Making Life Difficult (a heavily modded colonisation playthrough)

[Pipcard]

You have a very beautiful fleet of inter-orbital vehicles.

Edited February 19 by Pipcard

[RedDwarfIV]

5 hours ago, Pipcard said:

You have a very beautiful fleet of inter-orbital vehicles.

Thankyou very much!

 

Tarasque Station completed the Wyvern 2 kit today. Of course, it still needed to be brought down to the surface of Minmus before any further work could be done to it. I had Tarasque build a skycrane for the job, more simple and reliable in design than the LH2 powered one I already had. However, I underestimated the width of the kit, and found that the engines would be pointing at it. I needed to add a truss structure to put the skycrane's engines further away.

 

That addition made, it could begin the descent. With a 300 ton payload and a TWR of 4, I had to begin the landing burn at around 5,000 meters in altitude, or else slam into the ground and lose all that hard work.

Landed! The skycrane detached and returned to orbit for reuse.

 

Sarnus Surveyor made its second burn to intercept the giant red planet. I then set up a maneuver node that would have the probe intercept Slate, a gravity slingshot that would ensure capture at Sarnus. I could then capture at each of the moons at my leisure.

 

Samurai arrived at Eve first.

 

It was soon followed by Comet.

Little inclination change of 20 degrees.

 

Then finally, the Harrier FTV.

The craft rendezvoused with Samurai, transferring all of its LH2 and most of the liquid fuel.

 

Both the Workshop lander and Wolverine GCV had been lost in the Great Migration, so I had to launch a new vehicle. I chose to go with the same vessel as I'd had Leviathan make out at Ike - a Kodiak GCV. I'd had no issues with its design, so it seemed ideal. I transferred six Engineers to the rover, leaving just one Engineer and the Quartermaster left on Tarasque. Some of them will return when the base is built.

Construction begins.

 

Meanwhile, Comet and Samurai rendezvoused, so the Scientist could transfer across, ready for the first Kerbal's landing on Eve.

 

In simulations, it appears that a long enough descent at a high angle of attack can prevent part overheating. Stall speed is about 40 m/s.

Edited February 20 by RedDwarfIV

[RedDwarfIV]

Today's play session has been dedicated to a single mission - the Eve landing and return.

Our brave Kerbal is a scientist who I will refer to as Rory because it's easier to spell. He's taken his protein pills and put his helmet on, as ready as he could possibly be to face a mission with an entirely uncertain outcome. Should the Samurai prove inadequate, he could be trapped on the surface of a hellish world indefinitely. Data gathered from the robotic Tarantula mission indicates that conditions can vary from boiling hot to freezing cold, in a toxic atmosphere entirely devoid of oxygen. Simulations suggest that any deviation from the long pitched-up descent could result in entry heat destroying the spaceplane. Even without the risk of insufficient delta-V, Kerbin's evil twin is a dangerous place to go.

The aerospike fires up briefly, lowering periapsis below the purple planet's Kerman Line, around 75km up. Trajectories confirms this will result in loss of orbit. Once inside the atmosphere, there is no abort procedure. Rory cannot command the Samurai to accelerate, not if parts are already at risk of overheating.

Rory is now committed to the descent.

Though not a pilot, he has access to a sophisticated autopilot system along with the stock ASAS operated by the spaceplane's remote probe core. He provides the neccesary inputs to shepherd the Samurai through a long and nervewracking decelleration from 3km/s to a third of that speed... and makes it through one of the most dangerous aspects of the mission profile, having lost just a single RCS cluster. The boffins back home are quite confused as to why it was lost while its sibling on the port side survived. According to temperature guages, it should not have gone above 2/3rds.

He begins to drop through the cloud layers, slowing further as he goes.

 

After finally getting under the clouds, Rory confirms his location using the atmospheric analyser. Midlands. Tarantula already carried out most of the science that could be done in this area.  He continues on until finding the Highlands biome, and begins final approach.

The landing is more difficult than expected. Eve's thick atmosphere proves a blessing and a curse - it provides plenty of lift, greatly lowering the stall speed, but it also dramatically increases drag. Without engines, or with them incorrectly set, it is very easy to drop below the stall speed regardless. Simulations also suggest that attempting to land on a downward slope could result in stall if a sudden rise in terrain forces a go-around.

 

Rory makes it down. He stares in wonder out the cockpit window. Tarantula's camera already confirmed there was plant life on Eve, but he couldn't quite believe it. Now, the giant leafy shrubs and bushes that envelop the landing gear surround him. How could these plants survive under these conditions? How could they grow so large with Eve's higher gravity? Mysteries he hopes to solve before leaving.

5.6 atmospheres of pressure. Rory has a lot of weight on his shoulders, in more ways than one.

 

Research at the Highlands biome complete, he takes off again, heading for Eve's Craters. A weather system surrounds that biome, severely reducing visibility. This almost caused a terrible end to the mission, when Rory attempted to land in the Peaks biome surrounding the crater. He found the ground suddenly plunging away from him, just as he was about to touch down.

 

Now inside the crater, visibility was much better.

 

Once again, he lands, carries out his research, and launches back into the overcast sky. He will attempt another landing in the Peaks, more carefully this time. Or at least, that was the plan. The angle of attack needed to surmount the crater rim from such a low altitude robbed him of speed, nearly causing a stall and crash, but by putting the nose down and risking flying close to the peaks, Rory successfully saved the spacecraft.

This place is dark and spooky. If there weren't so many bubbles, Rory might wonder if he were surrounded by the ghosts of some ancient civilisation. There has been some speculation at home that Eve was once a habitable world like Kerbin. It certainly isn't now. Rory glances at his vessel's control panel, a worrying number of warning lights lit up. The atmosphere is not just toxic, it's corrosive, slowly eating away at the spaceplane's systems. Perhaps the R&D boys might find a solution to that, but it wouldn't come in time to help this lonely explorer. He thinks it best to get on with the mission. The sooner it's complete, the sooner he can leave. Eve is not a welcoming place. As difficult as it was to get here, it's not worth prolonging the stay.

 

Rory turns south, heading for the southern polar biome.

 

The last stop. There are a couple of other biomes still to survey, but the closest has been lost to Eve's night, and Rory has no interest in trying to land the Samurai in the dark. Fog was bad enough.

 

With all aboard that's going aboard, the spaceplane returns to the equator, and lines up for the final stage of the mission - ascent.

After reaching just 1,100 m/s on the Project Eeloo engines' open-cycle mode, they began to lose thrust. Rory activated the nuclear aerospike. Useful at many atmospheric pressures, the aerospike helped boost the  flagging Eeloo drives until the air was too thin to use, and they switched to closed-cycle. Liquid hydrogen was burned at a prodigious rate, andthen the tanks were empty. The aerospike shut down, leaving its liquid-fuel companions to complete the burn to orbit.

Rory watched as his fuel level dropped, while the delta-V indicator stubbornly remained at 1,800m/s, an obviously false reading. The corrosion might have done more damage than he'd thought. Would he make it? His apoapsis soared above 90km, but he still had to circularise. Was his fuel gauge accurate? Would he make it?

 

YES!

Squeaking into orbit with a mere 255 units of liquid fuel remaining, the Samurai had successfully escaped the hell-world, one of the most difficult planets to leave in the entire Kerbol system. The scientist Rory, first Kerbal on Eve, was safely back in space.

 

Radiators glowing, the Samurai performed one last burn to get its periapsis and apoapsis to roughly the same altitude.

 

Having received word through the comm system, Comet (which had been on the other side of Eve, unable to watch the proceedings) altered its inclination and prepared an intercept in five or so orbits.

 

Rendezvous complete, the transport shed its relative velocity. With only one docking port, and that already taken up by the return capsule, Rory would need to EVA across.

Goodbye, Samurai. We salute your effort. If you are needed again, we know where to find you.

 

I must go, my people need me.

Our hero recovered, the Eve mission has come to its conclusion. Comet will leave the hazy purple planet to its own devices, and head for its moon Gilly in search of a way to scan a Ridgeline.

Edited February 20 by RedDwarfIV

[RedDwarfIV]

Whoops. Forgot the science.

 

Comet burns for Gilly. It doesn't have an Engineer on board, and the Technicians aren't qualified to construct spacecraft. There's no way to detach the scanning arm from the transport and move it over t the lander, still attached to the nearby space station.

 

There was only one viable plan. But it would mean hazarding the spacecraft, the science, and the tourists. Fierce debate raged over whether to proceed, or do something boring like launch a probe at the next Eve transfer window.

We went with the exciting option. An option made possible only by Gilly's exceedingly low gravity.

 

Comet's main drive had been used to bleed off most of the craft's orbital velocity, but after performing a flip maneuver, only RCS could provide any form of maneuvering capability.

 

Having landed on its nose, the scanner arm deployed.

Worth it?

 

Aaaaand back in orbit, rendezvoused with the return capsule. Wouldn't wanna forget the second of this mission's contracts!

 

While all that had been going on, construction began on Wyvern 2. Ignore the saved name, I'll change that when it's finished.

After running out of MaterialKits, the Ferret resupplied at the Asgard 2 and returned. Then it ran out again. Asgard 2 is empty, so the only option is for it to return to Kerbin. It's entirely possible that I'll have to do that twice , given the enormous amount of resources needed. Either that or I'll send someone up to reconfigure the SpecialisedParts cargo bays to carry MaterialKits instead.

Edited February 21 by RedDwarfIV

[RedDwarfIV]

Yesterday, I sent Asgard 2 home to Kerbin for a very expensive resupply. I believe the mission had a total cost of around 10 million VF.

With so many trips using the exact same resupply vehicle (plus being tired from IRL work) I was too exhausted to do anything more.

 

Skipping forward to today. Valiant arrived in Kerbin's SoI, and captured around the blue marble. As planned, it rendezvoused with the capsule which had brought the crew up a couple of years ago, so that the crew could make their descent.

There was one small problem with that plan. I only noticed after transferring the crew and science across, but the capsule has no parachutes. I wouldn't dare try to deorbit this thing. 

 

I haven't made many passenger SSTOs. The small ones can be especially tricky, but I pulled it off quite nicely with the Wizard.

It drops like a rock when unpowered, owing to the minimal wing surface area, but it can carry out a surface-to-orbit-to-surface mission with a fair amount of liquid fuel to spare. Running out is quite unlikely.

I'll be moving the wings forward a bit, as the centre-of-lift is a bit far back. I had to move the fuel to the tail so I could bring the nose up for landing.

 

Ah, the fruits of my space program's labour! And this is just from the mission to Gilly, that happened to pass over Eve. What Comet brings back is gonna be super juicy. Much of its data will be the same as Valiant collected, but not the Eve surface and atmospheric experiments. Given the difficulty of returning from Eve, I'm expecting something good.

I've unlocked almost all of the tech tree at this point. All that remains is Antimatter technology, but I see no reason to mess with that until I've made use of the fusion tech. I've barely made full use of fission!

 

Asgard 2 returns to Minmus, nearly fully loaded. Turns out I only needed a fraction of what I put on board. Well, waste not, want not! The transfer windows to the three outer planets are approaching. I had been intending to launch survey probes, but it would certainly help future colonisation efforts to have plenty of MaterialKits on standby. If I do go ahead with that plan, I'll want to transfer the remaining MaterialKits in the rear cargo bays to Tarasque Station, configure those bays back to SpecialisedParts, and fill them up from the Minmus planetary logistics stockpile.

 

In order to do that, I'll need something first. That something being...

Wyvern 2!

The new Minmus base is finally complete! It has supply chains for pretty much everything I could need, and the 10m Atlas factories provide it in bulk using a minimum of parts.

At first, the base had no power. I hadn't designed it with solar panels. But by connecting it to the Anansi FTV-N, I could use that craft's panels to jumpstart the base systems. Uranium was transferred from the lander to the reactor, at which point the reactor could be brought online.

 

All well and good having power, but the base could do very little without the ability to pull resources from planetary logistics. It could only mine a few resources.

Enter the Quartermaster. This Kerbonaut was stationed on Tarasque, organising the transfer of resources to craft constructed in orbit or just passing through. Neither of which were happening at the moment, so there was no pressing need not to transfer to the base below.

 

With the logistics module manned, I could now bring in Machinery that had been produced by Wyvern 1. in order to get the factories, processing facilities and farms online.

 

The base could now make advanced resources all the way up to Machinery, but it would need a much larger crew to fulfil its duties optimally. For the second time today, I designed a passenger SSTO. This one with the delta-V to reach Minmus, though it required some refuelling to return.

I said I'd like to reuse the name Berserker, and this is what I used it on.

The passengers disembarked. We had machics, technicians, a biologist, and even a Kolonist - a Kerbonaut with no particular skills, but who would help boost the planetary Kolonisation score, and thus improve the base's output. Also riding the Berserker were eight Farmers, tasked with operating the base's large agricultural facility, producing the Organics needed for ColonySupplies - the essential resource for pushing back Kerbals' hab timer and ensuring they could remain in any given colony for an extended period of time.

 

Two extra crew would not be staying at Wyvern 2, instead joining the engineers on board the Kodiak GCV. One being a Quartermaster to take up the vacant post at Tarasque, the other a pilot. Landing the GCV had been difficult enough. Returning it to orbit took skill.

Now the GCV can drop anywhere on Minmus that it might be needed, and the engineers can return to their posts in the orbital workshops.

 

 

This thread is supposedly about a colonisation playthrough. I've been doing a lot of exploration missions, and they're both fun and neccesary for the future colonisation efforts. Can't build a base without doing surveys first! But it's been nice to finally get back to what I started this playthrough for. Shoving huge numbers of Kerbals into tin cans on distant alien worlds.

[RedDwarfIV]

Had a couple of hours free to do KSP today, and I knew exactly what I needed to do. Wyvern 2  as designed could only support the current crew for a bit over a year, and while it could produce its own food, I was a little disturbed by the 60 day food reserves. I designed a habitat and life support module for the base, and used Tarasque to construct it in orbit. 

The Kestrel Skycrane proved much easier to use than the older LH2 powered vessel. I'm considering dismantling that one for MaterialKits. I'd also removed the truss extension, but it's still attached to the station, so it can be re-attached if needed.

With the new base section installed, Wyvern can now support its current crew for six years. A hydroponics filtering system increases the food reserves to 150 days, and the extra Agroponics dome increases the capacity for the base to recycle waste products.

I made sure to include an extra Kerbitrail docking port, to support future expansions. At present, my only plans for further improvement are a separate radiator loop for the Ore Converter (at present it is overheating the laser drills) and a WOLF hopper, which will allow Wyvern 2 to pull resources from WOLF bases which have, as yet, not been created.

 

Speaking of WOLF, it gave me some ideas for Eve colonisation. Rorigh "Rory" Kerman's visit to the purple planet confirmed that the surface was quite inhospitable. Wild temperature swings, a toxic, corrosive atmosphere... but WOLF bases are hidden. Or, shall we say, buried? Underground habitats could certainly get around many of the issues with Eve as a destination. But at the same time, do Kerbals really want to travel across the Kerbol system just to spend the rest of their lives in a metal cave? Well, maybe some of them do, but it's hardly ideal. So Eve WOLF bases would be primarily used for basic resource extraction, nothing more. So where are the Kerbals going to live? That's where I took some inspiration from IRL plans for Venus colonisation, which faces similar difficulties.

Why does the colony have to be on the surface? With a WOLF hopper supplying the resources, the colony could be floating above the clouds, supported on balloons, where it would not just be safer, but also have full access to sunlight! Between WOLF, airship mods and AirPark, a colony like this is eminently feasible. The only problem is that it could not construct vessels. There would be no surface for Ground Kits to attach to, and while I can envision ways a Dockable Kit could be used, the engineering difficulties would be substantial, and the risks of failure enormous. All heavy industrial capacity would have to be in orbit, or more likely, stationed at Gilly.

 

 In other news, Valkyrie performed a maneuver to refine its approach to Kerbin. the Dres mission will soon be entering the homeworld's SoI.

[RedDwarfIV]

 

Not enough MaterialKits, but a docking with Asgard 2 soon solved that problem.

 

There are four basic resources Wyvern 2 does not have access to on-site. Water, MetalOre, RareMetals and ExoticMinerals. It also can't get gypsum, but that's only useful in the production of Fertiliser, which I make with Minerals instead.

These are the resources I designed a WOLF hopper module to provide for the base.  It also has a chemical plant, because the base wasn't producing enough chemicals. They're needed more than the other two advanced resources - Polymers and Metals.

Once a WOLF network has been established on Minmus, Wyvern 2 will be the only base on that Moon I need visit. Unless I decide to build a Wyvern 3 that does all the same jobs, but in a more streamlined way.

 

Valkyrie finally makes it home. The Odyssey crew's ordeal is now well and truly over.

...this is an insane amount of science.

With the Far Future Technologies mod, Science is used to purchase Antimatter. This is why I've got such an aggressive exploration programme going, despite having basically unlocked the entire tech tree at this point. It will go to funding  the most advanced spacecraft, when I get round to building them.

 

The Sarnus transfer window is coming up, and I wanted a way to move huge amounts of SpecialisedParts up to Asgard 2 before its departure. This is the lander I designed. It can carry 60,000 SP to Minmus orbit with a comfortable margin of error on fuel.

As it turns out, I don't actually have 60,000 SP on Minmus. I had 50,000. After shutting off ColonySupplies and Machinery production, the production rate was up to 0.01 per second.

Maybe I'll need another base after all. One dedicated to producing MaterialKits and SpecialisedParts. That way, Wyvern 2 can handle producing the highest tier resources (Machinery, ColonySupplies) without worrying about shipments of lesser resources disrupting the supply lines. Probably a good idea in any case, as it now takes upwards of 15 seconds to load the base when entering physics range. A smaller base wouldn't take so long.

 

 

In the next exciting episode of Making Life Difficult, I'll be refitting Valkyrie with a new drive section and sending it off to Sarnus.

[RedDwarfIV]

No screenshots of it, but I actually ended up scrapping most of the WOLF section of Wyvern 2. The loading lag was just way too high, I was waiting 30 seconds with KSP on the edge of crashing. Kept the chemical plant and one WOLF hopper that probably won't get used.

 

The transfer windows for Neidon, Urium and Sarnus all came up within a month of each other. I have nothing ready for voyages into the deep end of the Kerbol system, so the only thing I launched to Neidon was a surveyor probe. Another will head to Urium, and I'm probably going to send one to Sarnus too. Yes, I already have Sarnus Surveyor  on course to intercept, but that will arrive in 19 years. If I launch a new one now, it will arrive in 4. No brainer, really. 

 

My first shipment of SpecialisedParts from Wyvern 2  using the new Cerberus SPCV lander.

 

 

One of the moons of Sarnus is Tekto, and rumour has it Tekto has an atmosphere. I could reuse the Samurai design, but the aerospike would be massive overkill. Technically, an SSTO this large is overkill as well, but it does have the advantage of plenty of Habitation. An away team could spend between 25-50 days down there.

This is the Lancer research SSTO. Comes equipped with a full suite of ground and atmospheric science instruments.

 

Aboard are the new Valkyrie crew, consisting of a pilot, engineer and two scientists.

 

The engineer has been making themselves useful, carrying out the demolition procedure to remove the propulsion and propellant tanks of the Valkyrie. The reactor was destroyed in the process, which is a shame, as it would have provided some nice redundancy to have two.

 

I launched the Utility/Power Module. This has the lander/SSTO docking ports, RCS/lander LFO storage, nuclear reactor and solar arrays.

 

In order to dock it, first an extra docking port had to be moved from the UPM to Valkyrie's open end.

Docked together, it becomes clear that the size of the Lancer will pose a problem. We can't spin up the hab like this.

 

Fear not, I have a cunning plan. See, Valkyrie was designed as a transport, not a science vessel. It had very few instruments on board, something that would need to be fixed for the mission. So, why not slap as many orbital experiments onto a structural extension as possible?

There we go! No more inteference! Also, the original  solar arrays have been moved forward, so as not to conflict with the science experiments.

 

The new propulsion has now been installed. Valkyrie has her wings back, stronger than ever.

 

For Slate, I'll be needing a lander of similar beefitude to the one Vanguard is carrying to Tylo. I took the Lemming and removed all science instruments, while adding electrical production, adding a probe core for control, and swapping the landing legs for something better. As with Tylo, I plan to land a rover for the science gathering, using the lander simply as a means of going from orbit to surface and back again.

The lander docked opposite the Lancer, once the docking port had been changed. A Lemming full of fuel weighs the same as an empty Lancer, so the centre-of-gravity should be back on the axis of thrust.

I sent up two FTVs with fission pellets on board, transferring them to the IPTV.

 

 

Valkyrie cannot carry all the fuel that will be required on this mission. In particular, the empty Lancer can't be used if it remains empty. So I set about launching an unmanned tanker that would go to Sarnus with Valkyrie.

This is the Arkangel. 350 tons of liquid fuel, and about 50 tons of oxidizer. It even has a comms reflector, increasing the range of its radio antenna. So if Valkyrie finds it can't reach KSC with its own comms, perhaps it can bounce through this.

I'm quite pleased than I finally figured out how the antenna/reflectors worked. Had no idea until now that "Render path" was supposed to tell you whether it was pointing at a dish or not in the VAB.

 

Next time, the Slate rover, and Valkyrie's departure.

Edited March 2 by RedDwarfIV

[RedDwarfIV]

I reused the Honey Badger rover with some slight modification - removal of the LFO tanks and fuel cell, replaced by a second heavy duty RTG.

Also, having learned during my last update how comms reflectors work, I decided to install the largest reflector possible on the Valkyrie. It's possible that the extra 50 gigameters of range won't be needed, but if it is, then I'll be very glad I bothered. By comparison, the reflector on the Arkangel only adds 5GM.

 

Speaking of Arkangel, I was only able to lift it on the 300 ton to LKO Blizzard booster by leaving the LFO tanks unfilled. I sent up two of these unnamed refuelling vehicles top it off, and to refuel the Meerkat mining lander I also sent up. With that, Arkangel will be capable of resupplying itself until the lander's reactor runs out of uranium.

 

 

Urium Surveyor 1 was launched and sent on its way. It will arrive in 17 years. Like Neidon Surveyor, I expect it will be overtaken by craft with high-end drive systems, but given the relatively low expense, I figured why not launch it anyway.

 

I'm also going to send a com-sat with a reflector dish, because I suspect the on-board comms of the Surveyor series probes aren't going to cut it over such a long distance.

Sarnus window in 20 days.

[RedDwarfIV]

As planned, the Long-Range Communications Satellite, designated Odin. I launched two of these, one to Urium, the other to Sarnus.

These satellites have a plasma drive, Garnet 1.25m nuclear reactor, Nautilus solar arrays, and a fold-out robotic arm for deploying a giant reflector.  Odins will serve as comm relays in the outer system, helping keep other craft in contact with KSC even when line-of-sight to Kerbin is blocked. With the exploration ships being years away from Kerbin, the ability to transmit science home will be paramount.

 

Endeavour, the second mission to Duna, returns to Kerbin.

 

In order to recover the crew and research data, I sent up another Wizard SSTO, with the wings moved a bit further forward. This seemed to solve its issue of pitching irretrievably nose-down after using all its fuel.

 

Another highly profitable venture! 

 

Tarasque starts work on something new. Another surprise.

 

Valkyrie, Arkangel and one of the Odin LDCRs all started their burns for Sarnus. The latter two were able to complete the maneuvers in two orbits, while Valkyrie required three.

 

Science gathered around Kerbin is no longer worth very much to recover, but provides data for the on-board research lab. Gilus and Seeuki at least will have plenty to occupy them on the journey. The vessel's pilot and engineer, not so much. I'm sure there's a Skrabble set in the hab somewhere, and they can play I Spy with the space telescopes.

 

The last burns are particularly long, leaving the vessels' engines still running long after Kerbin has started receding into the rear-view mirror.

 

Valkyrie happened to intercept the Mun's SoI on its way out, allowing it to collect some extra data high above several biomes.

 

 

The next alarms on the list are 56 days away, when Valkyrie, Arkangel and the Odin relay Sarnus Voyager all make their inclination burns to intercept the gas giant. After that, they face a six year journey out.

Tarasque Station's latest project will have finished kit construction in 80 days. After that, it will take about the same to turn into a vessel. That should give me plenty of time to prepare for the project's completion. Minmus will need some new infrastructure shipped in from Kerbin.

Edited March 5 by RedDwarfIV

[RedDwarfIV]

So, it turns out there's no Helium 3 on Minmus. None whatsoever! Which presents a problem in that all my infrastructure is around Minmus, not the Mun. The project Tarasque is working on  requires Helium 3. So I will either have to pay through the nose to lift Helium 3 from Kerbin, or start putting some new infrastructure around the Mun.

Here's how that went:

This is the Reaper Mining Rover. I did try launching it from Kerbin, but the tracks broke immediately for no apparent reason, and even the cheat panel couldn't fix them. Once they're broke, they're broke.

 

I aimed to land in the spot of highest concentration. It's 80% here.

 

Veery Kerman inspects the mining equipment. All good!

 

Mining operations have commenced. The Reaper harvests He3 at a rate of 0.1 units per second. 

 

Next up, putting a transfer station around the Mun for storing He3, ready for transport elsewhere, and making a lander for shipping He3 from the rover up to the station.

[RedDwarfIV]

I'm not gonna do half-measures. The transfer station will have a substantial habitation capability, along with a large amount of tankage for He3, LH2, and LFO. That way it will be able to service all the needs of a fusion-drive spacecraft... except for deuterium, which can't be mined on the Mun anyway. That will have to be lifted from Kerbin, but it's so much cheaper than He3 that I'm not too bothered about it.

 

Rather than send Asgard 2 interplanetary as previously intended, I decided to bring the MaterialKits and what SpecialisedParts had been loaded on it back to Kerbin orbit, to be transferred to Mirage.

The size of the kit is deceptive. Sometimes Global Construction just does this, making the kit way bigger than the vessel inside.

 

While that was being worked on, the inclination burns for Valkyrie and Arkangel came up.

I'm quite sad that PersistentThrust isn't compatible with the current version of KSP. BetterTimeWarp is good enough for small craft with low-thrust engines, but even stock PhysicsWarp had Valkyrie wobbling about. I had to have the 4 minute burn happen in real-time.

[Pipcard]

I am using Extraplanetary Launchpads instead of Global Construction in my MKS playthrough, but how do you make sure that everything will line up (e.g. flex-o-tubes) before you start building something on the ground from Material Kits and Specialized Parts?

Edited March 29 by Pipcard

[JadeOfMaar]

On 3/29/2024 at 3:52 PM, Pipcard said:

how do you make sure that everything will line up (e.g. flex-o-tubes)

Keep a supply of survey stakes and use a single one, or a pair, and their direction functionality to control the position and heading of the segment you want to spawn. The position of the root part and the orientation of the ship editor you built the particular craft in are to be fully minded.

[RedDwarfIV]

So, uh, nearly 3 months since my last upload. Helldivers 2 came out, and I was playing that instead. Having worn myself out of it, I return to KSP, where there is much still to be explored.

 

We begin with the Odin comsat bound for Sarnus, which carried out its inclination burn, followed by an adjustment that lowered the periapsis at Sarnus to a mere million meters.

 

Before doing anything important, I decided to deal with some of the junk in Kerbin orbit, landing a few of the boosters for the sweet sweet cash. Minus the one that lost its engines and airbrakes on descent, and subsequently blew up when it reached the ground. Not getting a refund on that one.

 

Now we return to the meat of our space program - that thing Mirage was working on. It's finally ready for deployment!

Ta-daa! This is Elysium Station. Since I couldn't build it in Mun orbit, the engines will get it there before being dismantled.

 

I took the opportunity to transfer the last of the MaterialKits and SpecialisedParts from Asgard 2 to Mirage, before sending it back to Minmus.

 

I also decided it was high time I dealt with a persistent problem the station had been having - the way it would start shimmying and then shake itself apart. This was due to clipped parts, an odd distribution of mass, and it's having so many modules docked together. Since the LH2 tanks were empty, and I actually have very little intention of using them, I decided to dismantle that section. Not before moving a Fission Fragment storage unit over and transferring everything of value, though.

Phase 2 of this project involved taking the Senior Docking Port from the now removed LH2 storage to the Cupola, which would become the new centreline of the station. Moved the adaptor and Junior Docking port over to the habitat - waste not, want not.

At this point, I detached the Asgard 2, as it would only get in the way of the reconfiguration.

I first had to detach the station core and move it over to the Cupola docking port, which was finnicky (limited SAS and off-centre RCS) but didn't take too long. The really hard part was separating from the reactor module, and moving the entire station in order to dock it to a different port. Now that it is no longer on the end of a long arm, it is more structurally secure. According to the on board dosimeters, the new radiation levels in the spin ring were "not great, but not horrifying."

 

With work on Mirage complete and Elysium launched, Asgard 2 carried out its burn to return to the minty iceball.

 

As for Elysium, it would need fuel to reach the Mun. As there happened to be an Olympus FTV-L in Kerbin orbit with a bit left, I docked that before deorbiting it.

Annoyingly, some silly sod had forgotten the difference between an FTV-L and a standard FTV, and hadn't labelled the tanker properly. I launched one, thinking it would do the job of filling Elysium's tanks quite nicely, only to find that it could barely provide anything at all. Certainly nothing worth the cost of launch, and now there's just a giant ship full of liquid fuel circling Kerbin.

Since I at least knew what a Manticore was capable of, I sent one of those up next. That brought Elysium's delta-V up to 1,500 m/s, plenty to reach the Mun and brake into a low orbit.

 

And finally, I sent up a custom resupply vehicle, carrying Fertiliser and MaterialKits. The station would need the former to grow food, and the later to deploy its spinning habitat. Neither are really required for it to serve as an orbiting fuel depot, but I couldn't be certain it would never need to serve as something more than that. If nothing else, Kelpie Station was now woefully insufficient for my space program's needs. 

 

 

Fully stocked, Elysium was off to the Mun.

It slid into the same 50km equatorial orbit as Kelpie, low enough to be quickly reachable from the Mun's surface, but high enough to allow for easier plane changes. The Reaper He3 harvester landed quite a ways from the equator, so any lander bringing the precious fuel to orbit would find that extra leeway useful.

 

Since being deployed, Reaper had been carrying out its mission quite effectively.

 

As for the lander design... I had two options in mind. One would take advantage of Elysium's substantial LFO storage, using conventional engines to lift the payload... but this would require setting up a mining base on the Mun. While that could pay off down the line, as any exploration ships receiving He3 at the Mun would surely need it for their lander craft, or if I chose to use tankers to move the He3 to Kerbin orbit it would be cheaper in the long run to have a mining operation than to refuel them from Kerbin every time... there was an alternative.

Option 2:

The proposed Camel lander would use a single Nuclear Salt-Water Rocket for thrust. While this would be a terrible option on Kerbin, the dangers of irradiating the Mun were less worrisome. With only a small measure of fuel, it could obtain obscene amounts of delta-V. Even fully loaded, the Camel would have 15,000 m/s to play with. It could operate effectively independent of infrastructure.

On the other hand, it's probably not the safest option for Reaper's crew. What do you think I should go with?

[RedDwarfIV]

In the end, I decided not nuking the Mun was the better part of valor. Besides, what's the point in building giant tanker ships like Antelope if I can't use them to carry fuel from Minmus to the Mun?  So I decided to go with a conventional kerolox powered design. Cheap and cheerful! And to be honest, it's not like we'll be needing so much He3 that a single chemical engined transport would put a massive strain on logistics.

 

Presenting the Hyena  He3 FTV!

 

It made a stopover at Elysium to refill the tanks, before making its first descent.

Oops. Front landing gear was destoyed, despite a fairly gentle touchdown. I'd mounted it at an unusual angle because I liked the aesthetics, but apparently it's rather less functional when you do that.

Reaper drove up to the Hyena, and a significant problem became apparent. The transport carried a transfer hose, but the mining rover had nowhere to attach it. I had included spare attachment points on the Hyena, but there was no engineer present to move it across. 

 

This would be quite annoying, but for the fact that this, the landing gear, and Reaper's lack of life support recycling capability could all be solved in a single mission. I would just need to send out an engineer, a new nose gear, and a recyling unit. The engineer could install those parts at the same time as they move the transfer port over.  Extra Supplies could be brought along too.

 

On a side note, I noticed Mirage station was completely out of Fertiliser. It was in no danger of the crew starving, they had over 150 days of supplies remaining, but a resupply vehicle would need to be a priority. That'll be the next launch. After that, a tug to move docking kits from the on-board kit production facility to a docking port for construction.

I'm also going to need to install an extra module to Elysium, which would include a smaller docking port. Clearly the Hyena can't keep docking near the command deck, it'll interfere with the habitat after deployment. If I attach the module to the other end, it'll have the bonus of being near the He3 tanks, which seems more realistic.

Edited June 3 by RedDwarfIV

[RedDwarfIV]

The first mission I carried out brought a container with 8,000 units of Fertiliser up to Mirage Station.  Pretty routine operation, wasn't worth screenshotting.

Next I sent up the repair mission. Two engineers on board, for reasons that will become apparent later.

 

In order to replace the Hyena's nose gear, I used its powerful RCS to lift it to a vertical position, then had one of the engineers jet pack up with the replacement part. I chose a conventional spaceplane landing gear for this role. Even if the lander wouldn't be rolling anywhere, I knew the suspension would do the job.

 

That done, my Kerbonaut set about moving various refuelling ports and hoses, so that Supplies could be transferred to the Reaper and He3 to the Hyena. A pair of single-Kerbal life support recyclers were removed from the lander and attached to the mining rover. At only 60% efficiency, the were by no means the most effective possible option, but they were lightweight. I couldn't guarantee that two engineers could life the 3 ton module with higher efficiency, and there would have been no good place to install it in any case.

 

Primary mission completed, the lander launched and rendezvoused with Elysium station, where the Kerbonauts deployed the habitat. Crucially, this required two Kerbals to perform.

 

Secondary mission completed, they headed back to Kerbin.

 

You may have noticed, the lander was not capable of reentry, and the mission had not included a descent capsule. That's because the crew's final destination wasn't to be the ground, but Mirage Station. After transferring the Kerbals stationside, the lander was deorbited. Designed for a single use, therewas no point keeping it around. Though in hindsight, it might have been better to scrap it for MaterialKits than to let it burn in the atmosphere. Oh well.

 

 

 

Meanwhile in a simulation that definitely didn't happen

[RedDwarfIV]

In service of moving a docking port to the other end of Elysium station, I launched this:

 

Featuring four deuterium tanks and a container for Supplies, this module would greatly enhance the station's utility as a fuel depot for outbound interplanetary vessels. One slight problem... the only docking port I put on it was on the tug, not the module itself. Annoying, but certainly something that could be fixed later so long as I could get an engineer on site. In the meantime, I'll just keep the tug attached.

I must say, I quite liked how it looked from certain angles, and might replicate it for an interplanetary vessel.

 

For a change of pace, I decided not to do anything for the 12 days until Phoenix Station arrived at Duna, and instead skipped straight to it.

 

This completed a mission contract worth 800k VF, which is almost certainly less than I spent building the thing, but it's still useful infrastructure.

Funny story, the NSWR engine still has 3,000 m/s d/v left. I could totally send this thing back to Kerbin when the crew need to go home. Which, uh... kinda makes this not quite a station, doesn't it?

 

30 days until Antelope enters Duna's SoI. My next move will be giving Mirage its tug, and possibly building a small He3 transport. Only needs to carry enough to get fusion drive vessels from Minmus to the Mun. Also gonna want some sort of dueterium collector. I think there was some floating around near the Mun, so that might be the easiest way to get it. Otherwise I'd be shipping it all up from Kerbin. It may not be as expensive as He3, but if nothing else the tanks are pretty awkward and limited in size.

Edited June 5 by RedDwarfIV

[RedDwarfIV]

Okay, so I've learned that Deuterium cannot be found in space. The atmosphere of gas giants, yes, the oceans of planets and moons, yes, but not space. I will have no choice but to lift it from Kerbin's surface to fuel my first fusion-powered interplanetary vessels. What is in space, is antimatter and bog-standard hydrogen.  Both are worth collecting. It would be quite useful if there were high concentrations of the latter around the Mun, because then Elsyium Station could be modified to capture it. I've certainly had no luck producing the stuff from Ore, what with the option bugging out and telling me that near-empty LH2 tanks are full.

Well... frick. There goes that plan.

 

Before we figure out what to do about the LH2 situation, I promised to put a tug on Mirage. Quick and easy job, simple design. No weird fuels and oddly positioned engines, just some good RCS and a strong reaction wheel. It's docked just below the kit factory, the best possible position for it. Tested it out with a dockable kit and it worked perfectly. So perfectly, in fact, that I'll be making it standard for all orbital construction facilities, as saoon as they're free to build one.

 

After surveying the Mun, I sent the Zroni Dust Observatory to Minmus to search for resources there.

...oh dear.

Well, a quick read of the Space Dust thread on this very forum said that it can take time for the sensors to find anything, so maybe if I leave them running, they'll eventually come up with something. 

 

One of my other contracts involves tourists, one of whom is scheduled for a trip to Duna's surface. For that, we'll need a lander, and Phoenix 2 didn't bring one. So we'll be taking Phoenix 1's.

 

It may not be clear in the image, but there's a suspicious looking dust storm down there. It stretches from pole to pole and covers an absolutely huge area of the planet. Better go a bit further along our orbit before starting descent.

 

This looks clear enough!

 

Quartermaster Seepond Kerman rode along on this trip, to give him a bit of extra experience. I have no idea if that translates to more effective quartermastering or not.

 

Not a lot of data was collected, but the extra money is nice.

 

And they're safely back to their home away from home.

 

Several days later,  Antelope arrived at Duna. Since it still had 14,000 m/s of delta-V, I figured it'd be a better plan to have it stop in LDO to fill Phoenix 2's storage tank before going on to Ike, than to go straight to Ike and send a conventional tanker down to Duna. That'd be a massive waste of LFO, and I don't have a fuel refinery in the Duna system yet. Or rather, none I actually intend to use. Phoenix 2 has an ISRU unit as required by the contract, but with Ike around I see zero reason to lift ore or fuel off the surface of the orange planet.

While I didn't screenshot it, after Antelope had finished fuelling Phoenix 2, it left the rover behind to dock with the station. I now have the happy situation where the fully fuelled lander can support a rover mission to the surface. There's no risk of anyone getting trapped down there, and running out of supplies.

 

The great bottleneck is opened! For over a year, Leviathan has been sitting in orbit doing nothing but watch the grey surface go by, its engineering crew resigned to tending the hydroponics garden or playing board games in the spin hab. With access to plenty of LFO, the Skycrane can do its job, and tugs can move kits about. It's just generally quite useful.

 

The Basilisk cargo vessel followed Antelope's lead, except for the part where it would head straight for Ike.

MaterialKits and SpecialisedParts and Machinery, oh my! As much as could possibly be needed to set up a base that could produce these things on Ike's surface, which would in turn permit the construction of larger bases. Eventually leading to the ultimate goal of shifting Leviathan to Duna to support the development of our first extraplanetary colony.

 

The next alarm I have set is for Urium Surveyor, carrying out an adjustment burn. Its a ways off. There are two projects currently under construction at Mirage and Tarasque. The first is due to complete in 20 days, the other in 24, assuming it doesn't bug out and act like no work was done. It does that sometimes.

 

 

Edited June 7 by RedDwarfIV

[Kerbalsaurus]

3 hours ago, RedDwarfIV said:

Okay, so I've learned that Deuterium cannot be found in space. The atmosphere of gas giants, yes, the oceans of planets and moons, yes, but not space. I will have no choice but to lift it from Kerbin's surface to fuel my first fusion-powered interplanetary vessels.

Moar boosters! But in all seriousness, couldn’t you possibly establish a new colony on Laythe? Sure, it’s far and expensive, but it may pay out in the long run. If you have OPM, Laythe maybe also be a good staging point for missions to Sarnus and beyond.

[RedDwarfIV]

8 hours ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

Moar boosters! But in all seriousness, couldn’t you possibly establish a new colony on Laythe? Sure, it’s far and expensive, but it may pay out in the long run. If you have OPM, Laythe maybe also be a good staging point for missions to Sarnus and beyond.

True, but that's why I specified my first fusion drive vessels would have to be fuelled from Kerbin.

A colony on Laythe is a high priority, but the Jool system hasn't even been fully surveyed yet. My science ship is still en route.

I'll get round to it eventually.

[RedDwarfIV]

Oops

Edited June 7 by RedDwarfIV

[TwoCalories]

14 hours ago, Kerbalsaurus said:

Moar boosters! But in all seriousness, couldn’t you possibly establish a new colony on Laythe? Sure, it’s far and expensive, but it may pay out in the long run. If you have OPM, Laythe maybe also be a good staging point for missions to Sarnus and beyond.

I think Vall or Bop/Pol are better for refueling moons, because the lower gravity and no atmosphere and whatnot. But I've never even gone interplanetary yet with 950 hours in the game, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

[RedDwarfIV]

3 minutes ago, TwoCalories said:

I think Vall or Bop/Pol are better for refueling moons, because the lower gravity and no atmosphere and whatnot. But I've never even gone interplanetary yet with 950 hours in the game, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

They're fine for LFO (if a bit out of the way) but you won't get deuterium there.

Personally I prefer Vall. It's well positioned and the gravity isn't too high.

[RedDwarfIV]

So, yeah, Global Construction bugged out again and Tarasque's project won't be launched for another 60 days. As for Mirage, 20 days was for the kit fabrication, not total construction time. It will be done in 26 days. The problem is that while GC has a countdown to completion, it doesn't seem to track progess unless you're actually focused on the station or ship doing the building. You can't have anything produced in parallel. I think the best I can hope for is that, as my space program goes on, I will have an increasing number of highly experienced Engineers to assign to the construction jobs.

Kit deployed. For some reason, they're much larger than the vessel they're actually building.

 

Ran out of MaterialKits, had to send up a resupply. I really need to figure out WOLF so I can feed some real manufacturing capability on Minmus. Wyvern 2 is still too slow, and it can't even produce all its products at the same time without going into the red.

 

With the extra resources, Mirage completed construction of Kerbin's answer to Elysium - Valhalla Station. This things is immense, massing around 1,700 tons dry. It features a Bussard ramscoop for collecting hydrogen and antimatter, extensive living quarters for personell waiting to be assigned to an interplanetary vessel, and an ungodly amount of fuel storage.

 

In order to move it to its desired orbit, I sent up a tug with a Colossus Magneto-Plasmadynamic Drive. It could make use of Valhalla's existing solar arrays and pair of nuclear plants to gradually push the station to an ever higher altitude. Not quickly, but the small package contained 1,600 m/s of delta-V and added very little mass. It would also be reusable if I ever have anything else in need of being pushed around.

 

At an altitide of 590km, the station was parked at Kerbin's inner antimatter shell. This shell was half the density of the outer one, but much more accessible to spacecraft coming and going from Kerbin. There are likely better places in the system to aquire antimatter, so this was never going to be my primary means of gathering that fuel anyway. 

Density of hydrogen was 8.6e-13 u/something, wheras out at Minmus' altitude Zroni Dust Observatory found it to be just 5.9e-13. So it looks like it gets thinner the further away you go from the planet. Another reason to stay at the inner antimatter shell. After two days, I was able to confirm that the ramscoop was successfully gathering resources. It was doing so so slowly, however, that I doubt this will ever be my main way of getting this stuff. They're just too thinly spread out. I think I'll have to design a cloudscooping craft for gas giant diving if I want substantial quantities in a reasonable timeframe.