Ike, outside the optimal window and with a shorter transfer time (thus spending more dV, but since probes are light the extra cost is small) and am now preparing to send a crewed mothership with docked landers.

In the past I did the whole loose flotilla at the same time thing, and it was messy because of trying to make sure only one ship is aerobraking at any one time.

I've also did the sending of EVERYTHING on one ship thing, which is a pain because you have to design it for, amongst other things, aerobraking without loosing (too many) parts.

It's seems to be a good compromise to send the lighter stuff upfront before the transfer window and with a shorter travel time so that it gets there and is in place and working before the main mission arrives.

[Warzouz]

I tend to take the middle path. I send big pre-assembled ships to LKO which meet at their target body.

For example, I'll try to stitch landers and return ships in VAB, but if I can't or if the result is too unstable, I'll create a separate mission and send them in the same time frame.

Back in beta 9, I assembled a space station from 13 flights around Laythe. That was a very cool mission. I remember ships arriving in a 1 year time frame (I planned everything manually, using MJ for executing nodes (11 per ships not counting rendezvous manoeuvres)

More recently I sent a mission to Moho. As the return ship was big, I could'nt fit it on the space station. So I had 2 missions. One with the space station and refueler and one with the return ship and lander. Both missions departed in 30min. the used different route, but arrived within 10min into Moho SOI. The only issue was that the SOI is 40min long and the burn is 20min.

I did a slowdown burn for one of the ships to increase the time to PE, so I could manage the other capturing burn. Everything went well.

I prefer docking around target bodies, it feels more pioneering !