In the spirit of cooperation and competition

[Nauthy]

Hey, sorry, I haven't had a chance to check out the persistance, been super busy the past couple of days. I'll take a look tonight and let you know if everything's fine, then I'll work on my module. My video for it will go up on Wednesday.

Also, we are probably going to be bumping up the parts limit to 50 or so for the next phase. We have less people and it'll give everyone a chance to put more detail into their builds.

Edit: Got everything working You can learn quite a bit from poking around inside a persistance file, heh.

Edited October 22, 2013 by Nauthy

[Nauthy]

Sorry about the delay, everyone! The video is rendering right now, so it should be up at some point during the night. I'll give everybody a heads up when that's done.

Also, I went through and renamed a bunch of the Kerbals. I've got everyone covered, but I just used your forum name, so if you have any special requests lemme know and I'll get it changed.

[Spyritdragon]

I'll probably send Seelorf to Minmus so im good like this for the stations :-)

[Nauthy]

Check it:

The Kerbal Escape System, can carry all of the Kerbonauts from the Orbital Station back to safety. You guys on the Fuel Depot are kinda screwed

I will post the persistance later today. I want to do a quick redesign first, but it won't be too different from the current, so I figured there's no need to record another video for it. I'll be able to shave off a few more parts, I'm a big dummy and apparently didn't realize I added too many seats. This time when I launch it I'll also make sure to disable crossfeed. In off-camera tests it was able to deorbit (from the station's altitude) and land safely with a tiny bit of fuel left, but only when the tank was full.

Edit: And here's the persistance file, have fun! https://www.dropbox.com/s/lq9on5c41qdch80/persistent.sfs

Edited October 25, 2013 by Nauthy

[Spyritdragon]

Um... We have the mass relay! #EVAreentry

[Nauthy]

Heh, fair enough, you guys on the fuel depot can use the mass relay and we'll take the slightly safer option As long as you're not one of the Kerbals strapped to the outside of the KES, it's totally safe!

[Spyritdragon]

When are we blasting off for Minmus?

[Nauthy]

We should get started asap, sorry for holding things up. Not everyone replied to my PM, so there will be fewer of us involved this time. There was also quite a bit of interest in building the ground base/rovers, which might be a problem for the station. This got me to thinking of modifying the rules, so that you would be able to build however many modules you want, but with a max overall part limit (say, 60 for the station, 40 for the base?) Let me know what you guys think, we can always tweak things.

The build order will be finalized later, but here's what we've got for Phase 2 so far:

Station:

Nauthy

Goose

Leax

WhiteWeasel (Probe comm system around Minmus which would be a great idea...maybe you could also add a small module to the station? the Mother Probe )

Ground Base:

Dharak

Cooly

Destroyer

TheCanadianVendingMachine

Holo

Spyritdragon (transport between base and station)

Did I miss anything? I think I've got everyone where they requested.

There's a couple of things we still need to address. I will be launching the core for the Minmus station, unless you want the honour, Leax. Anyone on the ground base have a preference for going first? It should be someone not sending a rover. Speaking of which, I'd also like to get a discussion going here about rovers vs. stationary modules. With the modified rule about parts we can definitely have a bunch of rovers and small modules, but everything needs to be able to dock together. A bunch of separate modules does not make a base. So whoever launches the first part of the base will need to have at least one docking port close to ground level, which will then be used as the standard. It should be set up so that it's fairly easy to recreate, but thankfully Minmus' gravity will provide us with some leeway.

I think that's all the stuff I wanted to cover, but if I remember anything else I'll let ya guys know.

[dharak1]

Whenever I make anything on Minmus I put engines facing down so I can get traction and use the suspension to my advantage to dock. If I am off a few cm I can throttle the engines a bit and lower or use the bounce of shut of to raise.

[Spyritdragon]

Does this mean my lander has to be able to dock with the base?

Also, i might add something more than my transport. Konami one, the multipurpose fuel tanker i was going to add to the station, i had managed to optimize to the point of having less than 30 parts (26 i believe). The thing was capable of a Minmus landing and return unaided from a fully tanked state in Kerbin orbit, which is more than i need right now. In short, unless the people at ground base need to have reasonable amounts of fuel supplied to them, the entire thing will be less than 30 parts, giving me more than enough part space to add something extra.

Also, maybe a rover parking lot? xD

[Nauthy]

Yeah, I'm not super worried about us being able to get things docked, it would just make it a bit more convenient if there was a standard. It doesn't have to be perfect either, just something that can be easily recreated. We can always use the engine trick or a bit of RCS to move things into place if things are not aligned.

As for the lander, it might be tough to dock that with the base, so it's fine if you don't. It'd be cool if we could get a landing pad or something for it, though. Even if you put a docking port on the side, you might still be able to dock, it'll just be a bit awkward.

The rover parking lot is a good idea, too It won't have to be fancy, basically just a wall with some ports for the rovers to dock to.

[Spyritdragon]

Or we could strip i-beams together to make lines like on earth parking lots .

But yeah, thats a good idea. I might just be able to make a landing site with the parts i have left, which can even include a small depot where i can store supplies. Some rovers will want xenon gas or fuel to supply friction thrusters or acceleration thrusters.

[Nauthy]

Hehe, the I-beams are a cool idea. Might even be doable if it doesn't eat up too many parts.

I won't get a chance to record my video until Sunday to officially kick off phase 2. Does anyone have a preference for going first on the ground base? Otherwise we'll just do the random order again.

[Spyritdragon]

I'd prefer to be slightly later on in the order so i can see if and how much supplies the rovers will need to have brought in, and potentially so i can see how i could dock the fuel depots/tanker to the base.

[dharak1]

If it isn't too late I think I would like to go first. I was messing around with some stuff on Minmus and I think I got a decent base core with a fairly standard docking height. I'm not too sure because camtasia is acting up and will only half render videos.

Here is the lander:

[Spyritdragon]

Im just wondering, but how does the changing of landing legs affect the base's docking height? If heavier or lighter base modules land, will they push further down on the landing legs?

The base core looks good :-). I have no experience in surface building so i am not very familiar with the problems of port height and 2m-1m interfacing. Ill be working on the shuttle and possibly a small fuel rover/depot.

[Nauthy]

Hmm, I'm not sure about that. I don't think the mass of the module matters, so it should stay around the same height. Then again, those new legs are different, so...yea. Thankfully we're building on Minmus with it's low grav!

And I like that core! Nice and compact. How many parts are you looking at? You can totally go first on the base, if you'd like. I've been super busy again lately so I haven't had a chance to work on my module. Go ahead and put it up whenever you're able to, I'll work on my core separately and just combine persistances if it comes down to it.

[dharak1]

It's around 38 parts. Where would I find they persistence file for the world? I'll go first and try to get the video working ASAP after I record it.

[Spyritdragon]

Ive just redesigned my plan. Rather than building a shuttle and fuel tanks on ground base, ill use my remaining parts to build a nuclear tug to bring fuel from the KCBP fuel station to Minmus.

[Nauthy]

The latest persistance file should be this one: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lq9on5c41qdch80/persistent.sfs

Sounds good, Spyritdragon It'll be nice to have a small fuel transport. The station core will have all sorts of docking ports, so you won't be restricted to just the large ports. Speaking of which, I've got the module built, just need to get the video recorded.

Also, is everyone alright with this build order?

Station:

Nauthy

WhiteWeasel

Leax

Goose

Ground Base:

Dharak

Cooly

Destroyer

Spyritdragon

TheCanadianVendingMachine

Holo

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Perfect. Please PM me once Spyrit goes though. I am away so I can't watch some threads

[dharak1]

Ok, rendering the video. Few things. I hope you don't mind but I moved nauthy from the hermit shack to the core. I also managed to drop a few cube octags from the lander and got the parts down to 34. Leaving me 6 parts to spare for a future lander

Here is the video:

And here is the Persistance: https://www.dropbox.com/s/o67znzuhgz6c5fp/presistent.txt

Edited November 7, 2013 by dharak1

[leax256]

first post should be updated to tell what we are currently doing and maybe add a history of the stuff that was built with info on who built it/what modules they added.

also tell me when I can go.

[Nauthy]

Perfect. Please PM me once Spyrit goes though. I am away so I can't watch some threads

Cool, will do!

first post should be updated to tell what we are currently doing and maybe add a history of the stuff that was built with info on who built it/what modules they added.

also tell me when I can go.

Yeah, I'll be fixing up the first post here and on the other thread today, now that I've finally got a day off. I'll also be recording my video later on today, so it'll probably be going up tomorrow.

And great work, dharak! I don't mind that you moved my Kerbal, it'll give me a chance to take a fun trip around with him once we have a few rovers on the surface. Though he might go back after And you could totally do a lander with 6 parts! A very tiny one, heh.

[Holo]

Nice, I'm on the ground base. PM me when it's my turn to launch :-)