Project BABYLON

[paleorob]

So much invested in defense and arms here, yet almost nothing in the science/exploration end of things...

[Nullspace250]

I can put bases or anything on Laythe,i just not very experienced on Docking

The fighers or interceptors? I can make them,and the motherships youldn't be that hard

Good luck doing this!

[Tada]

paleorob: Well, it is, but it is not so obvious Damkina class mothership is primary a research vessel capable of going anywhere (not sure with Moho, but with drop-tanks it would!) carrying probes and landers... And also most of the scientific stuff I have already developed prior to start of this project, so there is little need to developing it again - but I´ve contacted some very good constructors to develop low gravity world landers and we´ve already established stations over Vall and Pol to support future mining and exploration ventures.

So what to expect in next save file relase (in 24 hours I hope)?

I brought online the MCLEC Essex, first of the XC-305 series (and maybe last, since XC-700B seems to be way superior).

In orbit - note lack of solar pannels and 2 xenon tanks on nose:

Quick response ammo carrier on way!

Astrodroid hard at work!

llamotoes also launched and established stations on Vall and Pol - Emmerald and Gamma.

And I ask - what payload should we take to Laythe first?

[brobel]

It would be realy cool to have some Rovers to start out on laythe (since there usualy pretty light we could take like 4 and drop them all over laythe or other moons)

[Temstar]

So much invested in defense and arms here, yet almost nothing in the science/exploration end of things...

And I ask - what payload should we take to Laythe first?

That's always been a concern of my regarding this project from the start. Seems too... Macross?

Anyway to get a more colonising feel I have to suggest the colony idea again. How about we send 134 people to Laythe:

[Tada]

brobel: rovers are kinda problematic stuff on Laythe, I had very bad experience with theme there. Also dropping them on dry land is difficult... For rover scouting I´ve prepared small UAV airplane to be carried on mothership.

Temstar: Just a quick math here - 134 people to surface of Laythe with would take 72 sorties of my current Laythe approved SSTO. One flight would take 550 units of liquid fuel when being extra efficient, that means 39600 units of liquid fuel. One tanker can bring about 2880 units of liquid fuel to Laythe orbit, that means about 14 tankers worth of fuel... Oh man... Unless you´ll be willing to flight those 14 tankers to Laythe I don´t think that will happend

I mostly consider for first payload to be delivered to Laythe the gigant antenna array from Temstar, to would be so cool... Or bunch of low gravity landers for Vall and Pol stations. Landers would be pretty easy and straight forward mission, that can be handled just just 2 more extra lanunches of the landers and docking them to Damkina. That gigant array would be much more difficult and I think that DCMS Ark Royal would need few droptanks to pack extra fuel...

Second run I would like to bring 2 SSTOs for possible surface operations and some fuel to Saphire (both DCMS Ark Royal and MCLEC Essex will refuel immidieatly after arrival to Laythe taking I think all it´s fuel...)... Essex will stay in Jool system for a better part of its planned service life. Previously I thought, that standard operating procedure would be, that Damkina Class ships would be always accompanied by cruiser on transfer to Laythe, but we cannot afford burning that much fuel and on escape trajectory the ships are safe from almost any attack (even from the dreaded and legendary space mine!). But that might change...

[Temstar]

No no, I'm not proposing to land all 134 colonist, I'm proposing the following stages:

1. Get the space colony with its 134 passengers to Laythe

2. Get some surface colony stuff setup

3. Drop half of the colonist down to the surface colony

To drop the people down we don't need SSTO, just one way landing pods that can land say 8 people at a time in two hitchhiker tanks. Each of these landing crafts will only need a tiny amount of fuel and two R24-77 radial engines for the small deorbit burn and then land on parachutes + landing legs. Rovers can then drive out to meet them and drive them back to the surface colony being setup.

So each of these landing crafts will probably be around 8 tons (5 tons of which are hitchhiker tanks) and 9 will be used to land 72 people on the surface. Alternatively if we wait for Kerbal seats in 0.20 we can probably drop even more colonists in one load by building our own "home built" tightly packed non-pressurised passenger module.

SSTOs are only needed if we need to actually send someone UP to orbit.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Temstar

[Brotoro]

If you just want to drop colonists onto Laythe, you don't need an SSTO. Just give each of those 4-kerbal pods some parachutes, a probe core, a few solar panels, and a retro pack. Bring a few extras to test out exactly how far ahead of target to do the retro burn, then drop 'em at will.

Edit: Temstar got there first.

[brobel]

Yea this wont help the point in that we are doing to much military (we put safety first here at project babylon and our laythe operation will have the finest in defence weaponry)

But good news i made a launch stage for the frigate and even better it leaves the frigate fuel almost untouched (uses like 500 of the frigate fuel which im pretty sure one calf could refuel )and to see side tanks look at the side of the frigate i moved the armor so you can easily click on them and top you can see from top or bottom of ship.

Do the gravity turn when the side tanks run out. when out of the medium blue atmosphere zone turn on nervas (optional but recommended). when your orbit is the way you want it drop the last 2 boosters and you are ready to leave to laythe .Use as much RCS as you want the boosters hold A LOT.

Key bindings

1=comunications

2=solar panels

Craft file:http://www./?y62tjm1v6m62fe0

put craft file in SPH

I think colony idea is good but think we should keep kerbal count down to like 30-40 or even less

[Fractal_UK]

Getting lots of people to Laythe just requires something really big to push a large colony ship. To resupply my operations at Laythe, I've developed a supertanker and variants. The latest version is here:

It's built in 2 sections and carries around 15 orange tanks worth of fuel. Not all of that can be lifted into orbit in one go, in fact, upon launch, you'll be lucky to get into orbit with 4 full orange tanks worth remaining so significant refueling at LKO with other tankers is needed.

Here it is tanking up.

The latest version is designed to decouple its atomic rockets upon arrival and convert itself into a space station - it has 13 free docking ports so expandability is only limited by your computer hardware. The atomic rocket section of the design features housing for 24 Kerbals, plus the command module. Both sections are also capable of being flown independently without Kerbal intervention.

The design is an evolution of this model, pictured aerobraking at Jool:

This model successfully delivered both colony payload and around 50,000 units of fuel to Laythe Orbit. Continuous burn time is over 3 hours but it needs to be because this thing is no speed demon. ÃŽâ€V has not been calculated exactly but rough estimates suggest it's around 12,000.

I'd be happy to provide .craft files if you're interested in making use of them for your project.

[yutixfiddle]

I'm pretty much a master of this game. I can help with basically any of the jobs. If you need me, I can be an "Advisor", or backup person because I'm good with anything in this game. Docking, contructing VTOLS, Jet fighters, Stations, Probes, basically anything except for SSTO's. I can't do SSTO's. They're my only weakness.

[ROFLCopter64bit]

Wait; has anyone used my space station yet?

And I would like to work on Hedgehog. Does it have to be a particular size?

[Temstar]

So this is what I propose.

First we launch this into LKO:

Fill it with 134 crew, either on the ground before launch or afterwards via ships going up, depending on how realistic we want to do this. Personally I have a lot of confidence in the launch vehicle so I feel comfortable enough to load the space colony on the surface.

Next we launch this space only booster:

Planetary Manoeuvring Engine Colossus. Basically a PME Zeus stretched by adding a 6400L tank.

We dock the two together, refuel it and it's ready to go to Laythe. The resulting ship is 187.486 tons, 60 tons of which is fuel. The ship is about 300 parts.

Using Tsiolkovsky rocket equation:

delta-V = Ve * ln(187.486/127.486)

delta-V = 800 * 9.81 * 0.3857

delta-V = 3026.95m/s

So that should be plenty to reach Laythe. TRW when fully fuelled is 0.23, which is pretty low but should be workable. Upon entering Jool I say we then suck all the remaining fuel out of Colossus and put it into the colony, then undock the Colossus and crash it into Jool to make the rest of the ship more manoeuvrable.

[Captain_Party]

I would love to join your jolly little interplanetary romp, I am quite experienced with jet fighters and I can make very versatile dropships, if you would accept me, I would be a great asset, I have a company called The Ministry of Space, check there for ships you want to use.

[Tada]

Brobel: I would need it without mechjeb, thank you!

ROFLCopter64bit: Well, I used it Construction of "Hedgehog" is underway via a 3rd party contractor...

Temstar: I´ll take it into the consideration, but still we´re miles away from beginning our surface operations.

yutixfiddle: Keep eye on the topic, there I´ll post missions for which you can volunteer to fly.

Captain_Party: A jet dropship capable of flying to Laythe on its ascent stage and then re-entering and flying under jets would by nice.

Important notice:

I might be bit late on relasing new save - general lack of time. I will try to relase on sunday. But work is not stopping, I´ve tested many crafts, new save will include fully loaded Marduk cruiser, gigant ComLink array in keo-stationary orbit, 2 new orbital stations round Vall and Pol, new crafts for testing.

Testing news:

I´ve just tested new XC-701B cruiser from donlokiman and it will propably become new ship in our use. After minor modifications will be made. As first operational units will come online old X-305 type MCLEC ships (currenlty 1 in operational use) will be phased out of service.

Also I´m testing a variant of airplane that might become Swallow class atmo-fighter - it is altered ARX-3 Vulture SSTO - I swapped ASAS for avionics and it flies much better now.

Edited May 11, 2013 by Tada

[Tada]

Quick heads up what to expect in 24h in new save file:

I´ve decided, that DCMS Ark Royal will push this gigant communication array in orbit above Laythe. Is it doable? Well I did some math - engines will require 6.19 units of liquid fuel every second, there is 6800 units of the stuff onboard, which gives burn time just about 18 minutes. It takes aproximate of 11m30s-12m to get Jool intercept. In other words, in this configuration ship should have 3200m/s of dV is it enough to reach stable orbit 100km above Laythe...? Or hould we pack more fuel?

Well, you´ll be able to find for yourself!

JOB OPENING:

Chief scientiest in charge of

- scientific development (landers, probes...)

- creating schedule for scientific equipment delivery to Jool system

Edited May 12, 2013 by Tada

[ROFLCopter64bit]

I'm taking probes.

[brobel]

Tada you should make a post telling us what we need developed what has been chosen for the design has been chosen for the certain class and post up new classes that have been thought of as we went like the grubs and my frigate the small landers the giant communication arrays and so on. This way every one knows what they should be trying to make and what we still need. We should also put what each craft will be doing (its job) which is kinda talked about on the first page but it would be nice to get an update with the new ships and jobs and decisions we have made during this project.

[Tada]

I ´m trying as I can. :-)

From ships listed in first post we ´re missing "ant-hill" colony ship and "crane" dropship.

Hedgehog is being developed, as is swallow and candle of babylon...

[Holo]

I'm a Probe Engineer, so if any probes need making I can do so.

[Comrade Jenkens]

How good is the XC-701 for carrying larger vehicles like manned rovers, i'm also looking for a good carrier / combat ship. Also has it been mission tested as my own main ship hasn't been and i need somthing with a proven record.

[Tada]

Never tried... I´m waiting till XC-701B variant modified according to my specs is aviable... I never considered it an cargo ship, but I´ll propably use it to bring some SSTOs.

I almost finnished trials of my "Swallow" fighter - cracking problem of reusable fighter which will be able to operate on Laythe, refuel and re-arm was very quite challenging, but I think I finaly cracked it.

We´ll have to pick a spot for airstrip

[paleorob]

As a IRL scientist I'd volunteer my efforts for anything sciencey.

[ROFLCopter64bit]

As a IRL scientist I'd volunteer my efforts for anything sciencey.

I can provide Sciency Thingsâ„¢ for use. Such as equations and things.

[Tada]

Ok, I will sum up something, whyt we´ll do next and I´ll up the save file, finaly

And yes, we do science and stuff...

Edited May 13, 2013 by Tada