Surface Outpost on Minmus

[boccelounge]

I'm in a new career save, currently "early-midgame" (meaning that I'm cleaning up contracts and science in Kerbin's SOI, and just about to go interplanetary).

I wanted to get down on Minmus, and happily took a contract for a surface outpost.  Then I read the fine print:

- Land on Minmus

- Support 5 Kerbals

- Have two pilots

- Maintain stabilty...

Nothing out of the usual, until...

- Have 4000 units of Liquid Fuel

Now I've done a lot of ground-to-orbit refinery operations before, and enjoyed it.  But I really hadn't planned to for this save.and don't even have ISRU parts unlocked yet.  I just want to get the Tech Tree mostly filled, and get out to the other planets.  And I suppose I could make an orbital refueling station, land it, then put it back into its proper orbit...  but that seems so tedious and wasteful-- we won't be spending a lot of time around Minmus, once we've plundered explored its Science bounty, we're probably gone for good.

Anybody got any neat ideas how to get 22.5t of LF and tankage there cheaply and quickly (quickly in terms of my actual time playing the game)?  4000 LF is perfectly in the range I use for returnable/reusable nuclear tugs, so designing and flying the thing isn't an issue... my enthusiasm (lack of) and its usefulness (lack of) are the problems.

I'm probably going to just build a small outpost (or possibly a large rover) with a very large detachable descent stage...  but I'm wondering if anyone has a different angle on it.  Your thoughts appreciated...

(Note that this is in the Stock system, with mods that entirely stockalike and/or merely aesthetic-- nothing exotic.)

[Aegolius13]

I think your first decision is whether you want some throwaway thing to just complete the contract, or add something that's long-term useful to your fleet.  As you say, even in the worst case, you can send the thing back to orbit and add the LF to a fueling depot.  

If you want something useful, maybe a nuclear-powered  mothership that you can use for the interplanetary missions you're planning.  I.e., a big ship with lots of crew accomodation, a science lab, and capable of docking and refuel a lander.    Technically, you don't even need to have landing legs, as long as you can get it to land stably, and that's not too hard to do on Minmus with anything.  But you could always launch it with some detachable girder things with wide landing legs, and then decouple them after you complete the contract.  

As far as something that will STAY on Minmus - that's tougher.   I guess you could build a fuel depot-type thing, and supplement it later with a mining rig.  But at least with my playstyle, I'd be pretty unlikely to actually use such a thing.   

[Draalo]

37 minutes ago, Aegolius13 said:

As you say, even in the worst case, you can send the thing back to orbit and add the LF to a fueling depot.

Also my first thought too.

Minmus has such a low gravity, everything is possible there. If it is a problem to launch 22.5to. Lf - make 2 rockets, rendevouz, dock, transfer and then head for minmus after decoupling the empty tanks.

 

The MK1 Lf-only tank is your part of choice - in a fairing ofc. (Build your visually expression of a KRAKEN  )

GL and have fun

 

PS: I learned to read all contract specifications carefully the hard way too

[Daniel Prates]

Is it an unmodded game?

With KIS/KAS its a simple thing to connect different craft into one single bigger one,  so several small landers connected together would eventually ammount to what you need. It would probably be cheaper and easier.

Now, in a vanilla game,  you still can dock them in the usual fashion to acheive the same effect. However a complicated way,  it is doable. Still,  all sub-craft would have to contain legs and wheels,  so you can maneuver and dock them all ... besides the landing skycrane and the fuel stores you need... Altogether a cumbersome thing.

Edited December 19, 2017 by Daniel Prates

[Aegolius13]

9 hours ago, Aegolius13 said:

If you want something useful, maybe a nuclear-powered  mothership that you can use for the interplanetary missions you're planning.  I.e., a big ship with lots of crew accomodation, a science lab, and capable of docking and refuel a lander.    Technically, you don't even need to have landing legs, as long as you can get it to land stably, and that's not too hard to do on Minmus with anything.  But you could always launch it with some detachable girder things with wide landing legs, and then decouple them after you complete the contract.  

Here is a quick-and-dirty sketch of the kind of craft I was talking about.  The landing base might need a little work, as the ship is still pretty top-heavy, but Minmus is a pretty forgiving placed to land so it might work.  The idea would be to refuel in Minmus orbit if need needs to reload some LF to stay above 4000 units, land, take off, decouple the legs, refuel again in orbit (including LFO if needed for a lander), dock with the lander. 

Once all that's one, this thing would have ~5,000 m/s delta-v.  That's enough for a decent Jool mission, or overkill for Eve or Duna.  

You could also design a more squat multi-stack mothership, which might be a little easier to land, but could be harder to launch from Kerbin.

[FrostedShoe]

I had a contract to launch a space station around the Sun with 6000 units of liquid fuel, I added 12 (I think) mk1 liquid fuel tanks radially to the crew compartment and launched it as one unit (no fairing was big enough so I just kept the speed down). I wouldn't imagine landing on Minmus would present a huge challenge due to the low gravity.

If you willing to spend the money on it to save time, that's the way to go.

[boccelounge]

Thanks, all.

I guess the best option is simply to start my deep space fleet a little sooner than planned.  I'll make a crewed craft and give it a detachable undercarriage for landing.  Once the contract is fulfilled, it'll be ready to head to Duna.

And to maximize return (on funds and my own time), I'll use it as a biome-hopper to grab everything Minmus has to offer in one swoop.

I need to unlock a couple more nodes, but we have several probe missions returning to Kerbin, so that's not an issue...

I guess the answer should have been obvious to me, but your replies helped clarify things-- thanks much.

 

UPDATE: As luck would have it, I fired up the game after reading your replies, and picked up a couple Sun-orbit contracts.  One asks for a station for 12 kerbals.  It so happens I current have exactly 12 kerbonauts...  so in the next couple days they should all be able to hit Level 3 (Minmus flags, Sun orbit), all in one extended mission.  Sweet.  It's always awesome when the contract system gives you incentive to do exactly what you wanted to in the first place.

There are a handful of probe missions I have to deal with in the next 20 or so game days, so maybe in a couple real days I'll post a screenshot of the new vessel.  Thanks again for helping me out/bearing with me figuring out the obvious.

Edited December 19, 2017 by boccelounge

[Tyko]

Couldn't you land with drilling gear and empty tanks, then mine/process the Fuel you need? The benefit here is that you're using the contract to create a reusable fuel depot.

[Corona688]

I have the exact same sort of contract.  There's no way I could sent that much fuel to Minmus for the price, so I'll set up a mining operation instead.  The low gravity makes it cost-efficient.  A pair of sparks can get an entire orange tank to orbit with most fuel unused.

[boccelounge]

23 minutes ago, Tyko said:

Couldn't you land with drilling gear and empty tanks, then mine/process the Fuel you need? The benefit here is that you're using the contract to create a reusable fuel depot.

Of course; that was precisely my initial reaction to the contract.  There are two issues, though:

1. I haven't unlocked any ISRU tech, or even resource scanners, and

2. I just don't want to.  I have a tendency to spend all my time on 'infrastructure'-- building relay networks, ScanSat missions, refinery rigs, etc., and very little time on exploration/boots-on-the-ground missions.  I started this save specifically to force myself to change this behavior, and just "go see what's out there."

[Plusck]

I wouldn't even bother with landing legs. If the rocket isn't too tall, and you turn off gimbal and land on the flats, you can land and stabilise on your engines without too much trouble.

[boccelounge]

9 minutes ago, Plusck said:

I wouldn't even bother with landing legs. If the rocket isn't too tall, and you turn off gimbal and land on the flats, you can land and stabilise on your engines without too much trouble.

Yeah, I agree.  I was initially thinking of a landing leg/truss assembly with retro-rockets (think Space: 1999).  The mothership would land horizontally, then detach from the truss and ascend vertically.  But now I'm leaning toward a rover (rather than legs).  I'd really like to get all the surface biome science in one go.

And just moments ago I finished returning 3 very lucrative probe missions (and hundreds of Science points), so I now have all the tech I need to make a first-gen deep-space ship.  I need dinner now...  but no work for the rest of the week, so Operation SpaceTruck is going to move forward quickly.

Edited December 19, 2017 by boccelounge

[Daniel Prates]

On 19/12/2017 at 11:08 AM, Aegolius13 said:

Here is a quick-and-dirty sketch of the kind of craft I was talking about.  The landing base might need a little work, as the ship is still pretty top-heavy, but Minmus is a pretty forgiving placed to land so it might work.  The idea would be to refuel in Minmus orbit if need needs to reload some LF to stay above 4000 units, land, take off, decouple the legs, refuel again in orbit (including LFO if needed for a lander), dock with the lander. 

Once all that's one, this thing would have ~5,000 m/s delta-v.  That's enough for a decent Jool mission, or overkill for Eve or Duna.  

You could also design a more squat multi-stack mothership, which might be a little easier to land, but could be harder to launch from Kerbin.

Is that lab strictly necessary? It would seem its a waste of delta-v.

[Aegolius13]

2 hours ago, Daniel Prates said:

Is that lab strictly necessary? It would seem its a waste of delta-v.

Depends on your mission.  If you want to pillage a planet for research points and send back the results for advancement, it might be worth bringing along.  Personally, I never use the science lab's main function, since I find it un-fun and overpowered, but it's also nice to use to level up.  

Plus, from a role-playing factor, it just makes the craft more mothershippy.

 

[Daniel Prates]

2 hours ago, Aegolius13 said:

Depends on your mission.  If you want to pillage a planet for research points and send back the results for advancement, it might be worth bringing along.  Personally, I never use the science lab's main function, since I find it un-fun and overpowered, but it's also nice to use to level up.  

Plus, from a role-playing factor, it just makes the craft more mothershippy.

 

Yeah well... that may very well be but the proposed dilema was how to have way too much fuel in a minmus outpost... piling up things in a craft is the most sure way to fall short of acheiving the goal mentioned in the OP.

[Aegolius13]

12 minutes ago, Daniel Prates said:

Yeah well... that may very well be but the proposed dilema was how to have way too much fuel in a minmus outpost... piling up things in a craft is the most sure way to fall short of acheiving the goal mentioned in the OP.

As I read it, OP's issue was that he was being required to but a whole bunch of LF on Minmus and was looking for something useful to do with the craft afterward.  That's a humongous amount of fuel, so it makes sense to use it with a pretty big ship.  If OP has no use for a science lab on future missions, then it's probably not worth including one.  If he would like a lab for his missions, this is a fine opportunity to add one.  

[boccelounge]

On 12/22/2017 at 4:15 PM, Aegolius13 said:

As I read it, OP's issue was that he was being required to but a whole bunch of LF on Minmus and was looking for something useful to do with the craft afterward.  That's a humongous amount of fuel, so it makes sense to use it with a pretty big ship.  If OP has no use for a science lab on future missions, then it's probably not worth including one.  If he would like a lab for his missions, this is a fine opportunity to add one.  

That says it pretty well-- I want to build something for another purpose, and use it to fulfill this contract.  I'm currently leaning toward 2 reusable nuclear tugs docked to a "deep space" crew vehicle that will ferry 6-12 kerbs on interplanetary missions.  I'm going to combine this Minmus mission with a quick jaunt out of Kerbin's SOI-- it seems more efficient (in terms of my time) to get a bunch of them leveled-up in one go.

But...  I've been mired down in Mun missions and all kinds of probe contracts, and the Minmus Tour has been delayed yet again...  plus there's some kind of holiday tomorrow everyone keeps talking about.

Thanks again for all the input/interest.  I'm still open to suggestions if anyone comes up with something else.

Edited December 25, 2017 by boccelounge