Duna Permanent Outpost Mission Architecture Challenge

[Patupi]

I'm not sure that's how the efficiency works Donziboy2. It's more on a per day basis. Remember the recyclers efficiency is how good they are at turning CO2 back into Oxygen. I can't remember how much CO2 each Kerbal produces per day, but basically the efficiency relates to how much extra oxygen you get back from CO2 recyling per day, reducing the Kerbal's Oxygen useage by that much. Base it on the total oxygen content of the tanks and you'd get an exponential life expectancy. Doubling the tankage would only gain you a fixed amount of time rather than doubling the duration. I don't think Kerbals live via half life schedule Even if they do look like they should glow in the dark.

[KeithStone]

Tempting fate, or reverse jinx eh? And I more or less lucked in to the rover balance. I couldn't fit two in a pod without rapid physics deterioration, so I angled it. The mass is SLIGHTLY off center, so the top one is rotated 180 but they land fine. The hardest bit is getting the off the platform once landed without breaking anything.

[Patupi]

I'll bet. Could always strap a few seperatatrons on and parachutes, jetison it after landing *grins* Would be fun to watch!

[Donziboy2]

Sorry Patupi but from what I have seen it takes 1 Oxigen per hour per kerbal and produces 1 carbon dioxide per hour per kerbal. This is how it is explained on the IonCross forum page also.

The small recyclers takes carbon dioxide and produces O2, at a rate of 50%, so 2 Co2 into 1 O2.

There is no flag that says the recycled O2 cant turn into Co2 and then be recycled again.

At one point I tried to base my O2 rations on just halfing the O2 tank supply and soon found that my tanks were lasting far longer then they should with 1 small recycler and 2 Kerbals.

Edited August 21, 2013 by Donziboy2

[Patupi]

Well, yes the o2 is being used again. That is the point. It just means that day you use X*eff of bottled O2 from the recylcer, and the rest from the tanks per day.

I'm at work and didn't want to take the time to search up the Ioncross thread, but sure, 1 O2 per hour, and create 1CO2 per hour. Sounds good. So in one hour with an efficiency at recycling of 50% it would only take 0.5 from tanks, the rest would be taken from the recycler (Yes, I know it goes into the tanks first then is used. I'm saying for simplicity's sake how much is coming from the original O2 tankage)

Hmm, maybe I'm not understanding it if you've tested this out like that. *shrugs*

[KeithStone]

If all else fails you could start a test game, sack i8 kerbals in a couple of cans, then some oxy and a recycler, sit on the launch pad and 10k warp yntil they pass out. That'll show ya how long they last.

[Patupi]

Just as long as you 'launch' it. If it isn't launched it doesn't start using oxygen if I remember right. I found that out during testing. Something that's stable without launch clamps that launches and comes back down, or just put the clamps high up on the stage tree and shut the engines off after hitting space... something like that.

[Donziboy2]

I have 2 test bases on Dina atm and I have 2 small recyclers and an intake, if i turn off the intake my o2 will go down slowely if I turn on the intake it does not go down until the batteries run out just before dawn. The intake gives the extra co2 needed to run both recyclers at full power.

[Patupi]

Oh I realise that part. My base is designed to run indefinitely with the intakes. It was just the ratio of CO2 to O2 that was confusing me. Going by the maths it should be just the efficiency multiplied by the CO2 to give how much LESS oxygen from the tanks than 1 per hour your Kerbals use. Well, I'll have to do some testing when I get home to see if I can figure out what the maths is. It's also possible time warp is messing things up. I thought it was only high time warp that altered the efficiency, but it's possible it's the low end warps too, just a little. *shrugs*

[Donziboy2]

It does seem erratic at times.

Sadly I have not seen much activity on the ioncross page.

I have been on the road since yesterday so I can't do much testing I only use my laptop to building ships it usually cant run 200 part or greater craft.

I will mess with it tonight when I get home.

[TheBobWiley]

Thanks for reminding me about max time warp throwing ioncross off, I bet that is whats happening, I currently have to carry 3 7,500 tanks and the large recycler just for a single trip to and back from Duna with 8 kerbals, this was causing me no end of weight grief. I think im going to use the air intake on duna for my main base, but im still going to attempt for a small amount of contingency o2 in case something goes wrong.

[Patupi]

I used two intakes for my 8 Kerbal base, but it was mainly just safety consciousness. Not sure how many are needed per Kerbal.

Oh, and the first 8 Kerbals on Duna (in my universe anyway) have decided to go on a road trip to 'The Head'.

(EDIT: quick note, done some tests up to warp 6 and seems consistent with 67% eff for the large Recycler)

Project Archimedes.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Patupi

[kookoo_gr]

A small update, i am building some more modules and i am trying to learn how to build and fly SSTO's. One more question since i don't want to make any foul ups in this challenge. Is it ok to use an SSTO in order to refuel my transport ship i have built for Kerbin-Duna-Kerbin trips? Will it be subject to rule 2?

[Speeding Mullet]

Anything other than crew to LKO, no matter how small it is, must be launched with your standard (cargo) lifter. If that lifter happens to be a (fully reusable) SSTO it will be considered a reusable lifter but doesn't get any additional bonus.

So that's a no unfortunately, although it does look to be a loophole for example if the craft is delivering kerbals anyway and has the fuel capacity but I think this statement closed the loophole as fuel is considered as "other than crew".

Edited August 23, 2013 by Speeding Mullet

[Patupi]

Yeah, sorry. As I see it the whole point of this is to limit you to a certain amount of material in orbit per day, depending on your schedule. Any extra launches beyond the payload from your basic launcher, however it's done, would mess that whole point up. Still, you could do the whole Kethane mining on Minmus thing. Though you'd have to have enough fuel to get to Minmus in the first place!

[Speeding Mullet]

I just loaded up to get on with the flights, loaded the ship 6 hours out of Duna, and it disappeared. An hour and a half later I'm still trying to figure out whether it's possible to return Neillorf and Harwise to the game. The ship has even gone from the active flights list so I'm a little bit reluctant to try another one at this point.

Any ideas anyone to recover this? I suppose I could just launch an extra ship at the next window "for free" or declare it lost in space and rewrite my schedule accordingly.

[Raptor831]

I just loaded up to get on with the flights, loaded the ship 6 hours out of Duna, and it disappeared. An hour and a half later I'm still trying to figure out whether it's possible to return Neillorf and Harwise to the game. The ship has even gone from the active flights list so I'm a little bit reluctant to try another one at this point.

Any ideas anyone to recover this? I suppose I could just launch an extra ship at the next window "for free" or declare it lost in space and rewrite my schedule accordingly.

Any game glitches (that is, anything the game itself messes up due to bug or Kraken) I figure is fair game to fix up yourself. If the game eats a ship, I'd believe it fair to HyperEdit it back to the place you need it, with the appropriate fuel used and/or supplies used. It's not like you're trying to cheat at that point!

Also, if you have a previous quicksave you can still load that up, even if it's from a previous session. That might be a pain though, considering how far back it is, and how much you may have to redo. There's always save file editing too, but I'm not smart enough for that. I'd probably bork my save file!

[Death Engineering]

Any game glitches (that is, anything the game itself messes up due to bug or Kraken) I figure is fair game to fix up yourself. If the game eats a ship, I'd believe it fair to HyperEdit it back to the place you need it, with the appropriate fuel used and/or supplies used. It's not like you're trying to cheat at that point!

Also, if you have a previous quicksave you can still load that up, even if it's from a previous session. That might be a pain though, considering how far back it is, and how much you may have to redo. There's always save file editing too, but I'm not smart enough for that. I'd probably bork my save file!

In full disclosure, in my Duna Space Program, Macly turned into smoke while exiting a rover during their long drive to the huge mountain in the north. On the next launch to Duna, another "Macly" stowed away in the Rubbish bin and joined Hudsey later. All supplies were managed as if Macly never left Hudsey's side.

I considered "letting" Macly stay dead, but to die getting out of a rover? Not very Kerbal.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Death Engineering

[Donziboy2]

Your lucky, on my test game one of my Kerbals banged his head on my 13T rover and flipped it three times killing the 3 Kerbals in it... Lucky I saved...

[Speeding Mullet]

I think I'll look into hyperedit for this one. I could cope with rewriting the schedule if it was my fault, but not in this instance. For some reason I never ever remember to quicksave either!

[Patupi]

Bear in mind that a rover moving doesn't trigger the 'autosave' until you stop. I used that a couple of times in my trek across Duna. As long as you quickly exit the game (via the 'x' on the top right! Not via the menu!) then when you load back up you'll be at the last place you stopped your rover. I wanted to keep my quicksave from before I started the trip and all the O2/CO2 testing so used that to be sure.

Oh, and I've changed destination. Not going to the head but to a slightly nearer anomaly a little south east of that. Don't know what it is yet (and don't spoil it! ) but I'll be there soon. I'm about 15 degrees longitude from it at the moment. And if Anwig says 'Are we there yet?' one more time!

[Speeding Mullet]

I won't because I don't know where the anomalies are, been purposefully avoiding that information!

I used hyperedit to recreate my ship that found nullspace. Just performed my first supply landing, and am in the process of deorbiting the DAV's, followed by the land train segments. Will update mission report later on but it was a close call on the supplies due to the aggressive landing plan into a highly interesting location for the base.

[Donziboy2]

So, I decided to launch 8 Kerbals into high Orbit with 25500 O2 and a Large Scrubber.

My math told me I would get an effective 75000 O2 or 390ish days or around 65 O2 per day, and for the first 30 Days it was accurate to within 5%, then I went from time warp 7 to 8 and ran to day 120 the O2 usage per day almost doubled.... So there is definitely something going wrong with max time warp and the O2 Mod.

I used RTG's to make sure I would never run out of power also.

[Patupi]

Yeah, my Habs weren't really designed for a road trip. I have a few batteries, but am short on RTGs. I can hit 36m/s at max speed but it runs out of juice pretty quick. Mechjeb's Rover 'hold speed' helps, but it doesn't seem to work with the version I have. Rather than hold a given speed it just keeps accelerating. Well, it beats holding 'W' down all the time

Oh, and Anwig is getting seriously tired of fixing tires. We've gone through about ten so far on this trip. Serious words about driving skills have been voiced between him and Scott. I have noticed that doing jumps seems paradoxically safer at higher physical warp. I've blown more tires on x1 than on x4... though the thing does tend to slide down hill while driving when on high warp.

(EDIT: updated the Project Archimedes thread now the trip is over )

Edited August 24, 2013 by Patupi

[Patupi]

OK, did a final test at warp 7 and 8 and got some odd results. The CO2 production seems consistent right to warp8, but O2 goes way off. The raw numbers were gaining 0.7 O2 per hour for 8 Kerbals and one large Recycler, and CO2 going down by 8.7 per hour for warp 7. Then O2 going DOWN by 7.7 per hour for 8 Kerbals and one large Recycler and CO2 the same at 8.7 down per hour. Assuming (big assumption I know) that the Kerbals were still using air and producing CO2 at the same rate as normal and it was the recycler that was messing up, this gives:

Large Recycler results

Warp 6 and below: 16 CO2 converted to 11 O2

Warp 7: 16 CO2 converted to 9 O2

Warp 8: 16 CO2 converted to 0.3 O2!

No wonder flights were using a lot of oxygen at high warp! If it is the recycler that's messing up you may as well not carry one if you go to max warp. If you carry a lot of oxygen you can still make the trip of course, but the recycler isn't doing you much good.

Edited August 24, 2013 by Patupi