Early career - docking vs direct landing

[tranenturm]

So I'm thinking early hard career mode. You're capable of landing on the Mun and back and want to start the science slog on the Mun and Minimus. I've wanted to start getting "infrastructure " as early as possible to make things quicker and more efficient. Pre-sci lab pretty much the only infrastructure you can use is a reusable lander you park in low Mun orbit. So the question is: What is more efficient?

1) standard missions to the Mun and back

2) parking a lander in Mun orbit and your missions bring fuel to the lander and transfer everything. You save the weight of the science tools, lander engine, extra drag of an extra wide lander for steep slopes and have a overall lighter lander.  You incur the cost of orbital docking (I can do it easily, but I'm surely not the most fuel efficient). 

Thoughts?

[Wemb]

Most efficient? ignore the Mun - or at least, don't farm it for science.  There's a lot there - but you need a fairly large amount of dV to get it and get it back - over 1000 m/s for the round trip to and from low Munar orbit and you'll need a relatively heavy engine to land with (limiting the amount of fuel you can carry) -and- the gravity, early shape of components means early ships can be rather tall and thin whch isn't ideal either..  And, even with a lab in orbit, you'll have to run a lot of refuelling missions to keep it going. Which might be more fuel efficient, but it will waste your time considerably. 

If you want to save your time and Kerbin money, then do this around Minmus instead - getting there isn't much more expensive, or much more difficult once you get how to launch at the right time and inclination but the landing/reorbit requirements are just 360 m/s, and the low gravity means carrying enough fuel to do small hops around the surface to do multiple biomes during one landing is much more practical since you'll only need a tiny, tiny engine. It's also hugely easier to land on as it's a lot less bumpy. Hell, you don't even need landing gear if you're gentle, and it's much, much more forgiving for landing tall thin ships as your reaction wheels will be much more likely to counter the gravity if you land at an angle.

As for whether or not direct ascent or KOR or MOR is more or less efficient... that depends on what your definition of efficient is....

Wemb

[steuben]

It depends on how early in the career.

Another option that I have I have played with in the past is a single use lander bus. Strap three or four landers to a core with enough dv to get it to Mun or Minmus. Each lander has enough dv to get itself down, back up, and home to Kerbin.

It's probably the middle ground between several single lander missions, and a multi-trip lander. You won't need the docking port, but you are trading up in terms of the total mass needed.

The thing is the materials lab and goo are almost single use. so you will need one set, for each biome. I usually visit with a pair of each. So you might need multiple landers for a good science yield.

 

Edited March 9, 2016 by steuben

[RizzoTheRat]

I did a mix.  Think I did about 2 or 3 Mun lander and return capsule missions to get some early science, and enable me to make a better lander that refuelled in orbit.  While I take Wemb's point that this might be easier to do on Minmus, it meant by the time I got to Minmus I was able to make an even better lander that had 2 crew in separate cans, so was able to bring back 2 sets of experiments from each landing, and capable of doing several hops on a tank of fuel, meaning it only needed to be refuelled twice to hit all biomes on Minmus, and it was able to push its fuel tanker all the way to Minmus as well so only 1 launch needed.

 

I also use ScanSat which means I'd have some additional science early on from mapping Kerbin, Mun and Minmus.

[tranenturm]

I do start with Minimus, but once the flats are done specialty landers become more valuable. I don't pilot well enough to land consistently on slopes. I CAN, just not regularly enough for a permadeath no revert mode without more rescue the rescue the rescue missions that I care for. So just looking to improve my Mun landings. I do use 50% science rewards so I'm a tad behind normal hard mode. 

[tranenturm]

I also tend not to farm to extreme. I usually just do one set of tests per biome and then move on. Mostly just to keep going to new and different places. It's not a hard fast rule. Just my tendencies and desires. 

[RizzoTheRat]

If you've got the lift capability to cope with the extra drag, try and make your landers as wide as possible.  My early game ones have 3 fuel tanks mounted on radial decouples with the landing gear on the tanks.  Only need a bit under 1000 dV to get home from the Mun surface so the core tank has enough fuel to get me home with the radials being to get me there and land.  This means the lander's quite wide and short so much better at landing on slopes.

My big Minmus lander had the legs mounted on the end of wing components, which are lighter and stiffer than girders making it so wide it should be able to land on slopes that kerbals can't stand up on. 

[Wemb]

1 hour ago, RizzoTheRat said:

If you've got the lift capability to cope with the extra drag, try and make your landers as wide as possible. 

If for some reason you don't want to take a scientist to the Mun, or if you haven't unlocked fuel pipes, a good way to do the above is using multiple sciJr's attached to your ship - you can add the landing struts to those, rather than the core. and it's much easier to land upright.

Wemb

[Snark]

+1 to doing Minmus first. You can drain Minmus dry in a single launch if you use a small, light science lander and a big fuel tank which you leave in orbit.

The key to the lander is to keep it low, light, and squat. My typical early-career lander is a Mk1 lander can, with a pair of the 1-ton LFO tanks mounted on the left and right sides of the can. Engine is either a single Terrier under the can (with fuel lines) or, if I have them unlocked, a pair of Sparks (one under each tank). Science Jr goes on top of the can, with probe core and junior docking port on top of that. Micro landing legs, mounted on the front/back of the tanks. A pair of goo canisters slung front/back on the bottom edge of the can, and the little science instruments beside the hatch.

The whole shebang comes in at around three tons including fuel. It can handle one round trip from Mun orbit to the surface, with a single very short surface hop thrown in. On Minmus, it can do a round trip from orbit plus multiple biome hops.  It's so low and squat that it's virtually tumbleproof; it can land on any slope that it doesn't actually slide downhill.  It's also extremely nimble to rotate, especially on the pitch axis, due to the mass distribution.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Snark

[RizzoTheRat]

6 minutes ago, Wemb said:

If for some reason you don't want to take a scientist to the Mun, or if you haven't unlocked fuel pipes, a good way to do the above is using multiple sciJr's attached to your ship - you can add the landing struts to those, rather than the core. and it's much easier to land upright.

I always find it tricky to land Sci Jnrs in the early game, so go for the probe core and scientist approach, and dump everything else on re-rentry.  No need for fuel pipes so long as you manually transfer fuel evenly, but I only found out from another thread today that you need to upgrade R&D building to do it.

[Wemb]

40 minutes ago, RizzoTheRat said:

I always find it tricky to land Sci Jnrs in the early game, so go for the probe core and scientist approach, and dump everything else on re-rentry.  No need for fuel pipes so long as you manually transfer fuel evenly, but I only found out from another thread today that you need to upgrade R&D building to do it.

I mean, have several SciJr clustered around a central fuel tank/engine core - makes it big and flat - something like this from Azoth

[radonek]

I did this and found out that while reusable lander is better, building a decent one requires decent amount of science. Therefore my usual procedure is to send simple direct mission to explore pole first.

[RocketSquid]

In career, I'd say a good option would be a reusable munar surface to LKO vehicle, or 2 vehicles that fill the same role, and a cheap or reusable shuttle.

[GoSlash27]

The orbital rendezvous approach is the most efficient AFA cost, but direct is the most efficient for player time. There's also the issue of pad mass; if you do munar science as early as I do, a direct mission is too heavy for the pad.

I use a "station" in low munar orbit that's just a gas tank with docking ports. I have a dedicated "instrumentation" lander and a dedicated "manned" lander. I ferry my kerbonaut between the station and kerbin with a pod suitable for reentry, which I call the "ferry".

I launch from KSC and dock the ferry. Transfer to the lander and land in my desired biome. The instrumentation probe lands on the next pass. I do a complete science sweep, collect the data, and return to the station, and the probe follows suit on the next pass. I refuel the landers and replenish their RCS, and reset all experiments (if the current kerbonaut is a scientist. Finally, I transfer the data to the ferry and blast off for home.

All the rendezvous and docking adds considerable playing time per biome, but it's cheap because I'm reusing the landers and instruments.

Best,
-Slashy

[wumpus]

5 hours ago, Snark said:

5 hours ago, RizzoTheRat said:

I always find it tricky to land Sci Jnrs in the early game, so go for the probe core and scientist approach, and dump everything else on re-rentry.  No need for fuel pipes so long as you manually transfer fuel evenly, but I only found out from another thread today that you need to upgrade R&D building to do it.

+1 to doing Minmus first. You can drain Minmus dry in a single launch if you use a small, light science lander and a big fuel tank which you leave in orbit.

The key to the lander is to keep it low, light, and squat. My typical early-career lander is a Mk1 lander can, with a pair of the 1-ton LFO tanks mounted on the left and right sides of the can. Engine is either a single Terrier under the can (with fuel lines) or, if I have them unlocked, a pair of Sparks (one under each tank). Science Jr goes on top of the can, with probe core and junior docking port on top of that. Micro landing legs, mounted on the front/back of the tanks. A pair of goo canisters slung front/back on the bottom edge of the can, and the little science instruments beside the hatch.

The whole shebang comes in at around three tons including fuel. It can handle one round trip from Mun orbit to the surface, with a single very short surface hop thrown in. On Minmus, it can do a round trip from orbit plus multiple biome hops.  It's so low and squat that it's virtually tumbleproof; it can land on any slope that it doesn't actually slide downhill.  It's also extremely nimble to rotate, especially on the pitch axis, due to the mass distribution.

Note that according to the ksp wiki, if you can do surface samples you can transfer fuel (that doesn't match with my play, but I could be wrong).  You do need clamp-o-tron [jr]s if you want an orbital fuel depot, and that will cost you 90 science (but let you easily hit all the biomes on Minmus.  Hitting multiple biomes on Mun likely is an exercise in planning and mapping (plus having an orbital depot)).

I'd still prefer to go to either without docking, but that is mostly habit.  Assuming you don't care too much about calendar time, I'd recommend probes to Duna/Eve (before any kerballed flight beyond orbit).  They don't require much more than to Mun, and bring back a ton of science.

[Snark]

2 hours ago, wumpus said:

Note that according to the ksp wiki, if you can do surface samples you can transfer fuel (that doesn't match with my play, but I could be wrong).  You do need clamp-o-tron [jr]s if you want an orbital fuel depot, and that will cost you 90 science (but let you easily hit all the biomes on Minmus.  Hitting multiple biomes on Mun likely is an exercise in planning and mapping (plus having an orbital depot)).

I'd still prefer to go to either without docking, but that is mostly habit.  Assuming you don't care too much about calendar time, I'd recommend probes to Duna/Eve (before any kerballed flight beyond orbit).  They don't require much more than to Mun, and bring back a ton of science.

It all depends on what the player's priorities are.

For example, I have a psychological hang-up about elapsed calendar time.  As a rule I don't role-play the kerbals much, but for some reason I hate to waste calendar time and it bugs me to have a year of game time go by when all I'm doing is timewarping.  I hate for the poor lil' green guys to have to wait so long.

Therefore, my careers almost always start off with mining the Mun and Minmus for science to get at least most of the way up the tech tree-- not necessarily every single science result from every single biome, but certainly a lot of biomes from both of them.  I don't like to start off by sending Eve/Duna probes, due to the wait involved.

A different player, who finds Mun/Minmus science grinding tedious and doesn't care about calendar time, would make the opposite choice.

Usually what I end up doing is sending a couple of simple land-and-return missions (no docking) as early as possible in career, which can really jump-start my science program.  Then I use a little bit of the science returned to unlock docking ports, and do a follow-up mission that hops a lot of biomes with an orbiting tank.  Doing one such mission on Minmus and another on the Mun generally boosts my program to the point where I'm ready to take on Duna and such.

[Wemb]

11 hours ago, Snark said:

... for some reason I hate to waste calendar time and it bugs me to have a year of game time go by when all I'm doing is timewarping. ...

Not just me then....   

It does slightly bug me that the ease of which you can farm science of Minmus makes it almost completely pointless building orbital labs - especially when they process the data so slowly, you'd have to timewarp for months if not years to get a reasonable return.  I hate doing that.. Really hate it. And by the time you've got the infrastructure needed to farm science in orbit to generate big returns, there's nothing much left on the tech tree to research anyway.

I'm now got to the stage in my latest career mode where I've unlocked most of the tech tree, but haven't even got a space station in orbit yet, and am still 100 days + to my the next planitary transfer window.

Wemb

[wumpus]

5 hours ago, Wemb said:

Not just me then....   

It does slightly bug me that the ease of which you can farm science of Minmus makes it almost completely pointless building orbital labs - especially when they process the data so slowly, you'd have to timewarp for months if not years to get a reasonable return.  I hate doing that.. Really hate it. And by the time you've got the infrastructure needed to farm science in orbit to generate big returns, there's nothing much left on the tech tree to research anyway.

I'm now got to the stage in my latest career mode where I've unlocked most of the tech tree, but haven't even got a space station in orbit yet, and am still 100 days + to my the next planitary transfer window.

Wemb

I started up a new career mode to check a few things for a thread and kept coming back to it.  I think something like my 6th mission went to Minmus (without an orbital depot), hit 6 biomes (some of it was luck, hitting slopes and midlands, and I definitely needed to save and reload a bunch of times) and brought back 3000 science.  It was a bit much.

The flip side of this is that *landed* science labs appear to be a bit of a problem.  After sending 2 probes and 2 kerballed missions, I've finally located a place on Minmus with constant Kerbollight.  This whole project is just too ambitious (and requires too much un-kerbal planning) and keeps me away from the game (training up all the scientists was *not* fun).  Once I get enough science returned to Kerbin* (and capsules *way* too full of science) I will finally be able to land my science labs (plural highly not recommended, which has plagued me the whole project).

* I need to unlock mechjeb to land on the right spot.  Roving to full Kerbollight has not proven successful.  However much I avoid mechjeb, I will need it for this mission.

[Norcalplanner]

9 hours ago, Wemb said:

Not just me then....   

It does slightly bug me that the ease of which you can farm science of Minmus makes it almost completely pointless building orbital labs - especially when they process the data so slowly, you'd have to timewarp for months if not years to get a reasonable return.  I hate doing that.. Really hate it. And by the time you've got the infrastructure needed to farm science in orbit to generate big returns, there's nothing much left on the tech tree to research anyway.

I'm now got to the stage in my latest career mode where I've unlocked most of the tech tree, but haven't even got a space station in orbit yet, and am still 100 days + to my the next planitary transfer window.

Wemb

Have you considered using a different tech tree? CTT, ETT, and SETI all require a lot more science to unlock, making interplanetary travel and orbital science labs much more attractive. I haven't played stock tech tree in a very long time. If you pair the tech tree with mods like Nertea's near future mods, then all the extra nodes get populated with things that are worth striving for.

[wumpus]

21 hours ago, Norcalplanner said:

Have you considered using a different tech tree? CTT, ETT, and SETI all require a lot more science to unlock, making interplanetary travel and orbital science labs much more attractive. I haven't played stock tech tree in a very long time. If you pair the tech tree with mods like Nertea's near future mods, then all the extra nodes get populated with things that are worth striving for.

Of these, only SETI bothers to mentions how contracts work with the new tech tree (and recommend less money for the same thing, presumably more grind).  SETI also looks like what you want, and is based around the idea of "unkerballed before kerballed".  CTT sounds impressive assuming you want to work in a lot of mods, while ETT sounds like a more logical system (engineering wise).

This type of things sounds obvious for a science career, but working into the current contracting scheme may involve some painful grinding.  Most of the systems (especially CTT) center around endgame, not so much deciding to do an Apollo-style landing vs. a direct descent.

- note: while command chairs might not be anywhere near early enough, I encountered a bug that didn't like vessles that had kerbals in command chairs (with octoprobes but no capsules).  Couldn't save, couldn't see the vessel on the map (but could see the orbit and target nearest approach).  Command chairs appear to be the best way to approach building a separate lander, but might be buggy.

[GoSlash27]

On 3/10/2016 at 5:51 AM, Wemb said:

Not just me then....   

It does slightly bug me that the ease of which you can farm science of Minmus makes it almost completely pointless building orbital labs - especially when they process the data so slowly, you'd have to timewarp for months if not years to get a reasonable return.  I hate doing that.. Really hate it. And by the time you've got the infrastructure needed to farm science in orbit to generate big returns, there's nothing much left on the tech tree to research anyway.

I'm now got to the stage in my latest career mode where I've unlocked most of the tech tree, but haven't even got a space station in orbit yet, and am still 100 days + to my the next planitary transfer window.

Wemb

Wemb,

 I'm the same way, which is why I don't farm science to unlock the tree. I use the labs afterwards and convert science to funds. Once that's set up, it's pretty much a sandbox game.

Best,
-Slashy

[Waxing_Kibbous]

On 3/10/2016 at 7:47 PM, Snark said:

For example, I have a psychological hang-up about elapsed calendar time.  As a rule I don't role-play the kerbals much, but for some reason I hate to waste calendar time and it bugs me to have a year of game time go by when all I'm doing is timewarping.  I hate for the poor lil' green guys to have to wait so long.

OT, but this is totally me as well- it's so bad on my end that I don't really get how to do the interplanetary thing in a "good" way so I kind of avoid it because of my issues with how to manage in-game time. I think I'm too neurotic for this game

Edited March 11, 2016 by Waxing_Kibbous

[Superfluous J]

Regarding Minmus landers, you don't need landing gear or a squat lander. Just land on your side and use torque to get back upright before takeoff. You can even "jump" off the surface, saving a couple m/s of dV.

Also, learn your biomes, and you can find 3 places that each have 3 biomes very close to each other. Then you can land at one of those places, hop between the 3 biomes, then suborbital hop to the 2nd place and take care of those 3 biomes, and finally hop to the third and do that one. Even with just a scientist and no pilot or probe core it's not TOO bad (and if you can do it you'll feel like a baws) so a ship that could - say - take off and land on Minmus twice should have plenty of dV for it.

And then you're not only essentially DONE with Minmus, but also have a whole lot of thousands of science points.