17 asteroids and counting: Project Rock Garden [shared save]

[SirJodelstein]

This project is about creating a huge collection of space potatoes, and arranging them into patterns on the Minmus Flats. For Science! For Glory! For Fun!

It originally started as an "almost multiplayer" shared save challenge, but nobody currently seems to want to join. So here i am, having fun collecting some rocks and trying to recover from some failed missions surrounding the project.

Project status

- 14 rocks on-site (1xD-class,12x C-class, 1x B-class)

- 1xB, 1xC, 1xD-class asteroid landed nearby

- Refuelling station with two delivery ships in Minmus orbit

- Bulldozer on-site for debris removal and asteroid relocation

- D-class lander in Minmus orbit

If you want to contribute, please leave a post. I am still interested in turning this into a cooperative shared-save style project.

Lets get started!

.... or not. This was my first attempt at catching and landing a C-class asteroid. Back to the drawing board.

that looks better

Late evening delivery

after some rolling, hopping and sliding

#3 and #4 delivered and lined up

More failed skycrane experiments. Ran out of fuel 15m above the ground. Someone send a debris cleaner!

to be continued

Edited July 26, 2014 by SirJodelstein

[SirJodelstein]

Progress! Landed another C-class, and tried to wrestle a D-class asteroid into Minmus orbit with one of my C-hunters. Realized that they are not made for such huge potatoes, turning and control was terrible, and the TWR way too low, especially since i could not throttle up completely without going into a wild spin. Barely made it into a highly eccentric Minmus orbit before running out of fuel.

Decided that i needed a ground-based pusher vessel. Its currently in low Minmus orbit waiting for a refuel before landing.

Assembled a refuelling station "Midnight Fork" and pushed it to Minmus with two mobile fuel carrier ships.

(not pictured: Minmus)

[Space_Kraken]

Hmm, looks intriguing.

[BagelRabbit]

I would love to contribute to this... if I had time.

I managed to wrangle a Class-E asteroid into LKO, albeit with an odd and highly inclined orbit...

so I see no reason why I can't get a smaller space rock to Minmus.

(The ship that delivered the rock to LKO had twenty Kerbals onboard, which is why it's so large.)

Unfortunately, though, my asteroid-wrangling days seem to be all but over, as this redirection took two days, and about 150 gray hairs, to complete.

I'll let you know if I manage to get any asteroids around the vicinity of Minmus, anytime soon.

[SirJodelstein]

Progress!

The experimental Vehicle "Rhino I" has arrived and turned out to be a useful tool for debris removal and asteroid relocation. Also, three more C-class asteroids have been added to the site.

And i have decided to go for a new assembly pattern. Instead of writing "KSP" in huge letters this first pattern will be a huge smilie!

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So far, no signs of the Kraken. To celebrate reaching a double-digit asteroid count, i will attempt to land three asteroids (#10 to #12) at the same time with one vessel.

Edited June 11, 2014 by SirJodelstein

[SirJodelstein]

[Space Peanut]

Nice work!

I still haven't even wrangled an asteroid encounter so i'm no help sorry but keep up the good work!

[SirJodelstein]

With that triple-touchdown, i am now quite sure that this is the largest collection of asteroids anyone has created in KSP so far :-)

Here are some more pictures from that mission, note the asymmetrical thrust required because of different masses of the asteroids. Shortly after that, i refueled and reused the lander to bring the massive 600 ton D-class asteroid to the site.

I had to attach some additional "torque dockers" and some disposable fuel tanks for the landing, but it went really good, landed with a dV-reserve of about 50m/s.

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Maneuvering that huge rock on with the caterpillar was very challenging, but with enough thrust from the two Skippers i finally could place the rock in a very prominent spot. This is the current state of the site!

(also, back to stock looks, didn't like the low volumetric clouds on Minmus intersecting the terrain)

[Geschosskopf]

So, a smiley face? Or is that big rock the base of one of the Kraken's tentacles and the rest are the ship it's about to eat?

[SirJodelstein]

Still having fun with space potatoes. Landed three more (one B, one C, one D), but have not placed them yet.

... Yeah, and i need to find another way to move this 650 ton boulder to the site. The bulldozer barely survived this, only breaking part of the shovel. If anyone has an idea or finished craft on how to achieve this please speak up. The irregular shape makes rolling it along the floor really hard. Should i try a bigger bulldozer? Or try to tow it?

Still at .0.23.5. I am a little bit scared of what happens in 0.24 with asteroid-asteroid collisions. I have moved some asteroids slightly, but i might have missed some intersecting rocks.

Framerate at the site is down to a crawl (about 3 seconds per ingame second). Probably won't be adding any more asteroids as of now.

When the smilie face is finished, i'll update to .24 and stack the asteroids ontop of one another in a great pyramid (what could possibly go wrong). Wohooo!

P.S.: Thanks a lot to avivey and his Switch Active Vessel plugin, this makes switching vessels on-site a lot easier than just toggling through all the asteroids.

Edited July 20, 2014 by SirJodelstein
need help for D-class tug/bulldozer

[crwildman]

hey it looks like fun. Did i miss the d/l link ? or do you have a live server up? What plugins/mod are required?

[SirJodelstein]

hey it looks like fun. Did i miss the d/l link ? or do you have a live server up? What plugins/mod are required?

No, you did not miss the download link. Since noone has expressed interest in contributing so far, i've been pushing the project on my own. If you like to contribute, i'll upload the persistence file to a shared writable location and we can "take turns" working on the project, leaving posts in this thread to indicate the satus of the file (available/locked) and current missions/issues.

Required plugins:

- Kerbal Alarm Clock

- Kerbal Engineer Redux

Recommended plugins:

- Switch Active Vessel

- PreciseNode

As long as you end your flights, you can use any part mods you want, but anything that stays in-flight or as debris should be stock+KER only.

Current missions:

- Recover the two "Torque Docker" probes from Minmus surface. They have some electricity left, but their RCS tanks are empty.

- Build/test a D-class bulldozer/asteroid relocator. Fly it to the Minmus site.

- Relocate the landed D-class asteroid to complete the Smilie Face (using said relocator)

- Relocate the landed C-class asteroid to the Smilie Face. This can be done using the slightly damaged "Rhino Mk I" or by another means of your choice.

- Some more C-class asteroids are incoming and have appropriate alarms set up. Catch them and land them on-site, then dispose/re-orbit the lander. There are some C-class landers in low Minmus orbit with various fuel levels (which can be refueled from the station), but launching new Landers from Kerbin is more often the less maneuver-intensive strategy.

- Refuel the "Midnight Fork" station in Minmus orbit.

So, as i said in the OP: If you are interested, just speak up. There's plenty of stuff to do, just pick what you like. Just make sure to not miss any alarms and keep us updated on whats happening

[SirJodelstein]

The currently used bulldozer is obviously too light and weak to move the D-class asteroid. Presenting: "Panap MK I", the the big brother of the "Rhino Mk I".

(pictured with landing thrusters)

Fully fueled, this weighs about 800 tons. I hope this is enough to not be pushed around from the rolling torques of the asteroid like its predecessor was.

Now how do i get this into orbit and to minmus? Even empy, this weights around 150t, and the shape factor is terrible.

[SirJodelstein]

Well, that went better than expected. The empty Panap I was sucessfully landed on-site, even without using NASA engines

Then, i built and launched the heaviest ship I have ever built. 1100 tons of payload in form of a pyramid to serve as habitat and fuel reservoir.

Wow, these new NASA engines make lifting these payloads almost too easy

Anyway, the new and fully fueled Bulldozer has now a weight of 850 tons and is ready to rock!

Edited July 26, 2014 by SirJodelstein

[_Augustus_]

You do know you could just HyperEdit the asteroids...

[SirJodelstein]

You do know you could just HyperEdit the asteroids...

Sure do. I could also activate infinite fuel and no crash damage, or use F5+F9 exessively to make sure every mission goes perfect. But where would be the fun and challenge in that? I would be cheating to prevent myself from doing actual planning and missions, which is highly entertaining for me.