ScrapyardBob's KSP 1.2 Career - Dec 2016 (image heavy)

[WuphonsReach]

At the start of year 7, I have about 9.7 million in the bank.  My Jool MAG/RPWS probes have arrived and are now all in orbits around Jool and its moons.  The first Moho ore -> LFO/MP mining landers is down and working to push LF/Ox and monoprop into MKS Planetary Storage (the second crashed due to running out of fuel about 10 seconds too early).

I'm not 100% sure how I'd get a crew down and back from the surface of Moho, but I'll have to calculate out a delta-V budget.  The lander will require at least a pilot and a MKS logistics module so that I can refuel the lander and take fuel back up to orbit.  That might actually be two or three different craft.

Rough guess is that I'd need a lander with 1200-1500 dV, then 6640 dV to get back to low Kerbin orbit.  I think that's at the ragged edge of what a reusable vessel could do.

Edited January 24, 2017 by WuphonsReach

[WuphonsReach]

Current vessel counts:

• 107 debris
• 44 probes
• 4 rovers
• 33 landers
• 4 ships
• 2 stations
• 5 bases
• 41 relays
• 6 flags
• 6 unknowns

for a total of 252 things in orbit or sitting on a surface somewhere

Other then when I have Haystack open, KSP is pretty happy.  And I'm pretty happy.  I feel like the devs did a really good job in 1.2.2 with performance.

That being said, I should do some house cleaning as I could probably get rid of about 100-120 vessels.

Planning out how to get a level 4 (32 total XP) or level 5 kerbal (64 total XP).

• 2.0 pts - Kerbin orbit
• 4.6 pts - Mun landing (not bothering with flags)
• 5.75 pts - Minmus landing
• 6.0 pts - visiting Kerbol's SoI (orbit the sun)

That's a base of 18.35 (enough for level 3).  Now comes the hard part since I have to worry about hab-timers, life-support supplies and departure / return windows.

Moho - 100-120 days per transit, average of 135 days to wait for a return window.  Orbit is worth 10.5 points, but a landing is 16.1.  That would get me to 32 total easily in order to have a level 4 kerbal.  I'd only need ~400 days of hab-time and supplies for each kerbal.

Eve / Gilly - 178 days per transit, but 1y 380d for a return window.  Eve orbit is 10.0 pts and a Gilly orbit is 9 pts.  Eve landing is only worth 1.5 more points, while a Gilly landing adds 4.8 points.  So Eve orbit + Gilly landing = 23.8 points.

Duna / Ike - 300 days in transit each way, 2y 34d for a return window (on average).  Duna landing + Ike landing = 23 points.

Dres - About 1.5 years per transit, and 1.25 years for a return window. Gives 13.8 pts for a landing.

Jool - 2.5-3.0 years per transit, transit windows are every 475 days on average.  That's a 7-year mission to and back, not including any stops (which could add another 1-2 years) at moons.  Jool orbit is 9 pts, but each moon is 12 pts (or 18.4 pts for a landing).

Eeloo - 4.5 years per transit, return window about every 1.6 years.  That's at least an 11 year mission.  Gives 23 points for landing.

 

 

[WuphonsReach]

I think I have a ship design that will get me to Duna and back.  Since I have not yet scouted out sites for colonization / mining / ISRU, and there is no lander at Duna/Ike yet, nor a refueling lander, I'm going to just put five kerbals into the planned vessel and orbit it around Kerbin for a year.

The cost for all this is going to be probably 3M funds.

[WuphonsReach]

Kind of waiting on a few bugs to be fixed in USI-LS (mainly the recyclers).

However, there's a working version of KCT (Kerbal Construction Time) and Stage Recovery, plus I want to test out the latest changes to my Stock Antenna Balance mod.  So I'm restarting with a new career.  I will give myself about 5500 science and 10M in funds to start so that I can bootstrap building upgrades, multiple launch pads, VAB construction lines, and get moderately deep into the tech tree.

KCT slows things down a lot in terms of calendar time.  I didn't even launch my first probe until the start of year 2.  I won't even launch my first interplanetary relay probes until late in year 3 (I have three Eve relay contracts, the vessels are sitting in orbit waiting on a transfer window).

 

[WuphonsReach]

Difficulty settings for the new save:

This is my preferred KCT.  It results in pad rollouts of 10-20 days for heavier vessels (approaching 1000t launch mass or higher).  Build times are measured in tens of days for 100t craft.  I have to plan ahead by as much as a year in order to put together a fleet going to Jool.

Preferred SCANSat settings.  That requires that I land in a biome to "ground truth" the result, plus scanning takes time and is not instant.

 

Working on "ground truthing" things with a SALLY lander at the Mun and Minmus.  It has five surface experiments, plus the Surface Scanning Module.  This also gets me a boatload of cash in order to buy more KCT upgrade points and finish out the tech tree.

It'll probably be year 5 before I put up my first space station at this rate.

However, I do have the two LF/Ox/MP ISRU landers ready to go in the production queue, so they can go ahead and start producing fuel and putting it into MKS Planetary Storage.

[WuphonsReach]

Halfway into year 4.  

The two LF/Ox/MP landers are working fine and pushing Ore, LF/Ox and monoprop into Planetary Storage on both the Mun and Minmus.  The Mun lander has a very small surplus of Ore and has produced 96k LF, 64k MP, 74k Ox after only ~150 days.  The Minmus lander is also pretty well balanced (very little excess Ore) with 65k LF, 50k Ox, 43k MP after ~100 days.

The next step of a kolonization plan is to start mining Gypsum for Fertilizer production.  By making Fertilizer and using recyclers, an initial stock of Supplies can be stretched a very long time.  Plus it can be cheaper to shuttle fertilizer up from the surface of Minmus/Mun to waiting cargo ships / space stations / deep space vessels.  By creating a stockpile of Gypsum in Planetary Storage, I store up materials that can be used by the first colony modules landed on that body.

The Gypsum miners should be in place around the start of year 5.

I need to start thinking about training up kerbals and what my initial crew selection will be for the Mun or Minmus bases.

 

 

[WuphonsReach]

Updated list of automated miners on Mun/Minmus:

• Fuel production (using stock ISRU)
• Gypsum (Fertilizer)
• Hydrates (Water)
• Minerals (Chemicals)
• Metallic Ore (Metals)
• Silicates (Silicon)
• Substrate (Polymers)

That gives the ability to build the following second tier products:

• Material Kits from Chemicals + Metals + Polymers

The other final / middle products all require exotics (Rare Metals + Exotic Minerals) to be mined.  Some require Organics to be shipped in from the home world (I have not found away to do Organics in situ).

[WuphonsReach]

I make heavy use of MechJeb for getting payloads off of Kerbin, so I have a heavily tweaked Ascent Guidance profile.  My target orbit is 85km because sometimes I can't fine-tune a rocket well enough to give Ap/Pe values within 5km of each other.  So that gives me a bit of leeway for a poorly performing booster.  Limiting acceleration to 25 m/s/s gives a better gravity turn result on Kerbin.

In addition, I will always kick back the last recoverable stage (using the Stage Recovery mod) at 63-64km of altitude if it has not yet burned out.  I have an Alt-PRO set to fire the stage event at that altitude and I'll tie the following actions to that event:

• Decouple booster
• Shutdown booster engine
• Activate backward facing SRBs (fling-o-trons, separatrons, FTP decouplers)
• Turn on the V1 Valves on the booster stage to dump any remaining fuel (makes the stage lighter for recovery)

A second Alt-PRO fires the abort action group at 65-66km:

• Extend antennas
• Extend solar panels
• Deploy the fairing (which should have gone off at 50km) as a failsafe
• Turn on radiators / reactors / life support

 

Edited January 31, 2017 by WuphonsReach

[WuphonsReach]

The first module to the Mun will be what I have packaged into a combined Logistics / Agricultural Support Module.

The plan is to land that on the legs, then decouple just below the 'Duna' Logistics module and fly that part into the final position using the skycrane engine at the upper end of the stack.  The remains of the lander will be disassembled for Material Kits (as well as everything above the solar panels on the final stack).

So, key parts on the first module and crew needs:

• 'Duna' Logistics (pilot or quartermaster, max 2)
• (2) 'Ranger' Agricultural Module (two scientists or biologists, max 2)
• 'Tundra' Agriculture Support Module (technician, max 4) -- Fertilizer production from Gypsum
• Recycler capacity for 7 kerbals
• Warehouse containers for: Mulch, Supplies, Fertilizer, and Gypsum
• 62k EC storage

Minimum crew is thus:

• (1) pilot or quartermaster
• (1) technician
• (2) scientists or biologists

Note: I get about 250k back when launching these with Stage Recovery.  These stacks cost between 625k and 700k to build.

Edited February 1, 2017 by WuphonsReach

[WuphonsReach]

Second piece into place will be the PDU, combined with a Pioneer module.  The base of this has (4) flex-o-tubes so it can branch out and connect to more parts then the normal ground module.

As with the other components, there are a few things going on here:

• 'Tundra' PDU (engineer, max 2)
• Hitchhiker pod (max 4) - this is mostly here because I needed a hatch with a ladder at a 45 degree angle to avoid interfering with the flex-o-tubes
• Recycler capacity for 7 kerbals
• Pioneer module for kolony rewards (max 2 crew, not sure it needs anything unless you want Kerbnet access)
• Warehouse for Xenon Gas
• 85k EC storage
• A pair of direct-connect antennas

Min crew for this is a single engineer to run the PDU.  Although for safety, I run with two kerbals so that I can swap them out without ever leaving the module empty.

[WuphonsReach]

The "hab" stack is next:

• 'Duna' Kerbitat configured as a recycler (4 kerbal capacity)
• Recycler for 7 kerbals
• Warehouse for Mulch storage
• 4.25m expanding 'Tundra' habitat (configured as base habitat time, )
• 61k EC storage
• 'Ranger' Habitation Module (configured as base hab time, 4 kerbal effect)
• 'Ranger' Habitation Module (configured as hab-common for a multiplier, 4 kerbal effect)

There is no minimum crew for this module.

I will probably have two to four of these placed at the base to provide enough hab-time for the normal crew.

[WuphonsReach]

The last major piece is something to hold Material Kits while I rip down extra parts, plus enable me to deploy 'Ranger' and 'Tundra' expanding modules.

• 'Duna' Kerbitat configured as a recycler (4 kerbal capacity)
• Warehouse for Material Kits storage
• 61k EC storage
• 'Ranger' Habitation Module (configured as base hab time, 4 kerbal effect)
• 'Ranger' Habitation Module (configured as hab-common for a multiplier, 4 kerbal effect)

There's no minimum crew for this module either.

[WuphonsReach]

Other misc landers:

• A lander filled with 35k MaterialKits (and the vessel will be scavenged for even more material kits)
• Initial stock of supplies (25k, no fertilizer as that will be produced on-site from Gypsum)
• Lander with an initial supply of Machinery and a small supply of Specialized Parts

All of those landers store their materials in warehouse-enabled containers.

KIS lander with building materials (minimum quantities listed):

• (2) electric screwdrivers
• (2) ground pylons
• (2) radial winches
• (6) connector ports
• (2) 'Ranger' hub balls with legs
• (10) flex-o-tubes
• (2) 'Ranger' habs
• (2) Agroponics (for mulch+fert -> supplies)

A Karibou rover to be permanently crewed by a pilot, with USI Konstruction magnetic crane part to enable a Kerbal to lift more mass while on EVA.  The magnetic crane part needs to be mounted near the front of the rover so that it can be positioned within 6m of the part being  moved.  The rover will also have a warehouse for supplies, mulch, Material Kits (for salvaging), plus KIS storage for explosive, wrenches, ground pylons, winches, connector ports.

An engineer will also be assigned to the Karibou rover (so that means a min-crew of engineer + pilot).  They're responsible for EVA'ing and salvaging parts, moving base segments around with winches, etc.

Edited February 3, 2017 by WuphonsReach

[WuphonsReach]

Additional hab modules, the 7-kerbal recycler and inflatable habitation module on top are often swapped out for other parts.

HAB2:

• 'Duna' Kerbitat configured as a recycler (4 kerbal capacity)
• Warehouse for LF/Ox and mono-prop storage
• 61k EC storage
• 'Ranger' Habitation Module (configured as base hab time, 4 kerbal effect)
• 'Ranger' Habitation Module (configured as hab-common for a multiplier, 4 kerbal effect)

HAB3 (H2O production):

• 'Duna' Kerbitat configured as a recycler (4 kerbal capacity)
• Warehouse for Hydrates and H2O storage
• 61k EC storage
• 'Ranger' Habitation Module (configured as base hab time, 4 kerbal effect)
• 'Ranger' Habitation Module (configured as hab-common for a multiplier, 4 kerbal effect)
• ASM configured for Hydrates -> H2O production
• Needs 1+ technicians for the ASM

 

 

[WuphonsReach]

I think I'm ready to send Kerbals to the Mun base and start assembly.  At the moment, the site looks like a bunch of bowling pins.

After a bit of fiddling (note to self - add more reaction wheels, plus landing gear to the 'Duna' parts to keep them from being so tippy until the base is assembled), I have the PDU, Pioneer, Logistics, Material Kits modules lined up for connection with flex-o-tubes.

The Karibou rover is also sitting on the surface, ready to be unpacked.  That was tricky, getting it from vertical to horizontal without knocking anything else over.  But it is packed inside a Mk3 cargo enclosure, so it could handle a bit of jostling.

The first three kerbals going out there will be Jeb, Bill and Bob.

 

Loading fuel onto the 'Pinafore' (a 7-kerbal crew transfer vehicle for movements around Kerbin's SoI).

Edited February 3, 2017 by WuphonsReach

[WuphonsReach]

Jeb, Bill and Bob on their way into orbit to meet up with the 'Pinafore'.

The 'Pinafore' leaving for the Mun on Y8 D108.

Meeting up with the original 'Pippin' lander (which is missing a few key features, so it's going down to the surface to be scrapped'.

Before discarding the transfer stage of 'Pippin', I used the Ship Manifest module to transfer all the LF/Ox over to the 'Pinafore' to give it more dV for moving back to Kerbin later.

Jeb, Bill and Bob landing at 'Sweetwater' and planting a flag.

Arrival at the job site, Bill has a lot of work to do:

Dragging things into place with a KAS winch and a KAS ground pylon attached ("plug docked") to a connector on the bottom of the piece being moved.

Drag speed was a minuscule 0.04-0.08 (instead of the default 0.50).  I still controlled the vessel using the probe core on top and used USI SmartSAS to keep it pointed upwards.  These tall narrow pieces are really prone to tipping (I need stabilizer legs at the bottom), so slow and steady is the rule.

I also discovered, to my chagrin, that Kerbal's cannot use their EVA RCS packs to reach the top of the structures on the Mun (unlike Minmus).  That means for future base building on higher gravity worlds I need to add more ladders (or pack them in KIS containers).  Otherwise, I can't use MKS disassemble to tear off the top of the pieces (to remove things I do not need).

The other thing to remember to pack is lots of extra wrenches / electric screwdrivers.  The USI Karibou rover has a pair of KIS containers attached to the outside with 2 screwdrivers each (plus spare KAS ground pylons, radial winches, and connectors).

Fortunately, I did put a hitchhiker pod on top of the PDU, turned at a 45 degree angle, with a ladder so that my kerbals could actually get inside the base.

Once things were mostly in place, Jeb goes in the Logistics module, Bob (scientist) goes in one of the inflated agroponics, and Bill rests in the hitchhiker pod.

Edited February 4, 2017 by WuphonsReach

[WuphonsReach]

Y8 D132 - The next six kerbals arrive at the Mun to be shuttled down in the 'Pippin II' lander.

• Valentina (pilot)
• Heldie (engineer)
• Marsha (quartermaster)
• Sisa (technician)
• Dannica (tech)
• Jedgar (biologist)

As can be seen, the 'Pinafore' is good for about 115 days to carry a crew of six.  The max capacity is seven, so figure 100 days.  That gives plenty of time to visit the Mun, Minmus and duck out into Kerbol's SOI for 3-stars of experience down the road.

It has oversized mulch tanks too.  The plan is to offload that mulch to a supply lander that shuttles fuel and supplies up from the surface of the Mun or Minmus when 'Pinafore' visits.

Edited February 4, 2017 by WuphonsReach

[WuphonsReach]

Lessons learned from assembling 'Sweetwater' (my Mun base):

• Kerbals cannot use their EVA RCS pack to fly on the Mun
• Therefore, any bits that are on the top of the stack are out of reach
• So the skycrane needs to be connected by a decoupler so it can fly off and land
• If there are things that need machinery on the stack, setup a ladder in the VAB ahead of time to make them reachable
• LETech ladders can be placed on EVA, if you have a MM patch to make them KIS-compatible
• Large KIS containers should come on wheels so they can be moved around the site
• Supply landers should have ladders so that kerbals can climb them and work on disassembly from top-down
• Sky crane designs should have more reaction wheels

This is all good practice for Duna / Ike / Dres.  The Mun has 0.166 surface gravity, Duna is 0.3g, Ike is 0.112g, Dres is 0.115g.  Plus I guess Vall, which is 0.235g.

I'm about halfway through year 8.

[WuphonsReach]

Refueling the 'Pinafore' transfer vehicle in orbit around the Mun'

The lander on the left carries enough fuel to fill up the 'Pinafore' almost 3x, plus it has mulch and supplies storage.  Refueling the supply lander is pretty easy, just land within 150m of a base with a crewed Logistics part, switch focus to the base, and use the MKS Local Logistics function to transfer supplies / fuel to the lander (and offload mulch).

[WuphonsReach]

Tried boosting the number of Kerbals out at 'Sweetwater' on the Mun, but the hab-time dropped too low (137 days).  So I put six kerbals back into the 'Pippin II' lander and moved them up to take a tour of Kerbin's SOI (Minmus landing, Kerbol peek and return to Mun).

In the meantime, I need to play with ladders on an EVA and get the two expandable kerbitats deployed at 'Sweetwater'.

List of the crew going for 3-star training:

I did mostly okay at picking random kerbals (and getting one of each primary class).  This will let me use the MKS Training Akademy to bring other kerbals to level 3 on the surface of Minmus or the Mun.

I'll probably also send them by 'Alpha' station around Kerbin in order to boost their home times to unreasonable values.

This will cost me 8-12M in funds in total.  There are still half a dozen launches yet to do.

Edited February 5, 2017 by WuphonsReach

[WuphonsReach]

(sigh) kind of in a holding pattern until MKS/GC gets sorted.  There's a bit of stuff broken in USI Core with regards to performing maintenance, switching functions while out in the field, plus the issues with the habitation multipliers not working properly.

 

[WuphonsReach]

I started a new career save last weekend, based on an earlier release of the USI constellation.  I've also added in a few new mods, most notable is CTT (Community Tech Tree), plus tweaked my settings for KCT (Kerbal Construction Time).  The combination of the two (KCT makes rockets longer to build and CTT spreads things out over more science nodes) has really slowed down progression in-game.  I'm only considering permanent Kerbal presence in space at the start of year 9 and I might be jumping the gun by as much as a year.

Changing up my naming scheme slightly (mostly for the serial numbers).  My pattern for naming vessels has been:

XXX - 3 letter code denoting primary purpose (STA for station, TCV for transfer crew vehicle, CRV for crew return vehicle)

# - A number denoting either crew capacity or series (07 carries 7 kerbals)

X - sometimes a suffix letter if needed to distinguish better versions

Hypen as a separator

#### - year + day of year (so 8418 is a vessel that launched or was comissioned in year 8 on day 418).  That acts as the vessel serial number.

'Name' - Ship name.  Only the major vessels get names.

(Location) - In the case of landers or probes, the name of the primary body around which it orbits or sits on

That gives me ship names like STA1-4230 'Bravo' (Minmus) which is a station orbiting around Minmus.  But that starts to run into trouble as I get into year 10 or year 100 as the serial number gets longer.  So I could chop a digit off the serial number by switching to a base-21 lettering scheme for the day-of-year value.  That's where this sheet comes into play.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qUlK3YDq33Yba_hzUgZzhr0FpjQGhgwSLYdRHFL_57w/edit?usp=sharing

So in the case of that station launched on day 230, it would switch name to be STA1-4LZ 'Bravo' (Minmus) instead.

 

[WuphonsReach]

In this career, I've done a very low-tech science-oriented station to start.

Not much more then supply / mulch tanks and the science MPL compartment.  There's enough habitation for about 1-2 years with a single occupant (scientist).  It was so cheap that I put one around Kerbin ('Alpha'), the Mun ('Bravo') and Minmus ('Charlie').

The mulch tank (black six-sphere tank near the solar panels) is a little oversized, but that ensures that I don't run out of mulch storage.  When it comes to MKS and USI-LS, 1 kg of Fertilizer will turn 10 kg of Mulch into 11 kg of Supplies.  So you should never waste Mulch mass.  The TCV (transfer crew vehicle) that shuttles between Kerbin / Minmus / Mun also have oversized Mulch tanks so it can take any excess out to either the Mun or Minmus bases for reprocessing.

I did not bother with the mass of a recycler on this station design (it may not have been unlocked yet).  This station only gets used long enough to harvest science from Kerbin's low orbit.  It's not going to be a permanent fixture.  The permanent station will cost 8-12M funds and require 8-12 launches and I'm more focused on getting the Mun base up in years 9 and 10.

Crew on their way up to orbit.  Crew transfers to the TCV always take place at a station in low Kerbin orbit (LKO).

Current 3-Kerbal CRV design.  It's just a slight modification of what has come before as it's very workable and the Alt-PRO sensors are setup properly and the descent staging is "just right".

This is all that comes back to Kerbin.

However, since I use Stage Recovery, I've added a probe core and parachutes to the service module.  Sometimes I get it back, sometimes I don't.

The 6-Kerbal crew preparing to leave LKO, travel to Minmus for landing XP, pop out of Kerbin's SoI for more XP, then head to the Mun.

Transfer burn to get to Minmus.

Once the crew arrives at Minmus, they'll meet up with a pre-positioned lander plus hang around to process science from the Sally series landers that will bring experiments back to orbit for processing in the MPL.

[WuphonsReach]

The current generation of Sally landers has 13 sensors that can be operated in vacuum while landed.

They are all wired up to the "Lights" action for a single-button press collection of data.  Since I have an MPL in orbit around Minmus, I choose to keep all the data instead of immediately transmitting it.

The 14th sensor is the Surface Scanning Module which gives me a readout on actual resources at the landing site (not just biome-wide averages).

The lander has just enough fuel and TWR to land and return to orbit for the Mun.  On Minmus, it has excess fuel and TWR but I need the surface area anyway to mount instruments.  It has a mothership in orbit with lots more monoprop fuel (enough for 6 or 7 full tankings), but I won't be using that in preference of docking with the station.

[WuphonsReach]

I have a really full launch manifest at the moment, all the comm sats and science probes which are built but not launched yet.  I generally roll them out to the four launchpads in batches, get them into orbit, setup their transfer burn, then put the next one up (and let KCT keep track).

As you can see, those LFOX1 launches are ready to go (they took about 13-15 days to roll out to the pad).  Since I just launched one, pad #42 is in the reconditioning step for another 41 days.

Here's a small snapshot of what's in the build queue:

The MKM1 series are automated landers with drills, MKS 'Duna' Logistics module (no crew), and warehouses for the drill output.  They're designed to land at a location to harvest and push resources into Planetary Storage for later processing.  Since I already have a pair of ISRU mining vessels turning Ore into fuel on Mun/Minmus, this batch of MKM1 series are designed to land near the ISRU and harvest what is available at that site.  Even if it's not the highest concentration on the body's surface.

By landing near the ISRU, I reduce the number of jumps between ships every N days in order to perform KSP's catch-up mechanic.  In KSP, ships in the background don't process things like drills or manufacturing.  Instead, when you jump to (focus on) the vessel, it performs catch-up in 6 hour intervals.  So every 50-250 days, I have to visit mining vessels.  Putting them near each other means that all vessels within 2km will all catch-up at the same time in a single visit.

I currently have six production lines in the VAB: