Kethane Pack 0.9.2 - New cinematic trailer! - 1.0 compatibility update

[keptin]

Concepting some small radial detectors

I wish we could map Kethane deposits/veins more than one pixel at a time. I have no idea the extent of programming involved for this idea or if it's even possible, so don't get your hopes up, but here goes:

Edited October 17, 2012 by keptin

[Crater]

I just have to say that I love your 'Thingy' design. It looks like it could be rigged up with a bent wire coat hanger and some duct tape, which is about as Kerbal as you can get!

[Tommygun]

The sizes look good to me. I think having a 1m and 2m annular version would be very useful.

I can see the 2m working well with the Deep Space mission pack.

The only thing I'm not a big fan of is the shade of green on the kethane equipment.

I wish it was a lot darker or olive drab, but it is an established color now, so I guess it is set in place.

Those radial detectors are great, especially if they could give a general direction to search in, although with some built in error would be good to keep it from being too easy.

Also I would be happy if we could just search at times 50 speed to match the ISA mapper.

Edited October 17, 2012 by Tommygun

[keptin]

Ha, I've been sitting here researching mechanical-scan antenna radar, mechanical-scan array radar and AESA radar for two hours. Super cool stuff.

MSAR & AESA:

Holy snap mechanical-scan antenna radar moves fast!

Back to the topic, even if it couldn't map at 50x speed (assuming it's even possible at all), it would map a much larger area than one pixel at a time. I'd definitely prefer that so I can map more than a 1 pixel thick line. The numbers above were just examples...to make things a bit more fun, maybe you tighten up figures so cone angles are 1-5 degrees or even less. I suppose from space 1 degree is a pretty big ground target; 20 degrees could cover the size of a whole country.

Edited October 17, 2012 by keptin

[Majiir]

Also I would be happy if we could just search at times 50 speed to match the ISA mapper.

You canâ€â€in fact, you scan scan at any speed, although I don't recommend higher than 100x if you want good-looking results. The bad part is that you can only scan one pixel at a time, straight down, and the scanner doesn't even require a line of sight to the planet. I'd like to change all of this at some time, but it's going to take an entire release cycle to overhaul the scanning system. The current cycle is focused on bug fixes, and the next probably won't get to this. Maybe expect a scanning overhaul in 0.4 or 0.5.

[Tommygun]

Oh, I thought I had a pretty up to date copy, but I see the change log has more recent changes.

Thank you.

[BloodyRain2k]

I just found that majority of Kethane on Laythe lies deep under the oceans! Kethane Hydrate maybe?

I like the idea of custom generated pockets but I think you should add 'altitude filter' specifically for Layhte, so that Kethane won't generate underwater...

Other than that I love the mod!

There were way deeper going drills planned so interplanetary offshore rigs anyone? :3

Does anyone else think these are a little too big?

I made it two meters wide by accident But it made me think, what if the back end were two meters wide and the front end were one meter wide?

The scoops shouldn't be wider than 1m else they could restrict placement of SRBs or whatever you might have around the rocket at launch time for example. Aside that do they look good.

Maybe they could be sloped like this from the side: |\

Also the 1m -> 2m middlepart scoop idea is great imo

Concepting some small radial detectors

[Large image of fancy concept drawings]

I wish we could map Kethane deposits/veins more than one pixel at a time. I have no idea the extent of programming involved for this idea or if it's even possible, so don't get your hopes up, but here goes:

[Large image of fancy concept drawings]

Oh please I want these, especially the Octagon one and the most lower right Sat one

The dead end scanner is one of the things I hate most about the Kethane mod (and there aren't much things I hate to begin with ^^)

It's so annoying to find a place for it, currently it blocks the place for my DEMV miner's skycrane although I would have a spot in the back for it but that'd throw the whole balance off sadly, that scanner seems to be pretty heavy, though that my setup's horrible doesn't help I guess.

Edited October 17, 2012 by DYJ
Moderator edit: Removed large unspoilered pics from quotes

[DYJ]

Happy to see the kethane mod get updated.

And those concept pics looks really nice keptin. But what good would the naval radar styled detector be? There isn't really any orientation you could mount it in that would make sense for scanning a planetary surface.

[keptin]

My thought was that if you mounted it to the underside of an aircraft, it would be a look-down radar of 45 degrees. It's been vetoed, but maybe we'll do an aircraft-specific large aero-disk radar like you see on AEW&C aircraft. http://media.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_E-3FR_lg.jpg

This is early concept and will be narrowed down to a couple for now. As Majiir mentioned, the mapping system needs an entire overhaul and will have to wait until the rest of the mod is brought up to speed. We talked about ray casting as a possible method for getting the desired control for a variety of scanner types and functions--perhaps a sub-plugin with various mapping patters and options to choose from, such as beam focus (narrow/wide) by changing the random ray scatter angle from 1-8° to 1-35°, while reducing ray distance and number of rays, for example. Different scanners would have different advantages/disadvantages.

This sounds like something that the SatMap mod and a few others might be interested in. Perhaps it can be a collaborative effort to implement something like this. I'm not a programmer, so I'm a bit hands off when it comes to this stuff.

Edited October 17, 2012 by keptin

[BobCat]

cool, wait it

[DYJ]

Well, even if mounted on the underside of an aircraft it will still scan the horizon, not the surface. Great for finding ships out on the ocean, probably less great for finding gaseous compounds underneath a planetary surface.

Mounting any of the other options at a downward angle and letting it spin would work nicely though.

[nhnifong]

My thought was that if you mounted it to the underside of an aircraft, it would be a look-down radar of 45 degrees. It's been vetoed, but maybe we'll do an aircraft-specific large aero-disk radar like you see on AEW&C aircraft. http://media.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/AIR_E-3FR_lg.jpg

This is early concept and will be narrowed down to a couple for now. As Majiir mentioned, the mapping system needs an entire overhaul and will have to wait until the rest of the mod is brought up to speed. We talked about ray casting as a possible method for getting the desired control for a variety of scanner types and functions--perhaps a sub-plugin with various mapping patters and options to choose from, such as beam focus (narrow/wide) by changing the random ray scatter angle from 1-8° to 1-35°, while reducing ray distance and number of rays, for example. Different scanners would have different advantages/disadvantages.

This sounds like something that the SatMap mod and a few others might be interested in. Perhaps it can be a collaborative effort to implement something like this. I'm not a programmer, so I'm a bit hands off when it comes to this stuff.

Some kind of mapping standard would be nice, but IMHO, keep it simple.

Your radar concepts look great

[CAPFlyer]

Ground scanning radars usually look like this keptin -

The aerodynamic canoe allows you to put all the scanning elements facing downward.

[Mekan1k]

I liked all the ram-intakes for this mod. Please include them all within the mod!

Also- ETA on next update? I want to build Skimmer-Probes soon....

[fusty]

I liked all the ram-intakes for this mod. Please include them all within the mod!

Also- ETA on next update? I want to build Skimmer-Probes soon....

I agree with Mekan1k, they all look like winners you can't go wrong with choosing. It'd be neat to have more options than less though, so perhaps you can figure out some tradeoffs of the various designs to make for more varied craft design.

[Mekan1k]

Other question: Will you be able to harvest Kethane from the other atmos-bearing planets? like Eve, Duna, and some of Jool's muns?

Also, would you be able to collect kethane around the sun? I am running some Ion-engine probes that work incredibly well, especially when I have near-infinite power from the sun-(Sun-probes work well- still trying to land on the sun using indestructible panels...), and I was hoping to do something similar with kethane.

Also- Concept for you- interplanetary ram-scoops. They could unfold, and at warp, collect interplanetary kethane from the void.

[nhnifong]

Other question: Will you be able to harvest Kethane from the other atmos-bearing planets? like Eve, Duna, and some of Jool's muns?

Also, would you be able to collect kethane around the sun? I am running some Ion-engine probes that work incredibly well, especially when I have near-infinite power from the sun-(Sun-probes work well- still trying to land on the sun using indestructible panels...), and I was hoping to do something similar with kethane.

Also- Concept for you- interplanetary ram-scoops. They could unfold, and at warp, collect interplanetary kethane from the void.

I don't think kethane should be that easy to get. The scoops are already a bit of a gimme, but it's offset by the fact that you cannot aerobrake through jool indefinitely without spending some fuel, and even then, you probably cant harvest and convert enough kethane to keep a stable orbit.

IMHO ion craft are just cheats, and should only be used as such.

[Majiir]

Version 0.2 has been released. The download link on the first post has been updated. Changes in this version:

• Flipped the scan map so north is now at the top
  
• Fixed an issue where processes would happen at different rates under physical time warp
  
• Fixed an issue where scan maps would fail to load
  
• Fixed an issue where deposit quantities would reset when exiting time warp
  
• Fixed an issue where extraction could occur at time warp even if the drill did not reach ground

[Mekan1k]

ETA on the intakes? Those look like huge fun....

Also, why should kethane not be that easy to get? It makes sense- most of the planets in our solar system have a volitile atmosphere (compared to earth's,) and with a high enough entering speed, it is not only possible but feasible for multiple sligshots through the atmosphere of a planet.

[Majiir]

Regarding scoops on different planets: each planet will have an associated partial pressure of Kethane, and this partial pressure might vary by altitude. So, Jool will have a high partial pressure of Kethane (it's green, after all) that's mostly uniform throughout. Kerbin won't have any Kethane at low altitudes, but at the very outer parts of its atmosphere, it might have a little.

Interplanetary space won't have Kethane. There's no drag in interplanetary space, so it doesn't many any sense that you'd somehow be able to collect gas. If we ever get to the point where we're modeling solar wind and whatnot... then I'll think about it.

In the long run, the plan is to make scanning more fun and Kethane more scarce so that you can't fuel your entire space armada from one deposit on Minmus, and so that different extraction options exist with real tradeoffs.

[Mekan1k]

In interplanetary space (Between earth and mars, for example) there is a density of roughly 10 atoms per cubic meter, and outside the solar system, in interstellar space, there is a density of 1 atom per cubic meter. If you had a magnetic ramscoop, you could collect atoms at a significantly faster pace, as you could with speed.

Therefore: if I had the programming skills to do so, I would set up a magnetic scoop part, that turned electricity (say, from the electrical batteries in the MMI pack), into fuel, depending on how close the ship was to the sun, as solar wind is a factor here. If you were facing the sun, (sundiving... BWAHAHA!), you could collect more fuel, as you are riding 'into' the wind, with less fuel collection as you face in a different direction. This would simulate how a magnetic ram-scoop worked, and it could act as a nice piece for any ships that you wanted to use to harvest kethane, as you could increase the relative distance from any planet that would yield particles. Such a part would, I expect, be large and easy to damage once deployed, but effective and compact when not in use. That part could only be used in space.

(Between the earth and the moon the particle density is roughly 15-25 atoms per cubic meter)

A ship could be sent to jool, and orbit the planet, slowly collecting kethane, until your lander came by, and needed a refuel.

[centred]

Would it be possible for kethane deposits to slowly replenish? Not at any speedy rate, but say enough so a few are back after mining a whole planet?

[Majiir]

In interplanetary space (Between earth and mars, for example) there is a density of roughly 10 atoms per cubic meter

Yes, but how many of those atoms are methane?

[keptin]

different extraction options exist with real tradeoffs.

I like that. It incentivizes players to embark on mining missions where using multiple specialized crafts (detector sat/aircraft, miner craft, storage tanker, etc.) is preferred over a single trip all-in-one. For example, the player has to decide between a heavy sensor module or heavy converter. Maybe they compromise with a med sensor and small converter, or a small sensor, med converter and fewer tanks, but there's noticeable performance loss by compromising with an all-in-one ship. It's more challenging and the players have a feeling of accomplishment collecting fuel as a resource by having to plan complex multi-vehicle missions.

Is it planned to have depletable Kethane sources that are consumed by mining and later regenerate, perhaps randomly?

Edited October 18, 2012 by keptin

[Mekan1k]

Well, it depends what kethane has analogous to in our world. In interplanetary space, the proportions are supposed to be roughly split with most of the atoms being hydrogen, and the rest being other types of stuff.

Also- you can turn kethane into both RCS fuel and liquid rocket fuel. Both are chemically different.

Therefore, I expect kethane to be some sort of form of hydrogen, or a form of water that is unique to the kerbal universe as it is highly destructive when changing states, and therefore must be either a radioactive material, and since all fuel is equivalent types of that, the change/refuel part of the mod must be able to remove or stabilize it, otherwise there would be engines that used kethane (Please make those, by the way), or the kethane is a slurry of different chemicals that are equivalent the the universe's primordial soup just after the big bang, with the possibility to be any atom at all, with the converter acting as a quantum manipulator, allowing light-speed transmission of the kethane while allowing the kethane to be transmuted through some nuclear witchrafty mathematics into a different fuel type.

But, to answer your question, I would guess that maybe, of those ten atoms, 1 might be kethane, or all 10.

If the answer was that kethane is radioactive, I would assume that there would be more radioactive atoms in space due to the massive radioactivity of the sun, than in almost any planet's atmosphere, save Jool (pressure and heat would make convection currents bring kethane up from the core) or Eve (like venus has a hazerdous sulfuric atmosphere, there should be a percentage of kethane in Eve's atmosphere as well). The sun also chucks out an impressive solar wind, so I would expect that to be filled with kethane particulates as well.

If the answer was some quantum slurry, then I would say that there would be little in space, unless you were facing the sun, and quite close to it (10 km or less from the surface). Then, the kethane would be prominent, as the whole sun would be made out of the super-explosive materiel. Also, jool would have a high concentration, like you stated Majiir, but the moons would pull large filaments of gas off the planet, and would therefore have a relatively high concentration on kethane just in the orbit within jool's muns.