Project Archimedes- for the Duna Permanent Outpost Architectural Challenge(pic heavy)

[Patupi]

OK, I got the Gamma mission in orbit, separated the Rover Pachyderm frame and landed it successfully.

All well and good. Only landed a few km from the Beta Hab module so I thought, nip over with one Rover and test the Damn Robotics Fuel/Oxygen transfer mechanism. So got near and headed for a dock...

But once dock, weirdness ensued.

I don't know what's going on here, luckily I had a quicksave from before this happened. But each time I try to dock the strut the Damned Robotics arm assembly is attached to decides to bend through the rover and twist impossibly. Once it even flipped the entire Hab module up over the rover to land behind it on it's back! Even if I catch it early enough its impossible to undock. It does undock sort of, but something happens at that point and it 'sticks' near the docking port. I think the attachment from the strut to the rest of the rover is partially broken so you can no longer control the arm. Well, they're stuck with them now, so I'm just going to use the Pachyderm rovers as crew transports, not fuel/oxygen transfers. It was an emergency system anyway. Down on Duna the Hab modules shouldn't need oxygen transferred unless the intakes get broken somehow, and the Destiny lander can fuel itself as long as it's on a Kethane deposit. Still, very weird!

[Patupi]

Gamma Base is down, landed 4.1km from Beta base and drove to rendezvous. OK, not quite stable braking when driving at high speed, but doable. Has a tendancy to tip forwards if using reverse drive and brake to slow down when it slows a lot, but it's there in one piece. Now to see about the Delta mission.

So, next 8 Kerbals on Duna on day 382. Now total of 16 Kerbals on planet.

[Patupi]

OK, with the first two manned missions down, and Epsilon's first launch just put into LKO, I found we were near the 1st emergency return window. Since we have two normal ITVs and one scout ITV in Duna orbit I'm sending one back, fully fueled, to replace an ITV launch from Kerbin later. Should speed up the launch schedule, though might have to 'borrow' a Destiny that's due to head to Duna to land on Minmus to fuel it up for the return journey.

Well, I'm at day 500, the Beta ITV has been sent on it's way to Kerbin 5 days ago and we've got our 500 day score done:

Early mission score: 118days with 8 kerbals + 150days with another 8 kerbals = 2144

Early mission NIMLKO: 12 launches, 28 tons each, total 336

Early mission efficiency: 6.38

So far Achievements:

Mission execution: 1 likely will be 3 soon.

Crew mobility: 0 Not enough rovers

Base mobility: 3

Crew safety: 2

Mission robustness: 2 (surprise, since it wasn't planned. With the extra non-Hohmann transfer it leaves two launches that arrive at Duna before day 500)

Total Achievements: 8 so far, hopefully 10 once mission plan successfully played through *Crosses fingers*

Edited August 18, 2013 by Patupi

[Patupi]

OK, since I've sent the Beta ITV back to Kerbin and it will arrive before the departure of the Epsilon mission I've cancelled the Epsilon ITV (Beta will be renamed Epsilon ITV when it gets back) and instead launched the Minmus Destiny Lander. Once the Beta ITV returns it can ferry the Destiny to Minmus and give it enough fuel to land. Then it mines and relaunched and fills up fuel tanks of the ITV and mostly it's own tanks as well. Staying docked to the ITV as it heads back to LKO, then the Destiny will top off the ITV's tanks then return to Minmus. It should have easily enough to return and land and begin mining again. By that time the last Epsilon launch, the second hab module, should be up and all three get docked together for the Epsilon mission.

Note, I think for Zeta mission I'll be launching a specialist 'Orbital Habitat' instead of a second Odyssey Habitat Lander. That one will stay in orbit anyway so there is little point in it having all the bells and whistles to land. Instead it'll have extra lifesupport so it won't drain the DTS resources. I could simply use the oxygen tanks on the Destiny to ferry oxygen up... but the transfer rover's connections are messed up so that won't work and I didn't think to add an air intake... I could add one on a docking mount to one of the Destiny's docking ports? Have to think about that. Probably have to be two to even the weight distribution. maybe even include a small recycler with the intake. That would let the Destiny stock up on oxygen rather than just ferry CO2 up to the DTS which would mean way too many launches.

With an orbital hab module instead of a lander this is less of an issue, but still would be a good addition for emergency lifesupport to orbit.

[Speeding Mullet]

Great updates so far good to see the mission progressing well. I've got my first two coasting to Duna, and am about to launch the next 5. I was wondering whether I'd also have enough spare to flick an ITV back early also. Out of interest have you worked out how your mission efficiency would change if you did that?

[Patupi]

From the start? No I haven't. Honestly I wasn't really trying for high efficiency in this attempt, more for realism and safety... yeah, very unkerbal . If I wanted to go all out I'd have started with a Destiny lander on Minmus and refueled them all there, launching them empty and maybe adding extra sections if I could launch the ITVs 'dry'. I think I can launch two ITVs at once if they had no fuel onboard, but I haven't checked. Might be three for all I know! Plus the whole 'send an automated station and probes before the manned mission' really wasn't necessary. I could have had 8 kerbals on duna from day 119 if I'd pushed it, using one Odyssey Lander and a scout ITV, but it didn't seem right to do it without some kind of automated scouting mission.

I have been thinking about this lately and wondered what an all out, total 'Kerbalish' mission would be like and I've made a rough vessel for it. One ship. One launcher. And that's it. No docking, the whole payload drives to Duna, lands, mines and refuels, and when the 1000day mission is over for that ship it launches, refuels at Ike, then heads back to Kerbin. The payload is 152tons and has a capacity of 20Kerbals! I really haven't figured out what the score and efficiency is for that... but it's ridiculously high. Honestly I haven't even fine tuned the payload yet for high numbers of Kerbals! I haven't tested the launcher for that yet either but... whoah! I don't think I'll be running that mission fully. It's just silly!

Edited August 21, 2013 by Patupi

[Patupi]

Note to self. Do not attempt hairpin turns while driving a Habitat at 20m/s! Well, it went better than it could have. Nearly flipped when Scott Kerman attempted to do a 90 degree turn at that speed, but he recovered well. The Hab smashed down hard enough to blow all the tires on one side though.

Anwig got the marvelous duty of repairing them of course. He really is conscientious about that, despite all the muttering and scowling behind everyone's backs.

The whole point of this little trip was two fold. One I wanted to test out the O2/CO2 cycle and how efficient the recyclers are at different warps by switching off the air intakes and recording how much O2 and CO2 there was at two points an hour apart, and also the same when we were at warp. I decided to do some driving while waiting for the x1 warp version of the test, and since I haven't been to Duna much prior to this Challenge thought I'd check out one of the anomalies here as the other point of this trip. Unfortunately 'The Head' (the first one I got the coords for on short notice) is half way around the planet. Still, I've got 12 days till my next alarm I figure I can do an extended trip. Anwig calls shotgun!

[KeithStone]

Love the updates!

[Patupi]

Haven't had time to do more than two test hours, one on x1 time, one on max physical time warp. Haven't tried other warps yet. So far the readings are consistent for both. Guess physical time warp doesn't adjust much... pretty much expected.

So, for 8 Kerbals and a large recycler operating at 100% the tanks have gone down by 8 (or 9, varied slightly between x1 and warped. Probably just rounding errors) on CO2, and gained 3 O2. Given that 8 Kerbals should have made 8 CO2 and used 8O2 in that time that means the recycler took 16 CO2 and converted it into 11 O2. This seems consistent with the rated 67% efficiency. It also means the rated '10 Kerbal life support' for the Large recycler might be a little low. It can probably handle 11 Kerbals in a pinch. Though it might be rounding would reduce that... or time warp. We'll see.

OK, so far so good. Tomorrow I'll see about testing it on time warp to see how it's affected. Shame I can't drive and time warp at the same time. Means won't get any progress towards the head during this *shrugs*

EDIT: Just before heading to work I did one final test at 1st time warp, ie x5. No discernable difference in efficiency from max physical timewarp. I'll do more tonight.

Edited August 22, 2013 by Patupi

[Patupi]

OK, it seems consistent in O2/CO2 levels up to warp 6 (x1000). At warp 7 (x10,000) there seems to be a very slight increase in O2 usage. Unfortunately my rover ran out of CO2 throwing the numbers off for warp level 7. I'm going to stock up on CO2 with the intakes and try again to get a better reading. Have to be over several hours of course for that high a warp. At least the numbers do seem to indicate we don't need to worry at anything except the last two warp levels as far as Ioncross is concerned (unless things change drastically with high lag?)

Edited August 22, 2013 by Patupi

[Speeding Mullet]

Go Anwig! I think my Kerbals are also prone to a little stunt driving.

[Patupi]

OK, the trip to 'The Head' was rather long, so about a third of the way there (after a day stopped doing O2/CO2 tests) I changed course south to another anomaly I found the coords to. Took a little while, and lots of blown tires ("THANK YOU SCOTT!" Anwig is such a drama queen! Just because he had to fix 14 tires during the journey. Hey, it's good exercise!), but finally we made it... and nothing. Great! No anomaly.

When I searched online I found that it's supposed to be a camera from a rover, but no-one can find it (as far as I can tell) since the terrain changed a while back. Well that's annoying! Well, the team parked there and had a picnic anyway. The CO2 is up to 1200 odd so it should be enough to some long term tests for recycler efficiency at warps 7 and 8. I'll likely do a quick save here and go back to it afterwards, just to be sure I don't go past the next alarm date (which would slow me down and mess up the readings for the warp).

Oh, in case anyone is interested here is the road trip map... as close as I can get it

And here is a nice view of a crater as we passed by.

[Patupi]

Quick repost of the Ioncross efficiency tests on the Large Recycler I posted in the main forum.

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!

Not promising. May as well not carry the recycler if you go to warp 8!

[Patupi]

OK, Delta has arrived and one Hab module is down, but then I had to deal with Beta returning to Kerbin. Had a slight mess up. Don't know what happened, but I checked the orbital course after it left Duna's SOI and it was within a few thousand km of Kerbin. I put the alarm to warn me, but I checked early anyway... and way before it even had come close to Kerbin or any other planet the orbit had shifted WAY off. I don't know what happened there but I shifted it back to a sort of correct course from Duna to Kerbin via Hyper Edit. Didn't want to just kick it into Kerbin orbit as I still want to do all the different pieces of this mission.

Aerobrake was good, came in and hit orbit fine. Then I kind of messed up. The rest of Epsilon mission (two hab modules) was already up, plus the Destiny Lander for Kethane mining on Minmus... So, I figured I'd send it to Minmus using the Beta ITV's engines now it's back so it can refuel. Borrow some fuel from the ITV to land, mine, get back up... then realize I should have brought the hab modules too! *DOH!* Launching from Minmus would mean less dV, less trouble generally. *sigh*. So the ITV and Destiny headed back to Kerbin with full tanks, re-docked with the Hab modules then headed out to Minmus AGAIN! Wasted a few days messing around there, plus I need to send the Destiny back down to mine again to refuel everyone!

Once I've finished with Epsilon refuel I think I'll send it to Duna early on a non-Hohmann intercept. From Minmus it should have enough fuel to get there despite the dV penalty. THEN I can pay attention to the Delta mission and get it's second Hab down on the ground.

(EDIT: OK, thinking about it I might not have brought enough fuel back from Duna on the Beta ITV to carry both the empty Destiny and the two habs out to Minmus. So maybe this way WAS for the best.... Yeah, I meant to do that! )

Edited August 24, 2013 by Patupi

[Patupi]

Hmm, seems Minmus is in the wrong spot in it's orbit to allow it's orbital velocity to give a radial vector. If I'm doing a non-hohmann transfer with Duna behind me I kinda need the radial boost. I'll see if when it swings around in the orbit it's going to work, but I doubt it. 14 day orbital period is likely to put Kerbin too far ahead of Duna for me to do a good meet up.

[Speeding Mullet]

Wow that habitat did one huge roadtrip! Keep the pictures going, enjoying the report!

[Patupi]

Not quite as huge as I originally planned, the trip to The Head is a little longer, maybe half again as far, but yeah it was involved. Going across the 'sea' floors was fairly easy, but going over the hills to the south... Not fun. I averaged about 16m/s, but varied from 6m/s up to 36m/s depending on the incline. I tried to use mechjeb's rover autopilot but I guess the version I'm using is broke. Set a speed and it just goes to maximum... but at least it saves on holding down the 'W' key

I did most of that on max physical warp, and found it was actually easier... at least on slow rises and hills. Steep ones.... Lets say I did one time have to restart from my last place. I didn't just lose a tire, I lost the whole wheel after hitting the bottom of a valley coming down a hill at nearly 50m/s! Wasn't paying attention! Other than that I just kept going if something messed up, repairing tires as I went (and it happened quite a lot!)

[Patupi]

OK, did some refueling on Duna (Destiny was left there as an emergency return to orbit vehicle) before heading up to the DTS.

You can just barely see the base below the lander as I launch here. Probably should have taken this shot earlier.

Connected with the Delta ITV then headed over to IKE, landed (No pictures. There are no lights on the lander and Ike is DARK!) mined, launched (twice) then headed back to Duna.

Minmus might be awkward, but Duna and Ike seem pretty good for refueling.

[Patupi]

On a side note the DTS is a pain. It's pretty pointless, I haven't really used it other than as a rendezvous point in Duna orbit and it's a part hog. Right now with one scout ITV, two main ITVs the DTS and the Destiny lander docked in orbit it's 696 parts and leaving me with 3 frames per second! I think if I ever do this challenge again I won't bother with an orbital assembly point.

[Patupi]

OK, since the Epsilon mission is complete and ready in orbit, and that and the Zeta mission are the last that will arrive at Duna before the challenge ends, I've removed the Zeta Odyssey Hab launch and instead remade the Heron Orbital Hab module that I removed from the mission plan before posting it originally. Now that will remain in orbit of Duna with it's ITV and the crew will shuttle to and from orbit to surface so the original 8 Kerbals head home in a dedicated transfer vehicle rather than a Odyssey lander that just stays in orbit. It's a little lighter than an Odyssey and lower parts count, but also has more O2 supply as emergency. When it docks with the DTS it will resupply, but I think it could get it all from the Destiny lander as it shuttles the crew up from the surface and the new crew down. We'll see.

After Zeta arrives the only mission left for me to do will be the return mission and launch the Eta just for the heck of it (even though it won't arrive before the end of the challenge)

[Patupi]

OK... Alright. I'm calm!

*sigh* I think I'm having problems with KSP. My Destiny Lander on Minmus just decided to do wierd stuff. I landed it to mine and refuel ready for the next mission... and although the map said there was Kethane there (and I landed within a few km of this spot before and it WAS there) I couldn't mine. The Kethane drill went down but no white flare and no Kethane.

Well, I thought 'OK, maybe I just missed it a bit. Hop over a few km to the same spot I landed before'... And it wouldn't accept controls. The resource tab wouldn't come up, the throttle wouldn't go, though the action keys would work.... OK, OK, I thought. Just nip back to the space center and return. I'm sure it'll be alright...

Yeah... alright... OK then.... GAAAH! I'm calm, I'm calm!

OK, I think for THIS I'm hyper editing another Destiny up there. To be honest, since I don't have any missions that aren't fueled with what they bring from Kerbin I could technically leave it but... yeah, just incase I need it. Plus it'll help to have a ship in orbit around Kerbin to assist if the Duna Returning ship on day 1016 has any fuel difficulties.

Edited August 25, 2013 by Patupi

[Speeding Mullet]

Ah yes, random unannounced deconstruction, there you are! I'm not sure if it's related to your issue but a couple of times when my landtrain was moving, it hit a 'slippery patch' for a while where no controls worked at all, then it suddenly found grip and combobulated.

[Donziboy2]

Ah yes, it sometimes catches you off guard and reminds you its still a very early Alpha

[Patupi]

I think there was some issue with altitude. Briefly, before it's rapid unplanned dissembly, I saw the terrain restabilize with only the lander's top few feet poking up through the ground. Maybe it just got eaten by Minmus?

[Speeding Mullet]

Possibly, I've had a whole base system there sink into ground never to return!