The fuel highway rough idea (edit: more like hub)

[Aegolius13]

1 minute ago, M_Rat13 said:

So is Jool actually easier? Granted, you have to figure out lander designs for each seperate moon (well, it's more a time sink, although Tylo will be a challenge-ish), but I guess getting an encounter is easier.

Getting to the Jool is, IMO, considerably easier than Dres.  In the Jool system you have extra ways to slow down: gravity assists and aerobraking (at Laythe; aerobraking at Jool itself is a handful).  Whereas at Dres, you have no choice but to burn to capture.

However. which one is overall easier depends entirely on what you plan to do in the Jool system.  Tylo is suprisingly hard.  Laythe is great for spaceplanes, but not really compatible with vacuum lander designs, can be suprisingly hot on aerobraking/entry.  Vall is a very ordinary midside body.  Pol and Bop are cheap to land on, but more expensive to get to than I expected.  Doing a full Jool 5 is much, much tougher than a trip to Dres.

[M_Rat13]

23 minutes ago, Aegolius13 said:

Getting to the Jool is, IMO, considerably easier than Dres.  In the Jool system you have extra ways to slow down: gravity assists and aerobraking (at Laythe; aerobraking at Jool itself is a handful).  Whereas at Dres, you have no choice but to burn to capture.

However. which one is overall easier depends entirely on what you plan to do in the Jool system.  Tylo is suprisingly hard.  Laythe is great for spaceplanes, but not really compatible with vacuum lander designs, can be suprisingly hot on aerobraking/entry.  Vall is a very ordinary midside body.  Pol and Bop are cheap to land on, but more expensive to get to than I expected.  Doing a full Jool 5 is much, much tougher than a trip to Dres.

Well the setup would be to make that easier. Space stations around every moon, with SSTO landers attached. As you said, Tylo could be hard, but you could mine from the surface to fill up, to then make the return to orbit (easier to launch than land).

[Pthigrivi]

I really do love all this. I tend to dive into really long-haul saves building up bases throughout the kerbol system so this is a topic near and dear to my heart. I do play with life support, which adds its own set of considerations in terms of mass budgets and flight duration, but we can skip all that. A couple things off the bat though:

Time - You've got to keep in mind just how much time this gonna take you. I've spent years (real time) in career saves and barely reached Jool. What you'll quickly realize is just hoisting all that equipment into orbit and managing dozens of active flights requires a crazy amount player attention. KAC is a must. With shuttles and tankers and upgrade modules and sat-network packages going everywhere I rarely time-warp more than a couple of days. You'll also want to consider things like cost-benefit and economy of scale as it relates to all that baby-sitting. Its generally worth minimizing your landings and dockings whenever possible, so instead of smaller ISRU vessels and a platform it might make more sense to just have a big tanker that takes off from the surface and other vessels pull up to it. 

Mission Profile - You also want to think about what you plan to do when you get to each planet and how you're getting to and from the surface. Are you aerocapturing at Eve, Duna, or Laythe? Are you building bases or just buzzing down and collecting samples? This will tell you the best places to harvest from and where your refueling points should be. For instance on my first crewed Duna mission in my most recent save I aerocaptured a mother ship into an elliptical orbit that intercepted Ike. Because of the low gravity I was able to land the whole thing there and refuel. I then aerocaptured again into low Duna orbit and undocked the hab module with just enough fuel to descend to the surface of Duna and return to orbit. When the return window opens up the Hab flies back up, refuels at the ISRU unit, and returns on its own to Kerbin leaving the infrastructure in place for the next mission. You'll want to think about each mission like that, what goes where when and what gets left behind for reuse later.

Gravity wells - No matter what you're going to incur a certain amount of losses in transportation. You're either paying to shuttle your converters everywhere or you're paying to transport the fuel to where you need it. This can be minimized through. Especially in places where you can aerocapture the best place to establish your mining operation is 'high up' in the well because plowing through the atmosphere lets you transport 'down' nearly for free. This is what makes Minmus more suitable (generally) than the Mun as a KSOI mining location, because its low gravity and low cost to return to LKO. TWR factors into all of this as well, never packing a bigger engine for a given leg than you absolutely need.

That said, here are a few recommendations:

Moho - Sadly we have a really high inclination and no super-light moon to refuel from. Depending on your mission you could drop your whole vessel, refuel on the surface and then leave the ISRU behind when you take off, or just pack enough fuel for the return leg and leave that in orbit while a smaller lander with a mini-converter buzzes down, refuels, biome hops, and returns to the drive section waiting in orbit. Keep in mind that Moho windows open often so waiting for one with low inclination is 100% worth it.

Eve - You'll need two converters here, one for the surface of Eve and one for Gilly. The latter will produce your return fuel and anything you need to maneuver in orbit. For the former I like to drop an ISRU truck as close to my lander as possible so it can land empty. Its possible to build an EVE SSTO, but since I'm usually carting 4-6 kerbals to the surface I find a non-reusable ascent vehicle much more manageable. 

Kerbin - Some folks have found success with asteroid mining but I've found it much more straight forward to set up on Minmus for aforementioned reasons. I generally ship everything into LKO dry, and time my tanker trips to and from Minmus so that they arrive at the AN and DN to reduce inclination burns. This means you can have one tanker that goes out, tops off at the AN, returns via aerocapture, then heads back out to the DN every 24.5 days. This fuels basically all of my out-bound flights. 

Duna - As mentioned, you have some options here, but if you plan on staying and building a base it makes sense to gather your transfer fuel at Ike and your ascent fuel on the surface. 

Dres - basically the same calculation as for Moho, though with much less dV. If you plan on returning to the same place on the surface multiple times just leave a converter on wheels that can refuel future missions.

Jool - This is the fun one. Most folks if they're planning to set up shop are trying to build a Laythe base, so lets assume Laythe orbit is where most of your equipment is getting fueled. Fortunately you can aerocapture in and parachute down, so it makes the most sense to float down an ISRU set up to one of the little islands to power your Laythe ascents. The next question is where is the best place to get vacuum fuel for exploring the other moons and returning to Kerbin? There are really 3 candidates: Vall, Bop, And Pol, each with similar round-trip dV costs if you're aerocapturing at Laythe. Both Bop and Pol can be a little tricky to find a level-ish landing zone with decent ore so its worth building your tanker to be squat. They also have a little bit of inclination to deal with so there are some minor losses there. What they have over Vall though is that aerocapturing absorbs most of the return leg dV, so you're not wasting 860+ dV carting a full tank (and bigger engines) off the surface. It might be worth building in some flexibility though, building an all-in-one ISRU tanker that you can take to Vall, Bop, or Pol depending on the situation. 

Eeloo - Honestly it takes so long to get there I've only done like 2 crewed missions to Eeloo. But sure, like Moho, might as well leave the converter behind rather than waste fuel shipping it back. 

I haven't uploaded in a while but here are some pretty pictures: 

Reusable fuel tanker returning to LKO from Minmus:

Duna mothership aerocapturing, IRSU module is down near the heat shield:

This is an all-in-one vacuum lander thats en-route to Jool in my current save. It can SSTO from Tylo and then serves as refueling tanker from the lighter moons. 

Edited March 25, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[M_Rat13]

@Pthigrivi Well I'm actually thinking of something more permanent. You'd have everything in place for any mission you can think of, or just to test new craft.

In fact, given enough time, the setup could help build entire 'cities'. It's all about truly conquering the solar system.

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, M_Rat13 said:

@Pthigrivi Well I'm actually thinking of something more permanent. You'd have everything in place for any mission you can think of, or just to test new craft.

In fact, given enough time, the setup could help build entire 'cities'. It's all about truly conquering the solar system.

Totally! But it takes time, both in the game and real life. Remember all of that equipment has to be deployed and managed. Like I said I've been working on my current save for about 2 years (granted its career w/ life support) and I've got bases and stations around the Mun, Minmus, with advance groundlaying missions on Duna, Moho and Eve. Jool missions are still en-route. Each of those missions took several launches to assemble and crew up. There were dozens of launches to set up and slowly upgrade KSOI alone. Duna windows are a couple of years apart and Jool missions take 3 years just to get there in game. Starting off I thought, no sweat, I'll time warp, but with all that stuff moving around--transfers, aerocaptures, landings, circularizations and mid-course corrections on several dozen active flights--I haven't yet timewarped more than 5 or 6 days. Each one of those little moves takes 5-15 minutes. I'll have done hundreds of minor maneuvers setting up in the inner solar system before my Jool convoy even arrives. Its not for everyone but I enjoy that kind of thing, like a space-faring bonsai tree. 

Not trying to dissuade you, it's really fun! Just saying you'll thank yourself for simplifying as much as possible, bundling infrastructure delivery in with other missions, etc. 

Edited March 25, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[Chel]

One thing about the fuel highway idea: How would you get them to their locations? You would use fuel, and might have to take fuel from the tanks to refuel your ship. 

[M_Rat13]

19 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Totally! But it takes time, both in the game and real life. Remember all of that equipment has to be deployed and managed. Like I said I've been working on my current save for about 2 years (granted its career w/ life support) and I've got bases and stations around the Mun, Minmus, with advance groundlaying missions on Duna, Moho and Eve. Jool missions are still en-route. Each of those missions took several launches to assemble and crew up. There were dozens of launches to set up and slowly upgrade KSOI alone. Duna windows are a couple of years apart and Jool missions take 3 years just to get there in game. Starting off I thought, no sweat, I'll time warp, but with all that stuff moving around--transfers, aerocaptures, landings, circularizations and mid-course corrections on several dozen active flights--I haven't yet timewarped more than 5 or 6 days. Each one of those little moves takes 5-15 minutes. I'll have done hundreds of minor maneuvers setting up in the inner solar system before my Jool convoy even arrives. Its not for everyone but I enjoy that kind of thing, like a space-faring bonsai tree. 

Not trying to dissuade you, it's really fun! Just saying you'll thank yourself for simplifying as much as possible, bundling infrastructure delivery in with other missions, etc. 

Well I think it's more about not overextending. You're doing multiple setups at once. If you just focused on Duna, for example, you could already be done, or at least have enough to where adding more isn't about practicality, but just becuase you can.

I also think your order is off. Eve is by far the hardest planet to conquer. Gilly might be a nice place for fuel, but you still have to build craft capable of handling Eve, especially if you have Kerbals becuase you'll likely want at least some way to get them back. Jool might seem a pain, but it's very easy to get to, and colonize the moons of, outside maybe Tylo, but no atmosphere gives great Isp, and you can always refuel from the surface, as getting off is easier than landing.

For me, it's all about the planning.

[FleshJeb]

@M_Rat13 Have you considered fueling on Gilly, ejecting into an elliptical Eve orbit, and THEN going to Moho at Eve periapsis? That should be MUCH cheaper, since the majority of your Eve ejection would already be done, and the insertion burn at Moho would be much less.

[M_Rat13]

11 minutes ago, FleshJeb said:

@M_Rat13 Have you considered fueling on Gilly, ejecting into an elliptical Eve orbit, and THEN going to Moho at Eve periapsis? That should be MUCH cheaper, since the majority of your Eve ejection would already be done, and the insertion burn at Moho would be much less.

There's debate on what the best way to get to Moho is.

[Pthigrivi]

14 hours ago, M_Rat13 said:

There's debate on what the best way to get to Moho is.

Have we not ruled out planetary laddering? Your tools here are the dV map and Alex Moon. Let's consider the alternatives (excluding inclination burns, which we will assume to be minimized by launch timing):

Kerbin > Moho
- Kerbin Escape: 950 m/s
- Moho Transfer: 750 m/s 
- Moho Insertion: 2410 m/s

Outbound Leg Total: 4110 m/s

Moho > Kerbin
- Transfer to Kerbin: 3,880 m/s
- Kerbin Insertion: 1930 m/s

Inbound Leg Total: 5810 m/s (3880 m/s w/ aerobrake)

VS

Kerbin > Gilly > Moho
- Kerbin Escape: 950 m/s
- Eve Transfer: 90 m/s 
- Eve Capture: 80 m/s
- Gilly Capture: 60 m/s
- Gilly Insertion: 410 m/s
- Gilly Landing: 30 m/s

Outbound Leg 1 Total: 1620 m/s (1540 m/s w/ aerobrake)

- Gilly Ascent: 30 m/s
- Moho Transfer: 2440 m/s
- Moho Capture: 1530 m/s 

Outbound Leg 2 Total: 4000 m/s 

Moho > Gilly > Kerbin
- Eve Transfer: 3290 m/s
- Eve Capture: 1030 m/s
- Gilly Capture: 60 m/s
- Gilly Insertion: 410 m/s
- Gilly land: 30 m/s

Inbound Leg 1 Total: 4,820 m/s (3790 m/s w/ aerobrake)

- Kerbin Transfer: 1460 m/s
- Kerbin insertion: 1060 m/s

Inbound Leg 2 Total: 2520 m/s (1460 m/s w/ aerobrake)

I break it out this way because ultimately, if you're mining, fuel is free. If you're already planning to set up converters everywhere it doesn't matter so much what the totals are. What matters is the tank dry-mass fraction on a vessel designed for the maximum leg between refueling because thats what you're paying to put in orbit. In this case, if you've brought along a heat-shield, its 4,110 m/s for Kerbin > Moho direct vs 4000 m/s for Kerbin > Gilly > Moho. So the question you've got to ask yourself as a player is whether a 2.75% increase in tank dry-mass is worth all the time you're going to spend as a player descending into Eve's gravity well to mine Gilly on the way. (As a rule tank dry-mass is 1/10 of your tanks when full, so the difference is going to be less than 0.2% of your launch mass)

 

15 hours ago, M_Rat13 said:

Well I think it's more about not overextending. You're doing multiple setups at once. If you just focused on Duna, for example, you could already be done, or at least have enough to where adding more isn't about practicality, but just becuase you can.

I also think your order is off. Eve is by far the hardest planet to conquer. Gilly might be a nice place for fuel, but you still have to build craft capable of handling Eve, especially if you have Kerbals becuase you'll likely want at least some way to get them back. Jool might seem a pain, but it's very easy to get to, and colonize the moons of, outside maybe Tylo, but no atmosphere gives great Isp, and you can always refuel from the surface, as getting off is easier than landing.

For me, it's all about the planning.

Part of that is when you're playing with life support time=mass, so it's not a great idea to leave your duders hanging at Duna while you time-warp a 6 year Jool mission. I have things happening concurrently because that's how you consume the fewest resources. Colonization sequence is driven not by difficulty, but by when transfer windows open up and how long your transit times are. And the fact that ascending from Eve is a doozy really only curtails the number of Kerbals you want to bring home from the surface. If you're parachuting down a base to stay it's just as easy on Eve as it is on Duna. 

If you're not doing LS you probably don't have to worry about most of that. The thing for you to keep in mind as you plan is whether you do it concurrently or sequentially it's still the same number of steps. At some point all of that equipment still has to be launched, assembled, transported and deployed. What will really drive down the amount of time you spend as a player setting all this up is not driven by your sequence, but by your scope. So if you really want to reduce grind, here are some tips:

- Don't ladder up and down the planets. Go direct. All that time isn't worth the mass savings.
- Remember economies of scale. Build to fill the tank for your max dV leg in as few maneuvers as possible.
- Turn off comm network. Fully half of my 100+ active flights are communications satellites so I can maintain control over automated systems. Of everything going on they're the most set-it-and-forget-it, but working out resonant orbits and geosync networks for each planet takes some noodling. 
- Play sandbox. Maybe you were planning on that anyway but for me maxing out tech is just the first step and any way you slice it it takes time. 


Edit: Added some links and corrected some math.

 

Edited March 26, 2019 by Pthigrivi