How Valuable Are Colonies? Without Kethane.

[ThatKerbal]

Is it sensable to make a colony on the Mun? Without the kethane mod.

It can't be. Just sending a rocket to a planet with some kerbals for no reason isn't sensable, Is it?

[regex]

You can do it, but it's not like they provide any real purpose other than looking pretty. Same goes with Kethane, really; in that case you're just making a busy-work hub and there's no reason to have a station around with more than one Kerbal to attach the KAS lines.

On the Mun I like to drop "houses" consisting of a Hitchhiker and some lights for Kerbals roving around, but that's about it.

[The Jedi Master]

Nope, not valuable at all.

...

BUT IT IS AWESOME!!!

[Halban]

Nope, not valuable at all.

...

BUT IT IS AWESOME!!!

Well said

[Mr.Rocket]

It's mostly for fun, but that doesn't mean they're completly useless. They can have the same use as a space station. You can use it for science. If you send extra fuel there, you can refuel any future landers. You can make it a place to visit any time you visit the mun so you have a place you know is safe to land. You can use it for some of the challenges that are on the forums. All in all, they're mostly for fun, you can do it as a challenge to yourself,( i am acutally in the process of building a Duna base+ space station), you can practice precision landing, ect. Hint: if you use the KAS mod, you can transfer fuels and kerbals and base components without docking them.

[BlackBicycle]

A colony on Mun or Minmus or Kerbin (huh?) is not too bad. It is definitely not the most efficient way to progress in the game, but it does provide many hours of entertainment (punctuated by moments of pure horror and sheer boredom.)

In fact, I am now planning on restarting the career mode and doing a Munbase. There are enough biomes, but they can hardly be researched via rovers. So I set me a goal. Let's break it down from the top stage down:

1. A manned flying vehicle ("Probe") equipped with all science instruments I can afford at that point lands at some biome. Crew reports, EVA, samples, all the science instruments. The vehicle then heads to the Munbase and lands there.

2. Either the vehicle itself heads towards the stationary Lab, or some kind of tug carries it there. It docks to the lab. Astronauts carry all the data to the lab. The lab resets the MatLab and the Goo.

3. The Probe undocks from the Lab and is carried (or drives itself) away.

4. A refueler rover docks with it and refuels it. The fuel is taken from a separate tanker that is launched from Kerbin and is landed nearby.

5. The Probe goes to some other location to repeat the process.

P.S. And of course, every once in a while, a capsule from Kerbin comes (maybe with a replacement crew), all data is loaded back into it and sent back to Kerbin to be recovered.

: )

Edited December 30, 2013 by BlackBicycle

[KASASpace]

Well, the only use I see besides looking cool is having a processing lab to recover science, but that could be in orbit instead, you know what, I'm gonna do just that! It'll also be a refueling station for all the science landers.

[Geschosskopf]

Is it sensable to make a colony on the Mun? Without the kethane mod.

It can't be. Just sending a rocket to a planet with some kerbals for no reason isn't sensable, Is it?

With or without Kethane, serve no real purpose other than role-playing. They're mostly to give yourself something more to do than just send 1 guy somewhere to grab a handful of rocks and plant a flag. Also, they give you an excuse to use all the big rocket parts you unlock near the end of the tech tree but don't actually need to unlock the rest of the tree .

And BTW, Kethane is pretty much a complete waste of time within the Kerbin system, because it's a lot easier to just send tankers where needed from KSC. Kethane only really becomes useful at other planets. There, it lets you avoid having to send out monster ships with fuel to go and return. Instead, you can send smaller ships with fuel for a 1-way trip and refuel them at the destination.