Miners, miners, miners everywhere - Post your pics here

[Captain Sierra]

We already have a thread for this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/119038-Showcase-Miners-miners-miners-everywhere-Post-your-pics-here

[Vanamonde]

Overlapping threads have been merged.

[pimpsmasterson]

first orbital mining station, kinda R and D

http://s29.postimg.org/7lgvo5mir/station.jpg' alt='station.jpg'>

[Wanderfound]

Krokoduck. Get your Minmus/Munar mining operation set up in one launch.

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Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/fmis3ep4bu48uu8/Krokoduck.craft?dl=0

[Wanderfound]

Krokoduck SP.

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Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/1m53ww9y81bh5qm/Krokoduck%20SP.craft?dl=0

[SHiftER2O]

Miiinecrafts

[Rune]

Well, I'm finally using this for profit. In my latest career save, it's saving me putting a non-reusable temporary mining rig before I can build one of my bases due to lack of tech. And afterwards, runway recovery for even more profit! I lucked out and the Greater Flats have tehhighest ore concentration in my save. Easy scenic landings!

Rune. Or, you know,I could launch it to... anywhere, really.

[Wanderfound]

Another:

Kerbodyne Swagman.

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Craft file at https://www.dropbox.com/s/ulctvafknwl9ilw/Kerbodyne%20Swagman.craft?dl=0

[Dr Farnsworth]

Pics of my mining operations.

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[Red Dwarf]

This is my heavy utility lander, the Gluon. It pairs with my Pion interplanetary explorer vessel, being both the dedicated refueler and sciencer. Still has a few quirks to iron out, so it won't look exactly like this when I send it out to Sarnus.

[SmallFatFetus]

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Here's my mining operation. I just landed this today, near the probe that marked the landing spot. Fuel tank comes tomorrow.

[O-Doc]

Well, if we're showing off our spacedozers, here's mine. Sloppy piloting and navigation still gets her to Minmus, from there you can get to any planetoid or moon and haul a serious amount of fuel up to your orbital silo.

This one's still going through trials and will enter production in the not too distant future.

[problemecium]

I should probably have posted this here earlier:

This is "Ore Bot 2.1", an uncrewed lander intended to work in tandem with my Portable Station, landing on a place such as Minmus, gathering ore, and bringing it to the station for processing. Since I recently unlocked RTGs in Career mode, it is fitted with enough to be able to mine continuously overnight and on objects far from the Sun such as Jool's moons. Unfortunately on account of the number of RTGs necessary it has an exorbitant price tag over 500,000 funds ^^;

A download is either available via my signature or will be in just a minute.

[fenya]

The first working miner-ssto is the Frigate-1, It weighed over 120 tons, but had a crazy 7.5 km of DeltaV

Durability is the most successful series, it is comfortable,functional, and looks good

This is the first attempt to make the lightweight spaceship. 33.3 tons

And this is the second. 26.2 tonns

Course is set for expansion of functionality. Transportation of goods, construction land bases, etc. I think that is the most promising direction for these machines.

[Fellow314]

More mining.

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[Guest]

Mobile conv

[KerrMü]

This is my current workhorse for my Minmus Petrol Station & Grill.

The Ore Eagle:

[MarcAlain]

My setup is pretty epic, IMHO.

I first landed the large white miner on the left to provide fuel to crafts like the one with the SpaceX style landing legs. That thing can take up rocket parts to my orbital shipyard, however, I have a simliar one for taking up ore - provided by the base module with the tons of drills on left just above the aforementioned white mining rig. I used an extraplanetary launchpad workshop to build that super large collasal base thing on the middle right, that will replace nearly everything in the picture. I optimize and design via low part count, or at least try to. Sometimes I have an idea, and and implement it poorly. Thank goodness for Extraplanetary lanchpads! Reduced my part count by an insane amount.

I can take up 13000 ore up at a time, usually takes just an hour or two in game time to get that much ore. I take the ore up to my refinery station, in the second picture with the CXS II Phobos fueling up for a round trip to Duna. In that picture you can also see Algol I, the ore freighter docked at the station. If only the USI FTT mod had a 5m storage part for Ore then I could take up 27k ore at a time.

Edited August 18, 2015 by MarcAlain

[Rune]

I'm setting up a cozy little Munar refueling station... The more I think about it, the more I like the fact that departure windows to any ejection angle from Munar orbit come every 6 days, not 50 like Minmus. Obviously the ore tanker that takes the price to orbit is not there yet, WiP and I don't know if I want to use a dedicated tanker, or just a tank inside one of my existing shuttles. Also, I am finding out the base skycrane is ideally suited for dropping modules on Mun: refueled on the surface, it makes orbit with just enough juice to bring another module down with some margin (and a 20º plane change), which is convenient to no end.

Rune. Dude I'm getting good at this precision landing thing... now I have time to look out of the window and everything!

Edited August 18, 2015 by Rune

[CrashTestDanny]

Well, after seeing all of the brilliant designs you guys came up with, mine doesn't seem quite as impressive as I thought before I found this thread. But I did manage to launch, orbit, transfer to the Mun and then land with a landing mass of about 87t, so I guess that's nothing to be ashamed of. It's just really not anywhere near as artistic as many of these designs.

It started with a quick Munar outpost mission - you know, land a station supporting 12 Kerbals and all that stuff, yeah yeah, I can throw that together easy enough and land it's 40t mass in one shot - no big deal. But it landed with only 750 delta V left. Wait a sec!?! Why are there 12 Kerbals aboard?!? What we're they thinking!!? We always launch stations and bases unmanned and then crew them in subsequent launches. But these guys, led by none other than Jeb himself, decided it would be fun to go on a little joyride.

Now technically you can achieve Munar orbit from the surface with about 580 delta V, but it turns out they also took along some spirits. Good thing, cause their "mission" went from being a week-long getaway to being 2 years on the moon. That oughta teach them not to stow away, right?

So with only 750 delta V left in the tanks and the only docking port being on top of the outpost, I had to come up with a way to refuel anything. Never one to under-engineer anything, I set out to build a vessel that would mine ore on the Mun, convert that ore to fuel, and then trundle that fuel off to any ship on the surface needing fuel. At the same time, I would answer Kerbal Motion's late CEO's dying question - why?!

My initial design was a 6-wheeled rig with four drills, a large ore tank, an ISRU, Rockomax X200-32 rocket fuel tank, and a Mk-3 cockpit. The nose of the Mk-3 cockpit was fitted with a standard docking port and the tail of the rig was fitted with an AGU (The Klaw) on a 1.25m to girder adapter. Testing on Kerbin went well although we found we did not have sufficient power to run all of the drills and the ISRU overnight... RTGs may be long-lasting and not need fuel, but they have the downside of providing their power slowly. We also found that when all tanks were full, she had a tendency to break wheels. Some of our engineers suggested launching it like this since the loaded craft would weigh less on the Mun than the unloaded craft weighs on Kerbin, but we went ahead and squeezed an extra wheel in. We stuck a pretty standard skycrane design on that had 6 nuclear motors canted at 5-degree angle from vertical, plopped the whole thing on top of one of our heaviest launch vehicles and sent her up!

Unfortunately, during Munar landing, we "discovered" that the crane was not balanced on the rig and every time the crane's engine's would fire, the tail would pitch straight up and loop it around until you shut down. Even the auto pilot couldn't compensate, though it burned through 850 units of MJ trying. WHO was responsible for that!?!?

So we had extensively tested the rig on Kerbin, but had neglected the crane. Not a good idea. Back to the drawing board we went. I thought probably that the exhaust of the forward engines was being deflected by the rig, changing the final thrust vector. The 5-degree angle had been intended to eliminate this, but obviously it was not enough. So we stuck with 6 engines, moved them farther out, restored them to vertical, worked really hard at getting the COT aligned with the COM and spend long nights agonizing over every detail. We converted the nuclear engines to straight rockets with swivels so if our COM/COT alignment was off by a small amount it could be corrected with thrust vectoring (we hoped).

The moment of truth arrived. We had to test this thing on Kerbin. Our changes gave us more than 2.5 empty TWR on Kerbin, so we knew it was possible, but we wanted to make sure it was flyable this time. We stuck her on the pad full of ore and fuel for a total mass in excess of 118t.

WTH!?! Four hitchhikers paying kerbage to their hero - Jebediah - by stowing away for a flight test where we have no intention of actually landing... safely... Whatever... T-3, 2, 1

Ignition! Initial TWR fully loaded is 0.89. We will need to burn off some fuel before we can lift off. Mun TWR fully loaded should be just under 5 - nice.

Liftoff ocurred at T+12s with the rear wheels coming off just before the front, resulting in instant forward velocity. But it was still controllable. Enable RCS to ensure control authority. Set flight computer to Surface hold up. She's holding. MJ usage is very low - almost none and she's holding attitude and climbing nicely! Hooray!!

T+21s. She's still climbing nicely. Autopilot has held her vertical and almost motionless over the pad. Passing 90m.

Time of flameout was not recorded on this test run. in other runs flameout occured around T+1:43 with an altitude record of 3519m (photographer was a second late).

T+2:18. Flight... This is Shannon... Shouldn't we test the escape system now? Shannon, Flight. It's a rover it doesn't have an escape system. Could you guys please go off vox?

Luckily, we did have the revert button, so we didn't have to watch our friends die... Maybe next time they'll think twice before climbing aboard just anything sitting on the launch pad...

Launch was nothing special. 9 Rhinos on 1.5 big kerbo tanks each in a hybrid asparagus staging left 3k units LF+Ox on orbit at the Mun. I have started adding docking ports, power, reaction wheels, and command modules to the center tanks in all of my Launch vehicles so when I leave them with fuel on orbit I can go back and scavenge the fuel later on with a drone. I have plans to modify this design so that I can group these tanks up into larger refueling stations that can be resupplied.

She landed 6m from target at about 1d, 3:14:18.

Target was about 2km from the base where Jeb was staying, another 2km from the outpost that needed refueling (long story) so we trundled on over to Jeb to show him his new toy and get him started on his journey home!

Not as pretty as some of these designs to be sure, but I'm happy to report that she was able to fulfill her mission and refuel Munar Outpost Alpha and it is on it's way home. The guys I really feel sorry for are the ones on the solar station on a 13.5Mm orbit. That may very well be a 35y mission!

Edited September 25, 2015 by CrashTestDanny
trying to fix images

[Tay_T]

I think this is a nice thread, you all have some interesting designs, quite unique.

Guess I'll go ahead and show my best mining rigs so far. ( These are all stock c: )

• The Titan ML-R II! (Mining Lander and Refinery)

One of the few vessels I have pride in. It's one of my favorite to use. The lifting module, which isn't shown here, is a bit unncessarily large, but it does the job. I primarily use this as a docking hub for refueling, as it can contain enough ore and fuel together to go between the Mun and Minmus, and get into stable orbits after landing for some more ore. It's quite fun and feels innovative to be able to attach anything to this (such as a Rockomax hub with more docking ports) and have small, remote probes or other verions of the same ship attach to it. This makes the ship extremely valuable to use in my opinion!

• The Titan ML-R I!

The cousin to the big-boy ML-R II, this smaller, but definitely not less-useful version was the original Titan. I often use this to rendezvous with the Titan II and convert, share, and refuel the main ship. This means potentially unlimted exploring on Kerbin's natural sattellites, as there's a quite low chance there will be no fuel or ore on either vessel, which is fantastic. (Better be sure to close up those panels before flipping on the engines, that was a bit of a goof. Still, only heats them up, could double as a space grill.)

• The two together in orbit!

Oh, isn't this lovely? Apologies for the picture quality being a little different, it was cut from a video I was making and didn't finish. Wonder if I'll ever post that? Oh well, but this is one of my favorite sights, besides coming home to Kerbin from somewhere far away. Some nice Gaussian blurring felt necessary. If you notice, there's actually not any RCS ports on either craft, so they are docked manually. It takes some patience, but hopefully some new models will roll in and have those ports, because gee, that's a lot of pressure on one Kerbal behind the stick trying to line up and make sure 50 tons hold together in orbit. Also! I forgot to mention, there's some Survey Scanners on these, just for that special moment that you may be in a polar orbit. I'll see what you all think, thanks for reading this if you got here

- Have a sciency day, or whatever is the best wording c:

Edited September 26, 2015 by CommanderArma

[CrashTestDanny]

So after seeing some of the very sleek craft posted here, I decided that my rig needed some sleekification. I started by removing the steel plate frame and the inline fuel tank. I then expanded the drilling core to eight drills and two large ore tanks. I stuck all that into an Mk-3 long cargo bay, slapped some wheels, batteries and solar arrays on it, added a Mk-3 to 2.5m adapter/tank at the back and stuck on a docking port Sr.. So now the base rig has a low part count - 61 - and dry mass of only about 43t. The tanker trailer needed a few more struts for a total part count of 86 with dry mass of 31t. The previous rig came with an array of 72! RTGs for power, but I found even that doesn't keep up with nighttime drilling if you are running all four drills and the ISRU, so we decided not to waste the part count trying to power the rig with RTGs. Right now this is all solar with 80k of batteries and 40k batteries in each tanker. A small number of RTGs provides auxiliary power and a healthy glow to our mining engineers. We will probably add more batteries to the tankers and a small number of fuel cell arrays for nighttime power.

Might be a while before I get to sticking a launch vehicle under it and a delivery system on it, but here are some pics from it's field test at the KSC:

[Azimech]

Stock, except the colour. I'm doing the Elcano challenge with it. It's not only a miner, but also a high speed amphibious truck, capable of sustained 55 m/s driving (in oxygen atmo)

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[Arugela]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/136120-StarCitizenReplicas-The-Orion!

[algwat]

New one from ASTAR mining company...fly every where...