Ksp From Jool

[redmario14]

I've been thinking about something different to do with KSP, and I thought that it might be fun to, using the orbital construction plugin, operate exclusively from the Jool system, and I'm not allowed to launch flights from anywhere but the Jool system. I have a bunch of mods installed, and I might post screenshots if anyone wants to see them.

Currently, the reason I have as to why the kerbals are trapped in the Jool system is that they built a ship, some sort of colony ship bound for the mun, and it broke the time-space continuum, creating a wormhole that transported it into the Jool system. The only thing I'll be starting with is said colony ship, and I'll try to see if I can find a way to keep myself from running out of parts to build rockets after the initial reserves on the colony ship run out.

(Edit) Here's a picture of the colony ship! It has 21 kerbals, some fuel, rcs, and spare parts to build ships from.

Having big issues with all the orbital construction-izing, I think it's because of some problem with the ship going too fast in orbit of Jool to actually have enough time to dock with anything before it drifts away because it's too fast. I'm going to have to instead start this from one of Jool's moons, I'll have the colony ship orbiting Vall, so I can actually dock the ships that I build together.

(Edit of Edit)

This thread is now an AAR, I got 8 votes to write it as an AAR, and none to write it otherwise., so It's going to have a plot and story of some sort, and I have a link to page four, where the story will start from. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/28966-Ksp-From-Jool/page4

Edited May 16, 2013 by redmario14

[zekes]

ooh like fly from laythe and try to land on kerbin? Interesting....

[redmario14]

ooh like fly from laythe and try to land on kerbin? Interesting....

No, I mean like I have to STAY in the Jool system, I start in orbit around Jool with a colony ship so I have something to start out with, and I do operations on the Jool moons, and maybe even on Jool because I have the airship mod. I can't leave Jool's system though.

[redmario14]

I'm having a bit of trouble trying to dock a probe I built to ferry materials and such around the ship, because as soon as it gets built from the spacedock, it rapidly starts to fly away from the ship, at a speed so fast that it gets kilometers away from the ship in only about half a minute. Does anyone else have this problem? Or is it just that the ship is orbiting faster because it's on a jool orbit?

[Scotius]

I guess you will need Kethane mod installed from the get-go. And what about crew? 21 is not much, unless you F5 before every activity and quickload every time someone dies.

[redmario14]

I guess you will need Kethane mod installed from the get-go. And what about crew? 21 is not much, unless you F5 before every activity and quickload every time someone dies.

Yes, that is exactly what I'm going to do, this is meant to be hard. Every time I lose a kerbal, I'll have one less crew member to fill my ships with. It makes unmanned missions seem a bit more attractive, since they need no kerbals.

[magnemoe]

I'm having a bit of trouble trying to dock a probe I built to ferry materials and such around the ship, because as soon as it gets built from the spacedock, it rapidly starts to fly away from the ship, at a speed so fast that it gets kilometers away from the ship in only about half a minute. Does anyone else have this problem? Or is it just that the ship is orbiting faster because it's on a jool orbit?

The old orbital construction mod had an problem matching orbits, the new updated version does not.

[redmario14]

The old orbital construction mod had an problem matching orbits, the new updated version does not.

I'm using the new one, and no matter what, the object I build the ship with flies away from the built object very quickly. I can't stop it from happening with RCS or engines or anything. I'll try it with a different ship being built, and see if the problem is fixed.

[redmario14]

The old orbital construction mod had an problem matching orbits, the new updated version does not.

Nope, it still won't work. It just throws me far away from my ship, and I keep getting farther away after that.

[magnemoe]

Nope, it still won't work. It just throws me far away from my ship, and I keep getting farther away after that.

Launched some ships to LKO where it work nice, except one ion probe who refused to move from launchpad. Know the old one often sent me on wild orbits. It might depend on how circular the docks orbit is?

[redmario14]

Ok, I fixed all the problems, the only problem I'll eventually end up having now is running out of spare parts. But I have the "Stranded Colony Ship" in orbit around vall, because I was having problems with it parked around Jool, the engine on the ship is broken, so they really are stranded.

(The Stranded Colony Ship, orbiting around Vall)

The first thing I've done is built a small probe and sent it off to get closer to Vall.

(The Vall Explorer 1 Probe, sent to investigate the landscape of the frozen moon.)

It used only it's RCS thrusters to get from the ship to a lower orbit, and still had a bit of RCS left.

Edited May 14, 2013 by redmario14

[wbcundiff]

it seems I saw someone had posted an edit to a config file that would allow a kethane refinery to produce spare parts. I don't use that mod so I don't know much about it but I will see if I can't find it again. you have rocky moons in your scenario, do you have refining/smelting ability on your theoretical colony ship?

also, the wormhole story is a kerbin coverup. what really happened is someone mistook rocket doodles on the mission notes for extra zeros and botched the munar transfer by a several orders of magnitude. oops.

[wbcundiff]

Ok, I fixed all the problems, the only problem I'll eventually end up having now is running out of spare parts.

here's that info. it was posted by CDonkey in a thread about the Orbital Construction Redux Mod.

"just add

MODULE

{

name = KethaneConverter

TargetResource = SpareParts

ConversionEfficiency = 0.2

KethaneConsumption = 10

PowerConsumption = 12

HeatProduction = 800

}

after the normal converters in one of the converter parts and it will convert kethane to spare parts... "

maybe you could tweak the numbers to make the conversion less efficient as if the system they have is improvised and poorly suited for the job.

[sadron]

What's the toroid part?

[redmario14]

here's that info. it was posted by CDonkey in a thread about the Orbital Construction Redux Mod.

"just add

MODULE

{

name = KethaneConverter

TargetResource = SpareParts

ConversionEfficiency = 0.2

KethaneConsumption = 10

PowerConsumption = 12

HeatProduction = 800

}

after the normal converters in one of the converter parts and it will convert kethane to spare parts... "

maybe you could tweak the numbers to make the conversion less efficient as if the system they have is improvised and poorly suited for the job.

To make it less efficient, would I change the efficiency to 0.1 or raise it above 0.2?

[CalculusWarrior]

here's that info. it was posted by CDonkey in a thread about the Orbital Construction Redux Mod.

"just add

MODULE

{

name = KethaneConverter

TargetResource = SpareParts

ConversionEfficiency = 0.2

KethaneConsumption = 10

PowerConsumption = 12

HeatProduction = 800

}

after the normal converters in one of the converter parts and it will convert kethane to spare parts... "

maybe you could tweak the numbers to make the conversion less efficient as if the system they have is improvised and poorly suited for the job.

Ooooh, this is interesting, I'll have a lot of fun converting Kethane into spare parts--I may try something similar to what you're doing, redmario14....

[redmario14]

I've launched three more probes to help the stranded Kerbals explore the strange moon of Vall, and a small RCS powered robot-thing that can be used to move small objects around, or can be sent anywhere it is deemed too dangerous for kerbals to go, which is preferable to killing a kerbal, since I have a limited number of pilots to fly things. I'm not reloading either, once I kill a kerbal, they stay dead, so I'm going to be very cautious about where I send my kerbals.

(The new RCS powered robot docked to the ship)

(One of the Vall Explorer Probes getting ready to get into a lower Vall orbit.)

(Map View showing all four probes orbiting Vall)

[wbcundiff]

To make it less efficient, would I change the efficiency to 0.1 or raise it above 0.2?

My guess would be you would lower the number. I haven't used the Kethane mod at all, so I can only offer you a guess. My thinking is that .2 is a coefficient, so it currently has an efficiency of 20%, .1 would give you 10% efficiency...I think. I'm not sure how you would check this in game.

[sadron]

What is the toroid part, guys?

[redmario14]

What is the toroid part, guys?

Toroid? What do you mean?

[Fyrem]

that is the Living Ring part from the MPSS Nautilus from Bobcat here : http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-1-mpss-nautilus/

[redmario14]

I built a robotic lander that I will use to land on Vall, it's lightweight and has two Kerbal Connection System connector nodes, and I've added a winch module to the ship, and then connected the lander to the winch, as an alternative to docking it. Once the ship is near where I want to land the lander, I'll land it, and post the images along with some information on what happened.

(The Vall Explorer Robotic Lander, floating near the ship, freshly constructed aboard the ship.)

(The new Kerbal Attachment System module, which comes with a winch fitted with a connector, and three disconnectable connector ports that can be applied to anything needing to be connected to the ship if it doesn't have one built in.)

(Jonzer Kerman connecting the lander to the ship with the connector.)

(The Vall Explorer Lander connected to the ship.)

Edited May 15, 2013 by redmario14

[Piggius_Max]

you may have to do this programme by launching from one of jool's many moons if it keeps glitching out...

[redmario14]

you may have to do this programme by launching from one of jool's many moons if it keeps glitching out...

I've found a fix for the problem, so I can continue using the stranded colony ship. I also plan on mining kethane and converting it into spare parts, once my supplies start getting low.

[drvonkitty]

I had a similar idea to use hyperedit to make Kerbin a moon of Jool and then play that way. Of course, I ran into the issue that hyperedit wouldn't actually save the new solar system (although I've heard that it's possible with a recent version). Anyways, cool idea!