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notthebobo edited this page Nov 28, 2016 · 24 revisions

This page covers the key design decisions that you'll encounter with MKS.

  • Design Goals
  • Life Support
  • Core Conversions
  • Part Series
  • Base Strategies
  • Resource Consumption (Supplies/Mulch, Machinery/Recyclables, EnrichedUranium/DepletedFuel)
  • Shipping-in vs producing supplies (Manufacturing)
  • Agroponics vs Agriculture
  • Logistics and Planetary Resources
  • Landed vs Orbital

  • Provide an option to build 100% self-sufficient bases, but provide this at a significant cost, in both time and effort, commensurate with the reward.
  • Add the capability of having parts that can be launched as lightweight packages, then 'built out' in-situ.
  • Build a mechanism that forces part dependencies. For example, to get food the player must build an Agriculture Module, which requires Dirt from the Drill, and many converters require machinery generated by the Assembly Plant to operate.
  • Include resource exploitation through a mechanism that forces the player to choose their colonization sites carefully, and situate them with easy access to resources.
  • Keep things at a fairly high abstraction level. The sweet spot of MKS is in construction and logistics management over a fairly abstracted system of resources.
  • Leverage existing add-ons where possible, and do this with minimal dependencies. The stock resource system is used to handle all generators and harvesters, the Community Resource Pack (CRP) handles shared resources, and the USI Catalog is used for Generators, Life-Support, and Kontainers.

Using the USI-LS life support mod with MKS can help provide an appropriate challenge where players will weigh the costs, risks, and rewards of supplying missions exclusively with carried life support supplies, or in making the investment in a permanent colony. That being said, this is not just a single greenhouse part (although food production is part of the mod). Rather, it brings an entire colonization end-game to KSP in a fun and challenging way. Once fully developed, a planetary MKS colony can provide for a self sustaining support loop. Due to the way MKS is designed, orbital colonies will always have some degree of lossiness and need to be supported with periodic supplies from Kerbin or a nearby ground base.

The USI_LS mod also include the Habitation construct, where Kerbals need room to move around or they get grumpy. They're also fond of Kerbin, and unless serious effort is made to create the kreature comforts of home, known as ColonySupplies, they'll eventually need to go back to Kerbin.

For more information, see Life Support


USI-LS introduced the concept of Supplies being converted by Kerbals into Mulch jsut by the fact the Kerbals exist.
MKS introduces two other primary resource conversions. First, everything that does "work" requires Machinery, which slowly wears down into Recyclables. Similarly, there are replenishable nuclear power sources that work by converting EnrichedUranium into DepletedFuel and Xenon gas. Both of these conversions take place whenever the modules are used and are at a fixed rate.

For more information, see Manufacturing.


There are three classes of kolonization parts. Each has its purpose in the building of your kolony.

  • The smaller Ranger series is intended as the simplest way to deploy the basic modules. They sacrfice small size with the need to deploy large Material Kits. The parts also have a lower efficiency rate than the other two classes.
  • The middle Duna class offers better performance based on standardized lander configurations. They can use the Ranger modules either as direct support or as enhancers.
  • The largest series, Tundra, has both 2.5 and 3.75 form factor that serves well as either a landed

For more information, see the Parts page.


THESE SECTIONS NEED TO BE COMPLETED

##Base Strategies ##Resource Consumption (Supplies/Mulch, Machinery/Recyclables, EnrichedUranium/DepletedFuel) ##Shipping-in vs producing supplies (Manufacturing) ##Agroponics vs Agriculture ##Logistics and Planetary Resources ##Landed vs Orbital

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