ISRU'ing around the solar system, indefinitely.

[WhiteKnuckle]

Spent the last week or so designing a lander/interplanetary ship combo that should be able to land and take off from anywhere but Eve, and refuel everywhere except Kerbin and Tylo (maybe Duna and Laythe too) So with some good piloting I should be able to bounce around the solar system indefinitely... Or at least I could until I died of old age, the combined ship had 330 parts and was a lag nightmare. So I'll be sending it off to the Jool system just to prove it can do can do Tylo, but I've already started designing a new ship combo that'll be able to do anywhere except Eve, Kerbin, and maybe Tylo, while keeping the part count reasonable.

 

I'll post pics tonight, but I'm more interested in seeing what other ultra long-range craft people have been building, as well as having a place for people to ask questions about ISRUing in general, and self sustaining craft in particular.

Edited January 21, 2016 by WhiteKnuckle

[EBAO]

Check out the Jool 5 ships. Several like mine can IRSU anywhere. 

 

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/123123-jool-5-challenge-voyage-of-the-nautilus/#comment-2229118

[WhiteKnuckle]

8 minutes ago, EBAO said:

Check out the Jool 5 ships. Several like mine can IRSU anywhere. 

 

Single ship, now that is damned impressive!

 

What's the partcount like?

Edited January 14, 2016 by WhiteKnuckle

[Francois424]

you could check my latest one which fits your criteria to a Tee.
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/27292-what-did-you-do-in-ksp-today/&page=855
(Mine is slightly below half the page.  Sorry I don't know how to link to a specific post in the page)

Although I split the Lander and the Miner into 2 different entities for efficiency (Miner being better adapted to haul 50k ore from planet back to ship to refuel the drive section, and lander being adapted to be able to lift-off from everywhere except Kerbin and Eve), I am sure you could combine the 2 into some kind f super lander.  The whole ship makes out ~280 parts and has ~9500 dV fully fueled with the ore tanks of the miner empty.  You could fill her up and refine fuel during the long transfers for (I assume) most likely a 50% range increase.

It's not stock tho.  I would have absolutely no problem rebuilding it stock... Except that the ore tank alone would add 32 parts, the engines would add 36 parts, the LF tanks would be 18 more parts (+ struts), and the solar panels would add 16 parts.  Nothing in my ship is an unbalanced part, all of them are for reducing part count

EDIT: On the picture, there are about 10-20 struts holding it together, those are mandatory as the ship wants to tear itself apart without them. 
Which mean you'd also have to have 'Kerbal Attachment System' to "re-strut" after each mission of the landers.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Francois424

[Mikki]

Jool-5 is your place to go. Prepare yourself for a real adventure!

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/129035-jool-5-with-kades-irv-1051028/

Edited January 14, 2016 by Mikki

[WhiteKnuckle]

My design actually started out as a Jool-5 mission plan. I was originally going to hit Tylo last and leave all the ISRU stuff on the surface, but the more I looked at it, the less of a problem Tylo seemed to be with ISRU helping you out.

So then it moved to Jool-5 without staging. So I tested a bunch of lander designs on Kerbin and found that they almost made it to orbit.

So at that point it became an almost Grand Tour like mission... and that's how I wound up with a 300-part monster my computer hates.

 

Damn mission-creep

 

Edited January 14, 2016 by WhiteKnuckle

[Terwin]

I have something similar, although much lower part count thanks to tweak-scale(less than 150 parts) and a slow computer.

The transit stage has the Life support storage/recycling/production facilities along with the research and habitation facilities, and the lander has the mining, ISRU, and power generation.

Even with life support, it should be able to handle 100+ years of reasonable usage, at which point it would need to stick to the inner system to use solar power or get a refuel for the nuclear plant.  (transit does not use a lot of power, even with research, but mining+refining on distant bodies will probably use lot of nuclear fuel to the point of only being able to handle ~15 years worth of continuous mining/refining).

(the lander has drills for water and substrate, so USI-LS can make more Noms out of that to replenish what is lost during recycling)

[Dr.K Kerbal]

lol

[WhiteKnuckle]

Finally got around to taking screenshots.

First ship: Wound up being too part heavy.

Lander. RCS Tug, Atmo package, Science Pod, Ore Tank, Main ship with Lg converter, Lab, and Heavy Pack at the front.

The Heavy Pack is everything mounted above the batteries. It's needed to get off Kerbin and Tylo. Otherwise, the ore tank, and science pods would ride on top.

 

Second ship was created with part count lowering in mind. Skips Kerbin SSTO ability, might make Tylo, everywhere else it should be fine.

RCS Tug/Polar Sat/Main Engine Pod, Lander, Ore Tank, Interplanetary Ring, Fuel Tank

 

 

Interplanetary Stage, still has second stage engine pod at the back, Tug is stored at the front, it's engine deactivated.

 

 

 

 

I'm pretty proud of this multi role Tug. In interplanetary mode, it acts as 1/5th of the main engine power. When first coming into orbit of a new body, it will detach at a high Ap and go into a polar orbit to make a scan, then it rendezvous with the main craft when the miner comes up with a load of ore. Nether the Ring or the Lander have RCS, it's all done by this Tug.

  

[Rune]

Hum. I've designed stuff like this on more than one occasion. There is the absolutely minimalistic "can do it in a single stage" kind of bird (actually, not Tylo or Eve, but everywhere else):

And then there's something very similar you your own thing, but clocking in at 2/3rd the parts (and a fraction of the TWR!). The damned cost is because of the gazillion RTGs to keep one of roverdude's greenhouses going on the outer system (something like x16 RTGs, and 300k√):

The bulge you see at the end is a LackLuster, the 50mT kerbin SSTO that can actually carry a surface refinery, one of my proudest moments of reusing one of my ships for something else. Getting a mostly pointless ship (2.5mT of payload to LKO) and turning it into a universal lander/miner/fuel tug is not a bad idea, right? Yes, the Ore tanks fit the bay just right, and yes, the refinery can jump back on the bay for reuse:

I'm loving your design, pretty cool, but I would suggest to consolidate your tanking around heavier stuff to save on parts. Those Ore tanks? 15mT of propellant in each of them, which is how I get a >2 mass ratio hauling a fueled SSTO around.

 

Rune. Planning Jool V's and never doing them is something of a hobby of mine.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Rune

[regex]

2 minutes ago, Rune said:

Totally borrowing this design.

[Dr Farnsworth]

White Knuckle, that is a gorgeous and ingenious ship design! 

I have not tried my hand at making ring sections for stations or ships yet like the one on your ship. Do you have any suggestions on how to make them?

[Rune]

5 minutes ago, regex said:

Totally borrowing this design.

You take actually grab the SSTO from R-SUV if you want to take a peek under the hood (some building tricks in there!), the refinery is still a bit of a WiP, but I'm sure you can whip up something that fits the bay. I actually worked out something really cool using KAS that I will never tire of showing off...

 

Rune. Hint: the refinery is actually a tad too heavy for it to SSTO on kerbin with it... unless it has a bit of a kick to start with.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Rune

[WhiteKnuckle]

18 hours ago, Rune said:

Hum. I've designed stuff like this on more than one occasion. There is the absolutely minimalistic "can do it in a single stage" kind of bird (actually, not Tylo or Eve, but everywhere else):

 

I love this design, simply beautiful.

I'm making something similar, but much smaller to go to Duna:

 

And I really like the Lackluster and it's little mining bot, he's so cute! And splitting off the drills and converter means you get to lift a lot of ore every trip.

I hadn't really considered using the large ore tanks as fuel tanks, but I guess it makes sense since there are no large LF tanks. Is their wet/dry weight ratio in line with conventional fuel tanks?

 

Dr Farnsworth, I'm glad you like the design. It's my first ring, and it's actually based on Rune's Von Braun station, so he might be the better person to ask about construction techniques. But what I did was pretty simple.

1. Make the core.

2. Make one arm from the core to the ring (doesn't have to be the right length right now)

3. Attach a fuel tank to the end of the arm and use the offset tool to get it line up correctly.

4. Attach another fuel tank to the top of the first one. Use Rotation tool (with angle snap on!) to rotate one click.

5. Repeat step 4, once you have a few tanks together you can use the alt+left click to copy sections of the ring and make things faster.

6. The ends should line up fine, but they wont click together so you'll need to hide a few struts in the tiny gap between them.

7. Add or subtract pieces from the arm to get the core centered in the ring, you may need to use the offset tool for fine tuning.

8 Copy the arm and add as many to the core as you'd like. Strut the ends of the arms to the ring. Done.

[Rune]

38 minutes ago, WhiteKnuckle said:

I love this design, simply beautiful.

I get the feeling you already know where to find it. I'm liking yours, very plane-like. Could probably switch the outboard tanks to pure LF, spaceplanes with RAPIERs + Nukes usually need just a tiny bit of LFO kick.

38 minutes ago, WhiteKnuckle said:

And I really like the Lackluster and it's little mining bot, he's so cute! And splitting off the drills and converter means you get to lift a lot of ore every trip.

I hadn't really considered using the large ore tanks as fuel tanks, but I guess it makes sense since there are no large LF tanks. Is their wet/dry weight ratio in line with conventional fuel tanks?

Thanks! I'll release it eventually, when I have actually used it enough to catch the most obvious bugs and such. And yeah, Ore tanks have almost the same ratio as other tanks... when they are 100% full. They differ slightly on the third significant figure (so same fuel fraction to within 1%), with the standard fuel tank coming slightly on top. For a handy comparison, just divide empty weight by full weight, smaller is better, and times 100 is the tankage fraction, in %. But, if you are going to use LFO tans for holding liquid fuel only, it totally blows them out of the water. And since the only big liquid fuel tanks are the Mk3 line, they are usually difficult to integrate in a rocket design... plus, versatility, I don't have to decide the LF/Ox/Mono ratio, I just make them as I need them.

38 minutes ago, WhiteKnuckle said:

Dr Farnsworth, I'm glad you like the design. It's my first ring, and it's actually based on Rune's Von Braun station, so he might be the better person to ask about construction techniques. But what I did was pretty simple.

1. Make the core.

2. Make one arm from the core to the ring (doesn't have to be the right length right now)

3. Attach a fuel tank to the end of the arm and use the offset tool to get it line up correctly.

4. Attach another fuel tank to the top of the first one. Use Rotation tool (with angle snap on!) to rotate one click.

5. Repeat step 4, once you have a few tanks together you can use the alt+left click to copy sections of the ring and make things faster.

6. The ends should line up fine, but they wont click together so you'll need to hide a few struts in the tiny gap between them.

7. Add or subtract pieces from the arm to get the core centered in the ring, you may need to use the offset tool for fine tuning.

8 Copy the arm and add as many to the core as you'd like. Strut the ends of the arms to the ring. Done.

Let's see if I can add anything...

4a. You can use other angles, if you know that holding SHIFT while using the rotation gizmo, the tool snaps in 5º increments. Anything that divides 360 to get an even number will work (so 5,10,15,20,30...), and 360/angle is the number of segments your ring will have.

4b. To hide the ugly gap, you can put the translation (offset) gizmo in "local" mode (the message is "Offset:Local", if you do it twice you will go back to "Offset:Absolute"), by pressing "F" with a piece selected on the gizmo. That way the part won't jump to align itself with some random grid when you pick it up the first time, and instead treat the attachment node as the origin of coordinates, and a single small shift (again, holding SHIFT using the gizmo makes it go smaller increments) should be enough to cover the gap.

5a. Once you have two tanks at an angle, you can copy that and thus save time. First you place one segment, then 2, then four, and then, if you aren't done already, 8. It also makes it likelier that you are keeping a constant angle and spacing, the crucial part. Minimize human error!

7a. Yup, the only thing you should have to touch to make them fit is the length of the radial arm. Radius is determined by angle increment and length of the segment.

But yeah, other than that you got it perfect.

 

Rune. You can't imagine how nice it is to hear that I inspired someone try new stuff!

Edited January 22, 2016 by Rune