Advice mainly, with Fleets in general.

[Moonfrog]

I've started a new career save, I thought I would do things differently. So I've tried to send up missions at the same, or even do small fleets of ships, not actually gone higher than 3 so far. To put it clearer I would launch one vehicle to land on mun, then another to do flyby. But run both missions at the same time. I plan to do this with probes as well.

I thought I would ask if there are any tips, with stuff you've found, or run into problems with, or you discovered something useful.

Much appreciated if you could share your wisdom.

Only thing I've learnt so far, is don't send both missions home so they arrive in atmosphere at the same time.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Moonfrog

[Red Iron Crown]

Geschosskopf wrote a good tutorial on flotilla-style expeditions, you can read it here. Aimed more at interplanetary, but many of the same principles apply.

[SRV Ron]

Accomplish multiple missions with one launch when possible. Example, when you get the Explore Mun or Minmus contract, build one ship to do the science from orbit, science landed, then place it back into orbit to do further contracts requesting data. Then, upgrade that ship for manned missions to gather further science.

Later placed back into orbit for the data contracts.

While your ship is headed for Minmus, continue your exploration and contract program as it will take about 7 Kerbal days to get there. You should have the tech to launch both a explore and manned mission by the time you get that contract.

Manned, to return science data;

All stock variant;

Later, leave a base there to fulfill the plant flag contracts.

Edited September 10, 2014 by SRV Ron

[tomf]

Download the Kerbal Alarm Clock mod so you can keep track of the SOI changes and manoeuvres of multiple craft.

I tend to try and ensure that I have an alarm in my list for every mission that isn't finished. Alarms for SOI changes bacause you don't want things to do SOI changes at hight warps, alarms for every manoeuvre and I put in an alarm that will notify me a little while before anythign hits an atmposphere for earobraking or landing.

Edited September 10, 2014 by tomf

[SRV Ron]

Download the Kerbal Alarm Clock mod so you can keep track of the SOI changes and manoeuvres of multiple craft.

I tend to try and ensure that I have an alarm in my list for every mission that isn't finished. Alarms for SOI changes bacause you don't want things to do SOI changes at hight warps, alarms for every manoeuvre and I put in an alarm that will notify me a little while before anythign hits an atmposphere for earobraking or landing.

A definite requirement when the Eve and Duna - Ike window becomes available. You will want to launch a fleet of ships and place them in orbit before conducting missions from them.

The ship types;

1. The contract one way landed probe.

2. The contract data from orbit probe.

3. Return with Goo and Material Bay missions from orbit

4. Return with Goo and Material Bay after landing on Duna and Ike

5. Manned landing to return with samples from Duna and Ike.

6. Establish a base on all 3 locations.

7. Return data from Duna and Ike.

Lacking an actual timetable chart, you will want to have a probe, preferring one of those test a part while escaping Kerbal, in solar orbit to plot the best time for a direct launch from Kerbal orbit to Duna or Eve. Even with the timetable, have your ships in low Kerbal orbit ready for the window for a direct burn to Duna or Eve intercept. This will eliminate the delta v needed for a transfer burn from solar orbit. Plan on using aerobraking to further save on fuel.

[Wanderfound]

My main advice on fleets is: don't park the whole lot at the same space station at once. The totalled part count from a dozen ships is going to make your computer want to kill you.

[Geschosskopf]

I've started a new career save, I thought I would do things differently. So I've tried to send up missions at the same, or even do small fleets of ships, not actually gone higher than 3 so far. To put it clearer I would launch one vehicle to land on mun, then another to do flyby. But run both missions at the same time. I plan to do this with probes as well.

I thought I would ask if there are any tips, with stuff you've found, or run into problems with, or you discovered something useful.

Much appreciated if you could share your wisdom.

Only thing I've learnt so far, is don't send both missions home so they arrive in atmosphere at the same time.

Yay, another flotilla commander is born! I see Red Iron Crown already linked my guide on that (thanks for the prop, BTW). I said there I don't recommend flotillas for such short trips but if you want to give it a try, feel free.

The main thing is, as you've discovered for yourself, is to arrange ship movements so you never have more than 1 ship in need of a critical maneuver (capture burn, reentry, etc.) at once. So like when leaving Kerbin, let the 1st ship get a ways down the road to Mun before sending off the 2nd one, and similarly on the return. And you can stretch the whole thing out as long as you want because every day is transfer window day many times over .

Now take the lessons you learn doing a Mun flotilla and apply them an interplanetary invasion armada .

[Moonfrog]

thx for the advice and the guide link. Think i'll ask another question, I plan on doing a mission to Duna system first, then maybe do something harder.

I came up with an idea of having Four vehicles. Two landers, one for Ike and Duna, a Flyby vehicle for doing orbital research and a large Fuel vehicle with no engine of its own. Idea would be for the 4 vehicles to dock with the giant fuel vehicle for the interplanetary journey, then disembark for their individual mission, idea is that the refueler would use the smaller ships engines to push it.

is this viable ? or just a huge waste of effort?

[juanml82]

It's perfectly viable, but the flyby vehicle might not be necessary. Add a mobile lab to your tanker -> use your Duna landers to make science high and low in Duna' space -> dock with the tanker, use the lab to reset the material labs and goo -> Land

Another small tip for a flotilla is to name all your ships with their destination. For example, you could name your ships

Duna #1 Ike Lander

Duna #1 Duna Lander

Duna #1 Tanker

Duna #1 Flyby

Or simply, "D1" to shorten it. Or something more catchy, like "Duna Express". That way, when you have several flotillas to different destinations, you can quickly tell by the name which ship is part of which flotilla.

So, you look at your list of alarms, or you're using targetron or haystack to keep track of all your ships.

You open Kerbal Alarm clock and you have an alarm for "Jool #1 Laythe" followed by a SOI change for "Duna #2 Space Station" and then "Kerbin-Eve transfer window". So, at a glance, you know you have course correction for the Laythe lander of your first Jool flotilla. Afterwards, the space station of the second flotilla you're sending to Duna is entering Duna' SOI and, once you're done aerobreaking it, you turn your attention to your Eve flotilla which either you have to launch or is parked in LKO waiting for the transfer window.

It also simplifies all your ships. If your Vall lander doesn't have fuel to leave Vall' SOI and you have to send the tanker you put in the flotilla, you know you have to look for a ship named "Jool something" (Probably "Jool 1 Tanker") and you don't waste time jumping to the tanker you've sent to Moho instead.

[Geschosskopf]

is this viable ? or just a huge waste of effort?

It's viable. People do such things all the time.

The thing is, doing a clean sweep of the Science! at another planetary system in 1 expedition is a much bigger task than just sending a single lander to plant 1 flag like you've been doing at Mun. Lots of tasks to be done, lots of places to go. There are 2 general approaches. You can either build a single mothership or you can send a flotilla. Both approaches have their pros and cons but either way, you're in for a lot of work both in the design/testing and execution phases.

My own preference is for flotillas instead motherships. Flotillas are a lot easier to design because each ships is relatively small and simple, whereas the mothership will probably require 1 or more full-scale orbital tests of assembling prototypes to make sure you've got the dV and TWR you want, that it doesn't wobble too much under thrust, your computer can handle the part count, you've got enough RCS thruster to rotate the beast to a burn heading in less than 2 weeks, and you've got enough RCS fuel to make more than a couple of turns. But OTOH, the mothership is only 1 ship you have to fly instead of however many in the flotilla. But OTGH, once at the destination, each part of the flotilla can do its job independently of the others so 1 mission objective doesn't interfere with the others, and you've got some redundancy and self-help available if something goes badly wrong. HOWEVER, if the sole objective of this expedition is just to grab the Science! and go home, without leaving behind a permanent station and/or refueling system, then 1 mothership is probably the best bet because Duna doesn't need much.

For instance, to get all the Duna Science!, you only need 1 lander, 1 set of instruments on the lander, a Mobile Lab, and enough fuel and engines to get this assembly there and back and refuel the lander several times. This doesn't make for a huge, wobbly mothership and it's relatively easy to design. You use the lander's instruments to get the Duna high and low orbit data on the way in to Pe (rearming the instruments with the lab in between) and use aerobraking to sling you out to an eventual Ike encounter. Then you get high and low Ike orbit data as you approach that. Land on Ike. Then go to Duna and land there twice, once for the surface data and once for "while flying over" data in the atmosphere. All done. Now just wait for the window to come home again.

You can leave the lander behind in Duna orbit for use by later expeditions and not spend dV to get it home. And you've transferred all the data from it into the lab each time, so it now contains dozens of data sets. Just get this back down on Kerbin, which requires 1) a probe core and power so you can control the lab during descent and 2) 4 big blue chutes and 4 big landing legs to get down safely. Mission accomplished.

[Jovus]

One thing I haven't seen specifically mentioned is the middle path, as I like to think of it. You send one ship - thus saving on the travel drive redundancies - but that ship is composed primarily of small probes (manned or otherwise) with just enough dv to get around the system when you get there. (This involves decouplers or docking ports.) It's different from the idea of a mothership in that the pieces aren't necessarily intended to come back together afterward.

I personally favor this approach because it allows me to send a flotilla while not having to worry about making five different transfer burns and having the drive assembly for each.

[Claw]

Geschosskopf gives some great advice. I will add on and simply say, go try it! I was a bit slow to try flying multiple mission like that myself until I finally just tried it one day. I learned a lot more about what Geschosskopf is telling you by putting my hands on the problem and seeing how it works.

I definitely failed some of the missions because I didn't deconflict the arrival or science times from each other. The big one that took a while to sort out (especially coming back from Mun or Minmus with several ships) is allowing enough time between missions during the aero brake and atmospheric recovery portions. Sometimes that can take a lot of in-game time and you don't want the second ship needing to aerobrake while the first ship is still landing. I also keep a basic list of destinations, objectives, and abilities (equipment/fuel) for each mission so that I don't get confused while hopping around. (Nothing like inserting the wrong probe into the wrong place...)

I'd say when I was using Kerbal Alarm, I managed up to 14 simultaneous Munar missions (with manned, unmanned, flybys, orbitals, and landers). That was definitely my max and I certainly can't handle that many without the help of something like Alarm.

Go give it a try, and Good Luck!

~Claw

[Moonfrog]

Ok I built this as one of my flotilla craft for Duna. Its job is to do the flyby missions, I plan to have a lab as suggested on my refueler tank so it can do both ike and duna. It may also refuel if necessary. What do u guys think of it? It has around 2000 DV, I hope is enough, I plan on collecting the data transferring them to a pod, to help save mass on the journey home. After this I plan to build two landers, ike and duna.