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

[Laie]

Citation needed.

For one, this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/96968-Beta-Than-Ever-The-Future-of-KSP

Deep Space Refueling.- We’re aware there is one big end-game mechanic missing in the game: Being able to refuel a vessel once you’re out in Space. This is what we originally set out to achieve with the old Resource Mining plan and saw ourselves running into a very tedious dead-end. The Resources system was flawed because it overcomplicated accomplishing a basic need: To be able to find something out in space which can be used to fill up the tanks again. That’s the essence of it, and we don’t need 40+ single-purpose parts and 9 different resources to do it. In fact, all that complexity was going to be very effective at making sure most attempts to build a refueling outpost would fail. We are now planning a new, more elegant system, which hopefully will add a new, fun element of gameplay, as well as the massive boost to continuity this feature implies.

Maxmaps dropped a few more hints in a squadcast.

• resources from asteroids, and only asteroids
  
• an asteroid belt around Jool, possibly more elsewhere
  
• not so simple that you just visit an asteroid and click "refuel"
  

To the best of my knowledge, this is all we we've been told so far, and strictly speaking this is only hearsay: I HAVEN'T WATCHED THE SQUADCAST MYSELF. The above list may already be wrong.

If someone wants to track down the squadcast and hear for himself, this might help in finding the right episode:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/97503-Squadcast-revealed-resources-will-be-tied-to-asteroids-Thoughts

Edited November 19, 2014 by Laie

[Superfluous J]

Citation needed.

This forum.

I can't be bothered to look it up (though I did do a quick Google search and got nothing) but Maxmaps OR HarvesteR OR both of them have specifically said it in a devnote, blog, or other very public post.

Asking for a citation for this is like asking for a citation that the next version is going to be the first Beta.

[Red Iron Crown]

Hmm, I hadn't heard that it was confirmed as asteroids-only, just that it would be possible on asteroids. Might be wishful thinking on my part.

[Laie]

Hmm, I hadn't heard that it was confirmed as asteroids-only, just that it would be possible on asteroids. Might be wishful thinking on my part.

Well, I haven't watched that squadcast myself, so that's only hearsay; it's also a few weeks old by now and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the plan has changed in the mean time.

I guess I'll better update my previous post.

[Capt Snuggler]

Hmm, I hadn't heard that it was confirmed as asteroids-only, just that it would be possible on asteroids. Might be wishful thinking on my part.

I hadn't heard that confirmed ether. I think its safe to think that the "resource" (lets just call it water because that's what it is) will be available on surfaces other than asteroids. but it should only be in certain areas and finite. I would consider asteroids (icesteroids ) to be the infinite source of water as they are always spawning in.

[JimmyAgent007]

it would seem silly to get ice from 'icesteroids' but not from say, duna polar caps.

[CaptainKipard]

I'm going to have to read this whole thread later on, so if I'm repeating someone's point I'm sorry.

I just want to point out that there's something to be said for realism, and how consistency with physical laws goes hand-in-hand with the K.I.S.S. principle.

Molar masses, and realistic reaction proportions (even if scaled, like everything else) should be a thing for the sake of modability and ease of implementation. I'm in a predicament right now where IntakeAir ends up having to provide over 100 times more oxygen than it should to my engines, because no one thought to make resources based on the principles of chemistry.

1kg of pure molecular hydrogen reacts with 8kg of pure molecular oxygen in a reaction with no leftovers, and similar things should happen with "oxidiser" and "liquidfuel" (whatever they are in reality). Correct me if I'm wrong but the volume ratios for stock resources were just invented out of whole cloth, and a system with no consistency will be difficult to build on reliably.

Chemical reactions (and therefore engine consumption ratios) are dead easy to work out as long as you know the chemical formulas of your resources, densities and volumes.

Edited November 19, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[KSK]

Count me in on the 'no alchemy' camp. I appreciate the simplicity of a single resource system, but personally I'm not a big fan. Thinking about it though, I think we could get by on two resources - water and carbon - that would let us have a simplified version of real life ISRU proposals, that could also be expanded out with realism mods if desired.

Resources and raw materials

At the moment we have four refuelable resources: liquid fuel, oxidiser, monopropellant, xenon. I'm going to deliberately ignore xenon - that needs to be shipped from Kerbin. I don't think this will be a big deal - ion engines are mainly used for probes, and it's not difficult to include to include enough onboard xenon on a probe. Monopropellant is an interesting one that could go either way, as I'll come on to.

The ISRU scheme is fairly simple: Water gives you hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen gives you (wait for it...) oxidiser. Hydrogen + carbon gives you liquid fuel (feasible but most of the chemistry is abstracted out for game-play purposes). Water could also give you monopropellant in the form of hydrogen peroxide, although in real life, the chemistry isn't easy to scale up. Alternatively, monopropellant could simply be shipped from Kerbin. Hydrogen could give you LV-N propellant if Squad get around to redoing nuclear engines.

For added realism mods, water and oxygen can be used to resupply life support systems. The above scheme gives you hydrogen and methane for hydrolox or methane engines respectively. Monopropellant from Kerbin could potentially be a source of nitrogen, opening up more advanced ISRU options, including hand-wavy stuff such as producing fertilisers off-world for growing food.

Raw material locations

Water could plausibly be found almost anywhere in the Kerbol system. Icy asteroids, Duna's ice caps, in liquid form on Laythe, as ice on the other Joolian moons or Eeloo, in the bottom of deep craters or at the poles on the Mun. If we're treating Minmus as an ice world, then Minmus too.

Carbon is a bit more limited. Sources might include carbonaceous asteroids, atmospheric CO2 on Duna or Laythe, frozen CO2 on Minmus, the Duna ice caps, the Joolian moons and Eeloo.

The obvious places for a full ISRU base are therefore Minmus, Duna and Laythe, since all three bodies could plausibly have both carbon and water available. Gameplay wise, that's quite a nice player progression too, Kerbin System to basic interplanetary to advanced interplanetary missions. Asteroids are the other obvious place, although to manufacture everything would require an icy and a carbonaceous asteroid reasonably close together. Full ISRU bases would be capable of producing liquid fuel, oxidiser, monoprop (if included), hydrogen (if Squad decide to change nuclear engines to run on hydrogen), methane (if needed for mods).

If hydrogen becomes a fuel, then anywhere that water is available becomes a potential refueling spot for nuclear powered vessels.

Equipment

I suggest a largely abstracted system of Extraction Modules, Processing Modules and a single Universal Storage module. Extraction modules acquire the relevant raw material, processing modules turn it into one or more Resources, and the Storage module holds the finished Resources. Other variations are possible of course - separate Storage modules for each resource, or combining Processing and Storage into single modules.

A full ISRU base, capable of manufacturing all Resources could be set up in five Modules. One Universal Storage Module, one Water Extraction Module, one Carbon extraction module, one Fuel Processor for turning carbon and water into liquid fuel (plus methane if required) and one Oxidiser Processor for turning water into oxidiser, monopropellant (if we're including it) and optionally, hydrogen. For a little more complexity, the single Carbon extraction module could be replaced (as appropriate to the base location) with an Atmospheric CO2 Extractor and/or a Solid Carbon Extractor.

Edited November 20, 2014 by KSK

[Laie]

The ISRU scheme is fairly simple: Water gives you hydrogen and oxygen. Oxygen gives you (wait for it...) oxidiser. Hydrogen + carbon gives you liquid fuel (feasible but most of the chemistry is abstracted out for game-play purposes).

I wonder how difficult the latter would be in real life. The reaction may be feasible (though I have my doubts as to it being practical), but how do you get the input? It's pretty easy to get sufficiently pure water by filtering and destilling. But getting carbon from minerals, how do you do that -- in space?

In the game, we could solve this by declaring fuel to be hydrogen. Somewhat problematic: insofar as the stats/weights in the game make any sense at all, they seem to be pointing towards kerosene. But frankly, I don't really care. The only point where it *really* breaks down is that jets would be running on hydrogen.

In the end, I think the single-resource approach (water) will be so much easier to handle that it justifies bending the existing game to fit the concept, rather than come up with a resource system that fits the game as it is.

[Capt Snuggler]

I wonder how difficult the latter would be in real life. The reaction may be feasible (though I have my doubts as to it being practical), but how do you get the input? It's pretty easy to get sufficiently pure water by filtering and destilling. But getting carbon from minerals, how do you do that -- in space?

In the game, we could solve this by declaring fuel to be hydrogen. Somewhat problematic: insofar as the stats/weights in the game make any sense at all, they seem to be pointing towards kerosene. But frankly, I don't really care. The only point where it *really* breaks down is that jets would be running on hydrogen.

In the end, I think the single-resource approach (water) will be so much easier to handle that it justifies bending the existing game to fit the concept, rather than come up with a resource system that fits the game as it is.

are there frozen CO2 asteroids? is that what a commit is?

CO2 is abundant in our solar system, but I guess its just another layer of complexity which can lead to unhappy kampers.

*edit* but also a jet can run on hydrogen so its not totally crazy.

right now the part I'm most troubled by is mono propellant. how can that be synthesized in space?

Edited November 20, 2014 by Capt Snuggler

[pxi]

I'm in a hurry so I'm hoping you'll excuse a bit of self-quoting for the sake of brevity:

I'm hopeful that Squad might use this opportunity to make some subtle changes to asteroids in general. For one thing, the composition of asteroids has a spectrum, broadly speaking, this is your C, S, and M class asteroids. For another, within our own asteroid belt, there is a region, generally known as the snow line - wikipedia tells me this is at 2.7 AU - this is the point beyond which, where ice tends to accrete.

C-class asteroids are carbonaceous in the real world classification.

EDIT:

Also just found this:

]Volatile Products from Carbonaceous Asteroids (PDF)

Edited November 20, 2014 by pxi

[KSK]

I wonder how difficult the latter would be in real life. The reaction may be feasible (though I have my doubts as to it being practical), but how do you get the input? It's pretty easy to get sufficiently pure water by filtering and destilling. But getting carbon from minerals, how do you do that -- in space?

In the game, we could solve this by declaring fuel to be hydrogen. Somewhat problematic: insofar as the stats/weights in the game make any sense at all, they seem to be pointing towards kerosene. But frankly, I don't really care. The only point where it *really* breaks down is that jets would be running on hydrogen.

In the end, I think the single-resource approach (water) will be so much easier to handle that it justifies bending the existing game to fit the concept, rather than come up with a resource system that fits the game as it is.

Well it's not a case of dropping a lump of coal into a bucket of water and making rocket fuel. But, starting from carbon dioxide, the chemistry is pretty well understood, and practical on a commercial scale. I chose carbon as a resource rather than CO2 just to keep it general. Making it work in space is, as you rightly say, a different matter but for gameplay purposes we just have to assume it can be made to work.

[KSK]

are there frozen CO2 asteroids? is that what a commit is?

CO2 is abundant in our solar system, but I guess its just another layer of complexity which can lead to unhappy kampers.

*edit* but also a jet can run on hydrogen so its not totally crazy.

right now the part I'm most troubled by is mono propellant. how can that be synthesized in space?

Totally depends on what monopropellant we're assumed to be using. Manufacturing hydrazine in-situ is going to be difficult without a source of nitrogen. Manufacturing hydrogen peroxide from oxygen and hydrogen is possible but difficult in practice. So I would say that including monopropellant as a Resource that can be manufactured off-Kerbin can be justified. Whether you'd want to make the Resources system that complicated is another question.

[Laie]

In the hope of not derailing this thread any further, I've reposted my questions here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/100701-ISRU-and-Synthetic-Fossil-Fuels

I'm sincerely curious, but this is not the thread for it.

[Tw1]

I agree with many thoughts posted so far.

I also think having a few generalist parts (drill, liquid intake, gas intake) that can be used to sample and extract many different things would be ideal. Perhaps there could be a few sizes of each.

Something they will have to be careful to get right, is how much you can store/extract per part. If done right, designing a large, self-refueling ship should be feasible, and setting up a big, interesting fuel collection base to supply many ships should also be a favorable option.

Having it available everywhere would be boring, and I agree that there should be certain terrain types and situations where finding a certain resource is gardened. (Splashed down in laythe's oceans, for example.)

Something I've long wanted, is the ability to travel the planets, and measure/record slight changes, as they reveal something about the planets nature. Maybe the resources could occur in useless trace amounts, slowly getting higher as you approach where they are.

Actively prospecting could be fun, there's not a lot to do when you've got to a planet that requires much thought, or activity.

Though I also agree, they need to keep the amount of obtainable resources to a minimum.

A lot can be abstracted if a few simple resources are extracted at different rates, plus, it would make having only one processing type part more believable.

I also think processing and mining should take a fair amount of time- not enough that you're stuck there for ages, but enough to make it feel authentic.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Tw1

[Kegereneku]

I would like to react on that "asteroid only" ISRU, It is a very bad idea to me. Both in term of gameplay (which come first) than verisimilitude.

Catching regularly-or-not asteroids to refuel require very good planning to rendezvous while coming from interstellar space. Unless you put so much asteroid on every orbit that it become nonsensical (You would also need a deltaV indicator to know if you can afford the maneuver).

Landing on a moon, which are just bigger asteroid, should give you the same chance of finding the right elements, except in bigger quantity.

On that matter, SQUAD would have to make sure there's a way to know if you have already drained an asteroid.

Because being the only celestial bodies we can move, if they had "infinite fuel" you can be absolutely certain everybody will soon be discussing the best "asterocket-design" to cruise the galaxy.

More importantly, moon and planet ISRU would give you a place to rally, to build the ground-base we wish to have a reason for, and simplify your planning. Regardless of how hard it is to reach (a) biomes with "fuel" or if only LF/O can be gathered, game-design call for places to refuel where there's something interesting.

Also, it would be boring to mount the ISRU system on every ships that might come close to asteroid "just in case".

Personally, I really hope to be able to refuel :

- On Minmus, even if its only water for nuclear rocket that would come late game.

- Around the Joolian system, because there is a lot of place of interest here (and asteroids hunting will get boring if I have to design every single ships to be able to).

- Somewhere further away so you can afford making new outer-planet without being forced to add new thruster.

It doesn't matter to me if Duna, Dres or Eeloo don't have any ounce of fuel, or asteroid to refuel, THEY would serve as challenge while Jool would be the marvelous cruise and Minmus the Late-game helper.

ps : caring about real chemistry in this game is meaningless and would be IMO counter-productive.

Every single aspect of KSP was created to allow interplanetary travel to be possible AND fun AND accessible, cheating on physics is required for all this.

"chemistry" thus only matter if it serve the gameplay better than another simplification (we won't compute everything down to Planck's scale just for the sake of it).

[CaptainKipard]

I would like to react on that "asteroid only" ISRU, It is a very bad idea to me.

Yes, seconded.

On another note let me just add the suggestion that Squad decide on what real-life resource LF, O and MP actually are, for the reasons I explained on the precious page. They only have to do the calculations once, fix the values for engines and tanks, and from then on it will be easy sailing adding new resources.

Mods will fall in line as they always do, and it might even make the Community Resource Pack obsolete, and will bring Real Fuels in line with stock. Why bother inventing a new system when chemistry already exists, and as I said, it's all very easy to calculate.

It will make little difference to stock players, because it's all behind the scenes. They might need to change their designs a little. The greatest benefit is to the developers themselves, modders, and mod users.

Edited November 20, 2014 by Cpt. Kipard

[CaptainKipard]

Here is an example of what happens when you try to mix current stock resources with realistic resources.

[Rakaydos]

They didnt say it's going to be ISRU, they said you were going to be able to refuel your vessel on location.

"Schedual Snack Run"

Once the multiplayer framework is set up, you can request an "echo" of an earlier mission to be flown automatically every planetary conjunction. (limited to two body conjunctions, so no Moho resupply if you used an Eve slingshot) Once it reaches the "destination" you get a KAC style alert so you can handle refueling and deorbiting (or more missions, since it's there aready)

Edited November 20, 2014 by Rakaydos

[Kegereneku]

Why bother inventing a new system when chemistry already exists, and as I said, it's all very easy to calculate.

But why bother inventing a chemistry system in KSP when there a simpler way of achieving the same result ?

An aerodynamic model can act as a stand-in for reality without using the same volume, density and mass as our world.

KSP is fundamentally unrealistic at its core, it don't try to be realistic, it try to look realistic while staying fun first.

It did not work from Earth-like density because the Kerbol system was to allow smaller planet (for shorter launch, small system, resulting in weaker engine)

So I believe we are better talking in term of "game resources".

Plus, as long as the aerodynamic model get better, the only thing I would mind is them correcting the equation between thrust, Isp and atmospheric pressure. Regardless of the fake material they use.

[CaptainKipard]

So I believe we are better talking in term of "game resources".

You know you have to provide valid premises before you say "So,..."

Where is the argument in that post? I'm having serious difficulty finding the logical connection between all of those statements. And besides, none of what I said makes a difference to you as I said. Could you stop being so needlessly contrarian? It's a little trollish and it's getting tedious.

[Laie]

You know you have to provide valid premises before you say "So,..."

Where is the argument in that post? I'm having serious difficulty finding the logical connection between all of those statements.

I think I'm in Kegereneku's camp on that matter. It's important that the rocket equation works; it's important that the aerodynamics are convincing, even if not realistic. It's unnecessary that fuel & oxidizer come together in a relation that resembles anything in real life. Given that the current values point to wards kerosene as fuel, it would be desirable that they stick to it. But if they threw it all out of the window and invented numbers out of the blue, that wouldn't hurt the game one bit.

[KSK]

But why bother inventing a chemistry system in KSP when there a simpler way of achieving the same result ?

An aerodynamic model can act as a stand-in for reality without using the same volume, density and mass as our world.

KSP is fundamentally unrealistic at its core, it don't try to be realistic, it try to look realistic while staying fun first.

It did not work from Earth-like density because the Kerbol system was to allow smaller planet (for shorter launch, small system, resulting in weaker engine)

So I believe we are better talking in term of "game resources".

I respectfully disagree.

Partly for the same reasons that Cpt Kipard brought up - using proper chemistry (or at least real-world analogous chemistry rather than Kethane/Karbonite style alchemy), won't make a lot of difference to the stock game but will make a considerable difference to the mods and modders. So if you can use real world chemistry, why bother inventing a bunch of made up resources.

And partly because I don't see anything terribly complicated in the system I proposed (although others may of course beg to differ), where two resources and a bit of abstraction can give you a reasonable stock ISRU system that is internally consistent enough (because it's based on real chemistry), that it can be expanded with mods if people see fit. Sure, you probably could make up an entirely self-consistent fictional system of "game resources" but why bother when there's a real life version already there.

Disclaimer - I'm a chemist by training, but the actual chemistry behind ISRU is pretty straightforward. The practicalities of building and deploying sufficiently portable, rugged and repairable equipment to do the chemistry is most definitely not straightforward. Fortunately, it's precisely those practicalities that can, and should, be abstracted away in-game.

[Nuke]

i think we should eliminate converters entirely. you drill for resources, what you get depends on where you drill. you can handwave all the processing equipment into the drills, and ignore chemistry all together. the drill just outputs one of the game's usual resources w/o any intermediate compounds and certainly not a magic resource that you can turn into anything.

i think the challenge should be in the prospecting. rather than be told exactly where the resources are with a scanner, you are instead told where they might be. you have to get closer to find exactly where they are. perhaps have a visible indicator of where they are, such as a patch of odd colored soil/ice/whatever (different colors might yield different resources). these patches are limited in resources, but there are many of them, so you are encouraged to explore more to find them. this system should work on both asteroids and planets/moons.

atmospheres may be where you get xenon (i think thats where we get xenon irl). kerbin and laythe have oxygen. you might get lf from jool, and co2 from duna and eve (not useful as a resource but perhaps for a reaction mass). simply make intakes resource agnostic so that you get whats in the atmosphere. if you have storage for that resource, you tank up.

oceanic resources would work about the same way. i figure most of the oceans in this game are water, but you might also have ammonia or hydrocarbons. the latter two can be monoprop and lf, respectively. water can be a reaction mass, or a resource for life support, or split it for fuel (this is the only place where a converter makes sense because you need a lot of power for this). for balance concerns id make laythe's oceans not water, because otherwise its an infinite fuel tank. it makes sense on eve because its really hard to take off from there so why not free fuel.

Edited November 21, 2014 by Nuke

[Francois424]

I've given it some thought... and I came to this conclusion for really simple resources

You "mine" Water (Duna, asteroid, Laythe, Vall, many others) -- bear with me.

Water and lighting (electricity) using a "Greenhouse" part == Snacks! (basic life support)

From water, you get H2 (liquidfuel) and O (Oxidizer)

- Converting H2 gives Hydrazine (Monopropellant)

- Converting O gives Xenon gas in small quantities

So you have all 4 fuels, basic life support, resource mining and transformation, and it could be achieved with 6 parts no less (Water tank, drill, electrolyzer, greenhouse, and a part each to make either monoprop or Xenon). I know it's more complicated in RL, but I'm keeping it simple for the sake of it, and most likely more fun.

I've been thinking about it for a while and I always come down to this "simple" solution for resources... anything else is just fluff and we already have KAS if someone likes it hardcore. LifeSupport being on rail when ship not active, I got no problem with. Anyways, just my reflection on the thing.

Good night all.