Expand a surface base contract?

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

I landed a surface base on minmus (under contract) for 5 kebals, now I have a contact to expand that base and have room for 13.

Does that mean landing a base with room for 8 nearby? How close? Do I have to connect them? (I don't even have rover tech yet,)

or do I build another base for 13?

the contract is confusing:

[Bluegillbronco2]

You have to connect the new modual to the existing space station. This can be very tricky without rovers or the claw. I would suggest positioning the docking ports on stations with expansion in mind. If the docking port is on top of the station you might be able to use RCS and slowly hover and land on top of the port. But that seems like it would be very difficult.

[radonek]

I steer clear of such contracts. Klaw is kraken-prone, matching docking ports in editor is tedious and unprecise, KIS (probably) destroyed my save last time i tried it, IR is ugly and buggy as hell… This particular kind of contracts is just not worth the fuss. I've seen a mod that solves this with specialized modules equiped with both wheels and legs, but using it forces you to use only this particular base design.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

FYI:  "Minmus Base Alpha" (like Mun Base Alpha) is  a skyscraper. from the bottom up: a 2.5 m fuel tank, 2-Man landercan, hitchhiker, lab,then reduce to 1.25m: materials lab and science and a clampotron on the very top. (i wasn't expecting to use it)

OK OK OK  The base has plenty of fuel, its should be able to make minmus orbit.

Can I make orbit, dock to 2 more hitchhikers,(refuel) and land again? (I know, maybe not!)

But would that fulfill the contact?

[Snark]

Connecting things together that are landed on the surface is a massive pain in the fundament in stock KSP.  It's a missing feature, the biggest remaining hole in the stock game IMHO.

Yes you can use the claw, but it's extremely kraken-prone and in any case looks stupid.

Far and away my favorite solution for building/expanding surface bases is the Kerbal Attachment System mod.  It has a lot of stuff in it, but one thing in particular that's absolutely indispensable:  it has "connector ports", little radially-attached pipe sockets.  With these, connecting together a surface base is a breeze.  Just get the two things you want to connect within a couple of dozen meters of each other, and have a connector port on each one.  Send out a kerbal on EVA.  Walk up to port A, right-click, choose "link".  Walk over to port B, right-click, choose "link".  They're now connected by a nice-looking pipe and become one "ship".  Bam, you're done.  You can disconnect/reconnect the same way, just a few mouse clicks.

The connector ports from KAS really oughta be stock, as far as I'm concerned.  Simple, elegant, easy to use, gets the job done.  And gives EVA kerbals something to do. 

 

[Plusck]

Since all my stations have a docking port on the top anyway (just seemed the simplest solution for the original contract), I've sent a couple of expansion ships up with a huge boom, with downward-facing docking ports on the end.

It's a bit of a pain to land, and you obviously have to check the height in the VAB compared to the original design for the station to be expanded, but it works well enough. Ascent from Kerbin with a boom has to be slow, mind you.

Also, don't forget you are asked to expand and have it landed and ensure stability. It seems to me (though I haven't tried it) that if you have any fuel left you can take off, dock with the expansion and then land again. With Minmus that should be relatively feasible even if your resulting station has an off-centre CoM. Just add reaction wheels...

Edited December 15, 2015 by Plusck

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

snark: I don't do mods. and I have the skillz to dock rovers, as long as I have rover tech.

plusck: I actually thought of a boom. then I realized how much fuel I have,

 

No one answered my question about taking the base back to orbit, docking with an expansion module IN ORBIT and then landing the base again. Would that satisfy the contract?

(oops actualy plusk, you did.- buts does anyone know for sure?)

 

EDIT: Ok I designed this thing. It looks like one those hats with two beer cans that guys wear to football games! he two hitchhikers hang on both sides of the Lab unit, I'm going to knock off several non-retractable solar panels in the operation, so the new module has a much larger solar array, and the original base was short of battery power so I can fix that too. 

Edited December 16, 2015 by Brainlord Mesomorph

[Venusgate]

KIS has actually worked wonders for me on this, but if you don't like mods:

Yes, you have to connect with either a docking port, or a klaw.
Yes, you should be able to "move" the base to orbit, and then move it back. The game only cares about your original ship/base, and it's final location.

It's possible to pre-build a base with the expectation of expanding it, but lateral expansion, you pretty much have to be nuts on with docking port alignment, and vertical expansion, it took me about 10 tries to "land" on a docking port - it's incredibly tedious, but it is rewarding

Also, ofcourse, you don't need to FILL all 13 slots.

[Plusck]

Cool - post pics when it's done!

Venusgate: I tried once with pre-building a base for lateral expansion. The main reason was it needed a lot of fuel on the Mun and I wasn't sure if I'd get down without using too much. Well, I didn't make it, planned out my fuel-bringing rover using the exact heights and so on.. and spent about 40 minutes ramming the thing every which way, dropping landing gear, raising it, locking it and using all my monoprop, until it finally docked. Never again. On Minmus flats, maybe, but nowhere else.