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S A F I R E - Stockalike Adjustments to Fuels, ISRU, Ratios and Engines Main ideas: 1 stock resource unit = 1 kg -> check propellant mass just looking at the units Oxidizer : Fuel ratio = 3:1 for all LFO rocket engines -> more realistic and great for semi-direct ISRU, where you can produce locally only part of propellant Rocket engines generally cost 60% more, tanks cost ~60% less and rocket fuels cost much less -> more or less same rocket costs but with much more realistic distribution - better for reusability, TSTO, SSTO and drop tanks designs ISRU produces only Oxidizer from ORE; no heat, needs high energy input and is slow -> no more unlimited fuel production, realistic ISRU operation, semi-direct missions (produce 75% of your propellant, bring the rest with you) This is a continuation of an idea from couple of years ago, you can read more about it here How does it look in-game: https://imgur.com/a/yM5sagD Requirements: Module Manager by Sarbian. Warning: Save-game breaking and not compatible with old and stock vessels because it doesn't update values in old saved craft parts. New vessels should work fine. DOWNLOAD 0.2.0 GITHUB CONFIRMED COMPATIBILITY: - SMURFF - Making History Expansion - Rescale mods such as Sigma Dimensions CURRENTLY NOT COMPATIBLE WITH: - mods using Community Resource Pack, procedural and fuel switch modules Changelog:

Hi @SQUAD, Could you please allow for the ModuleResourceHarvester and ModuleResourceConverter to be enabled or disabled to allow the the part upgradesign to be more useful to modders. At the moment moduleIsEnabled only works on a small number of modules and some work arounds have been developed for the science, but not for ISRU. Perhaps if this can't be achieved for 'reasons' then a work around would be to add a harvestertype = say -1 or 4 which would equate to being not available. A part upgrade could then switch them to on by changing the harvestortype to 0 or 1 or 2 or 3. Thanks! Peace.

Fuel and ISRU rebalance mod [FIR] Source: MIT AeroAstro presentation "Utilizing Molten Regolith Electrolysis Reactors to Produce Oxygen on the Moon", 2015. The Installation shown above is designed to make 10t of oxidizer per year. What is this mod about? Brief summary: FIR is a mod that rebalances prices of stock fuel (cheaper) and mixture mix used by stock engines/fuel cells (3:1 instead of 1.1:0.9). Additionally it makes behaviour of stock ISRUs a bit more realistic (can only produce oxidizer from ore + work much slower + other tweaks). The mod aims to approximate KSP stock behaviour to reality and thus be a middle ground between the stock game and mods like RO/RealFuels. Detailed description: This is a mod that rebalances couple of things that limited my gameplay and at the same time the learning value of KSP. 1) stock ISRU can only produce oxidizer now. And it is a very slow process (however faster than in reality). ISRUs, scanners and ore tanks are moved earlier in the tech tree. Rationale: Oxidizer only - Making oxidizer of any kind from ore (regolith) is broadly researched in many working papers concerning both Mars and Moon. It's decisively simpler than making all parts of propellant and can be done virtually anywhere by 'just' heating feedstock to a high temperature (in a process called Molten Regotlih Electrolysis). It also doesn't require any inputs except energy. Conversely making both oxidizer and fuel out of ore or even water is quite complicated (taking into account all requirements that accompany off-world manufacturing) and energy intensive process - to such an extent that even known papers about it seems to not get past theoretical stage (G. Landis and others). For now the most advanced in testing, simplest and reliable technology assumes making only oxidizer part of fuel. Lower processing speed - the most advanced MRE ISRU designs currently tested (on the picture above) are able to make about 10t of oxidizer a year assuming continuous operation (on the picture above).In comparison a small stock ISRU is able to churn out the same amount of oxidizer in an hour (0.55 unit/s * 5 kg per unit * 60 * 60 = 9.9t). Therefore my mod is going to rebalance small and normal ISRU's LOX production to about 28t and 160t per Kerbin year (1.2 and 6.6 jumbo tanks accordingly). Increased weight - in reality MRE regolith>oxidizer making system (so ISRU+tanks+power source) has a weight efficiency of about 5-7 (measured as a weight of oxidizer production per year divided by ISRU system weight). Therefore meeting production quota above (28/160t) would require much heavier ISRU units. Again I'm happy with approximation to reality so the mod make small ISRU weigh 2t and large 8t. Moreover large ISRU is much more efficient so there is a reward for bringing larger ISRU to the planet's surface. Lower technology requirements - by moving tech requirements earlier the main difficulty is moved from researching the technology to actually making it work. So the player would need to send and ISRU system in advance to produce fuel (so similar to assumptions of some current MARS/Moon missions). It should create interesting situations when player can utilize ISRU before upgrading science compound in a career game. Therefore with careful planning he can extend the range of lower tech rockets and reach further planets so the gameplay could be more interesting in early career compared to late game. Energy demands for small isru remain unchanged at the moment. Standard ISRU however has 4x higher EC demand (4x bigger size and 50% better efficiency = heating more regolith to a higher temperature). 2) Changed fuel mixture ratio for stock tanks, engines and fuel cells to 3:1 (from 1.1:0.9). This is a compromise as to what stock LiquidFuel might be since sometimes it acts as RP-1/Kerosene (jets, big engines) and sometimes as liquid hydrogen (LV-N). Rationale: 3:1 ratio seems to be a good compromise and generalized mixture ratio that encompasses different fuel types: Typical oxidizer to RP-1 mixture ratio = 2.56:1 (RD-180 2.72:1) Typical oxidizer to methane mix ratio = 3.2:1 Typical oxidizer to liq hydrogen mix ratio = 5:1 *(from 4:1 to 8:1) So we can see that no matter what popular fuel mix we take they always use more mass of oxidizer than fuel. This means that player can refuel now a significant portion of a fuel (75% of mass) in the form of oxidizer. Also 3:1 ratio means that it's easier to make quick calculations by seeing whether you have more than 3x times more oxidizer than liquid fuel. 3) Liquid fuel, oxidizer, monopropellant and solid fuel are much cheaper now. So player using SSTO or recovering stages gets much higher cash bonus than before. Rationale: I didn't like how my big SSTOs or rockets still used quite a lot of fuel even though they were recoverable. In stock KSP - depending on your design - fuel costs can comprise even 10-20%+ of a spacecraft or almost 40% of a stock tank. In reality fuel costs are about 0.4% in case of a space shuttle so very little compared to space vehicle costs. Since the parts' total cost remains the same, the parts' dry cost is relatively higher while fuel price is So now player that invests a lot more time to build recoverable parts or/and fly SSTOs is rewarded with higher percentage of recovered funds. 4) - for people using Atomic Age mod by porkjet - I've changed fuel mix and isp value for LANTERN engine in Atomic Age Nuclear Propulsion mod by porkjet: Using stats from this page: http://www.nss.org/settlement/moon/LANTR.html and reducing isp to stock values, I've increased slightly isp in LOX augmented mode to 500isp instead of 455. In reality isp for 3:1 fuel mix is expected to be in range of 631-647s. Isp for LF mode only remained unchanged (720s). LOX augmented mode uses now 3:1 fuel mix. Therefore LANTERN engine has now the highest isp (500) from all engines that can be refuelled with an oxidizer (since LV-N can't be refuelled with new ISRU mechanics). Aside from more challenging and (imho) interesting gameplay this rebalance increases educational value for KSP; a player: - can see that oxidizer is making a bulk of the rocket fuel (similar to real world) - observes that ISRU can extend range of the rocket by making only oxidizer however implementation of it requires planning ahead (similar to real life). Also it's rather not viable as a part of a spaceship due to system mass (heavier) and rate it produces oxidizer. The main purpose of it is now to sit on a surface of a planet and produce small amounts of oxidizer for the long time. - can note that fuel costs in rockets are very small thus researching and developing reusability is a key point to savings and extending the space program. And the last point - if you still reading -this mod will be a basis for my next mods which involve low-tech/low-isp alternative isru fuels/propulsions that were researched extensively due to the ease of implementation compared to more advanced/complicated and therefore less viable solutions. No download link yet, the project is on the drawing board at the moment. I welcome all suggestions and discussion about the mod and ISRU stuff in general:)

I have a lander on the Mun that's intended to hop around collecting science and refueling itself. It seems to be OK with mining ore and refining it into fuel as long as you focus on it. If you switch to something else, it stops making fuel. When you come back, the drills say the ore rate is n/a. Anyone have any ideas where I could start with looking for the problem? The lander is probably not designed well, but there's nothing that stands out as egregiously wrong. The lander does have decouplers separating the ISRU and drill sections from the main body, in case the kerbals need to get back to Kerbin on their own. The decouplers do not have crossfeed enabled - does that affect ore flow, or just fuel?

Hello everyone! Because I'm new to mod making (this is my first mod), I thought I'd try starting out with a relatively simple mod. I use a lot of mods, a few of which require Community Resource Pack as a dependency. Thus, whenever I scan a body for resources, I end up with a fairly large list of things, from Water to CarbonDioxide. However, I never end up using most of these resources, and as most mods only add converter modules for a few of them, the vast majority end up ignored. Many of these resources could be integrated fairly well with Stock mechanics without necessitating new parts or complex processing chains. Thus, this mod attempts to create uses for several resources added by CRP. This is essentially a collection of patches designed to allow stock parts to harvest and convert the resources added by CRP. It will be fully modular, so you don't end up with redundant converters or harvesters for resources you don't want, and it will only use Stock parts (primarily because I have no idea how to texture or model things, but keep that a secret). The stock drills are used for crustal resources, the atmospheric fluid spectro-variometer is used for atmospheric resources, and I plan on using the radial air intake for oceanic resources. For simplicity, resources such as LiquidFuel and Oxidizer are generalized, and are not intended to be fully accurate. In addition, the conversion factors for most of these patches are undoubtedly wrong, partially due to a desire for simplicity and partially because I can't be bothered. If you have a suggestion for a more realistic conversion factor, feel free to tell me! If I ever get into RO, I might consider adding patches for realistic ISRU, but for now I consider this to be a short-ish term project designed to practice my glorious and expansive config-editing skills. This might change depending on community reaction, but don't expect too much for now. In addition to this, I plan on including simplified conversion patches for those who don't want to bother carrying tanks for ~5 separate resources; an early example of this is substituting H2 for Ore (electrolyzed water ice) in the Simple Sabitier conversion. Downloads Installation 1. Download the mod 2. Install CRP and ModuleManager, either from the bundled download or from a separate source 3. Select the modules you wish to install. Do not install both the normal and simplified versions at once, as this may lead to issues Planned Features Green: Implemented Yellow: In progress Red: On hold Conversions -Sabitier | LqdHydrogen + CarbonDioxide = LiquidFuel + Water -Water Electrolysis | Water = LqdHydrogen + Oxidizer -Simple Water Electrolysis | Water = LiquidFuel + Oxidizer -Water Extraction | Hydrates = Water -Simple Water Extraction | Ore = Water -SolidFuel Refining | Alumina = SolidFuel (If I can find a way to allow SolidFuel to be moved) -Various processes involving MetalOre, RocketParts, MaterialKits, etc. Currently on hold due to the fact that mods that use these resources tend to include their own converters Harvesters -CO2 Extraction -Water Mining -Hydrates Mining -Argon Extraction -Xenon Extraction -Oxygen Extraction -Liquid Water Extraction -Oceanic Fuel Extraction (intended for Eve) -Hydrogen Extraction (Depending on availability in stock atmospheres) -Alumina Mining (See SolidFuel Refining) Other -Add part switching to the stock ore tanks to add capacity for every relevant CRP resource -More realistic resource ratios -Using ModuleManager to add these conversions to ISRU parts from other mods -Interplanetary resources, for use with Bussard collectors and such. This would probably require a new part for the collector, so I'm holding off on it for now -RealFuels integration, depending on feedback -Custom atmospheric and oceanic extractors if someone wants to help with that Changelog Licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Feedback and suggestions are appreciated!

So while I wait for Squad to get a handle on the suddenly-fragile/explosive landing gear in 1.4.2, I've put my Career save on hold and I've been experimenting with designs and concepts for a Laythe colony with an associated Ore miner/refinery infrastructure in the Jool system. I've got a Jool window coming up and I want to send a flotilla of missions to establish a permanent presence there. At first glance, Vall looks ideal to support a Laythe base. It's in the same plane as Laythe; it's close in terms of dV, and there's no atmosphere to complicate precision landing or cause ascent drag losses. Howver, it does have relatively high gravity for a planetary moon, and I've found that the gravity losses incurred in both landing and return to orbit are eating up all or nearly all of the Ore I can recover with a reasonably-sized rover. By that I mean, after I've refined all the Ore into LfOx to refuel the lander, I've got nothing left; this is using unscrewed equipment - if I understand correctly, have an Engineer available "on site" so to speak can increase the efficiency. Is that correct? By contrast, a mining lander and refinery operation on/around Pol costs next to nothing in dV to land and return to orbit; the downside is that there's a fairly high dV cost to haul the fuel back to Laythe. Pol's orbit is inclined relative to Laythe's and it's pretty far out from Jool. I'm sure that some folks out there have explored these trades in great depth and can provide some pointers. Thanks.

This is a very simple mod that allows for ISRUs to convert fuel without the need for external fuel tanks. I understand that there are snippets of MM code floating around out there that performs this very task, and I'm sure some of those are much more streamlined than mine, but I am releasing this mod anyway, since there are players out there with little to no experience using Module Manager. Downloading and installing a mod can be trying enough for some users, but it's still easier than writing a patch. What does it do? As stated above, it makes it so that the Resource Converters are able to convert fuel from ore being mined even if there are no ore tanks present on the craft. It does this by adding a very small storage capacity to all parts with a resource converter module using ore as an input. Converters will only be able to store a maximum of one unit of ore, so once you leave the surface you'll no longer be able to keep converting fuel. This is to avoid exploits. Why would I need that? It's perfect for science hoppers for example. Those types of crafts are not buildt to provide a stockpile, and the mining is not the main focus of them. They only have converters and harvesters to be able to refuel, and as such the demand to include external ore tanks becomes a pain in the behind. Does it work with 1.3.1? Yup. Did you make this all on your own? Are you a master coder? Not really and not at all. I know some basic python and that is about it. This is a very simple mod, and I still had to recieve some help to make the code more stable. This was provided by Snark, helpful as always. License This work is licensed under the WTFPL license, which can be found here: WTFPL What this means is that you can do whatever you'd like with it. Change it. Sell it. Eat it. Distribute it. Yell at it. Knock yourself out, but do note that: This work is also distributed along with Module Manager, as permitted by the license of that particular work. This is a separate piece of work with it's own license. Credit (and a deep gratitude) for Module Manager goes to it's original creator ialdabaoth as well as to the current caretaker of the project, sarbian. The forum thread for the original release can be found here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/28844-020-modulemanager-13-for-all-your-stock-modding-needs/#post528607 Download Links: SpaceDock Source Code Uhm, I'm not sure, but the fact that the only code written is available through the .cfg should suffice, right? Change Log 1.2 -Included MiniAVC support -Included support for Decal Stickers -Changed folder structure -Updated version number for KSP 1.3.1 1.1 -Added Module Manager to the zip archive, because like a bafoon I forgot it during the original upload. Doh! 1.0 -Initial Release

The smallest stock ISRU with 4 of the tiny stock drills. I have the drills mounted on the ISRU I have 4 small radiators mounted on the ISRU I have 4 medium folding radiators mounted on the ISRU Still the core temperature of the ISRU keeps going up

I was trying to recreate Scott Manley's ISRU probe in his popular series Interstellar Quest, and ran into a difficulty Kerbal Space Program - Interstellar Quest 37 - Mining Ice Apparently Interstellar now converts Water to LqdHydrogen + LqdOxygen . Is there a way to have it produce LiquidFuel+Oxidizer instead? I looked into the Parts folder inside Warp Plugin, and couldn't find any obvious config file that I could edit to have Water Electrolysis produce LiquidFuel+Oxidizer Thanks in advance! PS: I'm a total n00b when it comes to modding so please excuse my naïveté

I was trying to recreate Scott Manley's ISRU probe in his popular series Interstellar Quest, and ran into a difficulty Kerbal Space Program - Interstellar Quest 37 - Mining Ice Apparently Interstellar now converts Water to LqdHydrogen + LqdOxygen . Is there a way to have it produce LiquidFuel+Oxidizer instead? I looked into the Parts folder inside Warp Plugin, and couldn't find any obvious config file that I could edit to have Water Electrolysis produce LiquidFuel+Oxidizer Thanks in advance! PS: I'm a total n00b when it comes to modding so please excuse my naïveté

Hello everyone! Inspired by the XenonISRU mod, made by @Xyphos, I've decided to make a simple CFG file that adds the ability to make Xenon Gas, Solid Fuel and Ablator to all ISRU units in the game. The config file just steals the Monoprop making MODULE, and copies it a few times. In theory, it works with mods too (I've tested it with the Stockalike Mining Extension mod made by @SuicidalInsanity). Implementing other resources (Community Resource Pack) is a possibility for the future. License-wise, you are all free to do anything with it. Download here!

I'm going to send a MAV on Mars almost empty (with just the right amount of Hydrolox fuel to land) and then refuel it trough RealISRU (sadly still not completed, but it works).I need help with methods to extract the fuel from the surface/atmosphere , chemical conversions and some math with it. Landing config: Mars takeoff config: I have 15 months to produce all that fuel.(around 85 tons)

I feel like cheating when i use ISRU and was wondering... Are Drills and Conver-o-trons minimally based on actual realistic designs or prototypes?

Hi all! The short question: I'd love to hear recommendations on orbital altitudes for a refinery operation that will mine ore on Ike and refine it in Dunan orbit. The longer explanation: For the last week or so I've been playing in Sandbox, working out how to most effectively set up logistical infrastructures all around the stock solar system. I started by setting up a full-coverage Comm relay and ScanSat (the mod) network around every body on the stock game. I've done all this before, of course, but never as methodically and efficiently as I'd like. So far the four inner planets are covered, and various satellite carriers are nearing their destinations at Dres, Jool, and Eeloo. Now I've turned my attention to setting up fuel depots and ISRU operations, and have two flotillas of fuel stations, mining landers, in-system tankers, interplantery tankers, etc. headed to Duna and Dres. All un-Kerballed and drone-controlled, but with enough modularity to be turned into crewed vessels in the future. (Before it's mentioned, I know depots and ISRU aren't necessarily the easiest or most efficient ways to explore the system, but for the purpose of this save game, that's what I'm playing with.) I already have a clear plan for Dres; with an ore miner tailored for landing on the planet and another dedicated to the asteroids surrounding it. They'll bring raw ore to an orbital refinery/tankage station. The reason for this post: I'm not sure exactly what I want to do at Duna. The mining lander is large (by my standards) and can bring 10,000 units of ore from Ike to anywhere in the Dunan system. The depot will refuel Kerballed missions to Duna, and a few re-usable Duna Lander/Ascent vehicles that will remain in-system for surface explorations. It may also be used to send re-fueling tankers further afield, particularly to Jool, though a full Kerballed expedition to that system is still only a drawing-board notion. SO... any suggestions, tips, or other observations? Specifically, will I be better served to keep the main Fuel Depot/Refinery station in orbit around Ike, or should it orbit Duna? If the latter, will a high (near the SOI margin), medium (outside Ike's orbit), or low (inside Ike's orbit) altitude work best for my purposes? Keep in mind the station itself has no propulsion, but is configured so the Mining Lander itself can propel the entire depot (and is in fact doing that right now, toward a Duna intercept in a few hundred days). There are also several fuel carriers around Duna (most of them leftovers from the Comm/Scan satellite missions) that can move fuel from the depot to vessels that need it. I'm asking not just in terms of absolute efficiency (as in launch costs and fuel consumption) but also in terms of my convenience and "playability" (i.e. avoiding days-long warping to rendezvous various vessels from high orbits), and finding a satisfying balance between the two. I hope I've laid out enough to explain what I'm looking for in terms of feedback, without droning (no pun intended) on too long. Note: I'm playing with a smattering of mods, but mainly for aesthetics. All my craft are (virtually) analogous to stock vessels, so a full mod list doesn't seem necessary. Beyond that I rely heavily on KER and KAC to design and keep track of all the (40? 50?) missions ongoing right now. Your thoughts appreciated.

Hello, Kerbonauts, i was thinking to run a new career save as a sort of oil company. Now I just need to figure out how to mine as efficiently as possible. So my questions are: Which place in the Kerbol system is the best for mining? Should I convert to LF/O/Monopropellant? Use orbital refinery/storage stations? Thanks in advance.

[WIP] This is a mod that adds extra Ore holding tanks for KSP, notably smaller ones. The stock Ore tanks in KSP, in my opinion, are too big for smaller landing craft (with the radial holding tank as an exception). Therefore, I am making a mod pack for myself that will give more Ore tank sizes, and also thought about releasing it to the public. Furthermore, the game has two inline-mounted ore tanks, both 1.25m and 2.5m, respectively. However, I do believe that they are too long to fit on a lander of some sort and I would like to make a half-version of the 1.25m ore tank, with exactly half the storage capacity. This wouldn't change the fact that it is 1.25m, though, it would only change the height of the tank. This would in turn enable it to be mounted on crafts more compactly. If this mod is what people may consider using after development, then please reply to this forum as this is going to go ahead for my personal use but I would like to see if the general community would like to also use these parts. The textures will probably be similar, but they might not be identical for reasons to do with copyright of Squad's textures. I will look into this. Speculated parts list: 0.625m Tiny Ore Tank; capacity around half of the 1.25 version. 1.25m Small Ore Tank; only difference to stock one is the height; therefore the capacity is half that of the stock 1.25m one. (Possibly) 3.75m Extra Large Ore Tank; for huge landers and bases; capacity twice the size of the 2.5m stock tank. These ore capacity numbers may change in development if they seem too high or too low for the relative size of the tank. All of above is true in the hope that my creativity skills with 3D design software is good enough to create a decent mod pack. Please submit your opinions below. Thanks. UPDATE: The first fuel tank is done. This one is the 1.25m half-variant one. The picture below shows the normal stock 1.25m Ore tank and next to it is the modded one. http://imgur.com/3mDW2tQ Cost: 750 Mass: 0.25 Ore Capacity: 150

I am looking at a contract asking me to mine 1050 units of fresh ore from Gilly. I planned to send my mini-ISRU SSTO to Gilly to refuel for a later mission to Moho, but it's ore capacity is 150. Could I theoretically complete this contract? Bonus question: If so, will it still count the ore mined if I run the ISRU at the same time to immediately refine the fuel?

I have a convert-o-tron 250 that is overheating even though the drills are turned off and TCSs are not at 100% cooling. https://www.dropbox.com/s/wtgc2z1f2mf2hgf/Screen Shot 2016-12-24 at 7.18.03 PM.png?dl=0 The ISRU works fine when only two converters are working, but starts overheating when the third is turned on. I have 6 x MKS Ranger TCS and 5 x large TCS at various places in the base. The base also has a PDU with the nuclear reactor running. Am I misinterpreting what "cooling" on the TCS means? Also, how do I interpret the thermal debug data shown in the action menu to make better sense of what I can do to stop it from overheating? Thanks

Hey guys! Well I finally managed to make a working SSTA. I'm quite proud of this one. I usually just carelessly build spacecraft fast and forget things like solar panels, batteries ect. but this time I actually took my time in the SPH hanger and it turned out flawlessly! Well almost. (Forgot reaction wheels. ) This SSTA has VTOL engines, a functioning RCS system and enough DV to begin with to get to Duna or do a Minimus round trip without refueling. It also has four seats so you can easily put a pilot for control and an engineer to speed up mining. The VTOL engines are nicely balanced so landing on Duna with these will be a piece of cake! I still haven't tested its re-entry capabilities but I went up to about 1400 m/s before burning out on Rapiers so I assume it will be fine. The COM/COL placement might be bad so I am going to place an octagonal strut to mark the COL. This helped when I designed an aircraft launched shuttle because the shuttle carrier had stall problems. Download is coming soon. Still got tweaking to do so I thought I'd just put this here. Also Action group list + how to fly tutorial coming with download so stay tuned! Fire

Might not be the right forum for this but I keep seeing the abbreviation "ISRU" around the forum. I tried googling it but it just brought up a bunch of forum posts using the term as if it's understood what it means. So my question is. What does it mean?

KRS Persistence N-S II - A Dream Completed At long last, the dream which has inspired over 440 hours of in-game time has been completed! When my eyes saw the wonder that was the ISRU units and the mining drills a couple hours into the game, I knew immediately that what I wanted to build was a rocketship that could travel to and land anywhere it wants, refuel, and return, carrying a bold Kerbal crew and all science experiments as well. In practical terms, this meant a rocket which could take off from Kerbin, travel to Minmus without refuelling beforehand, land on Minmus, refuel and then travel elsewhere with good delta-V to spare. The KRS Persistence N-S II is the pinnacle of all my spacecraft, and it represents the culmination of countless engineering mindset breakthroughs as well as a well honed piloting ability. Its maximum delta-V, travelling on the nuclear engines alone, is 6533m/s if my calculations are correct. Its takeoff flight plan is moderately complex. At launch, turn on the chemical engines only with the chemical rockets action group, then start performing a gravity turn at roughly 50m/s. I typically nudge it a small amount at 50m/s, then set autopilot at prograde after 2500m altitude. At approximately 5000m altitude, turn on the nuclear engines with the nuclear engines action group, and continue performing the gravity turn. Keep both nuclear and chemical engines on until the chemical rockets run out of fuel. Stay with the standard gravity turn until there is one minute left until apoapsis, then set it back to stability assist and hold until circularization of orbit happens. At this moment, you should have enough remaining fuel to travel to Minmus and land if you aim at Minmus accurately. This might take some practice. Action groups: 1. Toggle Radiators. 2. Toggle Cargo Bay Doors and Drill Deployment. 3. Turn on Drill. 4. Toggle Chemical Rockets 5. Toggle Nuclear Rockets. Lights: Turn on/off the two lights. Gears: Extend/Retract the landing gear. Naming: KRS Stands for Kerbal Rocket Ship, N-S stands for Nuclear-Science. I've made an S-S, Solar-Science version as well, but the Nuclear one has reliable electricity across the entire solar system. Download: KRS Persistence N-S II Download Link (KerbalX) Notes: This post was finally posted after weeks upon weeks of procrastinating on doing so, because I wanted to make this grand post showcasing all the SSTAs I have built, as well as my space stations and shuttles... but I realized that the problem was that I was taking too large a bite in one go, so I opted for this first. So... thoughts?

I would like to start a discussion about Nitrogen on the Moon, and by extension on the Kerbalized version, the Mun The problem is Nitrogen is very rare or hard to acquire on the Moon. It is a relevant problem because Nitrogen is essential if you want to manufacture any Hypergolic Rocket fuel, oxidizer or monopropellant . There ain’t no easy accessible nitrogen deposits on the moon. Nitrogen is part of the Solar Wind deposited in the top soil but only in few part per million. Our only realistic hope of finding significant amount of Nitrogen is in encapsulated in Pyroxene and Olivine deposits that have not been liquefied near the surface (and lost their gas content). But these can only be found deep in the mantle which means they are hard to access. A 5 meter drill is certainly not going to find any significant amount of Nitrogen rock Ore. Therefore my conclusion is the stock IRSU system which requires nitrogen to manufacture LiquidFuel, Oxidiser and Monopropelant is highly unfeasible.

I put down a robotic miner onto Pol. I hit one of the high areas show by the orbital survey scanner. I put down my drills, and they pull in a bit less than .002 (whatever units). A bit less than on Minmus but OK. But I'm so far out, I figured I would use fuel cells, since they seem to work OK as supplements to solar closer in. But Drills + ISRU conversion is a net loss. It takes more fuel to power them than they produce. Am I just screwed? What do people use for power in such a situation? Just accept that you will need a bunch of heavy nuclear units?

First off I can not say enough to thank all the great folks making some amazing mods for this game. The RO RSS community and its leaders/founders are just doing an amazing job and are really inspiring other people to new levels of exploration and mission planning. I recently came across stratochief66's thread "RSS - Challenges of Mars Missions" It involves using ISRU as a way to develop more feasible mission plans for Mars. I am trying to develop an orbital fuel/production station and a ferry for travel between the station and surface and for suborbital hops. These type of station and craft would be employed well down the road from the initial interactions with Mars like stratocheif66 is working on. I will start with one main station design and two ferry designs; one for crew transport and one for cargo/materials. Utilizing ISRU for production of additional fuel on the surface of the planet allows for much smaller craft with very reasonable round trip deltaV. Producing fuel in orbit also has its advantages that i will explore. Right now, I am working with a 70 tn prototype. It has about 4600 deltaV of fuel and can produce another 4600 deltV of fuel after landing over a period of 70 days. This is the crew variant and can support 3 persons for 210 days if needed. Crew, supplies, capsule come in about 7.5tn. So the cargo variant will have about the same capacity of 11% weight cargo for a 70 tn craft. This is a completely reusable craft, and will use a pure propulsion profile for ascent and decent. I may incorporate aero interactive devices of some sort to shave some deltaV requirements, but for now I am trying to keep it simple. I also do not want to use anything that I do not feel certain is modeled as closely as possible to a real life object. The orbital fuel station prototype is fairly simple and, when full, can refuel/restock a ferry twice, and has tank space to take on resources for fuel production in orbit. It will develop more as the ferry design is refined and we get a better understanding of the frequency of the initial transit scheduled. Even as it stands now it could be mirrored on a central hub or expanded to any radial degree desired. All resources are in color/pattern coded tanks so that I can get used to the proportions of volume and weight of the various resource components as I develop designs and test things. I am working with the basic RO RSS install and I only use RO modified stock and procedural parts. ISRU and Heat Pumps are my two part pack additions for my current testing. I use all sorts of visual stuff and control/metrics mods. Ill paste screen below with full mod folder. I have two videos of some of my initial flight tests. Ones is a decent from the orbital fuel station to the surface and the other is the ascent from the same location on the surface to the orbital fuel station after refueling with ISRU. Both trips had 500+ deltaV to spare so we are close to the set up that I will use. I would like to have 10% fuel reserve in the final design if possible. Mars Ferry Landing https://thumb2016.s3.amazonaws.com/1616/test/Mars Ferry Landing.mp4 Mars Ferry Takeoff https://thumb2016.s3.amazonaws.com/1616/test/Mars Ferry Takeoff.mp4 craft files for ferry and station as they are in these videos. https://thumb2016.s3.amazonaws.com/1616/test/Mars Ferry C1.craft https://thumb2016.s3.amazonaws.com/1616/test/Mars Station F1.craft I will always post the craft in the video so that anyone can try the same thing. I will also in the future include flight profile information to better help you get similar results. I have an educational background in math and physics, but I am a total newb to this game, community and rocket science in general. However, it is all about solving small problems and I love to do that. I am open to suggestions and alternative methods for what I am doing My next goal is to land two craft in close proximity. I will be installing scansat and researching to choose a good place on the equator for my landing site. Let me know if you are aware of a good spot. Right now I would like to be able to land +or- 0.5 km from a given target. Past close proximity landing, I have two areas I would like to address as I develop my station and ferry. One is to move away depending on the RTGs I am using for power. My current ferry prototype is using two of the largest chemical engines and will most likely be scaled back to one or two of the smaller units. This will increase the time on the surface and I will need to look at what my limits will be regarding that. In moving away from the RTGs, I need to develop a solar plan. At current, I am thinking solar panel systems that will be deployed/assembled by hand/robot once landed on the surface. While I could build a permanent large solar installation on the surface and use that to power the ferry's refueling process, I prefer to contain the solar harvesting potential in the ferry itself. Most all initial craft, I think, will need to be lifeboats, and all but stand alone systems. Relying only on permanent solar installations would also limit sub orbital hop range. Later these solar installations will be present, but for the initial ferries and surface infrastructure I want as much self sufficiency as possible. Two is to take another look at boil off and scaling for time and active craft in game. We have good hardware/mods to keep fuels at the right temp, but I would like to look at performance of cryo systems in martian atmosphere and power requirements. I know this will take a decent amount of power, and there may be limitations in direct exposure environments. Heat-sinking and other methods of local thermal stabilization may be needed, and long term, desired for efficiency. The station producing fuel in orbit will require the CO2 ferry and I have to really look at the fuel cost of bringing CO2 up. The savings in not bringing LqdHydrogen to the surface are small, but I think large solar solutions for processing will be easier in orbit. SO right now I'm going to scale down fuel production on the ferry and see if I can get a deployed solar solution to power it on the surface. Then based on a flight schedule of two ferries, on their new fuel period, I will see how much CO2 I can run to the station. Then I will make a fuel production schedule for the station. Then I can make a LqdHydrogen delivery schedule from earth. Then I can look at the whole chain and see the rough potential of two craft and one station, with LqdHydrogen support from earth. Then I can do a similar chain set up where all fuel is produced on the surface in a permanent surface installation. Fuel will be lifted via ferry to the station and LqdHydrogen brought to the surface via the same ferry. The station will still receive Hydrogen support from earth. In the end, I imagine, it will be a combination of the above that will take place for matters of convenience and complexity reduction as well as efficiency. While some of this can be explored by my rudimentary math, I find working models to really spell it out much better.

I have an ISRU design I've used a bunch of time. I put one down on Pol. I was having trouble getting enough ore to keep everything running and come out ahead, but other than that, it was working fine. I jump away (letting it run) and come back. I haven't gotten anything so I left click on the drill and it says "no ground contact". It was working before I left. I is clearly in the ground? Anyone know what's up? Here is a picture