totm may 2024 [1.12.x] - Modular Kolonization System (MKS)

[Terwin]

1 hour ago, Brigadier said:

I've never established a mining base so some of this has been a source of confusion for me.  From where does one get the mining rate before having to send the appropriate amount of storage?  Doesn't the rate depend on the surveyed concentration and type of drill?

I think the math goes:

harvest rate = drill production * resource concentration(Survey tells you this) * Engineer harvest multiplier *  MKS colonization production bonus(starts at 100% goes to 500%, I think)

Generally the easiest way to get the actual rate is to test-drill.  If you do not have enough storage, you can always add more later, and 'too much storage' just means it transfers the resource in larger chunks .

 

Just now, SkyFall2489 said:

Also, what parts exactly are needed for planetary logistics? I thought you just needed a Kontainer.

It may have changed, but I think you can only access the planetary warehouse if you have a logistics module and a pilot present(or a remote processor which does export-only logistics and does not need a kerbal)

[SkyFall2489]

6 minutes ago, Terwin said:

I think the math goes:

harvest rate = drill production * resource concentration(Survey tells you this) * Engineer harvest multiplier *  MKS colonization production bonus(starts at 100% goes to 500%, I think)

Generally the easiest way to get the actual rate is to test-drill.  If you do not have enough storage, you can always add more later, and 'too much storage' just means it transfers the resource in larger chunks .

 

It may have changed, but I think you can only access the planetary warehouse if you have a logistics module and a pilot present(or a remote processor which does export-only logistics and does not need a kerbal)

Actually, I'm wondering if I could use scavenging logistics instead to make things simpler. How reare is it that I can find all the things needed for a long term settlement (ore, minerals, substrate, metallic ore, uranite, exotic minerals,  rare metals, sillicates) in 2 biomes that touch? How hard would it be to land a base with a high enough precision to be close enough to scavenge across a border?

[Terwin]

16 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

Actually, I'm wondering if I could use scavenging logistics instead to make things simpler. How reare is it that I can find all the things needed for a long term settlement (ore, minerals, substrate, metallic ore, uranite, exotic minerals,  rare metals, sillicates) in 2 biomes that touch? How hard would it be to land a base with a high enough precision to be close enough to scavenge across a border?

3 biomes is more realistic than 2, unless you are willing to work with everything being less than 5%, in which case two biomes might be doable.

No idea if scavenging even works across biomes, but I know that a single vessel will be in whichever biome contains its center of mass.(can you guess what I tried to do?)

If you can refuel without expanding anything that would make taking off again difficult, you can adjust your location with small hops if needed(or use wheels if you have them)

[JamesonKerbal]

4 hours ago, SkyFall2489 said:

How hard would it be to land a base with a high enough precision to be close enough to scavenge across a border?

You don't need that precision. Use USI rovers to perform logistics over longer distances (from memory each remote component can be up to 2km away from the rover, they don't all need to be within physics range of each other). See "Resource Logistics" in this handy dandy explainer by RoverDude.

For Planetary Logistics you need a logistics building (the Duna or Tundra Logistics module). To deposit stuff into planetary logistics you just need a Kontainer configured to take part in Planetary Logistics. To pull stuff out you need a Quartermaster in the crew of the ship (along with the logistics module and the kontainer configured for planetary logistics).

So for two neighbouring biomes, park a rover on the border and land ships either side of the border. Exploit both biomes and use the rover for the manufacturing facility!

Spoiler

 

Edited December 20, 2022 by JamesonKerbal

[SkyFall2489]

9 hours ago, Terwin said:

3 biomes is more realistic than 2, unless you are willing to work with everything being less than 5%, in which case two biomes might be doable.

No idea if scavenging even works across biomes, but I know that a single vessel will be in whichever biome contains its center of mass.(can you guess what I tried to do?)

If you can refuel without expanding anything that would make taking off again difficult, you can adjust your location with small hops if needed(or use wheels if you have them)

 

5 hours ago, JamesonKerbal said:

You don't need that precision. Use USI rovers to perform logistics over longer distances (from memory each remote component can be up to 2km away from the rover, they don't all need to be within physics range of each other). See "Resource Logistics" in this handy dandy explainer by RoverDude.

For Planetary Logistics you need a logistics building (the Duna or Tundra Logistics module). To deposit stuff into planetary logistics you just need a Kontainer configured to take part in Planetary Logistics. To pull stuff out you need a Quartermaster in the crew of the ship (along with the logistics module and the kontainer configured for planetary logistics).

So for two neighbouring biomes, park a rover on the border and land ships either side of the border. Exploit both biomes and use the rover for the manufacturing facility!

  Reveal hidden contents

 

My point was that I'd have a single crewed main base, and maybe 2-4 unmanned remote miners for resources that are not available at the main base. What I think I might do now, is put wheels on my main base, and drive it somewhat close to a border. Then, use PRE to load a ship on the other side of the border, but ue planetayr logistics - which means things stay simple, but everything stays loaded. I need everything to be loaded so I don't have to check back on them as they process resources. However, a simpler option would to still use Planetary Logistics, but instead each remote miner is unloaded and I need to switch to them every once in a while. These miners could be in better locations, and if I build them right I wouldn't need to deliver uranium or machinery to them, by using solar power.

[Terwin]

24 minutes ago, SkyFall2489 said:

These miners could be in better locations, and if I build them right I wouldn't need to deliver uranium or machinery to them, by using solar power.

Machinery is a setting, so easy enough, but if your remote miners are solar powered, make sure to only do catch-up when they are in sunlight, as the catch-up mechanic looks at current status, so 3 days worth of catch-up would calculate based on how much sun is hitting the panels when it enters physics range.  (this can mean you do not need batteries to mine all night long, but can also mean losing a months worth of harvesting because you switched over 15 minutes before dawn)

[SkyFall2489]

15 minutes ago, Terwin said:

Machinery is a setting, so easy enough, but if your remote miners are solar powered, make sure to only do catch-up when they are in sunlight, as the catch-up mechanic looks at current status, so 3 days worth of catch-up would calculate based on how much sun is hitting the panels when it enters physics range.  (this can mean you do not need batteries to mine all night long, but can also mean losing a months worth of harvesting because you switched over 15 minutes before dawn)

What I might end up doing is bringing a set of remote miners that are very adaptable to whatever situation I find at Duna, and put wheels on the main base so it can drive around a little after it lands but before it deploys. Then, once the colony vessel arrives at duna, I send down a lot of scanning equipment, to check for good sites. If I'm lucky, I can place all the equipment within physics range. If I'm not, the remote miners go wherever they need to be.

Later in the colonization effort, I might just build giant arrays of sifters instead, or use WOLF to get resources from other biomes easily.

[SkyFall2489]

11 hours ago, JamesonKerbal said:

You don't need that precision. Use USI rovers to perform logistics over longer distances (from memory each remote component can be up to 2km away from the rover, they don't all need to be within physics range of each other). See "Resource Logistics" in this handy dandy explainer by RoverDude.

My main reason for precision was so they could stay loaded when the main base was, so I wouldn't have to switch to them and let them catch up.

[Terwin]

10 hours ago, SkyFall2489 said:

What I might end up doing is bringing a set of remote miners that are very adaptable to whatever situation I find at Duna

Drills and refineries can be reconfigured to harvest/refine a different material, but I believe it takes an engineer and material kits to do so.  If you do a planetary scan from orbit, you should be able to configure everything before landing.

Just assume that Rare metals and rare minerals will be in different spots and have those pre-configured on different miners to save some kits.

[SkyFall2489]

20 minutes ago, Terwin said:

Drills and refineries can be reconfigured to harvest/refine a different material, but I believe it takes an engineer and material kits to do so.  If you do a planetary scan from orbit, you should be able to configure everything before landing.

Just assume that Rare metals and rare minerals will be in different spots and have those pre-configured on different miners to save some kits.

Currently, I am carrying the main base (hard to land with precision but can mine many different things), and 2 remote miners which each can drill 2 things, but also need Karbonite for power (mined seperately). Will this likely be enough?

Also, each remote miner has 3 1.25m kontainers to store mined resources.

[Psykikk]

so... USI production in relation to WOLF ? 
how does it work ? do I need any wolf elements to establish the following: 

- central base. 
production / hab for kerbals. 
this is where stuff happens. 

- dedicated mining / refining landers spread all over. 
example would be miner that extracts ore , refines into fuel. 
fuel gets to hub via logistics ? 

or more viable to ship ore and refine into fuel at hub ? 

same thing with all advanced ressources. metals, chmicals etc etc. 

my current miner probe would have tank for mined stuff, converter , plus tank / cargo for the refined stuff. 
(and ofc power / heat mgt.) 

if I need any additional wolf parts per hub and mining landr, what would those be ? 
thanks in advance !!!
 

[Terwin]

4 hours ago, Psykikk said:

so... USI production in relation to WOLF ? 

WOLF is an add-on that can be used to support MKS, but is not required in any way.

 

WOLF is a way to handle mining/production/logistics bases without needing to visit them for catch-up mechanics to run.(also without increasing the part-count in your game, as WOLF bases are not rendered and do not participate in physics)

WOLF is primarily intended for support or mining bases, and also handles interplanetary logistics.

The only interaction between MKS and WOLF is through hoppers.  Hoppers let you pull resources out of WOLF and feed them into your MKS base.(this is one-way, and you cannot feed resources back into WOLF)

A MKS base and a WOLF base in the same biome will be 100% independent of each other unless you have a hopper on the MKS base and pull resources from the WOLF base using that hopper.

You can have as many MKS bases in each biome as you can physically fit, but you can only have one WOLF base per biome.

 

[notthebobo]

5 hours ago, Psykikk said:

so... USI production in relation to WOLF ? 
how does it work ? do I need any wolf elements to establish the following: 

WOLF is really designed to work in the background so that you don't have visible part counts. There's a good overview on the Wiki.

[SkyFall2489]

49 minutes ago, Terwin said:

WOLF is an add-on that can be used to support MKS, but is not required in any way.

 

WOLF is a way to handle mining/production/logistics bases without needing to visit them for catch-up mechanics to run.(also without increasing the part-count in your game, as WOLF bases are not rendered and do not participate in physics)

WOLF is primarily intended for support or mining bases, and also handles interplanetary logistics.

The only interaction between MKS and WOLF is through hoppers.  Hoppers let you pull resources out of WOLF and feed them into your MKS base.(this is one-way, and you cannot feed resources back into WOLF)

A MKS base and a WOLF base in the same biome will be 100% independent of each other unless you have a hopper on the MKS base and pull resources from the WOLF base using that hopper.

You can have as many MKS bases in each biome as you can physically fit, but you can only have one WOLF base per biome.

 

Hmm. Might it be possible to carry WOLF equipment in with the initial colony, and use a rover for zero cost transport between biomes? or would that be far too much to carry? 

[Psykikk]

oh boy. mks with life support is already fairly complex. now add wolf on top of that. 

the game changes dramatically and I am not sure I like this change....I am really torn and I feel the payoff for all the efort to establish an MKS base plus a complete wolf setup is just not there. 

I would have to transport a ton of modules to target locations only to never seem them again. 

with normal bases, at last they look cool... and keep looking cool. useless. but cool

if you know what I mean

 

[JamesonKerbal]

4 hours ago, SkyFall2489 said:

Might it be possible to carry WOLF equipment in with the initial colony, and use a rover for zero cost transport between biomes?

Spoiler

here's my little rover for building routes between WOLF biome depots on the surface
 

 

[SkyFall2489]

13 minutes ago, JamesonKerbal said:

  Hide contents

here's my little rover for building routes between WOLF biome depots on the surface
 

 

Well, after some time in KSP, my new plan is to try to land near a biome border. First, a large number of probes go down to survey each biome. When I find 2 biomes that touch on the equator, the main base lands at the border. It then deploys a small rover, which drives across the border and acts as a remote miner. If all goes well, the remote miner will be still in physics range of the main base, and I can begin setting up a colony.

Fitting a large rover into my colony ship will be hard, however, and same with building the WOLF modules on the surface before I have SP production, so I guess WOLF is not meant for small starter colonies.

Edited December 21, 2022 by SkyFall2489

[JamesonKerbal]

On 12/22/2022 at 7:42 AM, SkyFall2489 said:

Fitting a large rover into my colony ship will be hard, however, and same with building the WOLF modules on the surface before I have SP production, so I guess WOLF is not meant for small starter colonies.

You can build smaller rovers, this one is just big because I was doing all my industry in WOLF. The smallest WOLF route-building Kontainer is 1.25m size and lets you build 1-unit routes with a Malemute or Karibou rover. Those rovers can be landed from orbit using a variety of methods such as an inverted Type 3 cargo bay (doors open to the ground), sky-crane, or built-in rockets.

I just follow the philosophy that if it's worth doing, it's worth over-doing. That rover in the picture is a 45-unit beasty, constructed in orbit using WOLF resources imported at the beginning of the colony build.

Here's a teensy route building rover:

Spoiler

And here's what I use to start a new colony with. First is the shipyard in the VAB to show the gist of what I start with, second is the assembled colony starter including the rocket that moves everything in place and the relay satellites and relay deployer:

Spoiler

edit: the assembled expedition vessel depicts the shipyard before 4000 material kits have been added to deploy it. Make sure the Konstructor O-250 component has all the external components as per the VAB view before you set off to Moho or wherever.

The only WOLF component there is the Material Kits hopper. I feed it 5 units of Material Kits from Kerbin, the storage on the component is only there to hold the Material Kits that are imported until there are enough to build other components (bigger storage, more hoppers for other resources, landers to deploy further WOLF infrastructure).

You can start a new colony with WOLF basically from scratch. Find out more through the savegame that I laughingly refer to as a "walkthrough" over here: https://github.com/MaraRinn/WOLF-Walkthrough - you might be interested in some of the utility vehicles even if the landers aren't of interest to you. I expect the "Startup Shipyard" would be of use to you, it's something you can graft to your colony ship and it will work as a regular MKS shipyard until you can send it 5 abundance of WOLF Material Kits. The storage is roughly in the proportions that I consume during the Walkthrough: lots of Stock/MKS/WOLF components without advanced stuff like nuclear reactors or karbonite/karborundum based propulsion.

The entire walkthrough is based on landing WOLF modules from orbit because USI no longer supports Ground Construction which had cool stuff like DIY Kits.

Edited December 25, 2022 by JamesonKerbal

[Psykikk]

On 12/21/2022 at 10:34 PM, JamesonKerbal said:

The entire walkthrough is based on landing WOLF modules from orbit because USI no longer supports Ground Construction which had cool stuff like DIY Kits.

interesting. so basically wolf lets you build stuff in orbit, to then land wherever you need to be finally.  establish a shipyard somewhere. attach hopper. 
thats really minimalistic. I also like the idea of being able to build stuff in orbit to save time of actually launching using launch windows.. 

or how does wolf handle those transfers ? aren´t there costs associated with planetary transfers of ressources ? what about time constraints ? 
 

and this last statement is something ... I was surprised to see. 
I watched a YT video from someone that build entire new  MKS modules and such on the ground. duna base. this growing and improving his colony. 
so thats not possible anymore ? 

 

[JamesonKerbal]

35 minutes ago, Psykikk said:

I watched a YT video from someone that build entire new  MKS modules and such on the ground. duna base. this growing and improving his colony. 

Probably Mark Thrimm? Ground Construction is still available and still works, it's just no longer bundled with USI MKS.

46 minutes ago, Psykikk said:

aren´t there costs associated with planetary transfers of ressources ?

Yes and no. There are relatively easy ways to reduce planetary transfer costs to 0. There's no time cost at any time though. Once you get one route builder from Kerbin to Moho, you will have capacity to send stuff to Moho, and that stuff will just appear. The stuff is sent as an "abundance" which basically means a certain capacity of units per day when you extract that abundance through a hopper into a MKS resource container.

So for example I might have infrastructure on Minmus producing WOLF versions of Fuel, Material Kits, Specialized Parts, Alloys, Synthetics and Robotics, so I can build a route from Minmus to Moho (via Kerbin) with capacity of (for sake of illustration) 45 units. Now I can transfer 20 units of WOLF Fuel, 15 units of WOLF Material Kits, 5 units of WOLF Specialized Parts, and 1 each of Alloys, Synthetics, Robotics. Then at Moho build a shipyard with hoppers and storage to convert that WOLF abundance into MKS resources.

A shipyard with stuff imported from WOLF will look something like this:

Spoiler

 

The white components are hoppers, the large grey boxes are storage for Material Kits. The various little boxes are storage for the other materials that will be used. From front to back:

• storage for material kits and smaller amounts of other materials
• fuel bunker with four fuel hoppers fed by a supply of 20 WOLF Fuel abundance (each hopper converts 5 WOLF Fuel to 450 LiquidFuel and 550 Oxidizer per day)
• main shipyard spine with shipyard at left, a hopper that converts 5 abundance of WOLF Specialized Parts to 1322.75 MKS Specialized Parts per day, 3 hoppers that each convert 5 abundance of WOLF Material Kits to 5000 MKS Material Kits per day
• ancillary resources  segment that converts 1 abundance each of Alloys, Electronics, Robotics and Synthetics to the MKS equivalent (at about the rate of 400 to 700 per day)
• passenger facility which has one passenger terminal, habitation and life support

You can use WOLF to transfer passengers but doing so is slow and extremely expensive in terms of required infrastructure. I find it much easier to just send passengers via dedicated crew transport.

 

 

[Psykikk]

oh wow. that thing does look like a sci fi space station, indeed. 
I assume this behemoth was transported there, or did you assemble it slowly through wolf itself ? 
would that be possible at all ? 

guess I will have to look into wolf after all. 

[JamesonKerbal]

On 12/23/2022 at 8:04 PM, Psykikk said:

I assume this behemoth was transported there, or did you assemble it slowly through wolf itself ? 

Back here I showed my "startup shipyard" which is towed into place after being supplied with Specialized Parts, Alloys, Robotics, Synthetics and Prototypes. From there I build the shipyard core (the part with the solar panel and the Konstructor-250) and the A/E/R/S component (bunch of WOLF hoppers for Alloys, Electronics, Robotics, Synthetics), then the "startup shipyard" can be reloaded and moved to the new construction site.

Note that in that previous post there's a picture of the startup shipyard with the LFO pusher and the comms network deployer (which also has a depot module to get the WOLF infrastructure started). It's actually less mass to ship the constructed comms deployer than to provide the materials required to build it since you need equal mass in material kits, plus the other resources based on number of parts and modules and whatnot.

The startup shipyard is mostly MKS and stock components. The WOLF component is the Material Kits hopper (the 3.75m white barrel that the startup shipyard is built on). The big shipyard is mostly WOLF components -- each segment has four WOLF hoppers. The hoppers are configured to produce materials in roughly the quantities consumed, and for mass production of anything I'd just add more and more Material Kit hoppers (basically the ratio is 100 Material Kits to 10 Specialized Parts to 1 of everything else).

Edited December 24, 2022 by JamesonKerbal

[notthebobo]

@JamesonKerbal, you have provided a fantastic resource. I linked to your walkthrough on the Wiki Tutorials page.

Edit: After starting your the tutorial, I've realized I've been thinking way to small in my WOLF build-outs.  Why build a small cargo transport when I can connect multiple 5m Kontainers together? Why have one hopper on a station when I can have many?

WOLF really lends itself to full resource chain build outs and expansion stations to build the next planet out. This is a game changer, and if I had to guess, probably similar to what KSP2 might offer.

Edited December 26, 2022 by notthebobo
Added editorial on needing to think big

[JamesonKerbal]

On 12/27/2022 at 2:55 AM, notthebobo said:

Why build a small cargo transport when I can connect multiple 5m Kontainers together? Why have one hopper on a station when I can have many?

In the walkthrough I tried to illustrate the amount of effort required to do things like building Prototypes or running passenger routes between planets. If you didn't want to build Prototypes in WOLF you could just spend that effort putting together a production facility that produces far more prototypes than you'll ever need. If you don't want to build all those extra Specialized Parts for Colony Supplies and Machinery to support the WOLF Passenger routes, just use a torch ship which can get your crews to their destinations in weeks instead of years.

edit to add:

I guess I need to rework that part of the walkthrough: establish Minmus, then produce the bare minimum required to bootstrap Kerbin and Mun  (basically 15 extra Material Kits, 5 extra Specialized parts, 1 each A/E/R/S for each), then a second pass for Minmus  specifically to build the passenger route between Kerbin and Mun, then a second pass for Mun to produce the Prototypes.

Then an alternative path for producing prototypes at Kerbin station using MKS industry - it's basically one assembly plant and the life support required to support the engineers as opposed to half a dozen 400t WOLF depot expansions.

I think I'll rework Minmus because I just magically start people with two biomes instead of showing them the work that went into selecting those biomes. This will be a case of surveying all the biomes, filling out the spreadsheet, then figuring out the fastest path to self-sufficiency.

Does anyone know if/how to define a custom tech tree? The career tech tree that USI/MKS comes with makes no sense, with assembly plants available long before harvesters are available (unless we immediately deploy Atlas class modules).

I think I answered my own question with Community Tech Tree, so I'll check that out.

Edited December 29, 2022 by JamesonKerbal

[Psykikk]

is there a way to reset depots ?