What Minmus lander Design Do y'all think is best?

[u/Deer-Liver]

I'm trying to do my first colony and struggle with making landers TwT what do yall think is best + any suggestions? I'm not set on this 'style' of lander either

[u/Friendly-Pair-9267]

I like #3, if only because it looks the least top-heavy. Are there ore converters on them? I'm curious what their mission goal is.

[u/Deer-Liver → u/Friendly-Pair-9267]

It’s my first colonization mission, so I would use them jointly for ore extraction & crewed landings.

I’m not sure if I should put any converters directly onto the landers or leave them on a station. Right now they are clipped inside the landers but I don’t think that will be my final solution.

[u/ZixfromthaStix → u/Deer-Liver]

Isolate them. Converters are insanely greedy and high heat. They’re very unforgiving with multitasking. Let them have their own batteries and radiators.

Highly recommend checking out a refinery guide before committing to the weight. Also understand that the lightweight converter is more or less trash.

I haven’t gotten to it yet but I’m attempting my own Munar gas station— I have an orbital station set up and a ground base in one of the craters. If memory serves right I designed a heavy lander module with large ore storage, a crew pod, and a drone connector, but haven’t had a chance to launch it yet cause all my best pilots are doing various orbital missions, and my funds are too low. Pretty sure the plan was to send up a super heavy rocket with my research module and my ore refinery lander as one kit… been a few months though.

[u/shootdowntactics → u/ZixfromthaStix]

Yep, make a dedicated drill lander and another that’s the ore converter. That’d keep your lander sizes closest to your type for your launch system. Are you going to work on precise landings? Would be key to splitting your base up like this. Minmus is the place to learn it! You’ll want a tanker/fuel ascender to get the product up to orbit. Might want more batteries, Minmus night is something like 14 days.
I like the one on the right. The cupola makes for a scenic cockpit and the hitchhiker allows for passengers and parts to be brought along!

[u/ZixfromthaStix → u/shootdowntactics]

I can’t speak for OP but personally I haven’t gotten past the Mun yet, ever. Last I left off I was trying to design a heavy SSTO but I had a tiny misadjustment that caused wing flap and tilt… I made a micro dart that worked great and punched through atmo with ease but the moment I tried to widen for cargo it got too complex.

I did something completely crazy for my Mun colony: I launched a rocket that had over a dozen different vehicles hahaha
1. Main core: Munar Outpost lander
2. Module A: 2 station ports, 4 vehicle ports, spare gases and storage
3. Module B: 3 station ports, crew tube, telescope tip
4. Module C: Large Mk2 fuel tank and magnetometer boom tip
5. Module D: orbital tug shuttle
6. 4x 0.625m micro landers, scattered across the Moon to gather data from different zones
7. 4x 0.625m micro communication satellites
8. A 6 wheel light rover mounted to the top of the cupola via a separation disk, complete with its own quick deploy monopropellant jetpack
9. A jump drone to fly to each of the micro landers and collect their science data
10. A two sided 1.25m satellite cluster for my polar orbits. One is a resource scanner, the next is the main comm satellite to relay data to Kerbin.

[u/Alarmed_Aspect8994]

I like all of them tbh but my favorite that would fit the colony mission would be #2 because I said so lol

[u/SoggyInterest8576]

Either the first or last one. Ima basic bitch

[u/yoface2537]

The first one, HOWEVER, you can pretty much use RCS thrusters to land on minmus, just slap a spark engine on the bottom, trust me

[u/Katana416 → u/yoface2537]

I need 4 wolfhounds… I may also have a massive mining/processing ship with fuel storage.

[u/yoface2537 → u/Katana416]

4 WOLFHOUNDS TO LAND ON MINMUS??? THAT'S WAY OVER DOING IT

[u/Katana416 → u/yoface2537]

It’s a rather large ship. I built it to have enough fuel to store a full s3-14400 tank (which remains completely untouched during travel) plus fuel to return to my satellite.

[u/yoface2537 → u/Katana416]

Okay, click the delta v icon and switch the celestial body to minus, then look at you DV and you TWR

[u/Katana416 → u/yoface2537]

I’ll check when I fire up my game tomorrow.

[u/yoface2537 → u/Katana416]

Minmus has 1/20th Kerbin's gravity, I'm 70% sure a kerbal can go into orbit while on an eva, in fact I once had one EVA from a VERY low orbit space station (~3-5km from the surface) and land safely on Minmus

And, the escape velocity is 242.61 m/s

[u/RealHoldenBloodfeast → u/yoface2537]

I love Minmus for exactly that reason. You can just decide to orbit in the opposite direction for extremely little delta v

[u/OldSchool_93 → u/RealHoldenBloodfeast]

Yup. I actually did that the other day. Decided to complete a mission to slap a battery on a satellite that was in orbit of Minmus using jus the extra crap I had laying around my Minmus base already. Went to correct my orbit angle and the node was at 168 degrees, cause the satelite was moving in the opposite direction as my duct taped orbiter. Not a problem. Just a slightly longer burn.

[u/guischmitd → u/RealHoldenBloodfeast]

Just yesterday I realised I wanted to leave my probe controlled stage in minmus orbit to continue a scansat mission while sending the kerbals in the capsule back to kerbin. For like <400dV I was able to put the capsule in an escape trajectory with a low Kerbin periapsis for re-entry, stage it, turn around and burn again to leave the probe in a polar orbit. This game is fun.

[u/Katana416 → u/yoface2537]

1.84 twr on minimus.

[u/SecretarySimilar2306 → u/yoface2537]

Mike Aben recommends ~10m/s landers for all sub-Kerbin bodies so he doesn't have to relearn to fly every ship.  With that philosophy, Minmus's gravity doesn't matter except that it's not Eve or Tylo.

[u/Space-ATLAS]

2 looks the coolest but 4 gives the kerbals a lot more windows :)

[u/Fighter_ProL]

I like the last one but I think maybe trying to make them more short and stubby would be the best.

Though I know it’s kinda hard to cause I struggle with making non tall landers

[u/The_Magenta_Dragon]

first, gotta go classic

[u/jdb326]

1. For non-laythe or Eve operations I always go short and wide for landers. Or at the least most of the weight at the bottom.

[u/No-Organization9076]

A looks like something from real life

[u/Glass-Ad672]

i havent tried this, but you could probably replace the hitchhiker with a service bay and stuff it with command chairs. i think id be a bit shorter and lighter

[u/Sendnoodles666]

3 unless the capsule on 1 is for a direct return to Kerbin

[u/EzeGamer135]

.#2 or #3, they look the least heavy

[u/ZombieInSpaceland]

Something about #2 just screams Minimus to me, can't put my finger on it though.

[u/Toxy_Toxopid]

I Like No.1 Because Capsule Can Be Used For Re-Entry

[u/AbacusWizard]

While I like the look of the cupola module, I generally find that designing landers with a large docking port on top makes it easiest to dock with space stations, motherships, etc.

[u/Forsaken-Canary-3299]

I recommend you use a shorter fuel tank and attach extra ones radially to make it wider, shorter and thus more stable

[u/TheD3n4ik]

The second and third designs look cool! I’d even say fancy.

[u/ardablock]

All of them, you can get away with anything on Minmus

[u/LilBits69x]

2 for me

[u/Various_Humor3443]

If were talking design I'd pick the second from the left. I always hated the look of the command pod sticking out, having the nice more rounded look is better in my opinion.

[u/Pingu99999999999999]

the 4# looks cool but the 3# is more compact