Closed Loop Life Support

[Xurkitree]

Hi. I'm playing KSP 1.4.5, along with OPM, TAC-LS and Kerbal Planetary Base Systems, which adds a bunch of Life Support parts, along with Greenhouses. I had a specific goal with the Base mod, and that is to set up an Extraplanetary Launchpads Base on Dres to explore the Outer Planets. 

My question is - how do I create a closed loop system that will keep my kerbals alive near indefinetely? If not that, then atleast extend the supplies for a very long time? I have no clue how to create such a system and could use some help. 

[Rocket In My Pocket]

You might get better answers asking in the relevant mod threads.

Also, I know there is a deep freeze cryo sleep mod as well, could help?

Edited November 27, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Zhetaan]

You can use this spreadsheet, which is helpfully supplied by @Nils277 in the Kerbal Planetary Base Systems first post.  I assume that it is up-to-date, but use at your own risk.

In summary, you need a source of ore in all cases (that's never a problem), and you need either a source of water or a source of carbon dioxide and hydrogen.  Since you mentioned Dres, you'll need to look for water.  If you don't find any, then you'll need to ship water to your base.

You'll also need a source of electric power, but I assume you have that well in hand.

Once you know what you need, it's simply a matter of balancing your resource consumption.  That can be tricky, especially with life support where everything depends on everything else, but it can be done.  The important thing is to remember that any life support complex includes Kerbals as vital components of that complex (for USI-LS, for example, there is no other way to convert Supplies to Mulch), which means that you will have to design your base to support a specific number of Kerbals.  Know this number in advance!  The spreadsheet uses six, I assume because any more will consume more than the greenhouse can produce, so you can use that as a base value.

After that, it's a matter of understanding that you need enough initial resource producers (water and ore drills in this case) to produce more than is consumed by your ultimate resource consumers (the Kerbals in this case, since keeping them supplied is the whole point).  The other converters are steps on the way, and their importance is that they control the rate that the critical resources flow down the chain.

For example, let's assume that your drills produce at capacity.  Water is not an issue; it can go directly from the drill to the Kerbals' mouths.  Water is also needed to make oxygen if you don't have another source; this also produces hydrogen which you can partially recycle with a Sabatier converter, if you like.  Water is also part of the greenhouse food conversion process--perhaps you should bring two water drills, after all.  If you have a source of water, then you probably don't need to recycle wastewater to get the water back.  However, you may need to recycle the wastewater for the waste.

Consider:  ore ultimately becomes food (as fertiliser in the greenhouse via the algae farm), so your Kerbal capacity is influenced by the greenhouse's ability to produce food from fertiliser, water, and carbon dioxide.  The Kerbals produce more carbon dioxide than the greenhouse needs, and you are producing water directly, so the main check on the greenhouse's efficiency is the fertiliser production rate.  Add enough algae farms to produce the fertiliser you need, and then you'll have to see what the farms need.  They take in ore (not a problem) and waste.  Do they take in enough waste?  Your Kerbals produce waste directly from their food, but they also put small amounts of extractable waste in the wastewater and carbon dioxide.

This is all stuff that you'll need to consider, so my advice is to figure out the major idea of your base, build it in the SPH (not the VAB; the launchpad is too small), and try it on the runway.  Especially try it after emptying half of the support tanks and filling half of the waste tanks and seeing whether the resources are lost or gained, on average.  If you have to provide a temporary ore and water supply (I don't know whether there's ore in the runway, but I always thought drilling for it was rude), then see how many drills you'll need to offset the net consumption.

Edited November 27, 2018 by Zhetaan

[MaximumThrust]

I tried TAC-LS and didn't liked, the 3 resources and 3 wastes are used and produced at the same ratio, so there ins't much point in a gameplay perspective and generate a lot of clutter. Sometime ago this division was fun, because you could get the resources in different ways depending on the planet, but this was removed. This wiki is outdated, but show how it was: https://github.com/Nils277/KerbalPlanetaryBaseSystems/wiki/Life-Support-Guide

The TAC-LS also had some major problems with background processing, the system didn't calculated things correctly and self-sustaining bases didn't worked in the background, killing everyone. It was some time ago, I don't know how it is now. And the numbers used are ridiculously complex (like 0.000101562499998).

IIRC, you should put the stock ore in the Algae Farm, and from there you could produce the rest with the greenhouse. With no continuous supply of ore, no self-sustaining base. I think the spreadsheet @Zhetaan posted is outdated as well, like the Wiki 

What I recommend is USI-LS. You have only one supply (Supplies) and one waste (Mulch), in a "kerbalized" way, with Fertilizer to recycle. The background process works like a charm (in truth there is no background process, when you load the vessel it calculates everything that happened since the last visit, using the stock system), and the numbers are very simple and pleasant to deal with (like 0.0005/sec or 1.8/hour).

Kerbals use Supplies and produce Mulch. With Fertilizer and Greenhouses you can recycle back. For longer periods you only bring Fertilizer. With stock Ore, Algae Farms and Water you can produce Fertilizer and make a self-sustaining base. Without water it can last a lot longer wih only Ore, but is not self-sustaining. You also have recyclers that reduces the use of Supplies, and the habitation system is fantastic.

USI-LS is very fun, well made and stock-a-like.

Since you are using KPBS, you may try  SSPXr, it have a lot of great parts that can be used with TAC-LS and USI-LS.

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Zhetaan said:

You can use this spreadsheet, which is helpfully supplied by @Nils277 in the Kerbal Planetary Base Systems first post.  I assume that it is up-to-date, but use at your own risk.

In summary, you need a source of ore in all cases (that's never a problem), and you need either a source of water or a source of carbon dioxide and hydrogen.  Since you mentioned Dres, you'll need to look for water.  If you don't find any, then you'll need to ship water to your base.

You'll also need a source of electric power, but I assume you have that well in hand.

Yes you need ore, you also need water long term, Water use is low so you can easy ship it in if you do some crew rotation or have other reasons to send stuff like contracts. 
Water require an separate drill unless mistaken, best is to have an small biome jumper with an water drill. 

I'm more scared about Eeloo because the travel time.