Which is the best location for an interplanetary outpost?

[Butterbar]

Just curious to see where everyone else establishes their interplanetary bases.

 

Mun or Minimus are in the Kerbin system and don't count.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Butterbar

[Nich]

No Minimus?

[linuxgurugamer]

or Mun?

Frankly, Minmus is/should be the first.  Lots of flat areas to land on and build, easy to land, etc.

[alacrity]

I use minmus for my transfer Point from Kerbin system to interplanetary approaches. As stated easy to land, good mining, and easy return to Kerbin orbit. I started out with a mun station but lifting fuel to the orbital station was not time effective.

 

A paired Minmus orbital station and fuel mining outpost works great.

 

Alacrity

[Francois424]

I read your post after wondering where Minmus was.  Fact is nowhere much, really.

Pol is good if you want explore the Joolian system and assuming you can even et a low tech colonization ship with all the necessary hardware there,
then you just need a transfer ship (4k dv?) and a good lander with 7k DV and you can go land anywhere, even Tylo. 

Ike and Gilly are limited (only the Planet and the extra biomes on the little moons).

Eeloo and early game seems odd, when you only have solar panels and no RTG.  Plus Eeloo really looks like a less cratered Mün, with nothing much that I had the chance to find (yet).

Dres is very DV intensive to get to... is it worth it for an outpost?   maybe, but not sure.  It wouldn't be my first choice.

All the rest... nope. Eve? Moho? ahah.  Vall, Laythe, Bop? Pol is much better IMHO.

 

The free station is a good option, but it needs refuelers (and other needs if you play with Life Support mods).  It's a good substitute for a Pol base... But I believe if you build her smart, you can use that station as a movable base.  So go to Moho, refuel, explore the local, refuel as needed, and move on.  You could do a grand tour as soon as you have ISRU and either RTG/Fuel cells (I would add docking ports as well).   I would go with this option myself given your choices... pretty sure I could make this work now (but not when I had just started playing).  As long as the station + lander has enough DV to get from one planet to the other and land the ISRU/lander, then it works.

 

Edited March 21, 2016 by Francois424

[Phil deCube]

5 minutes ago, Francois424 said:

Dres is very DV intensive to get to... is it worth it for an outpost?   maybe, but not sure.  It wouldn't be my first choice.

True, but there are lots of ore rich asteroids orbiting Dres, just waiting to be converted into fuel by the mining equipped adventurer.

[Francois424]

4 minutes ago, Phil deCube said:

True, but there are lots of ore rich asteroids orbiting Dres, just waiting to be converted into fuel by the mining equipped adventurer.

true, but it's much easier just to mine the surface imho.  you might be better than me with asteroids but I always find it annoying clawing them and moving them around.
But if you like going for asteroid then of course that would be a perfect spot.

[Phil deCube]

I don't move them around. My mining station moves from asteroid to asteroid as the become depleted. Any ships arriving at Dres for refuelling before going further out, dock with the asteroid/mining station combo to take on fuel.

[Francois424]

Do these thing orbit naturally or they just do fly-by's like Kerbin's asteroids ?

[Superfluous J]

48 minutes ago, Francois424 said:

Do these thing orbit naturally or they just do fly-by's like Kerbin's asteroids ?

They orbit. I learned that when doing the mission in the image on the right side of my signature. I snagged that bad boy from Dres orbit and landed it on the surface. Because Dres.

And regarding interplanetary outposts: Minmus. I know you said it didn't count, but that's the only place worth really investing time and effort into a refueling platform. Or, as Francois said, Pol for Jool.

If you're going to a planet or moon a lot, then sure set up a base there, but if all you want is a fuel depot and mine, it will never be cheaper (time or effort wise) to go anywhere but Minmus.

[Francois424]

1 minute ago, 5thHorseman said:

They orbit.

Twiddle his fingers.... really they do umm?  Might have to send some stuff to Dres now.   But not as refueler, but rather as a Base (if 1.1 really fixes the part count for multiple equipment lying around).

The "asteroind jumper" @Phil deCube mentioned will most likely my way to go as well, throw in a space station in orbit with antennas and it might do the trick.

 

Good to know, thanks !

[Phil deCube]

57 minutes ago, Francois424 said:

Do these thing orbit naturally or they just do fly-by's like Kerbin's asteroids ?

Orbit. Nice circular orbits. Big asteroids. Mostly E class. 

[Xyphos]

4 hours ago, Butterbar said:

Just curious to see where everyone else establishes their interplanetary bases.

 

Mun or Minimus are in the Kerbin system and don't count.

Sandbox early game, I always setup a refueling station around Kerbin orbit, build a comsat network, send out scansat probes then try to SSTO everywhere. usually I fail that last part.

[Nich]

I would have to say Ike then.  Low dv requirement and you have Duna for easy interplanetary braking.  dv is roughly the same to every system

As second place I would say a solar station in the asteroid field between Kerbin and Duna, No blackouts, equal dv to just about everywhere, tons of FREE FUEL.  Major problem is efficient transfer windows would require sling shots and oberth around Kerbin.  If you could slingshot a 3000t 95% ore asteroid into a highly elliptical orbit using eve and Kerbin you could probably hit every planet for plane changes and capturing given enough time.  Although once it is empty your pretty much done as the probably would be any easy asteroids to pick up.

Dres is tough because of the large inclination change eats a lot of fuel unless it is a perfect transfer.

Gilly is nice but no aero braking off eve but you do get a lot of oberth available.

Moho isn't bad as you have a transfer window every couple days practically and you barely need any solar panels but the dv is huge and no aero braking

If I am going to Jool system I would pick Laythe because SSTOs and O2 and aero braking.

 

[SR]

Gilly is good because of the low gravity and being close to kerbin. It is the best place for an extra planetary Launchpad site.

[Warzouz]

I must say I never found any usage for outposts, except for roleplay.

I use a lot of space stations which refuel from the planetary body which is orbiting (or nearby) using a landing miner. But I never found any usage of a permanent outpost event on a high ore% spot.

As for Minmus, stopping there to refuel takes quite a long time and use quite a bit a fuel on the way. Only LKO fuel reserves could make sense, but again, the ship would have to dock, that may need a lot of RCS parts and mass.

As I've noticed than price per tons reduces as weight increases, even LKO refuelling doesn't make real sense. You loose time and funds.

Again: except if roleplay is the driving goal.

[bewing]

Seems to me that the game philosophically requires building on prior successes. So you have to start with a base or two in the Kerbin system then work outward. For the first base I prefer the Mun over Minmus. Better Oberth, mostly. (But it doesn't really matter how much fuel it takes to move fuel around, once you have an infinite supply.) For xenon, of course, the only source is Kerbin, so Minmus makes the better base for ion propulsion.

Once you have the Kerbin system base, exploring all the inner planets doesn't take too long (in a relative sense). Which leaves a base around Jool as the next logical step. So far, I like Pol for that.

[wumpus]

4 hours ago, Warzouz said:

As I've noticed than price per tons reduces as weight increases, even LKO refuelling doesn't make real sense. You loose time and funds.

Again: except if roleplay is the driving goal.

I'm guessing that a huge part of this is lack of computing resources.  I'd assume that a real kerbal space program (run similar to NASA) would simply build the first outpost at Minmus, then when using that for refueling, would schedule a de-orbit burn to be in the right place for a exit burn while at periapsis of Kerbin (leaving Minmus when the angle of the orbit lines up with the Huhmann transfer you want is obvious.  Getting the orbital size right so you will be around Kerbin at the exact right time is not, and may be optional: note try to avoid Mun's sphere of influence during the wait.

[Warzouz]

Sorry @wumpus but I failed to connect your post to mine . What have you meant ?

I know you can "dive" from Minmus orbit to LKO to do a periaps kick, but even though, Minmus is so slow, you may not have a nice ejection angle.

My point was, even though, having a base on Minmus for refuel or a LKO fuel depot cost time and funds in KSP. It's so easy to launch heavy payload to LKO, that I don't even consider LKO assembly. I go directly to 100, 200 or even 400 tons without shame.

Sure that in real life, building bigger rocket is not as easy as in KSP. You don't simply "double" engine number and fuel tanks to double the payload to LKO.

 

Edited March 21, 2016 by Warzouz

[HoloYolo]

Gilly is easy for a base. Only problem is low gravity which can be solved with KAS hooks.

[wumpus]

1 minute ago, Warzouz said:

Sorry @wumpus but I failed to connect your post to mine . What have you meant ?

Stopping to refuel for an refueling station orbiting Minmus shouldn't take much more than 200 m/s delta-v (and should be doing the hard part of that empty).  The big issue is figuring out the launch windows: you need to plot your course 0~50 days in advance to get the right angle (while avoiding the Mun) to get both the oberth effect (from Kerbin) and keep (nearly) all your delta-v out to Minmus.  It looks like a pain.

If you can't get that information easily, than it is role-playing to build a station on Minmus assuming you had it.  Since the directions of launches are pretty straightforwards (toward or away from Kerbol), you might be able to approximate it close enough to make it worthwhile (although you will have to babysit it while avoiding Mun).  Ask me again how this works when I get around to setting up a Minmus base (I'm bogged down enough in career mode grind so that it will be awhile), I wouldn't be at all surprised if I just blasted away from Minmus with minimal gains myself.

[Geschosskopf]

13 hours ago, Butterbar said:

Just curious to see where everyone else establishes their interplanetary bases.

Well, first off, you need to define what you mean by "base".  Is it a small thing that simply houses a few Kerbals temporarily, or is it a large colony/factory complex with permanent staff?  To me, "base" means the latter.  The others are better called "camps".  The distinction is important because it affects the emphasis of your whole game---do you primarily want to explore or exploit another planet?

If you're just exploring, with the intent to return to Kerbin with gobs of science, then you might find a camp useful to support the exploration.  In this case, deciding what planet to explore determines the location of the camp.  If you're early in the game, you might want to put it on Ike or Duna because they're relatively easy to do.  However, you could really do this wherever you feel up to going so there's no "right" answer.  The "camp" itself might really be just a big lander that brings the crew back up to orbit at the end, or it could be a separate structure left behind for possible future use (although, in an exploration game, you'll probably go somewhere else on the next mission instead of ever returning here).  Either way, the exploration is the focus of the mission and the camp is just means to that end.

OTOH, a true base IS the focus of your game.  This is because they take so much time, talent, and money to design, move, set up, and operate that you can't do much else in that game.  IOW, you are playing exploitation, not exploration.  This is not something you can easily do early in the game due to lack of money and/or parts so usually you've gone through an exploration phase first.  By the time you're able to build a true base, then you're also able to put it anywhere you want, so again there is no "right" answer.  Decide what planet you want to colonize and go there.

[msasterisk]

I read "early game" and decided Kerbol Station. There are some problems with that involving lack of ore, but asteroid grabbers can fix that.

It might be hard to rendezvous with it from other planets, but it could be positioned right outside Kerbins SOI for easy refueling. This unfortunately means that you lose Kerbin's oberth effect. But it might be the only option possible to someone in the early game.

[max_creative]

Dres, Ike and Duna are good places. A free floating station is not. My opinion is Dres so it gets love! Just plain over all, eve, tylo, and an a class asteroid in solar orbit are generally bad ideas. And jool.

[Randazzo]

I have only established an outpost like this once, at Duna, and the dV savings were not enough to justify the cost or time required to set up and maintain the outpost (which actually consisted of a fuel depot orbiting Duna, a refinery station orbiting Ike, and a mining facility on Ike's surface and several support vehicles to transport fuel and crew). The amount of playtime I had to spend manufacturing and shipping fuel far outweighed any benefits to me.

Edited March 21, 2016 by Randazzo