A notable day in Kerbin - a base of operations on the planet (Image Heavy)

[blackheart612]

I've been browsing the forums for a bit as I'm gaining a bit of free time. I've looked around for a place to post this but this is the only place I see it fit. After all, I'm telling a bit of a story. Although not a lengthy one...

This will advertise my mod because this is about it and me playing (plus the mods that I use). I apologize if it sounds like I'm promoting it, I just wanna share what I have in mind. I've recently added helicopter parts and what I really had in mind was it bugged me when I could make bases on other low gravity planets. That took time and resources. In real life, we put our own planet first, we exploit the things we can in it. I wanted something like that but it seemed far from possible. Few people exploit Kerbin and would rather go to other bodies to build bases and such. I was really immersed when recently I got to play around some ideas...

This is an image heavy post. Hopefully it's legal to post this much. Albums are broken too so all the more reason to post individual images.

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Perhaps what I wanted was to see people appreciate Kerbin some more. I did this little project of mine where I try to build a mining rig near KSC just to make it a quick test (although it turned into a couple hours). I was greatly immersed.

So here are the recorded images of the project.
At first there was the refinery unit which was going to be carried to the site. Bill works on it to attach to the carrier helicopter which is then going to carry it on site.

I wanted to see how precise I can get. I used a plugin to control vertical and horizontal speeds so it made it easy. Near the obelisk seemed like a great idea. So I settled there.

And so that's done, we go back to the Launch Pad for another module. It was getting dark so we had to hurry.

It was Valentina's task now to make sure everything was attached and good for flight. And so we go right beside our refinery module. We have to set it up later.

It was soon time to head back for refuel and continue tomorrow. It was getting darker.

This time we are to carry the fuel tank module. I forgot to remove the fuel on the monopropellant tank but the LFO tank was emptied. Thankfully the rotor was powerful enough to carry it and settle it a little bit farther from the refinery and storage module. It was intended, to put it a bit far away from the processing units and its storage, it was the finished product storage once it was functioning.

Now the ground unit will be pulling the ground home unit to the site. If the site was farther, it would have been loaded to a cargo plane. On arrival, base is quickly set up. The linking was soon rearranged but wasn't recorded in picture.

The ground unit comes back for another pull. This time, it's the mining unit. It's attachable to the site and could mine anywhere near. Preferably at daytime so that it could recharge its batteries if it runs out.

I've run the mining drill and was surprised it actually has ores under it. And so the ISRU was functional. Just to see how the ore situation was, we sent a helicopter to survey scan the area for ores. And so Valentina went on hovering on the site.

It felt great to build a base in Kerbin. And that was why I wanted to share  Thank you for seeing all that and reading too.

If anybody is interested, I'm using KAS, the small lights are from Stockalike Station Parts, and the plugin I use to hover is from Automate Vertical Velocity and Altitude Control and it's linked in the post as well as in OP of Airplane Plus which is of course, included in the modlist too.

[DMSP]

Cute base! I see KAX for the Helicopter, but what other mods are you using?

[blackheart612]

@DMSP It's merged to the end of the post  But I'll repeat anyway, KAS/KIS, Stockalike Station Parts (for lights), Automate Vertical Velocity and Altitude Control, Airplane Plus. There's also the usual visuals. Visual enhancements, scatterer. The not so obvious ones are Distant Object and Planet Shine since it's not evident when on Kerbin. Edit: It wasn't KAX for helicopter  

Edited November 30, 2016 by blackheart612

[How to: KSP]

2 minutes ago, blackheart612 said:

@DMSP It's merged to the end of the post  But I'll repeat anyway, KAS/KIS, Stockalike Station Parts (for lights), Automate Vertical Velocity and Altitude Control, Airplane Plus. There's also the usual visuals. Visual enhancements, scatterer. The not so obvious ones are Distant Object and Planet Shine since it's not evident when on Kerbin. Edit: It wasn't KAX for helicopter  

That is some amazing work that i will never be able to bother doing XD

I like it tho and i hope you are proud of your achievements

Sincerely, HowToKSP

[Geschosskopf]

2 hours ago, blackheart612 said:

I've recently added helicopter parts

That are SCHWEET!  I'll have to check them out.  As it happens, I'm in the market for helicopters right now.

Have you ever tried Throttle Controlled Avionics for hovering?  I use that on my VTOLs but haven't yet built a helicopter so don't know how that works for them.

Nice little base, BTW.

[blackheart612]

@Geschosskopf I have honestly no idea how to make the rotors work with TCA. It uses a special FS module so it has RPM and starts up really long just like a helicopter. The altitude control works well and is really simple. Whether you use TCA or not, I recommend it. It's just a small window with a couple of buttons to click which already explains themselves. 

@How to: KSP It was good fun. I love the precision of the helicopters and the simplicity of having a rotor and a tail rotor and you already have something comparable to a VTOL with fewer parts. With the added bonus that it actually looks decent.