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What's your refinery style: orbital or surface?

ShadowZone

By ShadowZone
in KSP1 Discussion

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Where do you refine your ore?  

172 members have voted

  1. 1. Where do you refine your ore?

    • I refine on the surface
      94
    • Orbital refinery all the way
      71

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magnemoe

magnemoe

Posted
Posted

This is my Minmus base

bzyUkjyl.png

Currently refueling an tanker with three large MK3 tanks. Base is a bit oversized because of contract. I use an KAS hub to connect as I landed more than 50 meter from base.

An similar base but with just two hitchhiker containers and no science lab is on Duna, I will take it to Ike, the duna base has chemical engines, it need trust more than ISP as it will only operate in the Duna system. Something like the Minmus base will be used at Gilly, it will have nuclear engines and more fuel capacity as it will service Eve landers. Refuel before decent and do plane changes.

pick up returning kerbals.

So that base will mostly refuel in orbit. My mun base is the old Minmus base it mostly operating in orbit and service operations on Mun.

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Draconiator

Draconiator

Posted
Posted

I do both depending on where I am, around Minmus I have an orbital refinery, but I've decided to refine on the ground when it comes to Duna. Easier that way. Even made a specialized ship for that. I have to get it TO Duna; it's so large that initial refueling is going to be a pain.

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pandaman

pandaman

Posted
Posted
Honestly, for me, a terrestrial refinery would be easier to do since I've never done an orbital rendezvous, or made a circular orbit with a conventional rocket instead of a spaceplane. However, the concept of having an orbital refinery is very appealing to me. Maybe if you had one in geostationary orbit above the mining rig so that you could just have a rocket go straight up and dock with it without making orbit...

Sorry to wreck your idea, but that plan doesn't work.

If you want to dock your orbits must match exactly, otherwise it's just a collision (at very high closing speeds if you come straight up from the surface).

That said, learning to rendezvous and dock is a very worthwhile, it's never 'easy' but gets less difficult with practice (and patience).

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KerikBalm

KerikBalm

Posted
Posted

Put the refinery one the ship.

The refinery has a mass of 4.3 tons.

When using a refiniery on your ship, you don't need to carry fuel for the ascent. If you use more than 4.3* 8/9 (for tank mass)= 3.82 tons of fuel on the ascent, then at all stages of the operation, it is more efficient to have the ISRU on your ship than in orbit.

As your vessel gets bigger, the proportion of fuel mass for the ascent stays the same - but the proportion of mass for the ISRU gets smaller.

It is more efficient to take the ISRU with you, and not to take fuel for the ascent.

The most efficient is one refinery on the surface, and one in orbit if your "tanker) vessel has ore tanks. Otherwise, its one on the surface so that you don't haul fuel for the ascent down to the surface, and you don't need to reserve fuel for the next ascent (only the descent) from what you take up to orbit.

But its a pain to land really close to something on the surface, and deal with transfering fuel on the surface (especially without KAS, which I haven't used)... so... stick the ISRU on your ship and be done with it.

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magnemoe

magnemoe

Posted
Posted
Put the refinery one the ship.

The refinery has a mass of 4.3 tons.

When using a refiniery on your ship, you don't need to carry fuel for the ascent. If you use more than 4.3* 8/9 (for tank mass)= 3.82 tons of fuel on the ascent, then at all stages of the operation, it is more efficient to have the ISRU on your ship than in orbit.

As your vessel gets bigger, the proportion of fuel mass for the ascent stays the same - but the proportion of mass for the ISRU gets smaller.

It is more efficient to take the ISRU with you, and not to take fuel for the ascent.

The most efficient is one refinery on the surface, and one in orbit if your "tanker) vessel has ore tanks. Otherwise, its one on the surface so that you don't haul fuel for the ascent down to the surface, and you don't need to reserve fuel for the next ascent (only the descent) from what you take up to orbit.

But its a pain to land really close to something on the surface, and deal with transfering fuel on the surface (especially without KAS, which I haven't used)... so... stick the ISRU on your ship and be done with it.

Works if the ship is designed to land, else I agree with you. Nice to have an depot in LKO anyway, let you arrive in orbit with dry tanks.

Starting thinking of an refinery in LKO as my fuel versus oxidizer demand are very unpredictable. have an manned fuel station already.

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KerbMav

KerbMav

Posted
Posted

Depends.

If I carry the ISRU-stuff around on a tour I think I would land all of it (at least engines, drills, refinery, tanks) to avoid the need to carry around big ore tanks as well.

A "stationary" ISRU-facility/base ... might leave the refinery in orbit and just carry the drills (to avoid pinpoint landing requirements every time) to the surface.

But that makes no sense!

About as much sense as a laughing Vulcan! :P:wink:

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Hannu

Hannu

Posted
Posted

I have mining units with drill, refinery, fuel and ore storage tanks, huge solar panel arrays and battery banks, and large crew cabins (with TAC supplies) for long time stay. I have separate tanker ships with large fuel tanks and manned pod. They transport fuel and exchange crews to orbital station. I land near the refinery, which is very easy on low gravity bodies (Minmus, Ike, small Joolian moons) and connect ships with KAS connector.

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cantab

cantab

Posted
Posted

I stick fuel tanks on the Launchpad and blast them into space to where I want them :D ISRU? What's that?

On a serious note, I think for small bodies I'd use orbital refinement because I'm good at rendezvous and docking but bad at precision landing. For large bodies though I'd refine on the surface so that the lander only needs the one-way delta-V.

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