Test Drive of MKS and SXT -- BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD!

[Geschosskopf]

I recently discovered a new mod called MKS (Modular Kolonization System). This is an amazing project that allows you to build (eventually, after a lot of work) self-sufficient colonies. It uses the mechanics from TAC Life Support and Kethane for resource consumption and exploitation and works with things like Extraplanetary Launchpads as well. You can get this mod here (and be sure to RTFM):

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79588-0-23-5-Modular-Kolonization-System-%280-16-5%29-2014-05-18.

While doing this, I also tried out some parts from Lack Luster Labs, both the LLL pack and the SXT pack. These things are also quite amazing and worth at least looking at. Most of LLL concerns rockets with rectangular cross-sections instead of round, so you can totally change the appearance of your space program. But it's a huge pack with tons of other very useful parts you never knew you were missing, but will find indispensable. SXT is much smaller at present, and its main thing is it uses stock textures for its parts so as to minimize memory footprint. It's got 5m rockets in it, though, and also a lot of useful miscellaneous stuff. You can find both packs here:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79542-LLL-Lack-Luster-Labs-LLL-Full-12-2-10MAY2014-SXT-15-1-09MAY2014

Anyway, on with the show.

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The 1st step in making an MKS colony is finding a good place to put it. You definitely want it in a spot with Ore and Minerals in the ground, Substrate too if possible, and as a bonus either Water or Kethane. MKS modifies the Kethane scanners to find all these other things as well, on different layers of the hex map. So, you have to scan the target planet as you would for Kethane. I decided to build my test colony on Mun and found a spot with Ore, Minerals, Substrate all in 1 hex.

Having picked the hex, next I sent a probe rover there to look for the most level ground in the hex, and to serve as a landing target for the colony modules coming in.

The cool thing about this rover is that it's got an LLL "Microchip" radially attached probe core on it. That's the small white spot near the center. This is a great part. It lacks torque and has no built-in electricity, but it very neatly solves the "vertical to horiztonal problem" with rovers (necessary for me because I'm using FAR in this game). I built this rover in the SPH starting with a regular probe core which would work for it once on the ground. Then I saved the body as a subassembly, went to the VAB, got out the same probe core, and stuck the body on it vertically. Then attached the Microchip in a convenient place and presto, I had a probe core to handle the landing, too. Then I could wrap the whole thing up in a fairing to satisfy the FAR Demons and send it off to Mun no problem.

The funny box on the side amidships is an MKS rover Science! part. It does some sort of ground sampling but because this is a sandbox game, it did nothing for me.

Anyway, having selected the exact site, I then sent the 1st module of the actual colony.

That's red capsule-looking thing on top, the ColonyHub. It's like the central control point for the whole show. It converts ElectricCharge into PunchCards, which are consumed by all other MKS modules during operation. 1 ColonyHub makes enough PunchCards to supply about 25 other modules. It's also a 3.75m capsule with 6 seats. The tutorial said to only send 2 Kerbals to start with but I filled it up and gave them all 670 days of supplies (tutorial says 500 days for 2). Anyway, this thing was sleek enough to get by the FAR Demons with no problems, and landed uneventfully

The gray thing at the bottom is a cluster engine from either LLL or SXT. Seems to be order-made for 3.75m landers. The boxes around the bottom are filled with KAS pipe parts and ground pylons to hook the base modules together.

With that done, next was to send over a ConstructionHub and a PowerDistributionUnit (PDU), which I combined into a single payload. The MKS modules are interesting in that you can (if desired) send them out as just non-functional but very light-weight shells, then finish building them in-situ with ConstructionParts, which are made by the ConstructionHub from Ore and Minerals. Optionally, you can tweak the MKS modules to be fully built on launch but they weigh a LOT. And besides, this is a test of the system so I wanted to use the ConstructionHub for that. The PDU makes enough electricity to run a bunch of modules and also is relatively light when operational, so I sent it up ready to go. The combined weight wasn't that big so didn't need THAT big a rocket.

MJ brought the Construction-PDU module down right beside the ColonyHub.

This was the 1st time in a LLLOOOOONNNGGGGG time I've used those stock radial engines, which are so inefficient on small landers. But they're tolerable on things of this size. LLL also has some very interesting radial engines but none were quite right for this particular job. The ConstructionHub is on top and the PDU is on the bottom here.

Once down, a Kerbal connected the 2 units with a KAS pipe and then climbed into the ConstructionHub to supervise its operations, even though it couldn't do anything yet because it had no raw materials to work with.

MKS modules run at a variable efficiency. This can be improved by having a Kerbal actually in the module, and the less stupid the Kerbal, the more good he does. It's thus apparent that creating a large colony will cause serious "brain drain" back on Kerbin.

BTW, eventually each Kerbal in the colony will need his own pair of Kerbitat and Greenhouse modules, which are the same size as those shown here (most MKS modules are the same size). IOW, each Kerbal will have his own tower like this. So this gives you an impression of how huge this colony is going to become someday. Kerbals are an integral part of the self-sufficiency as their waste products are fuel for the things that make their supplies, eventually. With everything connected, all the resources flow around where needed so the Kerbal doesn't have to sit on the toilet all day to keep himself alive. But it does bring up the question of whether any of the crew will be able to do anything other than keep the system running in some way (as in crewing a module). We'll have to see as we go along.

Anyway, the final step of this "Pioneer Phase" of the colony was to send up the drills to get the Minerals and the Ore, and some storage space, so that's this:

This payload was heavy so needed a bigger rocket. The payload was 2 storage units, 1 for raw materials and 1 for colony consumables. The main one of these was ColonySupplies, which are spare parts and such consumed by all MKS modules over time. Ultimately, you can make your own in-situ but that's way down the road so for now, as with life support supplies, this has to be brought in. So I gave the colony a good supply to start with so as not to have to worry about that for a while.

And once again MJ brought the new unit down right next to the others.

And another KAS pipe connection:

And then I fired up the Kethane drills, which with MKS can also get any of the other resources in the ground at that spot.

So the Ore and Minerals started coming in, which the ConstructionHub began turning into ConstructionParts. This is a painfully slow process, requiring beaucoup raw materials per ConstructionPart, so it will be months before I have enough to build out the next module. Which is why this "starter pack" colony has a couple years' worth of life support and ColonySupplies.

Also coming in on the drills is Substrate. This is just being stored right now. Eventually, it will go towards making EnrichedSoil, which is necessary for the Greenhouses, 1 of which is necessary for each Kerbal to make a closed, self-sufficient system.

Anyway, this was a good place to stop for the evening so I took a moment to enjoy my creation.

The drill unit has all the Gigantors on it just in case. MOAR power is better than not having enough and I wasn't sure at this point if the PDU was up to the job. And all this vast collection of parts does is turn dirt into parts to build more modules.

The next step is to start using some of that substrate to make EnrichedSoil. This involves another module called a Terraformer. Once that's all done (and more ConstructionParts made), I can start bringing in Kerbitats and Greenhouses so the crew can move out of the ColonyHub. That will make the colony self-sufficient for life support, but it will still need to import ColonySupplies. The last phase will be to make it self-sufficient that way, too, which will require a vast manufacturing complex. Making ColonySupplies takes about 5 or 6 steps, each of which requires its own module(s). And then at the end you need a recycler module to convert the used-up ColonySupplies back into raw materials to feed into the factory again. Egad . But at least it's new, different, and something I've been kinda wanting to do.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Geschosskopf

[JebThePilot]

Wow, this looks awesome! Get us the next version ASAP, Geschosskopf!

[HafCoJoe]

Yeah, wow. I'm liking the shape of the first landers cone. Very cool.

[Geschosskopf]

Hey, I'm just the reporter. The thanks should go to the guys who made these incredible mods.

Anyway, I'll be getting on with the next phase of the colony shortly.

[Geschosskopf]

OK, back to work....

I time-warped ahead 40-odd days, by which time the Construction Hub of the initial base phase had produced about 1200 ConstructionParts. Each module you send out unbuilt needs 750 and I needed several modules worth for the next phase of the colony. Supposedly you can put separate sub-base units around within 100m (per the tutorial) or 200m (per the in-game part description) provided they have this antenna thingy. This allows the ColonyHub to send PunchCards and also supposedly lets all resources flow, too ("proximity logistics"). Being unsure of the distance, I compromised and put a target flag out at 150m or so.

This phase of the colony is intended to make EnrichedSoil, which will go in the Greenhouse modules in the next phase. For this it needs a Water Converter (makes water from LFO or Kethane), a Terraformer (which makes EnrichedSoil from Substrate, Water, and other stuff), a Biolab to make Compost or something, and power and resource storage for them all. Plus life support and ColonySupplies to keep it running for the time being. I decided to send the PDU with the antenna on it, and some storage first. Here it is on the pad.

EDIT: This is the 5m rocket from SXT. It's main engine is a 1-piece cluster of like 26x 48-7S engines.

Then another storage module for other types of resources. Even though they look identical, they're limited in the types of stuff they can hold. This one was also fully loaded (ColonySupplies and life support), weighed about 72 tons including the lander parts, and needed pretty much the same lifter as the PDU module. I also cut back on the fuel as much as possible. It had exactly 1000m/s when it started the landing and 74 when it was on the ground .

Then I sent over the Terraformer and Water Converter statcked together. Neither of these was functional so this payload was quite light. I also put a different SXT/LLL 48-7S cluster engine on it for the ISP to save as much fuel as possible, for use by the Water Converter. Problem was, this gave it a TWR of about 62.0 (ISYN!) at Mun, which meant fine control was a bit of a problem. The landing was quite exciting, screaming in at 500m/s until RIGHT AT the target. Anyway, MJ did a decent job with this but came down further away than usual, so I had to use a ground pylon to connect it.

Now I needed a rover to carry ConstructionParts from the Construction Hub over to these incomplete modules. Putting one of the MKS storage tanks on wheels make a WIDE lander needing a stupid big fairing, but it still managed to get by the FAR Demons OK and got to Mun safely. I aimed it at the debris left from the initial scout lander because I was expecting this one's engines to go flying away and didn't want them to hit the bases. However, they just fell off as their Sepratrons failed to lift them.

At this point, things started going downhill. Putting Kerbals in the Agriculture Base gave warnings of low O2 levels despite the full storage module I'd just attached. And despite the resource bar saying it had more O2 than other other life support supplies. But there was no arguing with it so the Kerbals went back to the Pioneer Base and I had to send another supply module. And make sure there'd be no complaints this time, which resulted in this hulking brute:

The lander payload is close to 100 tons of food, O2, water, and ColonySupplies. And it's just 3 stages: 1 to SSTO, 1 to get to Mun, and then the lander. And it don't need no stinkin' fairings, just decoupling nosecones. The FAR Demons crapped and ran when they saw it coming. It just tore through the air like a battleship shell, blowing prodigious quantities of RCS out both ends all the way up for style points .

But then, when burning to circularize.....

This problem turned out to be due to the ascent stage having a monumental TWR at this point due to most of its fuel being exhausted. Slamming the engines on full power was more than the structure could stand. But burning gently solved that problem and then it was smooth sailing to Mun. And that's where a new problem arose.

Apparently using a ground pylon caused MJ to fail to recognize the Terraformer-Water Converter module as part of the base, so this massive supply pod tried to come down nest to the other 2. And MJ was a bit too accurate....

Oh well, nothing broke and I could still wiggle the thing around a bit, so I tried worming it into the middle of the gap, so it could take the place of the ground pylon. But unfortunately, it snagged on the pylon and stood on its nose just beyond it, and refused to budge again. Oh well....

But I can fix this. What I plan to do now is bring over the original rover, which has nothing to do, and park it in the middle. Then I can link it to the 1st 2 modules on 1 side and the upside down pod on the other, and then from there to the Terraformer-Water Converter, and end up with 1 big base as desired, sans ground pylons. Because I still have to bring in the Biolab and I don't want a repeat of this experience.

However, that's for another day. Now that I had enough life support in the Ag Base, I wanted to use some ConstructionParts to get the Water Converter running on the leftover rocket fuel. So first the Supply Rover went to the Pioneer Base to pick up the ConstructionParts.

This pic gives a better impression of the sheer size of this beast. It rolls on LLL wheels, the stock Ruggedized Wheels scaled up to monster truck size . These are very welcome, filling the gap between the standard small wheels and those ginormous stock things abortions.

Anyway, then it was just a short drive over to the Ag Base. I was noticing a little lag at this point but had been for some time, nothing to worry about. The Supply Rover parked next to the TF-WC module and a Kerbal got a pipe end out of the box and headed back to make the connection.

And then the game crashed when he made the final pipe link between the rover and the TF-WC.....

At which point I thought I'd done enough for the day.

Edited May 22, 2014 by Geschosskopf

[Geschosskopf]

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

Well, my original base, while having a certain something, was killing me on part count and also the whole 2ndary base turned out to be too far from the first. So I nuked it and started over.

I hadn't been aware originally that MKS has some telescoping tubes to connect modules together. They work like the Klaw from the ARM pack, so can make connections without anybody EVA and only use 1 part for it. And I also learned a neat trick on how to use detachable wheels that I could then blow up to get rid of. So I started over trying to use the Expand-O-Tubes. But at first I was putting the tubes on whatever part of the colony was already in place and extending them out to touch newly positioned modules. This resulted in all kinds of Kraken-ish stuff so I learned how to put the tubes on the new parts. I built a test version like this at KSC and it all worked fine there so next step was to send it to Mun.

So here's the lifters used in the order sent. In the background of the dark pic, you can see the test colony below the tracking center.

The Bomb Cart is a rover with 4 KAS boxes full of TAC Self-Destruct explosive charges (16 per box). Its 1st mission was to find a nice patch of reasonably level ground within the overall target area determined by resource availability. In this game, I again piced a location with Ore, Minerals, and Substrate, with Kethane in the adjacent hex just over a hill. Jeb didn't have to drive far before stumbling onto a suitable location for the colony.

The Bomb Cart's main job will be getting rid of module wheels and also the wreckage of their skycranes. It has itself 80 parts so once the colony starts getting big, it will be parked a safe distance away most of the time.

Anyway, the 1st colony module was the Colony Hub with a Storage Hut full of life support supplies underneath. I forgot to put reaction wheels on the skycrane (the MKS modules have no torque of their own) so it had trouble landing and ended up about 1500m off-target. But fortunately it had wheels (originally fitted just to drive off the Launchpad in tests) so eventually got into position.

The Colony Hub has 6x KAS boxes on it, some of which have bombs in them, but mostly pipes, struts, and ground pylons just in case. The idea is, these boxes will get refilled with bombs as needed from the Bomb Cart, and as stuff gets used, I can remove the boxes (and their ladders) and blow them up to futher reduce local part counts.

Anyway, here Jeb has removed the wheel assemblies (each was held on with a cubic octagonal strut, which was then reattached to the axle) and is getting a bomb out to blow one of them up.

And soon the wheels were gone without a trace. Fireworks! YAY!

Next came a Supply Storage Hut filled up with ColonySupplies (spare parts for modules). It weighed over 100 tons with skycrane and still 40 tons on the ground, but managed to roll just fine. Here, it's on its way to the Colony Hub. On the nose it's got an Expand-O-Tube which it will use to dock.

Once it got to the Colony Hub, I carefully lined it up by eye from overhead, then backed it up, extended the tube, and very slowly crept it forward to dock. Testing showed making contact at like 0.2m/s or less worked the best.

Once connected, Jeb came over and removed the wheels, then blew them up. This left only the 2 functional modules plus a few other parts I either need or couldn't get rid of.

Next to join up was the PDU (Power Distribution Unit) and the same process was repeated. Once in place, one of the smarter Kerbals from the Colony Hub climbed in and fired it up, so the Colony Hub could also start cranking out PunchCards.

If you look close, you can see how the wheels are attached to all modules except the Colony Hub, and a strange phenomenon. Each of these other modules has 4 individual wheel struts made of a stack of cubic octagonal struts with an RTG and the wheel on it. When Jeb removed the inner strut, the wheel and RTG remained in place while all the struts moved to his back. But then the 1 strut he'd actually grabbed stayed on his back and the others rotated away. So all 3 components of the wheel assembly were separated but still connected, so sometimes the stack of struts hovered in the air. Egad! Kraken bait! Blow it up quick!

The last module in this phase was a Construction Hub sitting atop an empty Mining Storage Hut with Kethane drills attached to it. It landed without incident in the proper place and soon trundled into position, where Jeb got to blow up 4 more wheels.

And then Phase I was complete. Another smart Kerbal got into the Construction Hub, the drills were started, and the Construction Hub started the very slow process of making ConstructionParts for future modules out of the Ore and Minerals brought in by the drills.

The base so far weighs about 100 tons and has 50 parts. 18 of those are the KAS boxes, their mounts, and associated ladders, so MKS definitely keeps the part count down. And the next version due out soon has integrated lights so I won't have to add those pieces anymore, either.

Then Jeb went out and blew up the remains of several skycranes.

So now there'll be a pause while the Construction Hub does its thing, although I might send over a few module shells to be ready for when the need arises.

[JebThePilot]

Man, it's been so long I didn't even realize this was a update! MOAR UPDATES! NAAAW!

[Spark Plug]

I stumbled upon this mod in the Spaceport a while back and only quickly skimmed through its features. I thought it pretty cool then.

Now I see this mission log and my jaw just drops. Your post perfectly showcases the functionality that the mod can bring to base-building! Sure it's meticulous work, but whoever said that setting up sustainable structures in space would be easy?

I'm eager to see how the rest of it turns out

[Geschosskopf]

Now I see this mission log and my jaw just drops. Your post perfectly showcases the functionality that the mod can bring to base-building! Sure it's meticulous work, but whoever said that setting up sustainable structures in space would be easy?

Thanks. I was hoping to spark some more interest in this mod and also help others avoid some of the mistakes I've been making with it as I learn how it works.

To that end, here's an update, perhaps best termed an obituary, on this particular test run of the system.....

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First off, shortly after my last post, RoverDude released a new version (0.16.7) which did a number of things. First, it added integral external lights to the modules (to save parts) and gave each type its own identifying decal on top (many modules use the same models). Second, it added 2 more lengths for the Expand-O-Tubes, so now we have 2m (new), 4m (old), and 8m (new). And third, it added Flex-O-Tubes, which are just MKS-styled KAS pipe ends. These let you connect modules using KAS mechanics but have it look like the other MKS tubes for aesthetics.

Anyway, I updated the mod and had no problems with the save that I could blame on that. However, I did run into quite a few problems, some with my learning curve, some with MKS, and others of unknown cause. These ultimately led me to abandon this test colony and start over again. Here's what happened.

First off, the colony just started vanishing into thin air when I left it to go do something else. I have no idea what was causing this, but I discovered that I could prevent this from happening if I connected the colony assembly to something else via KAS piping. At first I used the Bomb Cart for this and, having proven the concept, then used a KAS ground pylon instead. KAS struts can only connect parts of the same "ship" while KAS pipes can connect separate ships. Ground pylons attached to the ground are considered separate ships so that's why I had to use pipes to connect to them. But once I had the pipe in place, I could then also attach a strut. So I did this, too. This gave the colony an anchor to reality and it stopped disappearing.

The pic above also shows part of my learning curve--the "MOAR POWER" unit being maneuvered into position. This is a stack of batteries and 4x Gigantor solar panels atop some more life support supplies. MKS has a unit called a PDU (Power Distribution Unit) that creates ElectricCharge from nothing (I assume it's a nuclear plant of some type). This is supposed to be able to power the normal operation of a number of other MKS modules as they consume and convert whatever resources they deal with. I really don't know how many MKS modules a single PDU can support, but what is clear is that it doesn't make enough juice to run 2 small Kethane drills and 2 MKS modules at the same time (apparently MKS modules don't need much juice). So to keep the drills running, I had to add the solar panels and enough batteries to last them through the Munar night.

This gave me an excuse to try out the new, 8m Expand-O-Tube, so the Gigantors wouldn't hit the adjacent Construction Hub module. I docked the MOAR POWER unit at a 45^ angle to the Construction Hub due to the Kethane drill's position. (NOTE: just to be clear, the Kethane drill isn't getting Kethane, it's getting Ore, Minerals, and Substrate in this location).

Then I started running into a problem with the Expand-O-Tubes. As mentioned before, under the hood they are essentially just the ARM "Klaw" that can be extended forward. As such, they have the Klaw's lockable/free-able pivot, but this is only at the front end, not at the end attached to the parent module. This leads to some difficulties, at least in how I was building this colony. It goes like this:

Module A is whatever amount of the colony is already in position and Module B is the new module with the Expand-O-Tube on it. Module A, without wheels, is on the ground, Module B is very slightly above the ground due to still being on its wheels. Thus, once Module B docks with Module A and Module B's wheels are removed, you have a seesaw. If Module A is heavier than Module B (which will usually be the case after you've got 2 or 3 modules in place already), then Module B will remain up in the air cantilevered on the end of the Expand-O-Tube. If Module B is heavier, then it will fall to the ground and pry Module A up somewhat. Either way, if you leave things like this, then the whole colony, or at least certain modules, will jump violently into the air and slam back down again each time you come back to the colony from having been elsewhere. While so far nothing's broken on me from this, I figure that's only a matter of time so want to prevent it. So what to do?

You have a choice. You can minimize this jumping and slamming by tying everything down to KAS ground pylons, but this appears to keep the forces bottled under pressure, resulting in varying degrees of Wobble Horse Syndrome (WHS), plus increases part count. Or you can free the pivot on the Expand-O-Tube, which does solve the immediate jumping/slamming problem. HOWEVER, it also causes new problems. First off, because the pivot only happens where the tube joins Module A, the tube remains perpendicular to the surface of Module B. This means that Module B will sit at an angle with its outboard 1/2 sunk slightly into the ground a varying amount seemingly dependent not only on local ground slope and tube length, but also on the relative masses of Modules A and B. This creates a bit of a phantom force. While nothing jumps and slams when you go back to the colony, instead you get sideways sliding. This is a function of the pivot being free both in pitch and yaw. The end result is that over time, with repeated returns to the colony, what were once neatly arranged modules get out of position, as shown below:

Locking the pivot again will stop the sliding but re-introduces the jump/slam behavior. So what I had to do was apply KAS to the various modules. You can either run struts between modules (they're all part of the same ship once docked with Expand-O-Tubes) or anchor individual modules to ground pylons. Both hold things in place and neither seems to cause WHS. However, both add to part count and the struts especially make your colony look like a shanty town instead of the crown jewel of your space program. But you have to do something or your colony will become a messy tangle of modules pointing every which way, as mine did above.

So, obviously the whole concept I was using to build this colony has a fundamental flaw--it doesn't work well. This means back to the drawing board yet again to use a different method of connecting modules. There are a couple of options.

1. Keep all modules on their wheels or legs for the duration, so they're always all at the same level (apart from ground slope and suspension flexing due to different weights). But this means part count, which I'm trying to discover a means of avoiding.

2. Use the new Flex-O-Tubes instead of Expand-O-Tubes, so each module can have its wheels removed and be sitting flat on the local ground surface prior to being connected. This should prevent all the misalignments and phantom forces--KAS has gotten very good lately about dealing with such things. This means 2 parts per joint (you need a Flex-O-Tube on each end, same as with KAS pipes) and requires EVAs for assembly, but I think in the long run it will probably work the best of all the options I've thought of so far.

I also encountered another vexing problem and I'm unsure of the cause. Could be MKS, could be MJ, could be a combination of both. It goes like this: I leave the colony and go back to KSC to launch the next module. This rocket works fine until it leaves the atmosphere, at which point the payload (MKS module with MJ on it) becomes absolutely locked in orientation, incapable of rotating around any axis. The rest of the rocket, however, still functions as normal (and I otherwise have full control over it all, plenty of electricity, etc.). So when I try to rotate the rocket for the next burn, the payload remains fixed at the angle it left the atmosphere while the rest of the rocket tries to rotate, making it bend at the joint between the payload and the engines until the joint fails. If I totally quit KSP and restart the game, this problem goes away, but it's tedious to have to restart the game after every launch. I'm using MJ dev build 655 if that makes a difference.