Tylo VS Laythe VS Duna - To Kolonize or not to kolonize?

[Sharkman Briton]

Players usually consider Duna or Laythe to be a prime location for Kerbal Kolonization, the attraction of Laythe being it's oxygen

atmosphere and liquid water oceans that cover a vast majority of the planet, and the attraction of Duna being it's close proximity

to Kerbin, and it's possible water ice in the planets poles.

But what people don't consider is Tylo, though it may be a barren, dead, moon thats hard to get on and off of, Tylo has a high

gravity which means a Kerbal could live there for a rather long time without a centrifuge and be able to return to Kerbin or be

exposed to gravity similar to that of Kerbin's without many ill effects. Tylosian gravity of 0.8 g's. Kerbin, of course, has a

gravity of 1 g. While Laythe also has 0.8 g's and Duna has just 0.3 g's.

Now, as noted above, Laythe and Tylo both have the same gravity, so why go to Tylo instead of lush, comfortable Laythe? Good question.

You see, the problem with Laythe is how little land there actually is, leaving little space for large-scale Laythean kolonization, so

large farms, any huge resource-harvesting facilities or big cities, so maybe we're better off having Laythe as a place to collect

water and oxygen to supplement our Tylosian surface kolonies? Exactly what I think, unless you can make boat cities, but that could end

badly, because if something small like a match or a knife was dropped, that could burn a hole or pierce a hole in the balloon that is the

most likely method of buoyancy and sink the whole kolony, killing most of not all of it's inhabitants, so floating Laythe cities are unsafe.

Contrary to Laythe, Tylo is a huge world with no oceans, allowing for huge structures and cities, massive resource harvesting facilities and

very importantly, large mines, as the lack of land on Laythe means that mining would quickly drain those scarce archipelago's of their

money, or in other words, minerals.

Now we bring Duna back into the competition, Duna has one thing that not Laythe nor Tylo exhibit; solar power. Yes, Duna is a lot closer to

Kerbol than Tylo and Laythe, which or course, orbit Jool, a cold gas giant and one of the furthest planets in the Kerbol system, out around

Jool solar power is miniscule, so it would be required to use fuel cells to transform those fuels made from the ore extracted into

electricity to power the life support systems, or a more high risk high reward method; a nuclear reactor.

Over on Duna we don't have to worry about our fuel cells failing, our mines having problems (e.g. landslides) or our nuclear power plants

causing a nuclear fallout, not at all, we an rely rather well on good ol' solar power, a simple, reliable and effective way of power

generation, so we don't have to worry about our massive metropolis with millions of inhabitants turning into an atomic wasteland and killing

everyone.

In conclusion, the best and most efficient celestial body to Kolonize would probably be Tylo, supplemented by a small oxygen and water

harvesting operation on Laythe. Duna might be another option for closer promiximity to Kerbin and solar power but generally undesirable

because of harsh conditions, dust storms, low gravity (requiring huge, expensive and hard to get centrifuges) but a cheaper and safer

option. But all in all, I think the Tylo + Laythe resource harvesting duo is the most effective, and out there, you can set up a military

base on the moon known as [REDACTED] to make sure the Kraken stays asleep!

[riocrokite]

interesting thoughts,

even for small minig colony (for starters) tylo might be interesting

1. if we implement mechanics of muscles/bones degradation from low-g then tylo wins. However there might be more complex concepts that mitigate low gravity such as space stations orbiting duna that manage robotic operations on the surface or rotate crew very frequently to/from the duna surface.

2. if we implement mechanics of space radiation things might get even more interesting. Jool would get massive van Allen radiation belt and probably Laythe would be orbiting in the center of the inner ring (the most deadly one), for comparison Io - moon of Jupiter is receiving 36 sieverts per day (I assume safe limit for a person is 0.3 Sv per year). However it has atmosphere that should deflect most of it, still some of radiation could sip into the ground making living there and growing things quite tough. On the other hand Tylo is much further so one could assume it receives much less radiation, it could happen that it could be even in a giant magnetopause thus meaning that it receives no van Allen radiation,none of the solar wind and almost no galactic radiation (which is the hardest to shield since some particles reach mine shafts that are 1km undeground earth). For comparison in Jupiter system Ganymede receives only 0.08 Sv per day on equator and Callisto only 0.0001 Sv per day making the radiation comparable to Mars.

edit:

3. water; we could assume that bop/tylo have some form of water underneath. Even if it was very deep I guess it could be still easier to extract it than flying back and forth to Laythe. The more troubling problem for Tylo could be lack of carbon and nitrogen since you would need them for many things. Then flying to Laythe for that could be worth it.

Lots of other things to consider as well so yah, its interesting thing for discussion

Edited November 5, 2015 by riocrokite

[Sharkman Briton]

Good input, had no clue about van allen radiation and all that

[NFUN]

interesting thoughts,

even for small minig colony (for starters) tylo might be interesting

1. if we implement mechanics of muscles/bones degradation from low-g then tylo wins. However there might be more complex concepts that mitigate low gravity such as space stations orbiting duna that manage robotic operations on the surface or rotate crew very frequently to/from the duna surface.

2. if we implement mechanics of space radiation things might get even more interesting. Jool would get massive van Allen radiation belt and probably Laythe would be orbiting in the center of the inner ring (the most deadly one), for comparison Io - moon of Jupiter is receiving 36 sieverts per day (I assume safe limit for a person is 0.3 Sv per year). However it has atmosphere that should deflect most of it, still some of radiation could sip into the ground making living there and growing things quite tough. On the other hand Tylo is much further so one could assume it receives much less radiation, it could happen that it could be even in a giant magnetopause thus meaning that it receives no van Allen radiation,none of the solar wind and almost no galactic radiation (which is the hardest to shield since some particles reach mine shafts that are 1km undeground earth). For comparison in Jupiter system Ganymede receives only 0.Sv per day on equator and Callisto only 0.0001 Sv per day making the radiation comparable to Mars.

edit:

3. water; we could assume that bop/tylo have some form of water underneath. Even if it was very deep I guess it could be still easier to extract it than flying back and forth to Laythe. The more troubling problem for Tylo could be lack of carbon and nitrogen since you would need them for many things. Then flying to Laythe for that could be worth it.

Lots of other things to consider as well so yah, its interesting thing for discussion http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/images/smilies/k_smiley.gif

Ganymede also has a (weak) magnetic field which could further reduce incoming radiation.

[ShadowZone]

While I like theorising about colony concepts, when it all comes back to the GAME aspect of KSP, I always feel a pointlessness after establishing a big ground base somewhere. Yeah, you can go biome crawling (which takes ages...) or produce resources... but aside from that it is pretty bleak in regards to what you can actually do.

[riocrokite]

While I like theorising about colony concepts, when it all comes back to the GAME aspect of KSP, I always feel a pointlessness after establishing a big ground base somewhere. Yeah, you can go biome crawling (which takes ages...) or produce resources... but aside from that it is pretty bleak in regards to what you can actually do.

agreed, depletable and scarce resources could have changed that to some degree. Also some kind of separation of resources, i.e. resource A and B aren't overlapping so you would have to ship/haul it from point (base) x to y over the planet could create some interesting hauling scenarios

other thing that could necessitate changing location would be for example shifting magnetic poles, for example ganymede has 20x stronger radiation on the poles (due to very weak magnetic field as NFUN has written) as on equator. If magnetic field shifts one would need to move the base to a new magnetic equator to protect against radiation.

Edited November 5, 2015 by riocrokite

[Findthepin1]

In the game, I'd do Duna. It's close, it has solar power, and the cons outweigh the pros for a Joolian moon colony. 0.3 g is a bit low, but they're never going back home anyway.

HOWEVER.

However, realistically I'd choose Tylo. It is probably an icy object, a bigger, dusty version of Vall (explaining the relatively low density and the fact that it formed out near Jool, where there probably isn't much rock for moon formation), and is close enough to Jool that it probably has a global subsurface ocean like Vall. This gives you the opportunity to build a large surface base, with the opportunity to study a potential habitat without leaving the ground, but without a significant risk of damaging that environment. Also, it gives you the opportunity to have operations going on on Vall without irradiating yourself, and to have stuff going on on Laythe too, without any large risk of contaminating the environment there. It has high gravity.

There are some things about Tylo, however, that aren't preferable to Laythe or Duna. Tylo doesn't have a magnetic field, this is evidenced by the fact that it has practically no atmosphere despite being a tiny bit larger than Kerbin and cold. Laythe has a magnetic field, this is because it rotates faster, fast enough for a dynamo in the mantle. This is why Laythe still has its atmosphere. The radiation environment on Tylo is probably comparable to that on Ike. Duna has a lower rad level because it has an atmosphere. I still would choose Tylo because Laythe and Duna are environments which should be protected from anything not sterilized very thoroughly. Laythe and Duna can have life on them, actually many high-altitude or polar plants could survive in both those environments. Yet they seem dead, which means we should keep them dead so we can learn all about them before anything destructive happens. If life should be found on Laythe or Duna, the life-bearing areas would be evacuated and preserved to the best of our ability. You don't have to worry about that on Tylo or Vall. Tylo is better than Vall because the former has less radiation and more gravity.

[FlyingPete]

Given the presence of oxygen and liquid water on Laythe, I think it should be placed under quarantine and studied from nearby Vall or Tylo for potential life. We don't want Jeb's leftover sandwich contaminating the data

Tylo would be an interesting target for colonisation. Unless there's subsurface water, you'd probably need to dig ice from Vall and ship that over to the Tylosians. The high gravity also makes constructing the colony a more difficult task, but no doubt this could be overcome. Experiments on the VAB roof would be useful.

Duna is probably the best place for a colony, due to its (thin) atmosphere which could yield useful things, and large quantities of polar ice- assuming it is ice. With those two raw materials, The Dunans could probably manufacture most of what they'd need to survive on the surface.

To me, the only viable way to explore Eve is with a one-way colonisation mission. Realistically, they aren't coming back anywhen soon, so they might as well live there.

Also, my logic would be that any permanent residents of another planet would change their name. So you'd have Jebediah Tyloman of Tylo, Bill Duman of Duna, and Bob Layman of Laythe (who would obviously be ridiculed- another reason not to settle Laythe.)

[magnemoe]

My second issue with Tylo is the issue of getting off it, Yes you can make an SSTO with mining, more efficient if you have the mining gear on an truck who drives to lander.

My primary concern is landing, only place I have never been able to land manually, even mechjeb has issues.

Issues will result in fireballs as you have no margins.

I treat Tylo like I treat Eve, boss monsters.

[Fearless Son]

Actually concerning getting off Tylo, its lack of atmosphere would make it ideal for building an industrial mass-driver across the surface. It would be useless for crew launches (too much acceleration for soft bodies to take) but it should allow bulk cargo to be launched on an arc for rendezvous with orbiting cargo-tugs. No atmosphere means little need to evacuate the interior of the launcher, and no air means no drag to fight against the acceleration. It would make it much cheaper to build and operate than a surface-to-orbit mass driver on another body. Assuming minerals are valuable enough, it would be an extremely economical option to a mining colony there to provide raw materials for any other Joolean colonization efforts.

[jarmonik]

As far as I can tell, there's nothing worth going on a surface of Tylo. Light weight vessel can easily travel between surface colony and orbital station but landing some heavier payloads on Tylo would be problematic. Non-reusable 2 stage lander would be required. Laythe has gravity, water, oxygen, suitable atmospheric pressure to protect from vacuum. Landing heavy equipment is cheap and a re-usable light weight lander can easily travel between surface colony and orbital station. Orbital station can be reached with minimal fuel costs via Tylo slingshot and aerobraking. Electricity is a slight problem. Solar power works poorly but it works. How about wind power plant ? Unfortunately stock KSP doesn't have one.

[FleshJeb]

I made the wacky decision to colonize Moho. I'm in the process of designing a Walking City that follows the solar terminator like the one in Kim Stanley Robinson's Blue Mars. The sidereal rotational velocity is only 1.29 m/s so it should be very doable. I may even do the Elcano Challenge with it.

There's no practical reason, I just thought it was fun and very Kerbal.

Edited November 6, 2015 by FleshJeb

[Hannu]

As far as I can tell, there's nothing worth going on a surface of Tylo.

In economical sense, yes. But this is game and not business. I made once a manned base with gas station and exploration rovers on Tylo just because it was interesting technical challenge to build huge ships. Actually one of fuel supply ships for that project is the largest rocket I have ever launched, about 2800 tons. It was before 3.75 m parts and rigid joints (maybe 0.20-0.22). There was about 1000 struts and maybe 2-3 fps.

Answers to this kind of questions depends on players personal rolegame rules. KSP does not set limits and conditions which determines which is best place for a base or a colony. It can be placed on everywhere. At least I have played hundreds of hours and tried a base on almost every celestial body (including Eve). All have their own pros and cons and all are interesting in their own way. And on the other hand, all of them became boring very fast, because there are nothing to do and sceneries are very monotonic.

[Enorats]

I really, really hope that they find some way to make planet surfaces more interesting and worthwhile. As it stands it's a bit depressing to get bored with the destination you work so hard to get to. Bases and colonies are just so pointless, especially when rovers are so hopelessly slow and the biomes themselves so vast.

[riocrokite]

I recently made some experiments with high-speed wheels and rovers on different surfaces. Apart from flatness the main thing that determines how quickly you can move is gravity. The higher gravity the lower jumps and better grip thus allowing higher speeds on a hilly terrain.

Tylo was a winner throughout all non-kerbin planets (except Eve and Laythe, didn't conduct tests there - too high gravity or too small land mass:P). Due to high gravity of Tylo I could sustain 50-60m/s average speed with 2 or 3x time warp. So 60m/s x 3 x 3 = around 540km/h. This means that I could traverse 1 degree of latitude at almost the same pace as on Minimus although Tylo is 10x bigger.

Of course in minimus case long-range driving have little sense beacuse of the combination of very low gravity and small moon's diameter (not much dV needed to move cargo over the surface).

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

My short answer:

Duna: Medium Gravity, rather close, easy to set up a base, thin atmosphere without Oxygen (hard to breathe), ice on the poles

Tylo: High/Normal Gravity, far away, even less atmosphere, no signs of water/ice on the surface

Layhe: High/Normal Gravity, far away and deep down Jool Gravity-well, breathable atmosphere, lots of water, very interest to set up a base/underwater Habitats (Water above would also work as a great shielding for Jool's Radiation).

[KerikBalm]

Laythe's atmosphere is thick enough to shield from radiation...

Tylo's surface on the other hand is very very lethal.

Based on the game data, laythe's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, some oxygen... its pretty much the only place aside from Kerbin that a Kerbal can take off its helmet, take some breaths, and not die (based on in game EVA reports)... even if its not exactly hospitable (I'm guessing too cold and too much CO2... maybe there's some ammonia vapor in it as well... maybe some sulfur as it seems to have numerous island rings that look like volcanic caldera.... who knows why its supposedly very unpleasant for a Kerbal to try breathing).

The lowest elevations on Duna should have a pressure and temperature that are enough for a kerbal to remove their helmet without dying as well... but no O2...

at least you have time to do something if you ave a hull breach.

The only thing you can do with tylo is build underground... and if you are going to do that.. you might as well build underwater on laythe as well.

Plus the volcanism of laythe should help concentrate ores and recycle various minerals and such.

Laythe and duna deserve their place as the most desireable places to build a colony.

[nsgallup]

I wonder how the radiation is on Tylo.. does it have it's own magnetic field?

[riocrokite]

I wonder how the radiation is on Tylo.. does it have it's own magnetic field?

Not easy to tell, in real solar system some planets have cores that induce magnetic field, some don't have them. In effect, most moons/non-gas giants have very small or non-existant magnetic fields.

Even if Tylo has its own magnetic field it would probably interfere with Jool one (you can look up Io and Jupiter mag fields), so the more important question would be where is Tylo's orbit relatively to Jool van Allen radiation belts

[jackboy900]

I would personally vote for Laythe as it has an easily filterable atmosphere, good gravity, the ability for SSTO's to carry kerbals too/from the surface (as much as they want), liquid water. Tectonic activity (large enough and has volcanoes/ islands which hold this eveident) and an atmosphere meaning that Joolean radiation would be blocked as well as stellar radiation. For land area you could easily use heavily expandable foam and thin metal sheets for a base structure on water that way land can be used sparingly. For resources, Tylo lends itself to mass drivers. Perhaps putting large amounts of them tuned to launch payloads with heavy ablative shielding on direct paths to Laythe for collection; this means that no landers are needed (on surface materials make all the things) and so it can be highly efficient.

[More Boosters]

Duna doesn't have an ominous, giant green planet over its sky though. And I think the inner moons of a gas giant are exposed to too much radiation.

[Renegrade]

One thing I'd like to point out is that KSP has physics-correct light now and that Laythe/Tylo receive about 4% of the light intensity that Kerbin bathes in. That makes it rather unattractive to me. I'd stick with Duna.