Mission Failed! But Everything Worked...

[Dark Lion]

Firstly, I'll just say I've barely been playing KSP over a year now and I'm a swift learner. I absolutely love this game. I feel like Squad hooked us up with an unlimited supply of super-powered LEGOs or something! The freedoms... It's incredibly entertaining... but today I wish to personally introduce RNG to my kraken-fist! 

Okay, so here's the breakdown:

My ultimate goal is to vacation the surviv-- uh, I mean Kerbals of my space program to Laythe. Naturally, there's a few things we'll need to truly enjoy ourselves on Laythe... You know, boats, jets, spider-bots and submersibles... the usual. However, for ease of transit and a larger margin of error, I decided that a Minmus refueling station would be, not only necessary, but PERFECT for such a feat. Not only does the super-low gravity prove simple to beat, but Minmus is also the furthest satellite from Kerbin, naturally nullifying a great deal of the deltaV required to escape Kerbin's gravity. That's going to come in handy with this career later, as well, considering my plans of sending many heavy toys to Laythe to play with.

Jebs and Vals, I assure you I have done similar Minmus bases before, many times in past, now-deleted game saves. Never ONCE was I disappointed until this very evening.

After starting a new career and establishing a communications constellation around both Kerbin and then Minmus, spending a few hours in the SPH designing a beautifully mobile and minimalistic Minmus refueling base, then building the launcher for it, it was finally time to send a probe to survey the minty planet. I didn't. Instead, I tested out the full potential of the refueler, from launch to landing to ensure a later success. After a near-perfect flight, I landed the base safe and sound, ultimately deciding it was no test flight at all. No time later, that surveyor launch was underway, and without failings of any kind (other than my inefficient piloting.) Soaring over the north pole of Minmus, my capture burn was a success, so I deployed the probe's scanners in haste, ready to move on with the next phase of the operation. I could always move the refueler to the nearest ore concentration, if necessary.

And RNG kicked me right where the sun don't shine. Minmus was practically dried up. No more than 4% ore content at the hottest concentration, and that makes mining ore ridiculously lengthy, no matter how many BadS, 5-star engineers you have aboard. I'll time-warp through a day of mining, sure. No problem. Warping through years of mining? Forget it. It's one thing to have to stop the drills so the ISRU can catch up... it's a whole 'nother headache to stop the ISRU and wait for ore.

Good thing I have so much experience in starting careers from scratch, because this will be the fastest-deleted game save I've ever started... having only spent about 6 hours in total, from beginning launch to surveying the prune that is Minmus. Hopefully the career I just started will be more like what I'm used to seeing-- averaging around 12% ore concentration, and generally in the Flats areas, where landing is even easier...

Good luck to you, my fellow kerbonauts! May the odds be ever in your "flavor."

Edited April 14, 2017 by TheLionsBite