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[WIP] Mining and Processing Extension [KIMP] resumed


riocrokite

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Normally deep excavation requires large amounts of water/mud used and circulated in the hole (pressure,lifting material/cooling etc). Do you guys know any alternative ways for deep planetary mining that doesn't use liquids?

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Vapourising with lasers and separating the gaseous entities, as in several other mods.

But anyway that would take a hell of energy and yet require a hell of water for cooling.

The main problem is water has enormously high heat-sink capacity and is one of the most abundant stuff in the Universe.

So probably the only thing would be to decompose the rock into Metals and Oxygen and to import Hydrogen from another planet as Methane or Ammonia.

Of course, Titan has all this stuff at place (methane, ice, rock) and it seems to me that it's the only place in Solar System to be ever colonized.

As a variant: break the rocks with explosives into small pieces, then rake out the pieces with an excavator.

In this case the waste heat dissipates in rocks, and is not a problem. The problem is that you would create a laaarge quarry because ore is not concentrated in one place. Also you would need to sort and separate much more stone mass. Also, crusher would still need the water.

Btw, an opposite (non-auger) way: Bacterial leaching

https://translate.google.ru/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mining-enc.ru%2Fb%2Fbakterialnoe-vyschelachivanie%2F&edit-text=

Looks hardly implemented on airless planets, but maybe that's a way to extract metals from OreConcentrate or CrushedOre in a hermetic basin.

Edited by kerbiloid
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Vapourising with lasers and separating the gaseous entities, as in several other mods.

But anyway that would take a hell of energy and yet require a hell of water for cooling.

The main problem is water has enormously high heat-sink capacity and is one of the most abundant stuff in the Universe.

So probably the only thing would be to decompose the rock into Metals and Oxygen and to import Hydrogen from another planet as Methane or Ammonia.

Of course, Titan has all this stuff at place (methane, ice, rock) and it seems to me that it's the only place in Solar System to be ever colonized.

As a variant: break the rocks with explosives into small pieces, then rake out the pieces with an excavator.

In this case the waste heat dissipates in rocks, and is not a problem. The problem is that you would create a laaarge quarry because ore is not concentrated in one place. Also you would need to sort and separate much more stone mass. Also, crusher would still need the water.

Btw, an opposite (non-auger) way: Bacterial leaching

https://translate.google.ru/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=ru&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mining-enc.ru%2Fb%2Fbakterialnoe-vyschelachivanie%2F&edit-text=

Looks hardly implemented on airless planets, but maybe that's a way to extract metals from OreConcentrate or CrushedOre in a hermetic basin.

thx for suggestions:)

I think bacterial leaching might have its limitations in vacuum cold planet surface (bacteria temperature range and possibly need for a lot of liquid/chemicals circulating to leach the minerals out).

Yah melting rocks to liquids, yet vapourising (incredible temperatures needed to do so) might require too much energy and cooling needs to be viable for large scale mining ops.

Explosives would be very nice to use, however KSP gameplay doesn't allow for changing terrain height thus reliable methods like explosives and open pit operations won't look fun enough for me ;)

Btw do crushing needs cooling at all? Never heard about it, I thought cooling is needed only for diesel EC generator, not crusher itself.

Edited by riocrokite
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So, does this add depth (pun intended) to mining? It has always bothered me in mods like kethane and Karbinite, that the resources are never more than two feet below the surface O_O

I logged an issue in Regolith github to add deposit size, deposit depth and possibly rock hardness (deposit size being most important imho) to planetary resource resource generation so there are more parameters to consider than just concentration. That would allow for nice realisti-sh scenarios when shallow low-grade resources could be more viable to mine that rich one buried deep underground. Also rich but small deposits vs low-grade undepletable ones.

https://github.com/BobPalmer/Regolith/issues/37

However dunno what RoverDude will do with it, it's his mod and his ideas. And he has most probably PTSD from working on stock resource system:)

I'm no coder myself and it will take some time before I have all models ready so I'll just watch how regolith/stock resource system revolves.

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  • 2 weeks later...
is the source code for regolith available on get hub. I might be able to do something. But it might take more than a few weeks.

yah, .dll is in regolith repository and configs are in CRP community resource pack

Edited by riocrokite
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yah, .dll is in regolith repository and configs are in CRP community resource pack

FYI. Roverdude has depreciated Regolith in favor of the Stock resource system, which he coded as well. So the functions are fairly similar. The latest version of CRP also uses the stock resource system

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Ok. I think i can figure it out. Just for a minute lets say i could build you a custom resource generater what paramaters are you missinv crom regolith other than depth?

cool :)

except from depth I would love to use: deposit size (how big is deposit) and rock hardness (rockiness) (how hard is to drill)

Speaking of depth, nice-to-have extension of this would be behaviour in which drill yield decreases exponentailly the further from this depth you drill. For example maximum concentration is at 100m (yield=1), if you drill at 90m yield = 0.1, if you drill at 80m yield=0.05, if you drill at 60m yield=0.01 etc

FYI. Roverdude has depreciated Regolith in favor of the Stock resource system, which he coded as well. So the functions are fairly similar. The latest version of CRP also uses the stock resource system

Cheers, yah, I've PM agent_004 specifics of new stock resource system as an ex-regolith stuff. However if we want to expand system we'll have to build on 0.9 regolith as new stock resource system is embedded/obfuscated and I cannot be extended nor modified.

Edited by riocrokite
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This is how new solids drill will work. only difference is that reamer is deployable underground from drill tip so it doesn't need undeground vertical tunel to attach it. Also it's especially great for efficient mining since drilling bottom-to-top lets you exert much more force especially in reduced gravity bodies (and thus reducing weight requirement needed for the drilling rig+ doesn't need water to sustain drilling hole pressure when drilling top-to-bottom). Kerbore 100 will have a thrust of about 20000 kN so of about 5 biggest KSP engines.

RaiseBoreProcess.jpg

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Impressive!

However, I don't understand why I would need extension pipes? What mechanic would require you to dig deeper?

well ideally resources would be located at different depths, I'm concentrating on models first and then maybe in the meantime someone will help me with the plugin :P

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Now that is a big drill. Any chance we could get an early version of it that works for the stock ore system. :D I can see some seriously large drilling systems coming. Keep up the good work man, the MFS is already one of my must have mods.

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Now that is a big drill. Any chance we could get an early version of it that works for the stock ore system. :D I can see some seriously large drilling systems coming. Keep up the good work man, the MFS is already one of my must have mods.

actually it's more heavy than big since it draws from raise bore drill concept. the biggest (and highest) drills should be for liquids (or gasses; dunno)

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well ideally resources would be located at different depths, I'm concentrating on models first and then maybe in the meantime someone will help me with the plugin :P

Im brainstorming the best way to go about it. I'm thinking the "easy" way would be to fake depth with the drill basically, since the planets dont have any actual depth. A plugin that would allow you to set the drill depth in the drill UI, then based on what you select it it increases output, and increases power / Other requirements (lubricant, water, or whatever else the drill may need)

OH and the new Model looks AMAZING!

Edited by rabidninjawombat
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