Nidhuggr: making a mining base on Minmus

[Freshmeat]

In order to eventually make a kerballed mission to Jool, I set out to make a refueling base from Minmus. Originally I used @Angel-125s excellent Pathfinder mod, getting a result like this:

However, I had packed all my equipment in 1m containers. This meant that the Pathfinder resource distribution system had problems balancing everything, and the whole thing led to lag. In addition, a few modules took off from the ground when I tried to make an outpost in a level area 600m north east of the site, and I had to edit the .sfs to get them back down. The ground at this site was to uneven for my refuel crafts to land, something I in hindsight should have planned for. In addition, I felt that inflatables looked good on habs, but not so on drills and refiners. So I scrapped everything to start from fresh. (Half a million or so kredits wasted. I am not popular with the budget manager)

For my next base I remembered a post on modular base building. The base in question was quite old, and since then we have gotten the Konstruction mod from @RoverDude. I tried using magnets and the crane, but after a lot of trial and error I had success using Clamp-o-tron Jr. ports, one on top of the module, one underneath a four wheeled carrier that never got a name beyond "Crawler":

It had to be quite high, as the fuel depots was based on double Kerbodyne tanks. I use joystick and throttle to control it, so it has to have a control point forwards and backwards, here the AuxEn units from Pathfinder. The Crawler could ferry the modules and align them to correct height so that Konstruction ports would clamp, and afterwards they would be welded into a single base afterwards. Lots of testing on KSC with hyperedited gravity to fine tune the actual design of both this and the modules below.

From the original base I kept my heavy mining vehicle, "Fenja".

Apart from looking big and carrying two drills, she also has a KAS winch which I need in order to tow individual modules apart when a single landing carried multiple modules. Otherwise I could not get the crawler between them.

I decided on the name "Nidhuggr" for the base. In Norse mythology, it is the serpent gnawing at the root of the world tree. I thought it would be fitting for a mining operation.

The base would consist of following modules:

Central module. Holds drills and converter. Everything else is connected to this module or the Spine behind it. In the front I have mounted a Pathfinder Mine Shaft, works as a KAS pipe but allows CLS crew transfer.

Spine: Fuel units connects to this. It carries the radiators of the base, and connects to the refinery end of the central unit.

Fuel Unit: One LF/O and five LF units, for resupplying mainly nuclear tugs. Carries most of the solar panels of the base. This also necessitates that the spine should be oriented north-south, in order to make most of the solar panels.

Hab facility: Based on the MOLE, another Angel-125 mod, which have the nicest IVA I have seen yet. It carries TAC-LS supplies for several years, Universal Storage recyclers and a small greenhouse.

And finally Science and Communications facility, which is absolutely unnecessary, but looked rather cool. It also holds the reserve batteries of the base. The antenna is rearranged using KIS after the module is in place.

These modules where flown to Minmus in four flights, creatively named Nidhuggr I-IV. For some reason I have no image of Nidhuggr IV, but the layout and booster was very identical to Nidhuggr I. All top assemblies are equipped with strap on tanks and engines for about 400-800 dV and TWR of ~2 on Minmus, and land controlled from the top docking port for vertical descent. Turns out the Thudd was an excellent engine for landing 90 ton base modules. It took a few tries to get the modules down at the site, but Waypoint Manager allowed me to create a navigation mark to head for. When I was 4 km from the waypoint I started retrograde burning, and did as much adjustment as I could on the way down.

Following is a long and boring video showing Konstruction in action. Used correctly, it is truly a powerful mod:

Finally, Nidhuggr is ready to produce fuel for my interplanetary adventures:

 

[NotAgain]

Wow. That's quite the feat. Congratulations on having the patience for all those ground based dockings.

[Freshmeat]

Thanks, I found the ground work rather relaxing, and did it over a weekend. In the meantime, I have discovered that the cradles are very unstable ground mounts. If I was to do it again (soon, on a Jool moon), I would use lander legs mounted after welding a module.