Sea Colony on Laythe - what do you need?

[Mischief]

So I'm about 30 days out from a huge mission to Jool. I'll bring probes and of course make it a manned mission - after seeing some awesome examples of peoples water bases though I was struck with the desire to make a floating colony on Laythe.

The question now is - what does the colony need?

For reference, I have no big issue with Mods but I'm a bit of a wonk for keeping the challenge present - no quicksave/reloads, no restarts. If there's a problem I'll have to deal with it in the mission or bury my brave little green heros.

Currently I'm using:

Engineering Redux

Alarm Clock

KAS

FAR

Kethane

And KerbPaint, because why make something cool if you're not going to paint it red.

I've also downloaded Infernal Robotics but I haven't managed to do anything productive yet.

I've created an amphibious rover that works very well - it'll do 25 m/s on land on Kerbin and do it very stable. I can enter the water at speeds of 10 m/s or less and cruise in the water at 20 m/s with a fuel supply for a little over 60 minutes of travel. It carries some KAS supplies and empty racks to move boxes of KAS supplies from location to location.

Here's the Orca, my rover, doing it's thang:

I've created a 'core' colony segment with science lab and two hitch-hiker modules - I'm fond of those, I want to make reasonable living space for my colonists.

I've created a 'depot' segment for storing fuel and monofuel as well as a years supply of repair/emergency KAS components (pretty much a bunch of everything) because opportunities to get supplies from Kerbin will be few and far between.

I've created a 'mobile hab module' for short-range tooling around and to house additional colonists. It's got a speed of only 10 m/s and a fuel time of 23 minutes but the cupola modules just look so damn COOL to drive in the water... so I wanted to drive it around.

Here's the test base I've built, dropped and assembled just off the shore of KSC.

I've done space stations before and Kethane mining. I'm going to build an orbital station to facilitate Kethane mining on nearby moons (which is going to depend on deposit availability) but I've got good mining ship designs and the like for them. There will be orbital assets for bringing fuel supplies in locally if there's no land-based Kethane supplies on Laythe.

I'm intending to build the colony 3k off the coast to save on framerate and then a shore base where I can land and launch ships for moving personnel and resources up and down. If there is a land based Kethane supply I'll build off that coast, put the coast base 3K from the mining base and the sea colony 3K off the coast from them so I can run ~700 parts worth of equipment at each location. The land bases I can do; next I'm building a towable trailer that will carry all fuel types and KAS parts that the Orca will tow around from whatever bases need them, to and from.

What else for the sea colony? What am I missing, what could I do better? I'm shipping my little chartreuse adventurers off to the most distant shore to make a new life. It should kick ***. It needs a little something MORE, I'm just not sure what.

[Frank_G]

You could build an underwater station section... I did tests with KAS and fired a hook in the ground and then pulled the object down. Works nice!

And well done! Looks like functional cool base.

[edit] You can remove the used chutes with one of your kerbonauts, to keep the part count down.

Edited May 4, 2014 by Frank_G

[Random Tank]

Awesome looking base! I love the use of the structural 1.25m tanks as floats, really cool!

By the way, radial intakes love water; try using them on your rover as floats; also you can make seaplanes with them as they can happily land on water at ~80m/s and take off again (don't go too fast though, they'll get destroyed)

[Levelord]

I made a floating landing platform for my VTOL craft. It's entirely stock though.

This is the colony, designed to be modular. It has a marine science module, a landing platform and several housing bays.

On the landing platform we perform routine maintenance of VTOL SSTO aircraft and refuel them as needed.

Here is the single housing module

And the quad housing module for more colonists. It's designed to resemble a small village.

Here is the science bay where Laythe's water, atmosphere and other relevant experiments are carried out.

Another angle of the layout. Feels quite cosy.

[Mipe]

No railings? I guess Jeb is a good swimmer, then?

[Mischief]

You could build an underwater station section... I did tests with KAS and fired a hook in the ground and then pulled the object down. Works nice!

And well done! Looks like functional cool base.

[edit] You can remove the used chutes with one of your kerbonauts, to keep the part count down.

Underwater... does that work? Does the water on Laythe goes as deep as it does on Kerbin so I could only do it close to shore? Also doesn't the KAS winch only go 50m or so? It's an awesome concept though - are there parts that sink that I can use to ballast it down deeper? I'm wanting to keep it a ways off shore to keep distance between bases. Removing the spent chutes is brilliant though, that will help and give me some more 'wiggle room' for new stuff.

No railings? I guess Jeb is a good swimmer, then?

With pulling the chutes off I'll have more room for railings in part count. What piece do you recommend? I tried using a few components but couldn't come up with something I liked the look of. I'm all for railings, what do you recommend?

I made a floating landing platform for my VTOL craft. It's entirely stock though.

That's phenomenal. Awesome looking little VTOL - I'm jealous, I've tried a couple of VTOL designs, none were very useful or balanced. How much range does yours have? I may have another go at it - it'd be faster and more efficient.

I'm also ruthlessly and shamelessly stealing your little hab module design concept. I take it the metal structural components float well? That seems like it's a good design with low part count.

Awesome looking base! I love the use of the structural 1.25m tanks as floats, really cool!

By the way, radial intakes love water; try using them on your rover as floats; also you can make seaplanes with them as they can happily land on water at ~80m/s and take off again (don't go too fast though, they'll get destroyed)

That should work excellently, I played with a sea-ship design but had trouble with one that landed happily.

It's not structural parts; I found I got way more floatation out of the actual fuel tanks with no fuel in them. The structural parts are not very buoyant, fuel tanks with no fuel in them are. I'll play with the air intakes; that's odd, but useful The more buoyancy I can get out of a single part the less total parts I need to use.

Any recommendation on new segments to create for it though? What else does it need? Some sort of submersible segment would be very cool. Hmm... wonder if I could make one that the Kerbal departs the habitable segment literally inside a 'bubble' of components, trapping him underwater so I can take samples and use science gear below the surface? I'll play with that. Anything else?

[Random Tank]

Underwater... does that work? Does the water on Laythe goes as deep as it does on Kerbin so I could only do it close to shore? Also doesn't the KAS winch only go 50m or so? It's an awesome concept though - are there parts that sink that I can use to ballast it down deeper? I'm wanting to keep it a ways off shore to keep distance between bases. Removing the spent chutes is brilliant though, that will help and give me some more 'wiggle room' for new stuff.

The only things you can use as ballast are ballast tanks from a mod, or an asteroid (they sink). You could fly a Class A to Laythe and use it to weigh down an underwater base? Plus, the inline winch (the one you've put on the end of those upstanding I-Beams) has a range of 80m; every little helps!

With pulling the chutes off I'll have more room for railings in part count. What piece do you recommend? I tried using a few components but couldn't come up with something I liked the look of. I'm all for railings, what do you recommend?

Ummm.... B9 and Lack Luster Labs add some railings, but that means more mods.... If you don't mind the mucked up staging, you could use the 'Hydraulic Detachment Manifold' (that big radial decoupler), it looks a bit like a fence...

]It's not structural parts; I found I got way more floatation out of the actual fuel tanks with no fuel in them. The structural parts are not very buoyant, fuel tanks with no fuel in them are. I'll play with the air intakes; that's odd, but useful The more buoyancy I can get out of a single part the less total parts I need to use.

Any recommendation on new segments to create for it though? What else does it need? Some sort of submersible segment would be very cool. Hmm... wonder if I could make one that the Kerbal departs the habitable segment literally inside a 'bubble' of components, trapping him underwater so I can take samples and use science gear below the surface? I'll play with that. Anything else?

Ahh right.... weird; those tanks still look really cool though!

Yeah, the intakes are super buoyant! You could use them on your Orca rover to increase it maximum speed; I think its about 80m/s you can go on them before they starting getting destroyed by the water.... Just test it, then use throttle tweaks to set that speed as the maximum, so you can't go above it and break something. Obviously you can't do this for a sea plane (or a sea spaceplane, a SSSTO ).

A bigger habitation module would be cool, and a power generation unit! I wouldn't do too much more than that though, or it'll lag. Maybe some sea hangers for planes if you can afford the frame rate?

[Mischief]

The only things you can use as ballast are ballast tanks from a mod, or an asteroid (they sink). You could fly a Class A to Laythe and use it to weigh down an underwater base? Plus, the inline winch (the one you've put on the end of those upstanding I-Beams) has a range of 80m; every little helps!

Ummm.... B9 and Lack Luster Labs add some railings, but that means more mods.... If you don't mind the mucked up staging, you could use the 'Hydraulic Detachment Manifold' (that big radial decoupler), it looks a bit like a fence...

Ahh right.... weird; those tanks still look really cool though!

Yeah, the intakes are super buoyant! You could use them on your Orca rover to increase it maximum speed; I think its about 80m/s you can go on them before they starting getting destroyed by the water.... Just test it, then use throttle tweaks to set that speed as the maximum, so you can't go above it and break something. Obviously you can't do this for a sea plane (or a sea spaceplane, a SSSTO ).

A bigger habitation module would be cool, and a power generation unit! I wouldn't do too much more than that though, or it'll lag. Maybe some sea hangers for planes if you can afford the frame rate?

AH. Okay, that all makes sense.

A power module - hmmm.... solar panels are cool. I admit 'useful' is a flexible term, given that you don't really 'need' anything there

As to the 80 m/s resistance on the air intakes - the funny thing with boats is, EVERY part takes abuse. I had to remove batteries from the Orca because even if they were tucked in between other parts. If it's going to get water on it, it's going to break if it exceeds its tolerance by much.

Which also has some wiggle-room I found. Parts that say '20 m/s' will take up to 25 or so before they start to make these splashes, which means 'slow down or I'm going to explode and attempt to get into orbit on my own'.

I like the idea of a full on habitation module that, ideally, has some under-water cupola sections. Also a nice 'power generation' core with solar panels and good stuff.

These are good ideas, thank you! Back to work it is

[Random Tank]

As to the 80 m/s resistance on the air intakes - the funny thing with boats is, EVERY part takes abuse. I had to remove batteries from the Orca because even if they were tucked in between other parts. If it's going to get water on it, it's going to break if it exceeds its tolerance by much.

The impact tolerance stated on the part means land impact, not sea. Sea is different, and is temperamental too; I merely meant that the intakes should survive at 80m/s on water, maybe the impact tolerance has something to do with it, but they can do more.

What you need to do is actually mount the rover on floats made from intakes, so the main body is above the water; the intakes are very buoyant, so they will hold even a very heavy rover off the water; make something like this:

It's only a simple Water Strider, but caps out at about 97m/s; make sure its wide and has a couple of reaction wheels, or it'll roll... and you don't want that to happen!

[Mipe]

With pulling the chutes off I'll have more room for railings in part count. What piece do you recommend? I tried using a few components but couldn't come up with something I liked the look of. I'm all for railings, what do you recommend?

Short beams and struts between them?

[Mischief]

Yeah, but struts don't stop Kerbals, do they? I thought you could walk through them. I tried beams but it came out looking terribly clumsy.

[Mischief]

The impact tolerance stated on the part means land impact, not sea. Sea is different, and is temperamental too; I merely meant that the intakes should survive at 80m/s on water, maybe the impact tolerance has something to do with it, but they can do more.

What you need to do is actually mount the rover on floats made from intakes, so the main body is above the water; the intakes are very buoyant, so they will hold even a very heavy rover off the water; make something like this:

http://i.imgur.com/O9gzXKE.jpg

It's only a simple Water Strider, but caps out at about 97m/s; make sure its wide and has a couple of reaction wheels, or it'll roll... and you don't want that to happen!

OOOH! Holy crap. Do you use FAR though? I've had a lot of issue getting too much out of the water; my vehicles really want to start flying at a certain point. Also isn't balance starting to be an issue as you use fuel? What sort of range does it have?

What's on the bottom of the skis? I see the air intakes, what's inbetween them? Do you have a pick of the bottom of the pontoons?

[KeithStone]

Wow, I love the floating base segments. Hooligan labs has some submarine parts that float well, and firespitter has a few plane pontoon segments that can easily be repurposed. Just be careful, anything further than about 500 meters or so below sea level gets eaten by the kraken!

[Random Tank]

OOOH! Holy crap. Do you use FAR though? I've had a lot of issue getting too much out of the water; my vehicles really want to start flying at a certain point. Also isn't balance starting to be an issue as you use fuel? What sort of range does it have?

What's on the bottom of the skis? I see the air intakes, what's inbetween them? Do you have a pick of the bottom of the pontoons?

So many questions!!

Sorry, I don't use FAR . Those wings on the side are actually slanted slightly downwards, to give the Strider downforce and keep it pushed onto the water (like a Formula 1 car); this *should* work for FAR but I'm not sure.

The CoM is pretty well dead center of that tank, as you have the heavy cockpit at one end, and the heavy engine at the other; but the 2 reaction wheels should help keep the balance, though using the CoM should make it pretty easy to balance it, empty or not. It's really stable up to 90m/s anyway!

Range I'm really not sure, though it has a lot of delta V, its an efficient engine, and is only on 54% throttle there (that's keeping speed constant), so it'll be high... a few hundred km? Here's it on the Island airfield (which is 30km away), and its only used 19 units of fuel, so its pretty good:

(It's buddying up with my Kethane Jet :3)

On the Ski's its just 5 intakes and 2 Landing gear bays on each side (as I do have to get it into the water!); its only disadvantage is that it has to use the engine to move about on land, as stock landing gear aren't powered... but B9 ones are, so i'll use them in future.

Picture of the bottom? Better! Take this!

[Mischief]

So many questions!!

Sorry, I don't use FAR . Those wings on the side are actually slanted slightly downwards, to give the Strider downforce and keep it pushed onto the water (like a Formula 1 car); this *should* work for FAR but I'm not sure.

The CoM is pretty well dead center of that tank, as you have the heavy cockpit at one end, and the heavy engine at the other; but the 2 reaction wheels should help keep the balance, though using the CoM should make it pretty easy to balance it, empty or not. It's really stable up to 90m/s anyway!

Range I'm really not sure, though it has a lot of delta V, its an efficient engine, and is only on 54% throttle there (that's keeping speed constant), so it'll be high... a few hundred km? Here's it on the Island airfield (which is 30km away), and its only used 19 units of fuel, so its pretty good:

http://i.imgur.com/ixrsrhP.jpg

(It's buddying up with my Kethane Jet :3)

On the Ski's its just 5 intakes and 2 Landing gear bays on each side (as I do have to get it into the water!); its only disadvantage is that it has to use the engine to move about on land, as stock landing gear aren't powered... but B9 ones are, so i'll use them in future.

Picture of the bottom? Better! Take this!

Awesome, thank you!

I've tried to make a submersible - I made a sort of mobile diving/drilling rig. Just couldn't get the pod to get under the water. Looks cool, don't get me wrong, but no matter how much weight I put on it, just floats. Going to go with a better hab module and some communication towers.

[Mipe]

Yeah, but struts don't stop Kerbals, do they? I thought you could walk through them. I tried beams but it came out looking terribly clumsy.

That's a shame! Would be great to have procedural structures like that (one long girder instead of several serial girders really would cut the part count down, for example). Oh well, you could just use those metal plates in upright state as fences, but that's not going to help the part count any.

[Mischief]

That's a shame! Would be great to have procedural structures like that (one long girder instead of several serial girders really would cut the part count down, for example). Oh well, you could just use those metal plates in upright state as fences, but that's not going to help the part count any.

You know... procedurally generated girders would be a pretty amazing mod. Especially if you could get it to secure both ends of the connection (just stupidly strongly compared to struts) and thus make viable construction elements to build sturdy stuff. Someone who can mod should totally do that.

Wow, I love the floating base segments. Hooligan labs has some submarine parts that float well, and firespitter has a few plane pontoon segments that can easily be repurposed. Just be careful, anything further than about 500 meters or so below sea level gets eaten by the kraken!

One problem I'm running into now is trying to find parts that SINK. Potential for an off-shore Kethane mine. I made a semi-mobile floating drilling rig but there's nothing that sinks well enough to get it down below the surface to drill.

[Random Tank]

One problem I'm running into now is trying to find parts that SINK. Potential for an off-shore Kethane mine. I made a semi-mobile floating drilling rig but there's nothing that sinks well enough to get it down below the surface to drill.

The only object in the current stock game that sinks is an asteroid (didn't I already say that? ). It's a shame ID's Boat Parts mod isn't really stable in .23.5, as that adds submarines and modular ballast tanks, and also adds ready built railings, and modular railings/bridge sort of things that work like really wide struts that have collision.

[HafCoJoe]

I made a floating landing platform for my VTOL craft. It's entirely stock though.

This is the colony, designed to be modular. It has a marine science module, a landing platform and several housing bays.

http://i.imgur.com/AcJiOEb.jpg

On the landing platform we perform routine maintenance of VTOL SSTO aircraft and refuel them as needed.

http://i.imgur.com/Z9hAPLA.jpg

Here is the single housing module

http://i.imgur.com/eCMxxZP.jpg

And the quad housing module for more colonists. It's designed to resemble a small village.

http://i.imgur.com/4XJzMoi.jpg

Here is the science bay where Laythe's water, atmosphere and other relevant experiments are carried out.

http://i.imgur.com/IBUY22Z.jpg

Another angle of the layout. Feels quite cosy.

http://i.imgur.com/zgDQKKt.jpg

Question: How does one land on the platform without the exhaust tipping the thing over? And that modular base is to awesome. Just like the main post - outstanding designs the both.

[Mischief]

The only object in the current stock game that sinks is an asteroid (didn't I already say that? ). It's a shame ID's Boat Parts mod isn't really stable in .23.5, as that adds submarines and modular ballast tanks, and also adds ready built railings, and modular railings/bridge sort of things that work like really wide struts that have collision.

Yeah, I was hoping I'd misunderstood

I've got a class E on a collision course with Kerbin in 36 days - that's 1 day before my Jool window. I think that's a bit much to pack to Jool for ballast. Also... asteroids as ballast seems a little... I dunno. Extreme.

We need a water mod. I understand that there's some sort of indicator for parts related to their ballast. Just a bit outside my scope to go meddling with the occult like that.

Question: How does one land on the platform without the exhaust tipping the thing over? And that modular base is to awesome. Just like the main post - outstanding designs the both.

I'd wondered the same thing! I have trouble even towing stuff, I lose all thrust if something is too close to the engine and it pushes them back. If I were to try and land on that I think my engine would muck it all up.

[KeithStone]

One problem I'm running into now is trying to find parts that SINK. Potential for an off-shore Kethane mine. I made a semi-mobile floating drilling rig but there's nothing that sinks well enough to get it down below the surface to drill.

The hooligan labs sub parts are configurable in the same but opposite way that their airship parts are. You can adjust the ballast and force entire craft to sink, float, or hover just below sea level at your desired depth. You should view the album on the main page, sub parts are presented about halfway through the imgur set.

... asteroids as ballast seems a little... I dunno. Extreme.

Sounds like the most amazingly kerbal thing to me!!!! I'd love to see a "Cloud city" with an asteroid dangling from the bottom!

Edited May 7, 2014 by KeithStone

[Random Tank]

The hooligan labs sub parts are configurable in the same but opposite way that their airship parts are. You can adjust the ballast and force entire craft to sink, float, or hover just below sea level at your desired depth. You should view the album on the main page, sub parts are presented about halfway through the imgur set.

Yeah, you can do pretty much the same thing with boat parts too; I thought Hooligan Labs was abandoned ware though? Or has someone else taken it over?