How much life support (TAC) do I need for interplanetary missions.

[Rabada]

I have never actually paid attention to how long my interplanetary missions last. In my current game I have TAC life-support installed and I'm about to start sending my Kerbals to Duna and Jool. Assuming I only use optimal transfers, how many days worth of supplies should I stock for my Kerbals?

[FanaticalFighter]

Well, you add the time to destination, the time of stay, and the time of return to get the amount of life support. Add just a little more for emergencies, but you should be good with thus much. To get all these things, just go to any online launch planner and calculate this stuff out.

[technion]

I'm basically packing 4 x food, one each of carbon, water, and the recyclers for those, of the circular ones that site on top of an FL-T800.

On the lander, I pack two of the radially mounted life support components. I'm on my third try at Duna, having landed, and run out of electricity and died. You get used to landing and just time warping until daytime - solar panels are fine here. With TAC, don't forget the batteries

[Rabada]

Well, you add the time to destination, the time of stay, and the time of return to get the amount of life support. Add just a little more for emergencies, but you should be good with thus much. To get all these things, just go to any online launch planner and calculate this stuff out.

This makes perfect sense! I didn't even think to use the online launch window planners. Thankyou! I'm going to mark this thread as answered.

I'm basically packing 4 x food, one each of carbon, water, and the recyclers for those, of the circular ones that site on top of an FL-T800.

On the lander, I pack two of the radially mounted life support components. I'm on my third try at Duna, having landed, and run out of electricity and died. You get used to landing and just time warping until daytime - solar panels are fine here. With TAC, don't forget the batteries

I'll have to load up the game and check out your suggestions. How many Kerbals is this for? I will have to double check my batteries, I forgot about the electricity requirement for kerbals with TAC.

May I also make a suggestion to you. If you use water and air converters, then you only need 1/10th what you normally would use. If you pack up say, 1000 food, 100 oxygen, and 100 water, they should all run out at the same time.

Edit: How do I mark this thread as answered?

Edit 2: 1 Kerbal year = 1 Earth year right?

Edited February 21, 2014 by Rabada

[Bobnova]

Lots. I tend to send at least twice the calculated amount, in case my Duna landing is less than gentle. I have a Kerbal sitting on Duna waiting for a rescue ship to show up right now actually

[Javster]

Do what NASA are doing. Send probes, calculate how long it takes to go there, use a Kerbin station with varying amounts of supplies to experiment (so if they are close to running out you fly them back down to Kerbin and send up more supplies)

[Taki117]

My current duna trip has well over 1000 days of food, water and O2, but most of that is due to overengineeirng. the Way TAC works is it adds one day of supplies for every kerbal to anything with a crew capacity. Because I'm using parts with crew capacity for structual/asthetic purposes It's not being used by the crew it's supposed to be for, meaning I have lots of excess.

(Ship in question, unfinished)

Each of those box things has a crew capacity of 3 (The ones between the radially mounted hex cans) and each hex can has like 800 days of supplies (I could be wrong there) and there are only 5 kerbals aboard.

[Sternface]

Before I had a general idea of transit times to the various celestial bodies, I used to keep a satellite in low Kerbin orbit equipped with Mechjeb. I would switch to it, and use the maneuver planner to see how long the trip would take, in addition to when the launch window was. I found this to be a very fast and easy way to determine these variables.

[maccollo]

Edit 2: 1 Kerbal year = 1 Earth year right?

1 Kerbin year is 106 days I think.

[undercoveryankee]

1 Kerbin year is 106 days I think.

I think the "Year 1, day ###" displays in-game and most add-ons that consider time use a 365-day year, though.

[Blackstar]

Both the mission time counter and TAC life support units use Earth time.

Kerbin's rotational period is 6 hours, but "1 day" of life support means 24 hours.

[Grunf911]

Do what NASA are doing. Send probes, calculate how long it takes to go there, use a Kerbin station with varying amounts of supplies to experiment (so if they are close to running out you fly them back down to Kerbin and send up more supplies)

This is EXACTLY what I have been doing, btw playing with TAC Life support, RemoteTech 2, KSP Interstellar and few other mods (no deadly reentry tho), makes missions much more complex, but infinitely more fun. My philosophy is:

Phase 1 - Simple explorer drone - Mission - Feasibility check

Test Comm Dishes - range, cone, signal delay(with RT2 it plays a huge role), electricity consumption

Test Electricity - generation/consumption, solar panels, waste heat generation (from KSP interstellar), radiators, etc.

Test Manuvering - again signal delay but from the aspect of manuevering, how does it feel, how much delta v for insertion, etc

Phase 2 - Complex drone carrier - Mission - Comm Network set-up

Carrier carrying up to 4 probe Long range communication satellites that will be orbiting main celestial body - i.e. Duna

Comm sats would have basically 1 Long Range dish - To reach Kerbin Satelite network, 2 - 3 Short Range dishes Comms DTS-M1 (Science Tech) to communicate to moons, and 1x communotron 32 to communicate between themselves / surface

I launch them in similar fashion as you launch satelite network around Kerbin - there are many youtube vids for this

Phase 3 - Complex drone carrier - Mission - Recon and preparation - core base set-up

Carrier carrying up to 4 probes - depending on planet but typically 2 Rovers, 2 science satellites (including Kethane scanners).

Each of science spaceprobes are equipped with remote unit, solar panels, communotron 32's, batteries, RCS, and orbital science (goo, magnetometer, gravioli), as well as kethane scanners

Each of rovers contain seat for kerbal, remote unit, panels, communotrons, batteries, communotron 32's and surface science (accelerometer, temparature, atmosphere, gravioli etc.)

Typical use is pre-launch drones to/around planet/moons, then set up base craft in stable circular orbit, then detach junk and leave core to be docked with kerbals later

Phase 4 - Kerbal-manned mission

I will report when i get there

Craft:

• Simple Explorer drone - a flyby drone carrying some science, but mostly testing
  
• Complex drone carrier - a very large (3,75m) craft carrying up to 4 drones: Communication Satellites, Science Probes, or Rovers
  
  Main carrier core carries NO living quarters but from TAC 2x LargeFood, 1x of other resources, and recyclers, and Sr docking ports, and is reused as Orbital Station Core to be docked with when Kerbals arrive

  
  

• Kerbal-manned mission - still not there yet :-)