How to make a moon base

[CookiezFort]

I am thinking of making a moon base as the space station stuff is hard, I am thinking of making the first part the living quarters and send a rover up there for exploration... What are the basics of making a mun base? I mean if i make a build that i will land on the moon will i be able to find a heavy lifter? i mean a lifter that will lift something heavy

[Johnno]

What aspects of 'space station stuff' do you find hard? What parts of making surface bases do you not understand? And lastly, what do you mean by 'finding' a heavy lifter?

[CookiezFort]

I mean that i am not good in building ships that can lift heavy stuff.... I had seen a link that had premade heavy lifters. Space station stuff mean that i am not good in docking (Even about 10 hours trying to dock the second part of my space station... i will restart the whole second part launch..) For surface bases i do not understand what my stuff should be like+what are the things most needed for a 'base' to actually be a base!...

Anyways my biggest question has to do with rovers! what are the main parts needed (Except tyres and a seat) i have seen others having cool stuff on them! like some weird pipes and stuff

[Shrike42]

Well, since there is no reason (in game) to have a base, your base just needs to be something that looks cool. You'll probably want to start simple, with a hitchhiker pod and some fuel tanks, adding rovers and more 'buildings' as you see fit. You can either try to make a big connected structure through docking, or simply try landing your buildings all in the same area. That can be challenging, so be sure to quicksave your flight before you try to land.

What I'd suggest is that you go into the space plane hanger and make the buildings for your base as you'd want it to look on the ground, and then think about how you'd get it up into space and then back down onto the Mun safely.

If you aren't sure how to make a heavy lifter, then you'll probably want to figure out asparagus staging. For heavy loads, you'll want to use mainsail engines, possibly using the skipper engine for circularizing. Lifters are extensively covered in various tutorials, and once you understand what's going on, you'll be pushing the wildest designs into space.

Docking is another big topic that has been well-covered by others, but I'll try to give a quick summary:

First, get something into orbit, and try to get the periapsis and apoapsis at about the same distance to make your orbit as circular as possible.

I suggest a 160Km orbit, so you don't have to render Kerbin's surface.

After that, get your second ship into orbit, select the thing you want to dock with, and try to get your periapsis aligned in both altitude and location (by burning at the periapsis of the first craft's orbit).

Then get your ascending/descending nodes as close to zero as you can (by burning at the nodes).

Then, since your apoapsis should be slightly higher or lower than that of the other craft, each time the two craft make a complete orbit, they'll get closer or further away from each other, like the hands on a clock.

Once you're within ~10km (closer is better, but make sure you don't crash!), your navball should be set on 'target', which gives you the prograde and retrograde (green circle with a dot, green circle with an x) markers.

What you want to do is burn retrograde when you're close, to slow the ships down relative to each other. When you've gotten that to near 0, you then look for the pink circle with a dot in it and burn towards that dot. That'll move you closer.

Alternate burning retrograde with burning towards the ship you wish to dock with, and switch to RCS once you're within 150 meters. Make sure you drift on in as slow as you can! You'll need to line up the docking ports, and that can be very tricky.

As to what rovers need:

They need wheels, a control module/probe/seat, batteries, and some way of getting more power, either solar panels or reactors. You can add on other bits as well, sensors and such, but for now, just play around on Kerbin to see what works! Use struts to make sure everything is on nice and steady.

Good luck!

[Sᴄɪɴᴛɪʟʟᴀᴛᴏʀ]

Consider downloading the H.O.M.E mod and the Kethane mod, they make base construction a little more worthwhile. Maybe you should watch something like

or

, he starts building a moon-base around episode 10 in that series. Edited June 6, 2013 by Sᴄɪɴᴛɪʟʟᴀᴛ�ʀ