Harnessing and harvesting the oceans

[JadeOfMaar]

This is the first real mod I would like to build: something to really take advantage of any and all oceans. I normally spend my KSP time making sci-fi ships and overblown stations or bases and try to harness resources in unconventional ways--and spend more of that time testing things than doing missions with them. I love the concepts of producing fuel from [resources; situations] other than [Landed; Ore] and you'll be seeing the fruits of this knowledge in the mod that I'm helping to develop: Galileo's Planet Pack. But before that mod is finished (at least, it reaches release 1.0), I want to expand on or complete this exact knowledge and develop my own little thing to gift to everyone.

I've tried to build boats and in my experience it's bothersome that feature-filled sea vessels or simply any that can go far need to be super-massive or have a support craft deliver fuel to them [such as amphibious crafts taking the Elcano challenge], and I've tried to build things that can refuel themselves in ocean, especially Kerbin's ocean. The Karbonite mod has parts for this but Kerbin itself is very scarce in karbonite and I don't want to hack that and theoretically poison the planet with karbonite.  Then again, kerbal oceans might as well overflow with that instead of typical salts. They can get the salt for their non-sweet snacks from some other place.

Outline and Progress

The method/intention is this: I want to utilize the IntakeLqd and Water resources, add these capacities to all intakes and stock LF tanks, augment air-breathing engines (especially the low-altitude turbofan type) to use IntakeLqd and Electricity, and I would like to have LF, LFO, LH2 options facilitated via Electrolysis in the Convert-O-Trons. I've already taken a few shots at it but I'm not seeing any hint of progress yet. I've produced 5 config files so far but they're little more than scraps with the tweaks I hope for and attempted clones of the Whiplash engine and short Mk2 LF tank, and attempt to add modules to all intake and ISRU parts.

The mods that have inspired me are @5thHorseman's MM patch collection (namely the ISRU Ablator patch), @MatterBeam's SimpleConstruction mod (stockifies EL), and @Nertea's Near Future Propulsion: I've lovingly made ships that run on only ArgonGas and with atmo scoops they can refuel while landed--no drills, no worries about landing where the resource is scarce.

Goals

The purpose of this mod is to provide a stockified or stock-based means to make Kerbin's ....(and yeah, Laythe's oceans!) very useful: to provide a whole new mining experience, and make it easier for boats and amphibious vessels to run much longer--run as long as their batteries are charged, and to refuel while splashed down while keeping the Vanilla rating high: if this mod goes absent, no ships get crippled, no kerbals go MIA.

Edited November 7, 2016 by JadeOfMaar

[Ketaz]

YES. I love this. Would love to see new types of resources that you can get from the ocean with new parts to make better subs that you can use to produce fuels or can be converted into electricity.

[JadeOfMaar]

@Ketaz This project is meant to be vanilla-ish and not add parts. But in the time since I posted this I found myself arranging something already that lets you use existing mods to do all that you described and much more. Instead of Water and IntakeLqd, I've used Karbonite, part of USI.

[FreeThinker]

Kudoes for you ideas but do note that everything is already implemented or planned in KSP Interstellar. Why not realize what you want to achieve from there?

Edited November 30, 2016 by FreeThinker

[JadeOfMaar]

On 11/30/2016 at 8:01 AM, FreeThinker said:

Kudoes for you ideas but do note that everything is already implemented or planned in KSP Interstellar. Why not realize what you want to achieve from there?

Oh really? Well that's epic. I'll add this to my list of things to explore in KSPI-E. I have a project idea for engines too but now I think you may have that covered to an extent as well.