[WIP] Permanent Outpost Mission Architecture Challenge

[septemberWaves]

Original challenge that inspired this one:

 

Please send me a private message if you have comments or suggestions regarding development of this challenge.

Introduction

Rather often, people (Jebediah Kerman, usually) get distracted by all things "kerbal" - such as "FAST!!11!1!!", "ENORMOUS!!!1!!!!!1!!!", and "!!BOOM!!" - and begin to lose sight of the fact that this is a space program. This challenge is for you to make it function like one.

Your mission is to design the infrastructure needed to establish a permanent outpost in one of the locations listed below. Be under no illusions; this is not a simple challenge. This is not a challenge that can be accomplished with a single launch of some monstrous agglomeration of engines, fuel tanks, and lack of common sense. This challenge will require careful planning, intelligent engineering, and probably quite a lot of time.

 

Challenge Overview

This is essentially a challenge in mission planning. The mission in question is to establish a permanent surface facility in one of the locations listed below. The outpost must be able to support at least 4 kerbals with regular crew rotation. You have to work within many limitations that are inspired by real-life mission planning restrictions. For an extended list of mission goals, check out the location details for your chosen location, as well as the scoring section to see how you can succeed at this challenge.

You will need to provide a detailed report of your mission plan including: launch vehicle specifications; payload specifications; launch order; crew habitation, life support, and safety; redundant systems; failsafes, and any other details you think would be useful to provide.

You should then attempt to execute your mission plan, providing thorough documentation and following your plan closely.

Post your attempts either in this thread, or in a separate thread with a post in this thread linking to it.

This challenge is a work in progress. Rules and requirements are subject to change.

 

Rules & Guidelines

Spoiler

Launch Vehicle

1. There are four classes of launch vehicle, ranked by their maximum payload to low Kerbin orbit (LKO). You should design one of each class. Different destinations will allow certain numbers of each class of launch vehicle. These include spaceplanes, shuttles, and any other way of getting to orbit.
2. Launch vehicle classes are as follows: small-lift vehicle (up to 5 tonnes to LKO); medium-lift vehicle (between 5 and 25 tonnes to LKO); heavy-lift vehicle (between 25 and 60 tonnes to LKO); super-heavy-lift vehicle (more than 60 tonnes to LKO). Minimum orbit considered to be LKO is defined as "a stable, non-hyperbolic Kerbin orbit with periapsis above 70km". You may define a certain parking orbit as your personal minimum (e.g. 80km), but doing so is not necessary.
3. Rockets need time to assemble, and also to prepare for launch. More powerful rockets, of course, take more time. The time in days that each rocket takes to prepare for launch is its maximum payload mass (in tonnes) plus the mass of the payload being launched (also in tonnes). Always round up if the total is not an integer. An example might be a rocket with a maximum payload capacity of 20 tonnes being used to launch an 18 tonne payload; it would take a total of 38 days to prepare for launch.
4. Reusable launch vehicles need to be built once, but take less time to prepare if recovered intact. The refurbishment time (in days) for a reusable rocket is two thirds (round up if it's not an integer) of its maximum payload mass (in tonnes); add that to the payload mass being launched to get the total time for preparation.
5. You can only prepare for one launch at a time, so the minimum total time it will take to launch a series of payloads is the total preparation time for each of them.
6. You can have any one launch vehicle prepared for launch by Day 10, regardless of its class and payload limit.
7. CREW TRANSPORT EXCEPTION: any mission which transports crew but no cargo to Kerbin orbit has a separate set of restrictions, and will take 3 days to prepare per crew member being launched.
8. When calculating budget for reusable launch systems, the recovered cost is assumed to be 90% the dry cost of the recoverable part of the system. The extra 10% can be assumed to be spent on refurbishment. Fuels are not counted when recovering parts of launch systems.

Habitation & Life Support

1. There is a distinction made between long-term and short-term missions. Short-term missions are any missions when the crew is away from either Kerbin or a long-term habitat for less than 10 days, whilst long-term missions are any expeditions longer than that. Examples of short-term missions are transfers between a planet's surface and its orbit, or quick rover trips when the kerbals are outside of their main habitat. Long-term missions, such as interplanetary transfers or extended excursions on the surface of a planet, may contain short-term missions but must include the necessary supplies for the entire long-term duration.
2. Any long-term mission must provide the crew with adequate habitation space. This means that the total number of seats in pods, habitation parts, and labs can support half as many kerbals (rounded down). For example, if you have a Mk1-2 command pod, a Hitchhiker container, and a science lab, your total number of seats is 9, but you only have long-term habitation space for 4 kerbals. Some mods add parts that contain kerbals but are not actually suitable for habitation (usually airlocks), and the seats in these parts do not count towards long-term habitation; if you are unsure about whether a part fits this description, consult me. If using Kerbalism, ignore this restriction and use the mod's restrictions instead.
3. Kerbals can deal with cramped conditions in an emergency, but your main mission plan should avoid this.
4. Long-term missions must be conducted with a minimum of two kerbals.
5. Kerbals require life support of some form. If you are not using a life support mod, follow these instructions for life support (taken directly from the original challenge): "While every pod / cockpit contains enough supply for short missions, long-term crewed missions require additional life support supplies. Every Kerbal consumes 1 unit of supply each day, and with stock parts you can designate any (rocket, RCS & jet) fuel tank as supply storage, which carries units of supply equal to its fuel capacity. For example the 1.125 ton FL-T200 tank can carry 90 units of supply, while the 0.55 ton FL-R25 tank carries 100 units - clearly RCS & jet fuel tanks are better for this purpose. Tanks designated as supply storage cannot have its contents consumed as fuel". For this to work best, lock all tanks that are used as life support and keep them locked throughout the mission. If using a life support mod, ignore this restriction and use the mod's restrictions instead.
6. Any kerbals which run out of life support supplies are considered dead, which will affect your score.

Safety & Redundancy

1. Any vehicles that will be entering an atmosphere must have adequate heat shielding.
2. Crewed launch vehicles must have some form of launch escape system that will vastly increase the entire crew's chances of survival in the event of a launch failure. Similar redundant systems should be implemented on planetary landers, but are not strictly necessary.
3. The total failure of any single module (other than modules considered critical) must not be able to cause a total mission failure. Your crew must be able to survive and get back to Kerbin before running out of supplies in the event that a standard module fails (such as a base module being destroyed on landing).
4. A module is considered critical if its failure would cause the failure of the entire mission (basically, stranding kerbals away from Kerbin with no way home and no hope of rescue before their supplies run out). The number of critical modules that your mission may have will depend on the destination. Critical modules should have built-in redundant systems to minimize the risk of failure.
5. Any single launch failure should not prevent the total mission from being accomplished. You should be able to adjust your plan to account for launch failures (it is assumed that lost payloads can be rebuilt).

Nuclear Restrictions

1. All nuclear material (engines, reactors, RTGs, etc) must be launched on a launch vehicle which has had at least three successful launches in the past, and has a success rate of at least 90%.
2. All nuclear material must be kept at least 10 meters away from crewed components at all times. Kerbals may approach nuclear material for maintenance if necessary, but must not be within 10 meters of it for extended periods of time.
3. Nuclear reactors may be active on a planetary surface or in space, but must be shut down during ascent/descent and docking maneuvers.
4. Nuclear thermal propulsion is permitted only under certain conditions. Nuclear engines may only be fired when more than 300km above any atmosphere, and may not be disposed of by crashing them into any celestial body with an atmosphere or with crew members on its surface.
5. All nuclear systems that require cooling must have adequate cooling systems (for the hottest place they will be active in) with at least 2x redundancy. This means that, for example, if you are going to be using a nuclear reactor on Moho, for example, you need twice as many radiators that it needs to function at Moho, in case of failures.

Commnet

1. Commnet must be enabled, and the options "require signal for control" and "re-entry blackout" must be enabled.
2. Your commnet range and occlusion settings must be set to normal difficulty settings or more challenging settings (unless you're increasing the scale of the Kerbol system, in which case you can scale up commnet range by at most the same scale factor as orbit radii).
3. Your crew must have a commnet connection to Kerbin at all times (except during blackouts caused by eclipses or Kerbalism events). This will require some form of communications network, which you must incorporate into your mission plan.

ISRU

1. Some ISRU is permitted and some is not, depending on what it's used for:
2. ISRU used to manufacture fuel is permitted.
3. ISRU used to manufacture new life support supplies is permitted.
4. ISRU used to manufacture vehicles or parts is not permitted, and neither are mods which enable production of vehicles or parts in-situ. All vehicles and components must be launched from Kerbin.

Other Rules

1. If you are using Kerbal Inventory System/Kerbal Attachment System, you may store spare parts in KIS containers and they will count towards your overall redundancy as long as you also bring the tools required to install them.
2. When executing your mission, you may not revert launches from Kerbin (except in case of bugs). Quicksaving and quickloading is fine (but you can't use this to get around not reverting launches by quicksaving on the launch pad). This rule is mainly in place so that you don't need to kraken-proof your missions. If the problem is caused by your own error in planning (like a staging error) or by mod that causes random failures, you can't revert and must deal with the consequences.
3. Different destinations will have different time restrictions. You must complete the stated goals within the set time restrictions.
4. Your entry must be original. It can be inspired by proposed real-life missions, but it cannot be an exact copy. Creativity is encouraged.
5. Cheating is, of course, not allowed.

Mods

1. Most mods are permitted so long as they are balanced to the stock game and do not allow for excessive gains with very little cost.
2. Life support mods are highly recommended to improve immersion and remove the need for the simulated life support. Mods that add random failures (such as Dang it! Continued) are also recommended.
3. If using a life support mod, you may modify configs to increase difficulty, but not to decrease difficulty below the standard config settings. Also, regardless of what the life support mod does when kerbals run out of its supplies, any kerbals who run out of supplies during this challenge will still be considered dead.
4. Autopilot features (like MechJeb's ascent and landing autopilot), are allowed, but if you are under full autonomous control when a failure takes place you may not revert to a quicksave.
5. Any mods which add things that would bypass certain challenge restrictions or make the challenge overly easy (such as warp drive mods) are not allowed.
6. Any mods that allow construction of vessels off of Kerbin from basic resources (such as Extraplanetary Launchpads) are not allowed. All payloads must be launched from Kerbin.
7. Increasing the scale of the Kerbol system using KScale (or by manually configuring SigmaDimensions) is allowed, and it will be noted on your leaderboard entry that you have done this.
8. Mods which change the stock physics (not counting Kerbal Joint Reinforcement, which just fixes the physics) are not allowed.
9. Location categories for some Kopernicus planet packs may be added once I have finished the stock planetary systems.

 

Locations

Different locations have different limitations and requirements. Completing the location-specific tasks can add to your score.

Duna

Spoiler

Time limits and launch vehicle restrictions are still being figured out.

 

 

Scoring

You can earn points with your mission plan as well as mission execution. There are also several empirical scores based on budget, mission value, and time spent with kerbals on the surface of other celestial bodies. You are tasked to organize this mission up to the time when the second outpost crew return to Kerbin.

Mission Planning

Spoiler

Empirical Scores

• Ideal budget: the total cost of your mission architecture, assuming no launch failures.

The Basics

• Detailed vehicle designs. Vehicle designs should include size and mass statistics, part count, crew capacity (when relevant), payload capacity of launch vehicles, delta-v information, resource storage (fuel, supplies, etc). +50 points. Also include the above details for individual modules of multi-module vehicles. +10 points.
• Launch manifest. Should describe what payloads will be launched at what times, and when multi-module vehicles will be assembled. +30 points. Also include extra time in case of launch failures when launching critical modules. +5 points.
• Location planning. Plan to send a satellite to your destination to scan for good landing locations (either using stock or modded scanning methods) before landing any modules. +15 points.
• Plan out all required missions until the second outpost crew return to Kerbin. Include details of the times that different vehicles and payloads will be in transit between different places, times that crew will spend in different situations, and other similar details. +30 points.
• Contingency plans for module failures (not including modules considered critical). You should describe how your crew will survive and return to Kerbin in the event that a single module experiences a total failure. +3 points per module; maximum of +30 points. +5 extra points if done for every non-critical module.

TESTING PHASE

This is a special additional phase to test your mission technology to minimize risk of failures. In this instance, the first two Kerbin years are reserved for the testing program, and the standard challenge begins on Year 3 Day 1. In order to include this phase, you must provide a risk assessment as justification that the testing program will significantly increase chances of mission success. Launches during this time are still restricted by standard launch vehicle restrictions for your destination. No payloads launched during the testing phase can be used when executing the main mission.

• Risk assessment. +15 points.
• Launch manifest for testing phase. Should describe what technology is being tested, when it will be launched, and how tests conducted will improve mission safety. +20 points.
• Budget bonus: testing program launch costs are less than 20% of the total budget for the mission. +15 points.

Mission Execution

 

Work In Progress

 

Edited February 13, 2017 by eloquentJane

[TheEpicSquared]

Awesome that this challenge's being rebooted! Would @allista's Ground Construction be prohibited? You have to launch a "box" to the planet, and then you can build the contents of the box (like a rocket or a base module). Thanks!  

[septemberWaves]

3 hours ago, TheEpicSquared said:

Would @allista's Ground Construction be prohibited?

That mod appears to allow constructing vehicles from resources mined from the surface of a celestial body, so it is prohibited. All components must be launched pre-manufactured from Kerbin. So, for example, putting a number of rocket parts in something like a KIS container and attaching them together after they've been launched is fine, but using raw materials that can be mined anywhere and theoretically used to manufacture any object is not fine. This is basically to avoid circumventing the restrictions on launch vehicles.

[TheEpicSquared]

1 hour ago, eloquentJane said:

That mod appears to allow constructing vehicles from resources mined from the surface of a celestial body, so it is prohibited. All components must be launched pre-manufactured from Kerbin. So, for example, putting a number of rocket parts in something like a KIS container and attaching them together after they've been launched is fine, but using raw materials that can be mined anywhere and theoretically used to manufacture any object is not fine. This is basically to avoid circumventing the restrictions on launch vehicles.

Ok, I see. But is making fuel from ore also prohibited? 

Also, should I pm you with these sorts of questions instead?  

[septemberWaves]

28 minutes ago, TheEpicSquared said:

Ok, I see. But is making fuel from ore also prohibited? 

Also, should I pm you with these sorts of questions instead?

Making fuel and life support supplies from ore is fine. ISRU is allowed for that, just not for making entire vehicles. I'll add some clarification to the original post to explain that.

These sorts of questions are actually best placed in the forum thread, because it'll be relevant to the challenge once it's complete and will be helpful for other people to see the discussion on, for clarification of the rules and similar information. The sort of discussion I'd prefer to be messaged about is questions/suggestions/comments about how I'm developing the mod as it's currently in progress (comments like "I think this rule about ___ could be improved by ___" or suggestions about how a certain challenge aspect might work better if it's done in a different way).

[BubbleWrap]

I have a few questions about launch failures before I fire my kerbals at the red planet

 

If a launch is scrubbed by a dang-it failure, but the launch vehicle and payload are otherwise intact (eg a rocket launch scrubbed on the pad, or a spaceplane that aborts and returns to the runway with its payload), how long do we have to wait before we can attempt to relaunch it?

Also, if a launch vehicle fails but a payload escape system brings the payload down intact, do we have to wait the full launch vehicle + payload time to refly it, or just the time needed to prep a new launch vehicle?

Can I prepare a rescue mission, then leave it on standby while other missions are prepared and flown so it can launch quickly, or do I have to launch a mission before I can start preparing the next?

Oh, and if we're playing with destructible facilities, how long does it take to rebuild the launch pad / vab / runway / hangar? How many kerbal deaths does losing the astronaut complex count as? (asking for a friend ) Relatedly, if we do lose the pad and have other launch sites available, can we switch to using one of those for the duration of the outage?

[septemberWaves]

1 hour ago, BubbleWrap said:

I have a few questions about launch failures before I fire my kerbals at the red planet

Just so you know, this challenge isn't doable yet. The rules are still subject to change, most of the scoring system isn't done (amongst things that need adding are a lot of extra goals you'll be able to aim for to gain extra points), and I need to figure out the restrictions specific to Duna entries before even that part of the challenge is complete. So feel free to start planning but don't start an attempt yet because everything is still in development.

 

1 hour ago, BubbleWrap said:

If a launch is scrubbed by a dang-it failure, but the launch vehicle and payload are otherwise intact (eg a rocket launch scrubbed on the pad, or a spaceplane that aborts and returns to the runway with its payload), how long do we have to wait before we can attempt to relaunch it?

Also, if a launch vehicle fails but a payload escape system brings the payload down intact, do we have to wait the full launch vehicle + payload time to refly it, or just the time needed to prep a new launch vehicle?

Can I prepare a rescue mission, then leave it on standby while other missions are prepared and flown so it can launch quickly, or do I have to launch a mission before I can start preparing the next?

I think partial or total recovery of the launch hardware in the event of a failure shouldn't then lead to the full construction time to prepare the next launch, but I will have to think about exactly how to address such a scenario.

1 hour ago, BubbleWrap said:

Oh, and if we're playing with destructible facilities, how long does it take to rebuild the launch pad / vab / runway / hangar? How many kerbal deaths does losing the astronaut complex count as? (asking for a friend ) Relatedly, if we do lose the pad and have other launch sites available, can we switch to using one of those for the duration of the outage?

Destructible facilities is actually not something I'd considered (it's been a long time since I've made a mistake that destroyed a building so I sort of forgot about it). I'll have to think about how to deal with destroyed buildings and repair time. I may disallow Kerbal Konstructs and similar mods so that people all have the same risk of destroying the launch pad and having to wait for repairs instead of switching launch sites.

These are some good questions and are helpful for my development of the challenge, so thank you for bringing them up.

Edited February 14, 2017 by eloquentJane

[Jetski]

Im getting a start on this, trying to keep it as simple as possible. KAC, KER, and CLLS as my life support mod.  Ive got a 5 ton payload SSTO, and a 25-ton payload SSTO built, and I used my first launch at day 10 to put 60 tons of mining and communication equipment into LKO.  I'll keep lobbing payloads up for now as the timer allows, and send my first fleet on the first Duna launch window.  I plan on 2 kerbals for now, with lots of hab space and life support and fuel mining facilities.  I'll keep expanding as I go

[septemberWaves]

@Jetski There's a few things to keep in mind. Firstly, the challenge is not done yet. There are several requirements and limitations for the challenge that still need to be figured out (the score system is incomplete and there are planet-specific restrictions for the Duna program as well). By all means start planning, but expect changes that may either invalidate your entry or make things far more difficult for you. The idea is that you should have a complete plan of the mission before you start launching anything, which is difficult to do when the challenge isn't actually complete.

Also, I would suggest sending the four-kerbal base crews all together rather than sending two at first and adding more later. This is because of supplies. Your base will not qualify as complete until you have four kerbals residing there with near permanence (exact time limits are one of the things that still needs clarification, but the base should not go uncrewed for long); sending two kerbals early just means that you also have to send supplies to sustain them with no real benefit to them being there. Unless you plan on controlling everything from a crewed mothership in Duna orbit rather than commnet, but this then poses a problem when Duna is on the other side of the sun from Kerbin, as the crew would be left without a connection.