Elaborate Stock Base Ideas

[Opus_723]

I'm getting ready to build my first Mun base, and I want it to be a really sprawling, lively thing with lots of kerbals and lots of things to do. But in stock, there's not really any need for large bases. There are a few obvious things:

-Science lab

-Communications

-Power Generation

-Resource Extraction and Fuel Processing

And at that point, you have pretty much satisfied all of the game mechanical reasons to have a land base on a celestial body. Now, I've got the first three on my Mun base already, and I'm currently working on the fourth. The mining operation will be rather large, and it will all be processed on the ground, so I have essentially infinite fuel to play with.

What I'm looking for are some fun, unnecessary ways to expand a Mun base. Anything beyond what's listed above, I'm game. I just want creative ideas for things that my kerbals can do to build a thriving community without mods. Here are some of my ideas so far:

 

1.) Obviously my kerbals need some rovers to tool around in. That's next on my list, and I plan to build a largish permanent garage to attach to the current base, filled with a variety of rovers. Ideas for rover specializations are appreciated.

2.) Aerial transport. Vehicles designed for biome hopping to finish off the Mun's science by bringing data back to Canis Base. I will also need shuttling to and from orbit once my orbital station is complete. Ideas for variations on aerial (aerial? vacuumal sounds wrong) vehicles are also appreciated (ie: cargo dropships, scooters, etc.) If I get good enough at designing and piloting these ships, maybe I could build an actual landing pad for them, with fuel storage built in? At the very least I'll probably light up a patch of ground over the long munar night.

3.) My base is not too far from a nice crater lip, so I had the idea that I might set up a little outpost on the lip, specifically for stunt attempts off the edge.

4.) Some unnecessary habitation modules, just for more spacious and luxurious living conditions.

5.) A large mobile base that will roam the Mun, refueled on occasion from Canis Base.

6.) Maybe another stationary base in a different biome, just so they can be neighbors and occasionally travel between them. This is my last resort though, as it feels a bit more tedious than the others unless I can come up with a unique role for the new base.

 

But I'm running out of ideas now. So what are your ideas for unnecessarily elaborate bases? Feel free to show off anything you've already built as well!

Edited December 10, 2016 by Opus_723

[W. Kerman]

Having extra fuel on hand would be good idea, along with a tanker rover. Having infinite fuel is no good if it takes forever to get it into your ships! 

 

-W. Kerman 

[KerikBalm]

Ok... this involves rovers, and "aerial"vehicles... I don't used the term vacuumal... just vacuum.... anyway, vacuum landers and vacuum dropships. It sort of involves a fuel truck... I'll let the pics speak for themselves... at the very least this should give you some ideas.

This was my largest "Mun base" so far

Spoiler

Although in this specific image, the "main base" has one module undocked

 

 

My earlier "bases" weren't really bases, just massive landers that would mine anf fill up on fuel and ore, then go back to orbit to serve as a fuel depot/fill up a fuel depot or ship. You can see one such lander in the background here, where I started to build my new base.

Spoiler

After delivering 2 modules, it can mine and fill up a fuel truck/fuel depot module

after another trip to orbit to pick up a module, and bring it to the surface, the base can now mine, store fuel, collect science, and process results. This was pre-1.2, otherwise I'd have a relay antenna on it instead of a HG-88...

 

My basic idea was to make modular surface bases that I could deploy from mk3 bays, so they are all rovers... but most of them don't rove very well, just well enough to get on and off the ramp, and to connect when it makes sense to connect them (like a fuel truck and a mining rig). Then I could have a mk3 craft transport the whole thing. Fly off and deploy mining rig -> refuel and return and collect science module, take some fuel from the fuel truck -> fly back ot mining rig, refuel -> return to fuel truck and take the last of the fuel -> flyback to mining rig, entire base relocated to new site. I design the craft to be able to get to and from orbit with a 40ton payload without refueling and dV to spare..

Then I could make one base and use slight variations for different bodies, or even move the entire base from body to body. I prefer the slight variations way though (No solar past dres, use RTGs. I have modded fuel cells that use only LF and IntakeAir -> for use on Laythe or my modded Rald).

Thus, you can see here my tests for that same basic set of base modules in a different mk3 transport:

Spoiler

Loading modules into the dropship in orbit is a major pain, its much easier to do on the ground:

Spoiler

So this holds one module... great... the base has 3 modules, and I don't want one dropship per module

Oh fun module juggling... the orbital tug is quite busy:

Easy does it:

it was a real pain to dock this, because a slight bump caused the wheels to explode... I think its not as bad in 1.2

I didn't feel like flying the two extra modules (first one down was the fuel truck) and the tug, and designing is most of the fun, so I made this behemoth to get the modules to Munar orbit:

Your base doesn't have to be all linked, it can be a collection of nearby stuff on the surface. I encourage you to make an "air-mobile" mini-base that you can re-deploy to other locations, or just join modules together to make a bigger base (like extra mining rig rovers, extra fuel tank modules, some habitat rovers) - but all those wheels will drive your part count up more (I think now that the wheel block problem is gone, you can get away with fewer, bigger wheels)

[Sharpy]

1) not Mun. Mun is a hellhole where you go if you must. Minmus is where you go if you want to build something "for yourself". It's much, much, much more pleasant in all respects.

2) If you launch a large interplanetary mission with orbital refueling, you quickly learn there is no such thing as too big a fuel depot.

...which leads us to the third point. A MASSIVE mining base on Minmus.

Don't split it into segments "for fun". Split it when you HAVE to split it, because otherwise the launcher would be way, way oversized. Prepare a tanker, a truly massive ship that will carry your fuel to LKO. And I mean it, 20 largest Kerbodyne tanks is a modest estimate. Prepare a way of refueling it. I can tell you hauling single Kerbodyne tanks to Minmus orbit from the surface is not efficient enough.

And that's about it. Enjoy your framerate always in the red

[panzer1b]

pretty much stuff that most of my bases are composed of:

Command bunker that has good visibility and is usually both armored (structural panels) and placed in the middle of the entire colony/outpost.

A couple of living spaced, in a variety of shapes and sizes to make it look like an actual city or something (use alot of large parts to save on part count but give the impression of a vast settlement).

At least 2 missile batteries on the edge of the settlement to defend against hostiles (there is a reason i call this game kerbal sci-fi-combat program).

A hangar for a few tanks or other land vehicles.

Landing pad for dropships.

Solar array or reactor to power the place.

A few fuel tanks (so the dropships can refuel), usually mounted on wheels and with klaws so they can be moved and directly attached to whatever needs/has fuel.

Refinery with at least 2 drills and 1 of the larger IRSUs (self explanatory, i dont exactly want to rely on fuel deliveries from kerbin when im camping out on Eeloo or something remote).

A few light posts for looks and immersion.

Pretty much anything else that i feel will add to the atmosphere of a base because it either looks cool or performs some purpose.

[HebaruSan]

How about an astronomy segment with a big telescope, especially if you're on the far side? This could be done either with mods or with stock parts imbued with the magic of Role Playing.

Some of your habitation could be designated as a luxury hotel for the exclusive use of tourists.

An emergency escape system could be kept on-hand to ensure that all crew members can be evacuated at any time.

Presumably your fuel processing would already include service trucks to refill visiting landers.

A real future moon base would need plenty of life support systems, including waste reprocessing and greenhouses. These could also be done with mods or with stock parts and Role Playing.

[Opus_723]

This is all great! Keep 'em coming.

@HebaruSan: I like the idea of an emergency escape system. I'll probably have shuttles at some point, so I think it should be more creative than a regular ship. Maybe some kind of solid fuel fire-and-forget ejection directly to a Kerbin re-entry in case of emergency. A small capsule would be easy to do like that, but it might be a challenge to see how many kerbals I can evacuate at once like that.

@Sharpy: Geez, I thought I WAS being ambitious. The fuel infrastructure I'm assembling now will lift 4 of the largest tanks to munar orbit at a time, and will bring 4 at a time to LKO as well. Twenty is a whole other level. That's impressive. But this is my first mining operation ever, so maybe when I expand my colonies to Minmus I can shoot for 20 then.

On second thought, maybe I'll wait til I get a new computer for that. My frame rate is already a bit annoying.

[Argelle]

This may sound a silly question, but I'm only starting a carreer mode game (and dreaming of a extra-Kerbinial base) :

The "stock" in your title (Stock Base Ideas), does it refer to "stock" pieces? (translaton : may I built one day a base without specific mod)

How do you "clic" the "rooms" in your base? Is is docking port?

Would you post pics of your current base (to get me dreaming)?

[7499275]

I typically run bases with mods such as MKS and KIS and KAS. However, Norton has decided to deem MKS files unsafe and thankfully removed RoverDude's mod from my computer. Thank you Norton! (Sarcasm)

Anyway, typically I will build a base to serve a purpose as a refuel point for long interplantery travels. Eseentially anything past Duna or Eve. Now the best way in my opinion if you're running all stock parts is to create a base lander module to put on the bottom of all the units. On the top will be the actually functioning piece. (IE. converter, solar panels, battery banks, crew quarters, etc.) 

Honestly I don't really think of things being elaborate in this game at this point. Its just building until your creativity and imagination runs out. (or skill unless your using mechjeb and hyperedit lol) 

[suicidejunkie]

My bases include landing pads for small shuttles.

These are prefab Xs formed out of girders with a raised spot in the middle for various attachments.  In this case, docking ports for the shuttles to land on.  Decorate with RTGs, lights and monoprop/snack canisters to taste.

[Opus_723]

@suicidejunkie

I'd really like to do a landing pad, but I'm not sure I'm a good enough pilot to actually, um... land on it. Mostly my base pieces just land where they land, and I'm quite happy if they end up within a kilometer of each other so that the drive isn't too much of a pain.

[suicidejunkie]

On minmus it is pretty easy, and a good practice site.  Also, if you run out of fuel before you line it up, the gravity is low enough to push them into place with SAS and an EVA.

[n.b.z.]

This thread isn't really lacking recommendations for Minmus, but I'll add another one.

What makes Minmus so nice for surface bases is not just the low gravity. It's that this low gravity comes paired with a perfectly flat, absolutely level surface.

This makes it possible to stack things on top of each other almost as if you are in zero G.

I have been a sandbox-only player most of the time, and am now in my very first career game. Had a contract to make a Minmus base with a lab, and made it a combined science and ore mining / fuel refinery base. Later, I got another contract to add more living space and ore storage capacity to it.

My base has a single, medium-size docking port on top, so I made a nice tower and set it on top of the base. The tower itself has another docking port at the top; maybe I get another contract to make this thing even crazier.

[Magzimum]

It is my opinion that a good base needs a tower. And some lights. (Part of my Dres Awareness mission, which includes a few more extravagant ships).

All stock btw.

[KerikBalm]

On 12/12/2016 at 9:02 AM, Opus_723 said:

Geez, I thought I WAS being ambitious. The fuel infrastructure I'm assembling now will lift 4 of the largest tanks to munar orbit at a time, and will bring 4 at a time to LKO as well. Twenty is a whole other level. That's impressive. But this is my first mining operation ever, so maybe when I expand my colonies to Minmus I can shoot for 20 then.

On second thought, maybe I'll wait til I get a new computer for that. My frame rate is already a bit annoying.

Don't bother... there is no legitimate need for 20 fuel tanks to orbit at once... transferring 20 tanks worth of fuel is going to take forever. You'd never send a fuel depot that big because a decent mining rig is much lighter than that.

4 of the largest tanks at once is plenty.

I never used this all at once:

Spoiler

so when I went bigger:

Spoiler

I realized I was overbuilding. There's just no point to it, and they aren't really even surface bases. Once you get that big, the refinery equipment is irrelevant to its mass. Its a massive fuel tanker, not a surface base. I don't even want to have more fuel. I don't typically leave it in orbit as a fuel depot after refilling. Rather I like to launch them on demand to rendezvous with any craft in need of refueling (which I'll often place in a highly eliptical near escape orbit, ready to do its ejection burn as soon as it gets topped off).

This is terrible advice IMO:

Quote

Don't split it into segments "for fun". Split it when you HAVE to split it, because otherwise the launcher would be way, way oversized.

... Enjoy your framerate always in the red

Fun is the whole point! I'd never tell someone not to do something for the purpose of fun. Framerates in the red are not fun. KSP can now run seperate vessel's physics calcs on different cores... splitting up a large vessel into 2 smaller ones increases performance - better framerate, more fun, the whole point!

[Jaeleth]

Land bases are cool to build and cool to watch... Otherwise they are... Totally useless... I ditched them altogether by the 1000 or so game hours... And why?

 

Terrain clipping bugs kept them exploding, particularly if they were BIG. Only solution, put them on legs, but coolness factor disappears in a way... and having large fuel depots on legs, even locking the suspension, is awkward.... putting them on wheels? Even less cool .

 

And then there's the dreaded part count...

 

Landing ships on docking ports, on the surface is easy after the 200th or so game hours... But it is still time consuming and the awesomeness factor soon fades away after your 100th landing... You can always get mechjeb to do the routine while you eat a snack but you still have to monitor it. Plus... In some worlds, like Gilly, you cannot time warp too close to the surface and descent is very slow (sometimes I accelerate TOWARDS the surface in order to speed up), on other worlds, like Pol, there's this bug where when switching to bases, the base is hanging above the surface, for a few seconds, and then it gets on the surface (many times destroying things with terrain clipping bugs). 

So... My "bases" now are huge ships. I call them Orbital Mining Stations (or OMS) and they are completely automonous. On approach to target planet they deploy a wide area survey probe to get mineral pattern, they have a narrow area scanner to scan the surface and a small lander/rover whose job is to land, pin-point a good mining spot and stay there marking the spot. The big ship will now land, deploy 4 drills and fill the fuel tanks. Get into orbit again and refuel all ships in orbit (much faster process). I totally ditched solar panels since they are too big and clumsy and take up a lot of space, and do not work at night, and... a lot of other nuisances, and do not work efficientely in planets beyond kerbin, so, to guarantee the functioning of the 4 drills and an converter I use nuclear power, lots of them. Each ship costs me 3 000 000 credits but, who cares? It's the most practical, and fast, way to explore the system.

Edited December 15, 2016 by Jaeleth

[Jaeleth]

On 12/11/2016 at 7:48 AM, Sharpy said:

P"repare a tanker, a truly massive ship that will carry your fuel to LKO."

Why carry fuel from minmus to LKO at all?

It's more practical to build your ships with around 1000dV when in LKO and launch them to minmus orbit where they can refuel. They can then use Kerbin to slingshot to where they want to go without wasting too much dV since they are departing from an higher energy orbit with full tanks.

Edited December 15, 2016 by Jaeleth

[Sharpy]

2 hours ago, Jaeleth said:

Why carry fuel from minmus to LKO at all?

It's more practical to build your ships with around 1000dV when in LKO and launch them to minmus orbit where they can refuel. They can then use Kerbin to slingshot to where they want to go without wasting too much dV since they are departing from an higher energy orbit with full tanks.

Theoretically, yes. In practice - have you ever tried the Minmus-Kerbin-other planets maneuver with a massive ship of low TWR?

I did. Ended up abandoning KSP for a year. Such a massive project - and such a massive failure.

Do your departure burns from LKO like a good kerbal. Or it will end in tears.

[KerikBalm]

14 hours ago, Sharpy said:

Theoretically, yes. In practice - have you ever tried the Minmus-Kerbin-other planets maneuver with a massive ship of low TWR?

Well, if the target is duna or eve, then you just wait until minmus is in the right position, and you only need a few hundred m/s at perapsis to get there.

Jool and Moho... that's another story... but why have a low TWR ship to start with? If you have one, you'll probably PE kick anyway until you've got an eliptical orbit like what you'd have departing from minmus. To Jool, you still need another 1,000 m/s after you PE kick to a highly elipticaly orbit....

Hmmmm.... 3,969 m/s at 140km..... when the TWR is well under 0.7.... whats that about?

Oh yea.... I came in from an eliptical orbit, and I had an ejection booster:

Now in this particular case, I did depart from LKO, but I recovered the booster in orbit around Mun, and refueled it there, and send additional low TWR ships to mun (not minmus, because the timing of departure is easier, and booster capture and refuel is easier there) to dock with the booster for ejection.

Now.... I didn't start with all the tanks fully fueled (mainly the LF fuselages in the "centrifuge" arms)... but you can see the basics here:

Booster gets it up to nearly jool intercept, the low TWR main ship finishes the burn (in this case with some aerospikes to augment the TWR, but just the Nukes would be used for later maneuvers). The detached booster has nukes and leftover fuel of its own:

^ here it was after a retroburn leaving the nukes quite hot, ready for gentle aerobraking to a Mun intercept where it gets refilled from Mun ISRU. Additional ships can dock and use it to eject from Kerbin at high TWR (eject retrograde from Mun, burn at kerbin PE), the booster gets reused.

Dr. Oberth is happy for the burn at a low perapsis

Dr. Tsiolkovsky is happy for the use of staging

100% reusable, and your craft can do the rest of its mission with lower TWR.

Its much easier to use ISRU to do this sort of mission than to aerobrake the booster back to LKO, and then time a rendezvous to kerbin orbit to refeul the booster (and then, if going for reuse/recovery, you have to land again at KSC, which is more difficult than a precision landing on a low-ish gravity vacuum body- but if you've got mining equipment on the tanker, anywhere with ore will do)

[Fearless Son]

You already mentioned communications as a necessary, but what you can do is make it unnecessarily complicated.  Why have just a little antenna, when you can have a big dish?  Or better than that, several big dishes?  On a large tower?  With elaborate structural elements implying a huge receiver?  

Speaking of towers, rather than a command "bunker" it might be more fun to make a command "tower", like a control tower for an airport.  A place that has a good vantage view over the entirety of the base and surrounding terrain.  If you are going to be landing dropships anywhere near this, the crew of the base should have a good place to guide incoming pilots in.  Make it look really snazzy for bonus points.  

And while you are at it, why not have a bunch of lamp posts?  Something you can attach on top of other modules, high up with lots of lights beaming down around around them.  Make the terrain the base sits on clear even during the night.  It will look awesome for ships on landing approach.  

[Jaeleth]

On 12/15/2016 at 3:54 AM, Sharpy said:

Theoretically, yes. In practice - have you ever tried the Minmus-Kerbin-other planets maneuver with a massive ship of low TWR?

I did. Ended up abandoning KSP for a year. Such a massive project - and such a massive failure.

Do your departure burns from LKO like a good kerbal. Or it will end in tears.

Depends on what you call massive... The largest ships I use are my OMS's, they have roughly the equivalent to 10 Kerbodyne S3-14400 Tanks, a single Rhino gives it a TWR of 0.64 which is not that bad to eject from LKO orbit to anywhere. To help maneuvering I use vernor engines only, these ships are a bit sluggish to turn but nothing unmanagable. And they are this big only because game efficiency in hauling fuel from the surface of the mine-able planets. Exploration ships are smaller, I prefer to use a fleet of smaller ships than a single behemoth, besides, I use large docking ports lavishly so that my ships are always reconfigurable in space, with the exception of the OMS's I have no big ships, really, only modules that I can assemble into very big ships if I want to (rarely do). Part count sucks...  big time

Note: If you have a very low TWR you can always do a multi-pass ejection, and an higher ejection Kerbin periapsis also helps.

[Sharpy]

28 minutes ago, Jaeleth said:

Depends on what you call massive... The largest ships I use are my OMS's, they have roughly the equivalent to 10 Kerbodyne S3-14400 Tanks, a single Rhino gives it a TWR of 0.64 which is not that bad to eject from LKO orbit to anywhere

 

...but if I want to go on LV-N?

[Wcmille]

On 12/12/2016 at 6:03 AM, Argelle said:

This may sound a silly question, but I'm only starting a carreer mode game (and dreaming of a extra-Kerbinial base) :

The "stock" in your title (Stock Base Ideas), does it refer to "stock" pieces? (translaton : may I built one day a base without specific mod)

How do you "clic" the "rooms" in your base? Is is docking port?

Would you post pics of your current base (to get me dreaming)?

Here's an Imgur album, please comment and vote:

https://imgur.com/gallery/4ynl5

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

This guy took me a while. The only stock one I've ever done "honest". 3 trips to Duna, 1 to Jool, 1 to Eve, and a colony to Dres owe to it's refinery. Modestly named:

Super Cobra Secret Moon Deli

 

Edited December 28, 2016 by DrunkenKerbalnaut
Spoiler was acting goofy. Sorry.