Duna Outpost Mission Architecture Challenge

[dire]

Has anyone tinkered with Station Expansion Parts Redux and Snacks? I've got a greenhouse from SSPX that has a nominal energy draw of 75 energy per second (transmuting ore to snacks) but it keeps operating at 500% capacity and then shutting off when I run out of energy. It's going to be awfully tedious to spend the next 400 kerbal days restarting my snack production every two minutes x.x

If I could figure out how to make the transmute process respect the governor multiplier, or if I could down rate it from 500% load to 100%, either of those would make my rover self-sufficient indefinitely (or at least for four years until the crew get bored). Once I actually send my second ship up it'll be really handy to be able to support more kerbals with a single greenhouse, but in the meantime I balanced my power needs on the system's nominal draw and only produce about 75 power in dark / 150 power in sunlight (the 1.25 meter nuclear plant is supposed to generate 200 energy per second, but apparently I turned it on wrong and now it's "too damaged to repair").

Other than that one minor bobble of the snack processor working TOO well, my first payload is performing beautifully on Minmus. The plan is, it will shuffle back and forth between Kerbin, Minmus and the Mun to give my initial colonists some experience operating offworld before sending them far, far away (I have crew experience turned on, I didn't feel like it was realistic to have everyone start with five stars, so my people will be learning on the job).

Spoiler

Edit: Rover then glitched through the ground and exploded (mission log says it impacted the ground and was destroyed), so I think that's the excuse I need to iterate on the design and try again. Bringing a wrench and a ground attachment this time.

Edited November 27, 2018 by dire

[hoioh]

1 hour ago, dire said:

it keeps operating at 500% capacity

Haven't got that particular experience, because I'm working with TAC-LS and thise parts and experience no such problems.I'd say this is a 'snacks' thing.

Maybe an edit to one of the files preventing devices from going over 100% would fix your problem.

How many kerbals are working in the module may also affect the ourcome

[dire]

Yeah I just am not sure which file I would need to edit to change that. I was nosing around in config files but I didn't find it.

Module had zero kerbals in it. The crew was a pilot and engineer in the cockpit and nobody in the hydroponics pod. The capacity of the rover is nominally five kerbals, so it can house two comfortably or five short-term, and a year on Minmus is not really short term.

I'm redesigning the rover, anyhow. I can swap out the hydroponics lab for the science module, which on the one hand I can eventually use for the 'science lab on duna' achievement and on the other hand says it can produce four times as many snacks for less than half as much electric power. It also weighs half a ton less, although I think that's just the snacks in the grow pod and the modules are a similar mass 'dry'.

[Death Engineering]

22 hours ago, jinnantonix said:

Just verifying [...]

* “In order to qualify as "reusable"...

*  Do I need a second crew cabin to allow me to have both simultaneously?

Sounds like an ambitious design. Looking forward to the video!

*  The "reusable" parameter only requires that the take-off mass of the recovered stages is at least 50% of the total mass of the rocket on the pad. For example, my SLV-40t is just over 300t on the pad with payload. It recovers two SRB's and the first LfO stage which have a wet-mass of 187t (62% of the total take off mass). As a reminder, the NPM (and by definition the SLV) is unchanged throughout the challenge. Effectively, the NPM is the LKO mass of the largest payload.

* To score the achievements, the vessels must always be ready to go. Your modular design is fine but the parts to build DSB/DSS/DST simultaneously need to be in place before Year 10 Day 1 (or before scoring the achievement to earn the crew safety margins).

13 hours ago, dire said:

Has anyone tinkered with Station Expansion Parts Redux and Snacks?

SSPX yes and Snacks yes but never together. Maybe crew skill level is a factor?

 

[jinnantonix]

@Death Engineering, thanks for your advice.  I have another question.  When implementing the backup plan, I propose to have a DAV with 8 pressurised seats and an EAV with 32 command chairs parked in orbit.  Both capable of multiple landing/launching, sufficient to evac all Kerbals.  As I understand the requirement I need both vehicles, in case one of them become unavailable.  Now the big question is this:  Do I need resources in orbit to supply the evacuated Kerbals until the next transfer window?  I mean, seems like a bad backup plan if I can get the Kerbals off the Duna surface, only to have them die in orbit, right?  Would it be OK if I can demonstrate that I can ferry sufficient supplies up from the Duna outpost using the DAV?

Below is a mock up of the proposed docking design, with the DAV on the left ready to transfer resources from the outpost habitation rings.  The DAV is able to lift the 27 tons of resources and dock with the Duna Space Station.

 

Edited November 28, 2018 by jinnantonix

[Death Engineering]

3 hours ago, jinnantonix said:

Do I need resources in orbit to supply the evacuated Kerbals until the next transfer window?  I mean, seems like a bad backup plan if I can get the Kerbals off the Duna surface, only to have them die in orbit, right?  Would it be OK if I can demonstrate that I can ferry sufficient supplies up from the Duna outpost using the DAV?

Well, that is a great question (because it comes under the category of "Things I didn't think of"   ) This is similar to the missing detail on the definition of Duna Space Station. Survivability is the key; a challenge requirement includes the ability to recover all crew members (no one may be stranded - see this post). With that parameter met, the method of achieving it is up to mission control. 

In my attempt, I accidentally left the water splitter running for about 200 days drawing down the water supply on the outpost. We kept crew on the outpost until zero hour then evacuated most of the crew to the space station. I was thankful that the space station was fully stocked and capable of supporting everyone until supplies arrived.

So.. to the rule, there doesn't need to be an orbital habitation for crew, and evacuating the crew to orbit isn't required either but there are achievement points for both and spacecraft functionality may become their own reward in the event they are actually implemented. If my space station wouldn't have supported more crew than I'd planned on having in orbit at that time, four crew would have lost their mission value points (and died). 

And, you're totally fine bringing supplies from the outpost.  

[jinnantonix]

@Death Engineering, it appears that getting maximum points for putting Kerbals on Duna, means taking risks.  It seems there is a lot of scope for defining those risks.  Personally I see no point in having an EAV capability if the Kerbals need to be returned immediately to the outpost or die in orbit, so I think it is mandatory for the backup plan to include having sufficient pressurised seats on the DSS and at least a means to provide resources in orbit without needing to return to the Kerbals to the outpost.  I guess others may see it differently, and they will achieve more points.  

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by jinnantonix

[hoioh]

3 hours ago, jinnantonix said:

@Death Engineering, it appears that getting maximum points for putting Kerbals on Duna, means taking risks.  It seems there is a lot of scope for defining those risks.  Personally I see no point in having an EAV capability if the Kerbals need to be returned immediately to the outpost or die in orbit, so I think it is mandatory for the backup plan to include having sufficient pressurised seats on the DSS and at least a means to provide resources in orbit without needing to return to the Kerbals to the outpost.  I guess others may see it differently, and they will achieve more points.  

 

It depends on how you see 'outpost', my mission will include several separate outposts. That way any one can fail without influencing the others.

In the event of an evacuation I wouldn't need to evacuate all of them, but only the kerbals at one outpost. My AV and EAV will each be able to handle a single outpost.

They will be stationed at the DSS, deorbit close to the required base anywhere on Duna and bring the crew up to the DSS. Modularity then allows me to transfer them using the DSB to go to either Ike for resource replenishment, or Kerbin for return.

LS capacity therefore can be significantly reduced because the number of kerbals that need to be kept alive is far smaller

[Death Engineering]

9 hours ago, jinnantonix said:

Personally I see no point in having an EAV capability if the Kerbals need to be returned immediately to the outpost or die in orbit, so I think it is mandatory for the backup plan to include having sufficient pressurised seats on the DSS and at least a means to provide resources in orbit without needing to return to the Kerbals to the outpost.  I guess others may see it differently, and they will achieve more points.  

Agreed. For the cost of the fully stocked and functional DSS I could have landed two more surface habs and 10 more kerbs.

5 hours ago, hoioh said:

It depends on how you see 'outpost', my mission will include several separate outposts. That way any one can fail without influencing the others.

Precisely. By the end of my challenge attempt there will be at least three independently operating landing zones.

 

Refueling DST in LKO

Somehow, I never tire of the amazing utility that nested docking ports provide..

edit:

Here's a look at the mission completion badge that @hoioh designed for us!

 

Edited November 29, 2018 by Death Engineering

[hoioh]

1 hour ago, Death Engineering said:

Here's a look at the mission completion badge that @hoioh designed for us!

I'll have to admit that NASA did a lot of ground work for me 

[Kerbolitto]

I should continue my attempt to this challenge one day, but I learnt so much about design efficiency during Shuttle's missions that, even if Im halfway through this one, I feel that it'd be better to reset everything .. Its not that my crafts are bad or that the challenge is stuck, it's just that there are many ways to improve what I already did.

Edited November 29, 2018 by Kerbolitto

[Death Engineering]

2 minutes ago, Kerbolitto said:

Its not that my crafts are bad or that the challenge is stuck, it's just that there are many ways to improve what I already did.

That's what second entries are for.. 

[Kerbolitto]

7 minutes ago, Death Engineering said:

That's what second entries are for.. 

Im sure that I could put a lot more Kerbals on Duna with lighter crafts, and probably achieve more dangerous flights / re-entry ... Right now I'm geeking on something else, maybe during winter nights we'll see ..

[Death Engineering]

Exploration on Duna continues with the achievements of planting a flag on Duna's highest and lowest elevations. While the rover team scaled the steep terrain to bring this image back with them, the eleventh SLV was launched comprising of a Duna habitation/greenhouse module for 3 kerbals and a surface supply module.

The craft was launched dry and was refueled by the Minmus mining operation and once refueled was parked in LKO awaiting the next transfer window. Although capable of supporting 3 kerbals, only one will travel to Duna with the greenhouse as there are currently two kerbals in Duna orbit looking for something to do. How about farming?

 

 

[dire]

Well, after about 5 test flights I think I have a first payload that I like, so I'm going to restart in career mode. In addition to the other limitations of the challenge (standard launch vehicle and so on) I'm going to only give myself about 10 million funds of seed money (edit: spent ~4m of that on building upgrades, so 6m starting funds) and maybe a couple thousand science - -I more or less need some of the end science nodes for my trans-duna stage, but I would like to keep track of expenditures and science gained, which will help keep me honest about stage recovery and so on. My first launch is going to cost about 700k credits, but almost 500k of that is payload and most of the rest is fuel. 

Although my seed money is fairly generous, it will mean that I'll need to be careful about some of my more extravagant parts, like nuclear reactors and fancy engines. It also means I can take missions so the launches don't get too repetitive, but I'm thinking any missions outside of LKO will need to be part of my NPM. 

@Death Engineering What do you think about using the crew transfer craft to complete missions on other bodies than Duna for career mode? Mostly I know there's a lot of highly lucrative "Put a station around X" where I can just fly to X, orbit and then return for a quick funding boost. I'm already planning to use it to train my kerbals up to one star (I will have experience turned on) and could use it to train them to two stars if I could do quick Munar missions.

Currently my Duna Transfer Stage is fixing to have an excess of DV, so it'd also be viable to use that, but honestly I expect to be using it for actual duna transfers.

Edit: So, in order to save more money for the actual launches I'll keep most of my buildings at level 2. The science building will be level 3. 5k science lets me cherry pick a couple of end-game technologies, but it's clear that my launches will evolve both as I gain more experience managing the Duna colony and as we advance technologically. It seems like a good idea to downgrade my NPM from 62 tons to 31 tons to allow more technology integration, but that does mean I'll have to redesign some things. With the level 2 buildings and 5k science, it seems like a good idea to get as much heavy launch tech as I can at start, as my standard launch vehicle is unable to evolve. My first launch will have to focus on getting Minmus and Munar science before transferring to Duna, so instead of two mining rovers, a transfer stage and a heavy, non-mobile colony, I'll focus on one mining rover and a trans-duna vehicle in my first launch, and use those to ferry around prior to my transfer window.

I think a key consideration for optimizing mass on launch is to get as many supplies and fuel from ISRU as possible, so that's going to be my second end-game unlock at start. That allows me to launch with almost-empty snack tanks and lets me refuel my vehicles prior to Duna transfer.

New payload is 30.952 tons on the pad.

Edited November 30, 2018 by dire

[Death Engineering]

17 hours ago, dire said:

 @Death Engineering What do you think about using the crew transfer craft to complete missions on other bodies than Duna for career mode?

Won't career more just make things harder? What other kinds of missions and to where? The concern is what potential benefits could come from the other missions (like upgrading orbital infrastructure, communication network, etc). I'd say to preserve overall fairness and consistency all rules regarding SLV delivery dates and crew taxi (only delivers crew no supplies, does not leave LKO) applies. That probably makes career mode unlikely

[dire]

18 hours ago, Death Engineering said:

Won't career more just make things harder? What other kinds of missions and to where? The concern is what potential benefits could come from the other missions (like upgrading orbital infrastructure, communication network, etc). I'd say to preserve overall fairness and consistency all rules regarding SLV delivery dates and crew taxi (only delivers crew no supplies, does not leave LKO) applies. That probably makes career mode unlikely

 

Yes, career mode will make things more interesting, and that is the point  

I can totally respect having crew taxis remain within LKO and only collect sub-LKO science. I look forward to the challenge! See my crew reports at 

 

Edited December 1, 2018 by dire

[Death Engineering]

Added @dire's Mission Report to the OP and made a few clarifications. 

These are not rules changes:

• Defined the four safety margin achievements as "Contingency Plans": Complete achievements "Backup plan", "Duna Space Station", "Duna Space Bus", and "Positive uplink". Note that the spacecraft for each achievement must be unique, or for modular designs must remain viable, at all times.
• Defined "outpost" as: Kerbal habitation comprised of one or more modules and may be located anywhere on Duna's surface. Not all modules need to be occupied, but there must always be at least one kerbal on Duna after the initial landing.
• Clarified mission end rule for kerbals on Duna Year 10 Day 1: 
  • All Kerbals on the surface of Duna on Year 10, Day 1 must be returned to Kerbin (or be returnable) safely in order to earn their Mission Value points. ('Over-stressed crew' 4 year rule applies)
    • You may "play it out" so that all kerbals are safely recovered, or demonstrate that they can be returned safely, but either way no kerbal may be stranded.

 

Edited December 1, 2018 by Death Engineering
speeling and punchuation

[dire]

@Death Engineering Sorry if I'm being obtuse, but can you please clarify what you mean by "The spacecraft for each achievement must be unique"?

You had previously said, I think, that if the base is a rover, that also qualifies as "Every Kerbal has access to a pressurized rover" for +5 achievement points. Could I also put a science lab on the rover for the science lab achievement, and make it orbit-capable for "Backup plan"?

[Death Engineering]

41 minutes ago, dire said:

please clarify what you mean by "The spacecraft for each achievement must be unique"?

For example, if the outpost has a science lab to earn "Deep space laboratory", the science lab is part of the outpost and not part of a Duna ascent vehicle (ie Backup Plan). This may seem rigid, but it is to prevent the ultimate exploit: one craft that is a science lab, space station, DAV, rover, deep space transit, etc. all-in-one. I think there is still room for modular designs as the achievements can be earned any time up to Year 10 Day 1. As long as all the parts are in place to meet every earned achievement by that cut-off, you're good to go. 

The Pressurized Rover achievements describe level of pressurized cabin mobility (ie some or all). The single-point Basic Rover accommodates entries that don't incorporate any mobility in the pressurized modules but still want to earn something for bringing along rovers.

[dire]

So you're saying that I can't add a science lab to an orbit-capable rover and tick off three achievements with that one launch xD

[hoioh]

10 hours ago, dire said:

So you're saying that I can't add a science lab to an orbit-capable rover and tick off three achievements with that one launch xD

No, the opposite. Any lab module can only be part of 1 base, vehicle or rover.

I am thinking whether that interferes with my own plans though. My sytem is designed around flexibility and modularity and relies on moving things around. Each kerbal carrying part can be attached and detached from any of the vehicles in my fleet. So it can be part of my transit vehicle, descent vehicle and base.

Not sure now if my final design actualy relies on this system though. (It did at one point, but landing directly on top of a docking port in atmo is really freaking hard, so I might have tossed the idea. A better pilot might though)

 

Basically what I'm getting from this is:

Every part can only be part of any 1 vehicle at a particular time (Y10D1-0:00) for scoring achievements.

No part will ever count towards multiple achievent scores.

The only exemption is the mobile lab achievement, wherin the actual base SHOULD be mobile.

This means that on Y10D1 you should be able to pause time, inspect each vehicle at 0:00 and find all the required parts in place all around for max score.

Did I get that right? @michal.don

Edited December 2, 2018 by hoioh

[Alchemist]

If I get it right, the point is:

No vessel/module should score for several mutually exclusive achievements.

Like you can't score the ascent vehicle towards crew capacity of the base (which is supposed to stay on surface) or the station (supposed to remain in orbit) shouldn't double as the interplanetary transfer vehicle. Doesn't mean you can't dock them together, just you should be able to separate them without compromising the functionality of any element

[Death Engineering]

5 hours ago, hoioh said:

This means that on Y10D1 you should be able to pause time, inspect each vehicle at 0:00 and find all the required parts in place all around for max score.

 

4 hours ago, Alchemist said:

No vessel/module should score for several mutually exclusive achievements.

Right.

[jinnantonix]

Edit:

Here is my design https://imgur.com/a/AjdNjto , completed.  The mission delivers 100 Kerbals to the Duna surface, over 10 years, all achievement points scored, and all Kerbins returned to Kerbin unstressed.

The mission architecture is based on NPM = 31 tons, with 66% recoverable SLV.

Now to execute the gameplay, and make the video.

 

Edited December 9, 2018 by jinnantonix