[Showcase] Post your Bases

[Rune]

Well, I let my old save go finally with 1.0. Which means now that my tech is getting back to where it should be, I get to re-build every piece of infrastructure, testing the new delivery methods. Minmus is great, BTW.

Rune. I think once this one is done, I can call it release-ready. Yeah, couple really minor tweaks and it's done, I can't stand that a flag shows upside down.

Edited July 27, 2015 by Rune

[Rune]

Finally here!

It's back! And with a vengeance! Now fully tested to be compliant with 1.04, and with delivery methods (yes, plural) rated for anywhere but Tylo*.

There, a sample basic base. What you can see in the background is the new delivery method, actually, the C.R.A.D.L.E. (Container Rated for Atmospheric Descent and Landing Envelopes). Those babies are the simplest delivery method, and actually deserve the moniker "base in several boxes", to be more precise, because the basic base is divided among three of those. One carries all the crewed spaces (Hab, Lab and Node), another the utility stuff (Fuel Dump and Resource Module), and the final one a buttload of corridor sections (6), plus a construction/science rover. I find it the most convenient for base expansion, if I need more crew space or fuel handling facilities I can pick one of them as it suits me. They have a heatshield (mostly emptied), retrorockets with >1 TWR and >1km/s dV under the maximum load, chutes, and extra RCS to tip over (and do so safely!) even under kerbin gravity on a plain, for module drop. To dispose of them after the cargo is safely horizontal and detached on the ground, you can also use RCS on low-grav worlds, or the extra kick of some separatrons on higher gravity worlds. Make sure to quicksave before trying out, tough, in case kraken!

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Then there is the good 'ol fashioned method of landing each module with a dedicated lander based on an orbital depot. Cheapest by far! In that case, the whole basic base pack can fit inside a shroud, and I have created a very simple and rugged rocketcrane lander to go with it that should handle the job, even on high-ish gravity worlds like Duna (obviously Eve is a one way trip, I advise using disposable CRADLEs). An extensive net of refueling depots is all you would need for this, cleverly using the (refueled) upper stage of the launcher to tug the base around, and keeping the shroud if you plan on aerobraking at your destination. You could also dispose of it and tug it through Sr. ports, of course, it will maintain structural stability. Careful unpacking! It will create some debris that you will have to clean if you are not in an unstable orbit when you do so.

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To assemble it together, if you don't know how yet (perhaps you missed when user Temstar popularized the method for the first time), you basically grab the modules from the bottom with the rover and drag them into a perfect land dock. In theory. In reality, there are a few more considerations:

-Land docking in different gravity regimes is tricky. It can be done, basically because the rover is a rocket VTOL that can take care of the sag of the wheels, and you can also raise gears on the target to increase sag. With some patience you'll get the trick, remember to be gentle and quicksave often.

-Most of the modules can be up-righted if they fall over, especially in low gravities, but doing so is often tricky. Careful! You may end up having to build a wall to push against with other modules, and on high gravity worlds, when a lab module with a spent uprighting mechanism (the legs on the side you can drop with a decoupler) falls over, it is pretty much toast.

-The corridors can drop their legs, in order to reduce part count when the base is assembled. Careful with that, you can move them afterwards with other modules, but if they fall to the ground without legs, they are as good as lost.

-You should have ample power so each module can stay alive, but don't go timewarping at x1000 or something crazy: most of the modules are only battery-powered, and sometimes you need to grab control to open ports and actuate legs and such.

-I put science equipment on the rover. Who knows why, since you literally need almost all the nodes already unlocked to build this thing, but hey, you might be a completionist like me!

-Of course, I give you one fully functional base, but the possibilities for expansion with additional modules are, literally, what you CPU handles. And the pack is a mere 172 parts when fully deployed, so you can push it a lot! Check out what I did in previous versions, with its predecessors:

Boy do I need to get cracking at this base building stuff, that screenie looks old now . Anyhow, perhaps a final word (or two) on delivery methods. The CRADLEs are tested without refueling on a self-delivery to Minmus, and they get there with dV to spare and all upper stages on impact trajectories for a clean straightforward mission with no support. You might have to tap into the fuel of the Fuel Dump+Resource Module CRADLE (designation B2 in the files), but hey, you carry a drill, and that CRADLE ends up with the highest dV if you do so. In fact, the thing can be used as a miner for the other modules, if you are veeery cheeky about it, on extremely low gravity worlds. The possibilities there I leave to the user's imagination. That also means, of course, that Mun is doable (not trip back, remember? And there is a nice margin, plus they can exchange fuel in low munar orbit) without depots or refuelling, as well as Duna and Eve. To go further, or to save a ton of money, I suggest using the Base-In-A-Shroud model and/or SSTOs to put the modules up, and the rocketcrane to deliver them one by one (the corridors can ride on the outside port to save some trips). You will need fuel depots and tugs, but at this point, my advice is probably redundant and you already have your own ideas on how to go about it.

Also, as a bonus, this time I am also giving out quite a few subassemblies to go with the pack (each separate module, the rover, and a couple of corridor packages), so you can build your own custom packages! Plus, I am also including a modded module, in case you want to go that way: a clone for the fuel dump, but with a KIS container instead of fuel, which can house enough equipment to actually store USI life support stuff enough to supply a crew of three with fresh-grown veggies (you can actually see it on the pics, because I use those should-be-stock mods). A module for every need indeed! Free to grab what you want from this, innovate on it, and share the fruits of your labor here with us, I always appreciate a good screenie with a story behind it, be it glory or fail.

So now, I (finally!) leave you with a very confusing album that needs some reorganizing and more pics added to it (on it!), and the juicy juicy downloads. Those Eve surface base contracts won't know what hit them!

IMGUR ALBUM:

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DOWNLOADS:

Base-In-Several-Boxes, crewed modules

Base-In-Several-Boxes, crewed modules

Base-In-Several-Boxes, crewed modules

Base-In-A-Shroud

Base Rocketcrane

Base Subassemblies

Rune. Lego'ing IN SPACE!

*Some refueling/tugging may be required to deliver the packages on transfer trajectories beyond the kerbin system, depending on location and delivery method.

[HafCoJoe]

it's beautiful!

[vestradeus]

My Monstrosity

1952 tons on the launch pad. 630 parts. All stock, no mods loaded at all. Direct shot from launch to Mun in 12 stages.

I do not know why. But...there it is.

Entirely self sustaining. The biggest issue was the little rover that came with it...its kinda small and slow for roving all over the Mun. I need something quicker to go get all my scattered, stranded Kerbals from previous missions.

It has 2 ISRU converters, 2 hitchhiker containers, 2 Mobile Processing Labs, 4 drills, a bunch of ore and fuel storage and 2 big ass engines (along with enough science equip, fuel cells and solar panels to never run out of power) - all as one unit.

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/630853768398321885/C8B364F9C00B0B960FB2EF1E0474C570896F63AE/

http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/630853768398306908/7BA8F0175C8430BE59068A32801940B35ABAFC2E/

[Spartwo]

Nothing too complex, I have to repack it after a few months after all.

[Servo]

I've been developing a system for making bases using KAS/KIS. Basically, there are two ~10 ton payloads, one consisting of two KAS boxes with small objects, and the other with everything else. That, plus a sky crane allows for easy deployment anywhere, and setup/customization is easy.

After landing both modules and the crane, the crew gets to work.

Almost done, though I realized that I forgot a LFO tank.

That will do nicely.

I've used this as a mining base fairly effectively. It can fill up the orange in ~2 days, or get the 3000 ore to fill up my transfer vehicle in about the same amount of time.

[Rune]

I've been developing a system for making bases using KAS/KIS. Basically, there are two ~10 ton payloads, one consisting of two KAS boxes with small objects, and the other with everything else. That, plus a sky crane allows for easy deployment anywhere, and setup/customization is easy.

http://i.imgur.com/L4TZZoW.png

After landing both modules and the crane, the crew gets to work.

http://i.imgur.com/2hPG9Rz.png

Almost done, though I realized that I forgot a LFO tank.

http://i.imgur.com/7gJIMgn.png

That will do nicely.

I've used this as a mining base fairly effectively. It can fill up the orange in ~2 days, or get the 3000 ore to fill up my transfer vehicle in about the same amount of time.

KAS+KIS is awesome. Have you seen my Minmus hydroponics farm?

Rune. If the moon isn't make of snacks, we'll turn it into them!

[Zucal]

Stock.

[michal.don]

Well, it's not much, but it's my first "share-able" base - mining and fuel refining colony located at Minimus flats. Put together on the site by two small moving rovers (you can see them attached to the monopropellant tanks on the left). Next step is building a refueling station in high Kerbin orbit, and a tanker capable of delivering fuel there. And maybe a lab or more living quarters, who knows. What do you think?

http://imgur.com/yonBv1h

Edited September 19, 2015 by michal.don
eh, can't get imgur preview to work......

[CMac]

Hi everybody. So I've been playing KSP off an on since .90, and have been browsing around the forums for a bit longer. Anyway I've decided to sign up to show off my Minmus base. It's not much in comparison to a lot of the cool stuff other people have done, but I'm happy with it. It's really a proof of concept at this point, no docking ports or anything so all it is really good for is mining science, but may lead to something further now that I know it can be safely, if not efficiently, be launched and landed somewhere else. Really I just wanted something pretty, hence the cool blue lights to match Minmus' minty surface. And while I'm at there is also a picture of my Minmus mining operation, definitely more useful, although also likely to be scaled up in future versions.

Edited September 18, 2015 by CMac
So I've realized that I have no idea how to embed an Imgur album on the forums, so I hope people don't mind the individual pics for the time being. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Hobbes Novakoff]

Regarding your edit note: take the code in the URL of the album and do [noparse]

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[/noparse]

[CMac]

Thanks Hobbes, I appreciate it.

[funk]

All-in-One Minmus base designed in career mode with lowest resource abundance, nearly self-sustaining with additional KIS/KAS production by OSE and a sciencelab... expansion planned...

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[panzer1b]

Just something ive been working on recently, the base itself is split up between a fairly large area, due to part count limits and making it feel bigger, but im pretty happy with it.

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My favorite style has become individually dropped building, and vertically stacked designs (as in dropping something ontop of another building). Takes way less time, is easier to move around after the fact, and well, its just way less work then those more conventional horizontal procedural bases that are deployed via rovers.

I still make those bases where you have lots of connectors that are then moved via rovers, but i tend to prefer 1 shot launches for each individual complex/building. My miners are self sustaining, with their own fuel transfer vehicle, ability to land/takeoff alone, and well, ability to maintain a large group of craft fully fueled. Same with weapons installations, all of them are their own self sustained building, that has its own thrusters, can be deorbited, landed, and returned to orbit.

[Slam_Jones]

A couple bases built on Duna:

KSC3 (This was actually the only one launched from Kerbin. It contains modules that allow it to build and launch new vessels from wherever it is. Pics show it in orbit, just after landing, and after setting up camp. I should also point out that everything you see besides the original craft was built in-situ on Duna, using locally-mined resources)

Polar Research Station

Outposts 1-1A && 2-1A

Duna City

[selfish_meme]

Ares 3 Base - see my sig for more

[Slam_Jones]

Duna colony going nicely. Two new additions to the planet:

[Jackvony]

Duna colony going nicely. Two new additions to the planet:

http://i.imgur.com/Lvt3AzV.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/mcMtIUW.jpg

How in Jeb's name did you get that there?!?!?

[Slam_Jones]

How in Jeb's name did you get that there?!?!?

Built it on the spot! Using mining and the Extraplanetary Launchpad mods, I can turn dirt into cities!

The plane/helicopter you can see behind both of them is what built them. It has all the stuff on-board to be able to build. Just mine up some Ore, turn it into Rocket Parts, and choose what to build

[Crampman]

I had some hard times trying to build bases before, tring different methods : assembling with a rover, an hovering crane...

Many disasters later, I gave up.

So, time for a simpler approach : let's assemble the base in LKO !

(This took so much time, that I don't have many screenshots of the actual building in orbit)

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The flying of the base was surprisingly stable, even if I took care to make the modules with a similar mass.

The purpose for the base is to extract ore, make some fuel and use it to refuel the munar station.

So, with the base landed, it's time to get the refuel shuttle, and a little rover to rescue the shuttle if it has to land at some distance to the base.

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Thanks for reading !

[poetter]

Duna colony going nicely. Two new additions to the planet:

http://i.imgur.com/Lvt3AzV.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/mcMtIUW.jpg

Nice one! Can't decide to afford all that work when you can do all the science in a single run. May be it's the base building fun.

@Slam_Jones: Where are these parts from?

[Slam_Jones]

Nice one! Can't decide to afford all that work when you can do all the science in a single run. May be it's the base building fun.

@Slam_Jones: Where are these parts from?

Mainly from the Civilian Population and Stockalike Station Parts Expansion mods. Also Procedural Parts for some of the domes. And I think Near Future Electrical for the larger solar panels (or they might be part of Stockalike Station Parts Expansion as well).

[Bulbashenko]

[Tex_NL]

My Minmus outpost is steadily growing.

[AlextheBodacious]

Aptly named "Mun Base 1," this little outpost is expected to double in size with the arrival of several new modules, including a lab, ISRU, and Ore container.

It features a surface crew recovery pod, a mun-car, a flag, and kerbals.

Its current modules are a command node, a hab, a hub, 2 sets of solar panel modules, a fuel reservoir, and the base of a radio tower.