Squad's accounced there will be Resources in Beta- how should they go about it?

[tater]

He-3 might be useful at some point when we have fusion power. I guess we will know in a couple years if Lock-Mart is talking out their posteriors.

[Myslius]

Well yes, KSP is a bit more advanced in technologies, we colonise other planets I think He3 could be a great choice.

We kinda do have fusion at the moment, just in laboratories.

2013: "the amount of energy released through a fusion reaction exceeded the amount of energy being absorbed by the fuel. It's the first time this has been achieved at any fusion facility in the world."

So fusion works, everyone knew that already.

2014: Lockheed is working on the design, small enough to fit on the back of a truck, could be ready for use in a decade.

Things do get smaller.

[Bill Phil]

I'm a bit surprised noone mentioned Helium-3. It's the future. Heres the thing. There is no helium-3 on earth. Total reserves of helium-3 on earth is 65 pounds. On the moon, however, there are plenty of Helium-3.

The second space race is happening now, and it's for the helium-3.

"Helium-3 on the Moon Can Provide Mankind's Energy Needs for the Next 10,000 Years."

"Each year three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world"

"China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry issued a statement Sunday that the next Chang'e-4 mission will be to launch an orbiter that will circle the Moon and then return to Earth. This is a vital step towards establishing the capability for transporting helium-3 from the Moon back to Earth and is preparatory to the 2017 Chang'e-5 mission testing the capacity to gather samples on the Moon"

"According to an official statement released in January, the mining of helium-3 on the Moon will be the main purpose of the Russian space exploration program."

China, Russia, USA, even Canada all are working on Helium-3.

Taking this into account i would like to see helium-3 mining.

Also i second that other resources, such as rare metals, required for unique and more powerful engines, or resources for lightweight ship bodies should be mined too, from other planets. This would give another purpose to visit them.

Heheh...

Nah...

Just because the He-3 itself could provide the energy does NOT mean that you'll necessarily get an energy profit.

It takes energy to extract He-3, it takes energy to transport it to Earth, it takes energy to get it to the reactors, and the reactors have to apply energy to get it to fuse. And so the overall energy profit may be negative, then there'll be no point. Of course this is all dependent on the actual system used to get the He-3.

Plus, there's a lot of Deuterium here. And not a lot of tritium, but D-T fusion takes little comparative energy to start off. And before fusion even gets practical, we need to break even, and then we need to do more than break even. Fusion is far off...

[Laie]

Helium-3? Good one. Also, useless in the context of ISRU.

All the power in the world will do you no good if it has nothing to act upon. To the best of my knowledge, antigravity and similar force fields are as elusive as ever. So we're still stuck with driving our spaceships by expelling matter. That is the limiting factor, not the power source.

[tater]

Yeah, He-3 is best left to a near future mod, the usual suspects (water, etc) are perfectly reasonable.

I'd actually be fine with Squad making actual parts to get some resources, and adding new facilities (like KSP) as an abstraction at the very top of the tech tree. Deliver "base parts" (they'd be large fuel-tank sized cargo pods) to a designated area (say you place a marker on the Mun where the water is, and have to land/store all within 1000m). Once you have delivered however many, along with a base to support 20 kerbals, you can build a permanent base. Small tabs, buried in soil, airlocks and antennae sticking out, and a power plant (nuke) away a little bit. It might include a landing pad area with a few lights. After that, you could add the mining/refining area. Yeah, they'd all look the same (maybe you could place/rotate the facilities?), but they could be designed in such a way the player can connect to them (they'd all have airlocks as well as at least one clam-o-tron sticking out).

[CaptainKipard]

@Northstar1989 Will you try to put a summary of the thread in your OP?

This is really too much to read for anyone, especially Squad employees. There's already a partial summary a few pages back.

[Pthigrivi]

So it seems they will be going with a Karbonite-like system for stock ISRU. I haven't used it... what can I expect?

[Louella]

In my opinion, for stock, there is only a need for there to be 2 systems.

1, for being a surface refinery, to be landed on Minmus, it produces liquid fuel and oxidiser, from whatever kind of ice it is that Minmus is made of. Electricity + ice > Hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen.

2, a system, much slower than the Minmus surface refinery, that can be used after the spacecraft clamps onto a comet, which also produces liquid fuel and oxidiser. Same principle. Electricity + ice > Hydrogen and oxygen.

No means of recharging monopropellants or xenon engines, which limits the duration of missions that use these fuels, which adds to the challenge of mission design.

[Northstar1989]

Helium-3? Good one. Also, useless in the context of ISRU.

All the power in the world will do you no good if it has nothing to act upon. To the best of my knowledge, antigravity and similar force fields are as elusive as ever. So we're still stuck with driving our spaceships by expelling matter. That is the limiting factor, not the power source.

Absolutely not. Fusion reactors would allow us to DRASTICALLY improve the ISP of our rockets through fusion-thermal rockets. You think fission-thermal has good ISP? Wait until you see what a fusion reactor can accomplish (much higher reactor temperatures equate to much higher propellant temperatures and much higher exhaust velocities...)

With fusion reactors, true spaceplanes (Horizontal Takeoff, Horizontal Landing) become within reach. A fusion reactor should eventually (with enough technological advancement) even be able to out-perform Microwave Beamed Power (which is the key to a lot of things that are just beyond our reach, like spaceplanes and extremely low-cost rockets: when ISP improves you can build a rocket to much looser engineering margins, and costs decrease exponentially with decreasing precision...)

- - - Updated - - -

@Northstar1989 Will you try to put a summary of the thread in your OP?

This is really too much to read for anyone, especially Squad employees. There's already a partial summary a few pages back.

I don't even know how to BEGIN summarizing this thread. Would you like to give it a try- I'm sure you can do a much better job than I can. Just send me a PM with a link to your post when you come up with something.

Regards,

Northstar

[SaturnV]

Confirmed. No one check the post date before reply

[John FX]

So it seems they will be going with a Karbonite-like system for stock ISRU. I haven't used it... what can I expect?

It`s quite nice and easy. One collectable resource converted into all other resources by a single converter.

You can (slowly) collect the resource in orbit as well. There are different collectors/drills for different locations.

Myself I set up a station at about 70km over kerbin and it (slowly) fills up the orbiting fuel tanks and I can refuell in orbit so I send up all my craft empty then fill them there.

It gives the most flexibility as far as gameplay with the most simple setup.

I reckon this will be the stock model for resources.