Jool 500 Kolonization Guide

[septemberWaves]

This is a guide for the Jool 500 Kolonization Challenge

The Jool 500 Kolonization Challenge is a challenge designed to push the game to its new limits (courtesy of the 1.1 update). It's a huge thing to attempt, so (as soon as all the relevant mods are updated to 1.1) I (the author of the challenge) will be documenting the way I complete the challenge. I'm not going to be trying to get the best score; instead, I want to provide something that is a combination of a walkthrough and a showcase, for a few different purposes:

1. To suggest ideas for the challenge (for others to mimic or to improve upon)
2. To inspire people to attempt the challenge
3. To provide as much help as I can with the more complex areas of the challenge (such as advanced interplanetary transfers or mod utilisation)
4. To show off some of my nicer spacecraft designs (I mentioned in the main post that a good aesthetic is something to aim for in the challenge)

I'll update this thread whenever there is something new and worth adding to it. If anyone has detailed questions about a specific aspect of the challenge, please post it in this thread and I will answer to the best of my ability (and provide any relevant examples if I have got that far in the mission).

If this thread is in the wrong section of the forums, please tell me where it should be and I will move it. I posted it here initially because it is directly related to the challenge I submitted despite the fact that it is not a challenge itself.

[Jhawk1099]

I will try my best to do this in career but life support systems make me angry so if I have a green house for ever 10 kerbals would that count?

[septemberWaves]

2 minutes ago, Jhawk1099 said:

I will try my best to do this in career but life support systems make me angry so if I have a green house for ever 10 kerbals would that count?

I'm not absolutely sure about the numbers yet, and USI Life Support currently doesn't seem to have a functional GUI so I can't check. Life support is one of my priorities to go over when the mod is working, but until the mod is working I can't really help with it, sorry. As soon as I can actually check out how many resources kerbals consume, I'll make some posts looking into some good configurations of life support systems like greenhouses. As for TAC Life Support, it isn't updated for 1.1 at all yet, but again, I'll do my best to look into optimal configurations for it as soon as I am able to use it in 1.1.

[Jhawk1099]

3 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

I'm not absolutely sure about the numbers yet, and USI Life Support currently doesn't seem to have a functional GUI so I can't check. 

The green house is from a different mod and doesnt actually produce resources yet it is a paint to transport and in a slightly more realistic KSP any greenhouse would give kerbals food and the whole reason we use life support mods is to make it slightly more realistic.

[septemberWaves]

2 minutes ago, Jhawk1099 said:

The green house is from a different mod and doesnt actually produce resources yet it is a paint to transport and in a slightly more realistic KSP any greenhouse would give kerbals food and the whole reason we use life support mods is to make it slightly more realistic.

If you can tell me the name of the mod I'll look into it. If it seems balanced I'll probably see if I can fit it into the challenge.

[Jhawk1099]

Just now, eloquentJane said:

If you can tell me the name of the mod I'll look into it. If it seems balanced I'll probably see if I can fit it into the challenge.

Kerbal planetary base systems. Ill give you the specs of the greenhouse itself once I get home. And remember it doesnt actually make any food its just there so you can act like your kerbals wont starve.

[septemberWaves]

2 minutes ago, Jhawk1099 said:

Kerbal planetary base systems. Ill give you the specs of the greenhouse itself once I get home. And remember it doesnt actually make any food its just there so you can act like your kerbals wont starve.

I was under the impression that the greenhouse from Kerbal Planetary Base Systems was capable of functioning with USI Life Support (though I haven't actually tested it, and I don't know if the same is true of TAC). But if you're suggesting using that greenhouse instead of any life support mod, then that won't complete the challenge.

The reason I wanted the life support mods to be required is because I wanted an element of realism in the Jool 500 challenge. I may add a super easy difficulty that doesn't require the use of either of the actual life support mods, because I realise that not everyone enjoys them, but the points multiplier may make it not worth doing if you're doing the challenge competitively. I'll think about the numbers regarding that greenhouse and other greenhouses, and update the main thread.

[septemberWaves]

I added a CASUAL option to all 3 difficulty levels. You can choose not to use life support but you'll only be able to get half the points from any difficulty level, and you can't get the points for regeneration of life support resources at bases.

[Jetski]

Possible to complete the CASUAL version with pure stock?  My original plan is to work this challenge into my 1.1 career, but I want to play through no mods before I start mixing it up.  Otherwise, it will be quite a while before I can start, since 1.1 isn't even available for at least another week.

[max_creative]

1 minute ago, Jetski said:

Possible to complete the CASUAL version with pure stock?  My original plan is to work this challenge into my 1.1 career, but I want to play through no mods before I start mixing it up.  Otherwise, it will be quite a while before I can start, since 1.1 isn't even available for at least another week.

Yeah. Like jool 50 stock edition. That would be more manageable.

[septemberWaves]

10 hours ago, Jetski said:

Possible to complete the CASUAL version with pure stock?  My original plan is to work this challenge into my 1.1 career, but I want to play through no mods before I start mixing it up.  Otherwise, it will be quite a while before I can start, since 1.1 isn't even available for at least another week.

That actually sounds like a pretty good idea, I'll make some changes to add in the option of using the stock game.

[Jhawk1099]

I'll start testing some systems and life support mods. This is going to take up a lot of my summer. I don't think I could do a challenge of this magnitude with school+sports. But this should make a decent YouTube series though

[septemberWaves]

7 hours ago, Jhawk1099 said:

I'll start testing some systems and life support mods. This is going to take up a lot of my summer. I don't think I could do a challenge of this magnitude with school+sports. But this should make a decent YouTube series though

I'm looking forward to watching this series. Good luck!

[Jetski]

Here's some really helpful info from @DStaal in reply to my befuddlement on the UKS forum.  Lots of the tutorials/wikis for the interactions between UKS and USI-LS are confusing or outdated, this is the closest I've found to a real start for those of us who aren't already fluent in UKS

 

 

So: @Jetski, your first priority it sounds like is getting Supplies from an offworld source.  Decent enough place to start.  You have two resources that you need to make supplies, and a couple of optional ones that can help your productivity.  The two you need to worry about are Mulch and Fertilizer.  Mulch, of course, comes from Kerbals consuming supplies.  So if you've got Kerbals in the base you can likely ignore that one.    (If you don't - and I'll admit I'm not sure if the Aeroponics module works without a Kerbal - then you'll need to ship it in from your other ships/bases.  Which can be worthwhile anyway, in some cases.)  Fertilizer can be shipped in from Kerbin, or you can mine Gypsum and convert it using either the MK-III Regolith Sifter, or the MK-V Crush-O-Matic.  So your minimum is one of those, a Gypsum drill, one of the greenhouses, and some storage.

I mentioned some optional resources: Water can help reduce your supply consumption (meaning you can more easily grow more food than you need) and it can be used in the Aeroponics modules (along with Substrate) to produce more Supplies - but you need a greenhouse as well to do it.  Water can be harvested directly using it's own drill, or you can use the same drill as for Gypsum to get Hydrates - which can be converted into water in the MK-III Regolith Sifter or the MK-V Crush-O-Matic.     So, depending on the resource distribution, you may already have the parts in place.  Substrate is a different drill yet - but it doesn't need to be refined.

Logistics is mostly something that can be ignored under UKS - Turn on warehousing in all relevant parts, and build things fairly close together, and you typically won't have to worry about it.  'Fairly close' is 150m if you don't have a logistics rover manned and nearby - 2k if you do.  Or just attach the big Kontainers to everything and have Planetary Logistics sort it out for you.    (Which has the range of 'surface of the same planetiod'.)

You can't quite let this run unsupervised - you need to check in every once in a while and let physics load, so KSP can run catchup on what's been done.  It doesn't actually run in the background - it just quickly makes it look like has once you look at it.  (But I find it's a good idea anyway to check in on bases every once in a while - it helps keep them in place so the kraken doesn't eat them.)

Playing around with it is good, but I actually find the easiest way to look at what does what is in the VAB - all the parts list what they consume and what they produce, and you can get a general idea of what you'll need from that.  The one exception is the dirt converters, which don't look like they produce anything - they actually produce *everything*, but how much they produce depends on the local abundance.  (Which means it isn't static ratios, like the rest of the parts.)

And to answer the other question in your first post: Yes, if you take a look through all the parts you'll see that nearly everything can be produced off-world.  (The exception being Pu-238, used only in the MK-V Scout-200 Power Pack, which is basically a powerful RTG.  Note that the power distribution functions of the Scout work without it having Pu-238.)  Some of the production chains are quite long, but they are possible.

My suggestion is to focus on the LS loop first, since it's the one that interests you first (and because it's usually the first critical one) and then work on the rest later.  There is one other 'catch' to the LS loop though: It doesn't work on Kerbin.  Because, on Kerbin, your Kerbals don't use supplies, and therefore don't produce Mulch.    Take them to orbit (and ship in fertilizer) or the Mun to experiment.   (Or: set up on Kerbin and *ship in* Mulch...)  Anyway, once you've got that, then you can start on MaterialKits or SpecializedParts.  Just break it down, look at what you need in the VAB, then work out what gets you that.

[Admac]

Has anyone figured out an elegant solution to RT relays around Jool? Pol is almost 200MM away at apoapsis, so the neither of the antennae with cones work, so I suppose you need a dish to the main relays in LJO? or does it make more sense to lug your main relays beyond Pol an have a wider ring? Every plan I have seems to run into complications, setting up relays in the crowded yet sparse system. I think I'm going to go with direct link 88 deployables from all the moons' comsats to the main ones in lowish Jool orbits 1 to 1 links with three sats in each orbit. Complex stuff!

 

Also I've built like 10000 MKS bases and would be happy to help with and MKS/UKS questions!

[Chris97b]

7 hours ago, Admac said:

Has anyone figured out an elegant solution to RT relays around Jool? Pol is almost 200MM away at apoapsis, so the neither of the antennae with cones work, so I suppose you need a dish to the main relays in LJO? or does it make more sense to lug your main relays beyond Pol an have a wider ring? Every plan I have seems to run into complications, setting up relays in the crowded yet sparse system. I think I'm going to go with direct link 88 deployables from all the moons' comsats to the main ones in lowish Jool orbits 1 to 1 links with three sats in each orbit. Complex stuff!

 

Also I've built like 10000 MKS bases and would be happy to help with and MKS/UKS questions!

Well I for one would be happy to trade some RT advice for some MKS tips

Jool can be tricky if you're going for a high efficiency (read: as few satellites as possible) setup, I've seen it done with 6, but that was subject to periodic blackouts due to occasional eclipses. (https://www.reddit.com/r/KerbalSpaceProgram/comments/3gave9/voila_my_jool_remotetech_network_it_looks_a_bit/?)

The way I've always handled it personally is to lob a pair of relays into highly eccentric (80,000km x 250km) polar orbits around Jool, with long range dishes back to Kerbin, and a pair of short range dishes for each moon (in the case of Pol, C88-88's). Around each moon I have another pair of relays, with omni antennae to connect down to the low orbit satellites (typically a few omnis in equatorial orbits, and Scansat scanners that double as omni relays in polar orbits). Pro tip: Toss an extra C88-88 on your relays and point them at active vessel. You'll be glad you did once you start running inter-moon transports around the Joolian system

It's fairly inefficient in terms of the number of satellites, but it's actually not particularly expensive and it's essentially hands-free 100% uptime and darn near 100% surface coverage once you get everything setup. I have a pretty nifty system I use where I stack all of the satellites I need for each moon on top of a single booster, which minimizes the number of flights to Jool I have to deal with, and is reasonably inexpensive (around 350K funds per launch on the pad, less if you recover the booster stages). I don't have anything setup around Jool yet in my Jool 500 career, but if you want I can try to grab some screenshots of what I'm talking about.

[Admac]

Nice! Much more effective than my plan! I might have to use the high inclination polar Joolian Relays. for the actual moons, I found a neat article about 4 satellite coverage for 100% up-time with 4 sats and never more than a 15 degree signal inclination that I've adapted.

1 Polar(90 degree inclination) sat with scanning rigging 6hr period

1 sat at 210 degree inc 6 hr period

1 sat at 330 degree inc 6 hr period

1 sat at equatorial inc 3 hour period

the exact period can be changed so long as the equatorial one is half the main ones.

Then all three will focus a different sat in Joolian orbit, I think I'll do 2 up and 2 down in elliptical orbits, at opposite points in the orbit. The inclined moonSats will target one Relay each, and the equatorial one will focus all 4. Should be 100% uptime with minimum connections and sats I think. I might be over building the Jool relay set with 4 though

Also I went full on launch nut and lofted 19/24 required sats in the first trip, in a 430 part monster of lag and regret.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Admac

[Admac]

Ah, I misapplied that sat spacing!

Issues: The polar orbit was too high for scansat, the inclined orbits sychronized, leading to big missed spots.(All three at the same place every half orbit)

Solution: Use a low half period polar orbit and a full height equatorial orbit instead. I desync'ed the inclined orbits but using mechjeb's resonate orbit by 5/6th, and recirc'd after two and then four orbits.

Whew! RT is hard!