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Why Minmus should not be your colony of choice in ksp 2


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1. Distance: For early colony deployment you want to go to an easy to get to destination in the early game, while Minmus is quite easy to get to the delta V margins are higher then getting to the Mun (and I suspect you will have to unlock a node on the tech tree to get in situ resource utilization to keep your colonies alive which will make keeping them alive pretty hard if your base is on Minmus due to you needing to ship food to them.)

2. Rovers: If you have ever tried driving a rover on Minmus you know how this is.

3.  Kerbals health: While I know that kerbals are not affected by low gravity in the game if you want to be honest to your headcannon you should make a base on a world with more gravity such as the Mun, or when you get that tech node use artificial gravity if you still want to use Minmus.

4: That's all I have currently, these are just my opinions so you do you!

 

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I have rebuttals.

1. Landing and taking of from the Mun is expensive. Trying to do precise braking even more so. Sure, Minmus requires an inclination adjustment, but that can be minimized by carefully selecting launch windows and transfer profile. What you get in return is a low gravity world with large open flats. Forget conventional landing. A space-plane coming in on a glancing approach going in reverse and going full throttle when the wheels touch the surface will get you down in even less dV than what the subway map tells you, since you'll be absorbing a portion of that dV via landing gear. Compared to a typical landing you'll be doing to get down to Mun safely, this could be nearly 1km/s of dV savings on round trip when you add everything together. That's much smaller rockets with way less fuel running your cargo.

2. Rovers on Minmus are pretty useless, true. But have you considered catapults? You don't need a lot of speed to go far on Minmus. Ok, fine, you can also do ion-solar flyers if you don't want to go completely medieval. Point is, you don't need to drive when you can fly.

3. Next you'll be telling me I shouldn't be doing 20G re-entries on the return trip. Kerbals are clearly adapted to gravity extremes, radiation, and long periods of isolation. It's hard to say what exactly drove evolution of their kind to such drastic adaptations, given how nice Kerbin is, but you can't argue with the results.

4. I'll be waiting with more counterpoints. On Minmus. With ice cream.

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3 minutes ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

 and it has ice cream.

I don't understand the strikethrough. We're all friends here. It's safe to admit it. It's definitely because of the ice cream. Also other things, but mainly ice cream.

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15 hours ago, Newgame space program said:

1. Distance: For early colony deployment you want to go to an easy to get to destination in the early game, while Minmus is quite easy to get to the delta V margins are higher then getting to the Mun (and I suspect you will have to unlock a node on the tech tree to get in situ resource utilization to keep your colonies alive which will make keeping them alive pretty hard if your base is on Minmus due to you needing to ship food to them.)

The dV margins are indeed higher, that's a good thing, did you mean the dV requirements?

The distance is insignificant compared to interplanetary and interstellar travel.

15 hours ago, Newgame space program said:

2. Rovers: If you have ever tried driving a rover on Minmus you know how this is.

Use reaction whhels, and why would I be driving much at the colony, particularly with automated supply runs?

15 hours ago, Newgame space program said:

3.  Kerbals health: While I know that kerbals are not affected by low gravity in the game if you want to be honest to your headcannon you should make a base on a world with more gravity such as the Mun, or when you get that tech node use artificial gravity if you still want to use Minmus.

I think the grav is too low in either case you matter - duna grav is my threshold. Plus it's not that hard to make centrifuges in KSP2

15 hours ago, Newgame space program said:

4: That's all I have currently, these are just my opinions so you do you!

My main reason: because I will move Minus to have an orbit similar to that of Dres, and I will put Mun where Minmus was.

My first colony won't be farther away than Duna, for sure

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On 2/4/2022 at 5:49 PM, Newgame space program said:

1. Distance: For early colony deployment you want to go to an easy to get to destination in the early game, while Minmus is quite easy to get to the delta V margins are higher then getting to the Mun (and I suspect you will have to unlock a node on the tech tree to get in situ resource utilization to keep your colonies alive which will make keeping them alive pretty hard if your base is on Minmus due to you needing to ship food to them.)

The travel time at most to reach minmus is 2 weeks. It's a lot longer compared to the Mun (which has a travel time of 1 day) but it's still insignificant compared to interplanetary travel. The only time when this becomes a problem is when you have Kerbal Construction Time installed but I doubt that KCT will be stock in KSP2. Also, supply runs have been confirmed to be automated, solving the issue of supplying them. Secondly, the terrain and gravity of Minmus is primed for base building. It has low gravity meaning that you can launch a much larger payload to orbit than you can on the Mun without using a much larger lander. Health may be an issue but that's solved with a small centrifuge. Minmus also has these large now-glassy flats which can conviently be used as runways for a visiting SSTO and as a perfectly level surface for base building. As an added bonus these areas often overlap with the best ore deposits.

On 2/4/2022 at 5:49 PM, Newgame space program said:

2. Rovers: If you have ever tried driving a rover on Minmus you know how this is.

Minmus is pretty small, driving rovers is an issue but it also means that a  biomehopping lander is actually better, you can putt around minmus fairly cheaply.

The Mun's only advantage over minmus is just that it's nearer and doesn't require a plane change. Sure there are flat spots but they're relatively rare. And I personally find Minmus (at least with visual mods) a little more visually appealing than the Mun.

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On 2/4/2022 at 7:03 PM, K^2 said:

4. I'll be waiting with more counterpoints. On Minmus. With ice cream.

Hm... a large-enough catapult could act like a mass driver to send kilotons of ice-cream back to Kerbin.

And with the right calibration atmospheric entry could be used as both an aerobrake AND deep fry cycle...

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Well @Nate Simpson already hinted at an open progression in this post : 

So I guess the first colony location will be driven by what the players need resource wise, which in turn would be decided by what "progression path" players chose.

For example (and this is pure speculation from here), if you choose to develop nuclear engines, you need need nuclear fuel. And if you're "unlucky", the only place where uranium might be found is on Mun's south pole. Then you'd have to build a tier 2 colony on quite the awkward spot, but in return you would gain the possibility to build very compact nuclear reactors for electricity generation, which would allow your interplanetary cargo ships to be more compact and lighter compared to having solar panels.

On the other hand, you could go with a less complicated scenario and choose resources that are easier to obtain (located for example on the equatorial plane), but would give less of an advantage later on.

Man, I'm thinking about several hyper hypothetical scenarios, and I'm just thinking that being a game designer must be tough. Taking into account several paths of progression while avoiding the possibility for players to get soft-locked, that's some migraine inducing stuff.

 

But back to the debate on Mun VS Minmus, I think Minmus is easier to build on, while the Mun is easier to get to.

Edited by Truebadour
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9 hours ago, DunaManiac said:

The travel time at most to reach minmus is 2 weeks. It's a lot longer compared to the Mun (which has a travel time of 1 day) but it's still insignificant compared to interplanetary travel. The only time when this becomes a problem is when you have Kerbal Construction Time installed but I doubt that KCT will be stock in KSP2. Also, supply runs have been confirmed to be automated, solving the issue of supplying them. Secondly, the terrain and gravity of Minmus is primed for base building. It has low gravity meaning that you can launch a much larger payload to orbit than you can on the Mun without using a much larger lander. Health may be an issue but that's solved with a small centrifuge. Minmus also has these large now-glassy flats which can conviently be used as runways for a visiting SSTO and as a perfectly level surface for base building. As an added bonus these areas often overlap with the best ore deposits.

Minmus is pretty small, driving rovers is an issue but it also means that a  biomehopping lander is actually better, you can putt around minmus fairly cheaply.

The Mun's only advantage over minmus is just that it's nearer and doesn't require a plane change. Sure there are flat spots but they're relatively rare. And I personally find Minmus (at least with visual mods) a little more visually appealing than the Mun.

First rebuttal:The rover problem is not related to getting science from different biomes, I am aware that you can use the lander for that especially since I have done it too, the problem is that doing that is 1. not practical or remotely safe for interbase travel. And 2.  You will probably need a rover system to transport materials from different bases.

Second rebuttal: There are plenty of craters with flat bottoms on the Mun, In Ksp 1 I have a base in one of them and the craters with flat bottoms are literally visible from space.

Edited by Newgame space program
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I have to agree that rovers are a must-have on certain bodies. Especially if you have little access to efficient propulsion, rockets and things that burn fuel have to scale their fuel consumption with their payload levels, while rovers are almost completely cost-free. On Minmus, you will end up needing a large amount of Xenon with all the operations in your main base, or suffer the consequences of low gravity rovers. Minmus might be a good end-game mega base because you will have access to very efficient propulsion, but early game, I understand sacrificing the delta-v benefits for easy access to early game volatiles and building materials, as well as the benefit of higher gravity. 

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21 minutes ago, siklidkid said:

Mining Bases.

In A.D. 2101

War was beginning.

Spoiler

In case anyone needs the actual soundtrack to play along with that.

 

 

Edited by K^2
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I don't feel that rovers on Minmus are a completely lost cause.  I sent one a while ago to gather science from multiple biomes, and it could get to 30 m/s on the flats.  On bumpy terrain, you're going to lift off the ground, but if you have good reaction wheels you can just wait till you land again.

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5 hours ago, Ember12 said:

I don't feel that rovers on Minmus are a completely lost cause.  I sent one a while ago to gather science from multiple biomes, and it could get to 30 m/s on the flats.  On bumpy terrain, you're going to lift off the ground, but if you have good reaction wheels you can just wait till you land again.

I use rovers on Minmus but mostly as an utility rover moving stuff around on the base and the lander has wheels who is nice then getting close for repairing rovers or doing experiments. 
Benefit of Minmus is the low gravity I uses extraplanetary launchpad mod and you can take off with all sort of weird stuff.
Yes time is a bit of an issue but you can add 100 m/s on you burn and get there in around 3 days, yes you need around 200 m/s more to get into orbit. 

Now I suspect an issue with Minmus in KSP 2 might be an lack of all the resources you need. 

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I completely disagree- Minmus is the perfect place for Baby’s First Offworld ColonyTM for several reasons:

  1. Delta-V. Yes, the transfer burn to Minmus from LKO requires a bit more fuel and either a well-timed launch to get the right inclination, a well-timed transfer to catch Minmus at its AN/DN or a plane change en route, but once you get to Minmus’ SOI literally everything else is far cheaper than the equivalent action at the Mun: capturing, deorbiting, landing, plane changes, launching, rendezvousing and returning to Kerbin are all trivial since Minmus has puny gravity and so low orbital velocity. When you’re landing hundreds or even thousands of tons of colony stuff, that adds up quickly.
  2. Large areas of flat terrain which are perfect for building on, easy to land on even with large vessels and/or planes and which you can drive across at considerable speed without worrying about crashing into anything. If you build your rover correctly and change the wheel control keybinds to not be the same as attitude control, Minmus is one of the easiest places to drive around since any mishaps can be corrected before you hit the terrain (again) and proper use of the wheel traction settings eliminates the grip problems of ice and low gravity- or you can go the other way and spend your time doing huge lairy drifts if you like.
  3. You can literally fling stuff from the surface directly onto a trajectory that’ll hit Kerbin, no rockets required! 
  4. You’re closer to the edge of Kerbin’s SOI so going interplanetary is that much easier.
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14 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

…a well-timed transfer to catch Minmus at its AN/DN

I usually set up a recurring alarm to align with this transfer twice per orbit (every 24d, 5h, 37m). You can set the first one by targeting Minmus so you can see the AN/DNpulling a maneuver node so the Ap hits it, and waiting until Minmus moves into a perfect encounter. Its super useful for shuttles and tankers making round trips from LKO

Edited by Pthigrivi
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  • 4 weeks later...

Depending on how KSP2 arranges its resources in the Kerbolar system, the Mun may contain many more metals for spaceship building than Minmus. In that case, it might make more sense to put your spaceship-building colony on the Mun (and maybe just use Minmus for fuel?)

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On 2/4/2022 at 5:49 PM, Newgame space program said:

1. Distance: For early colony deployment you want to go to an easy to get to destination in the early game, while Minmus is quite easy to get to the delta V margins are higher then getting to the Mun (and I suspect you will have to unlock a node on the tech tree to get in situ resource utilization to keep your colonies alive which will make keeping them alive pretty hard if your base is on Minmus due to you needing to ship food to them.)

2. Rovers: If you have ever tried driving a rover on Minmus you know how this is.

3.  Kerbals health: While I know that kerbals are not affected by low gravity in the game if you want to be honest to your headcannon you should make a base on a world with more gravity such as the Mun, or when you get that tech node use artificial gravity if you still want to use Minmus.

4: That's all I have currently, these are just my opinions so you do you!

 

1.  Rebuttal well addressed previously by others.  Easy DV landing and launching, big flat areas with at least one of the flats rich with ore

2.  Forget normal rovers on Minmus.  Put reaction wheels, RCS, and ant engines on your rovers and drive while you can, and hop when convenient or it just "happens".  Also using kOS and the right scripting even driving rovers is more than feasible on Minmus

3.  From all my observations Kerbals do not suffer the same low gravity health situation humans do.  It probably has something to do with their fungaloid genetic heritage.

The only downside is the time involved in the Kerbin<->Minmus tranfers being quite a bit longer than Mun

Edited by darthgently
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Sorry for the interruption, but I think there is no real reason NOT to make a colony on Minmus, in fact, I don't think there is a real reason not to make colonies on any celestial body, even Gilly who has a very low gravity can have a colony.

Although the resources to extract may be lacking (ice cream aside),but Minmus and Gilly represent an excellent starting point for large spaceships that on Kerbin or Eve would be possible even just to take off, even as an alternative to space stations.

Guys, literally any moon could be a free space station.

And for God's sake, no one denies an ice cream factory on Minmus. Who else should do it?

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