Kerbin Ore Economics (ore contracts "tweaks")

[Wjolcz]

The main reason for me not accepting the ore hauling contracts is the fact that I have to haul it somewhere and leave it. Just because. No real reason. No explanation.

So maybe instead, Kerbin could become the center of ore usage? Roleplay inbound:

A company wants you to bring them some of the Mun's regolith. They want it because there's some sort of precious element in it. So they send you a contract to bring them a certain amount. You go there, harvest it, bring it home, land it, get paid. Simple.

IMO that would not only make more sense but also encourage making, planning and maintaining of the whole infrastructure consisting of bases, SSTO shuttles and ore harvesters.

Edited September 28, 2016 by Veeltch

[tater]

I can't see there ever being a reason to bring "ore" anyplace. ISRU makes some sense, but hauling ore anywhere is nuts.

[Wjolcz]

2 hours ago, tater said:

I can't see there ever being a reason to bring "ore" anyplace. ISRU makes some sense, but hauling ore anywhere is nuts.

What about rare materials though? Like platinium and helium-3?

[tater]

3 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

What about rare materials though? Like platinium and helium-3?

No, that's not impossible for Rare Earths. But the only place to haul them would be Kerbin. Ore turns into fuel, though, so unless they break it up more, it's H, O, and maybe C that anyone cares about. Regarding ³He, that is sort of predicated on a fusion economy. So you'd first need to add that in. Regardless, you're not going to "haul ore from Gilly to Eve" when you have no facilities either place. 

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah this is an interesting concept. There are also a number of "haul" contracts for other things to specific orbits and places and whatnot, but I too usually skip them. I do like the idea of a commodity resource that could be returned to Kerbin for cash. There's also the possibility of delivering some kind of special experiment modules to different places be tested, either with an MPL or on its own?

[Magzimum]

I'd support it if they are changed so that the final destination is either Kerbin (for R&D) or an existing station.

Delivery to stations in orbit (preferably from the planet/moon below) would make a lot of sense. We do this right now for refueling purposes. Delivery to stations on a surface of a planet/moon could make sense of those stations have a need for the ore, i.e. they either have a R&D lab or they have an ISRU unit, but no drills. Obviously, the ore must be docked to such station for the contract to be completed. I realize that the game may not be able to tell whether such a station happens to have its own ISRU and sits right on top of a rich ore deposit, but at least missions would make a little more sense, with limited changes needed for the game.

Delivery to Kerbin is still useful too, also if you do some role-playing. R&D is the only real reason you would haul ore to Kerbin. Materials should be available cheaper on the surface, so you don't haul it for industrial reasons. Still, a mission with a research incentive could still ask for a few tons of ore. NASA can do some good R&D on a few grams of Moon dust, but they'd be delighted to have a lot more of it, so it could be distributed to more researchers, and for larger scale experiments (i.e. growing potatoes on real Martian soil would require a few tons).

[tater]

If it is economical to bring ore anyplace other than where it is mined, the ISRU is grossly overpowered.

ISRU is only valuable because the propellant/etc is at the place you want to be. Studies of lunar regolith mining for propellant have shown that it merely offsets landing costs. That's it. Hauling ore should cost more propellant than you get, 100% of the time, or something is broken.

[Wjolcz]

7 hours ago, Magzimum said:

 

Delivery to Kerbin is still useful too, also if you do some role-playing. R&D is the only real reason you would haul ore to Kerbin. Materials should be available cheaper on the surface, so you don't haul it for industrial reasons. Still, a mission with a research incentive could still ask for a few tons of ore. NASA can do some good R&D on a few grams of Moon dust, but they'd be delighted to have a lot more of it, so it could be distributed to more researchers, and for larger scale experiments (i.e. growing potatoes on real Martian soil would require a few tons).

Well, that's not exactly what I mean here. I'm not sure how a few tons of regolith would be useful for R&D, but if we consider regolith having some sort of precious materials in it I'm sure companies that dig for precious materials on Earth/Kerbin would be interested in paying good sums of money for it.

So basically, space mining for profit.

1 hour ago, tater said:

If it is economical to bring ore anyplace other than where it is mined, the ISRU is grossly overpowered.

ISRU is only valuable because the propellant/etc is at the place you want to be. Studies of lunar regolith mining for propellant have shown that it merely offsets landing costs. That's it. Hauling ore should cost more propellant than you get, 100% of the time, or something is broken.

What I mean though is a scenario where there are companies that want to pay money for bringing them ore. Just like it is now. You bring ore somewhere and get paid. Except in this case "somewhere" would be Kerbin's surface only.

I remember reading about some asteroid irl that has so much platinium that bringing it to Earth and selling the material would make platinium dirt cheap, or something like that. That's what I'd like to do in KSP (except without ruining the market, but since it's non-existent then there's no problem with it, I think).

EDIT: here it is: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/(436724)_2011_UW158

Edited September 28, 2016 by Veeltch

[tater]

Yeah, I agree, within the current system, at least delivery to Kerbin (or an existing station/base that a contract has required) would make vastly more sense.

[Magzimum]

5 hours ago, Veeltch said:

Well, that's not exactly what I mean here. I'm not sure how a few tons of regolith would be useful for R&D, but if we consider regolith having some sort of precious materials in it I'm sure companies that dig for precious materials on Earth/Kerbin would be interested in paying good sums of money for it.

I work on the assumption that visiting the planets is still a novelty, just like visiting Mars in our current times.

If some company would actually succeed to deliver 10 tons of Martian regolith to Earth in 2017, then I am sure they'd get more than the current marketprice for sand on Earth. In fact, I think that several space agencies, as well as companies that plan on some Mars missions, would happily pay millions to be able to do some tests on the material, ranging from using it for building purposes to using it for growing potatoes. 

Obviously, the value of such material is decreased over time. If you come in with the 15th mission with again 10 tons, then at some point no more researchers will have a need for it, and it loses its value. But I typically don't repeat too many missions in this game. 

 

If the dust has some precious metals in it in huge quantities (in quantities uncommon on Earth), then it may have a value as a mining material.

 

[tater]

Yeah, Id say that's more like sample return than "ore" though.

[KerbMav]

To pick up some things in here:

Ore and fuel have been deliberately made equal in mass/density, I think the reason was to give the player more freedom if you wants a full plant on the surface or just a mining lander with the alchemy happening in orbit.
This of course can be rather easily changed in the games config files.
 

I like the idea of adding rare/valuable materials to the planets/moons/asteroids to introduce mining as a viable form of gameplay; with complementing contracts for bonus payments ontop of the value itself.
But I guess this will remain a domain of modders, Squad mentioned having no intention of adding more resources to the game.

[magnemoe]

You tend to get 3 types of contracts, first is mine ore, second is mine ore at take out of the moons SOI. 
Last is moving ore to other body, 
Bringing ore out of SOI can easy be done with miner, after you do the contract simply convert it to fuel.
 

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

You tend to get 3 types of contracts, first is mine ore, second is mine ore at take out of the moons SOI. 
Last is moving ore to other body, 
Bringing ore out of SOI can easy be done with miner, after you do the contract simply convert it to fuel.
 

Meh. I'd rather have all the contracts asking to mine ore from [insert body name here] and bring it to Kerbin for profit every single time.

That or a contract filter that let's me see only this kind of contracts.

On 29/09/2016 at 9:11 AM, KerbMav said:

To pick up some things in here:

Ore and fuel have been deliberately made equal in mass/density, I think the reason was to give the player more freedom if you wants a full plant on the surface or just a mining lander with the alchemy happening in orbit.
This of course can be rather easily changed in the games config files.
 

I like the idea of adding rare/valuable materials to the planets/moons/asteroids to introduce mining as a viable form of gameplay; with complementing contracts for bonus payments ontop of the value itself.
But I guess this will remain a domain of modders, Squad mentioned having no intention of adding more resources to the game.

Well, they wouldn't have to add any more resources. It's just one contract really. Except the body you have to mine ore from is random and the body it asks you to land the payload on is Kerbin.

[KerbMav]

1 hour ago, Veeltch said:

Well, they wouldn't have to add any more resources. It's just one contract really. Except the body you have to mine ore from is random and the body it asks you to land the payload on is Kerbin.

I never fully understood how the game knows where you got the ore from - that's why I think new resources would be needed, something that is only available on Duna, or blue asteroids, or etc.

[Wjolcz]

44 minutes ago, KerbMav said:

I never fully understood how the game knows where you got the ore from - that's why I think new resources would be needed, something that is only available on Duna, or blue asteroids, or etc.

I'm pretty sure it somehow can recognize where it's mined. Otherwise the current ore haul contracts wouldn't exist.

Edited September 30, 2016 by Veeltch

[monstah]

38 minutes ago, KerbMav said:

I never fully understood how the game knows where you got the ore from - 

 

9 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

I'm pretty sure it somehow can recognize where it's mined. Otherwise the current ore haul contracts would exist.

It can recognize where it was mined from at the moment it's being mined  After that, it's all ore, which is why you can have a harvester in Duna finish the first objective, then have a clone ship move out of the VAB with its ore tanks full and complete the contract.

38 minutes ago, KerbMav said:

 - that's why I think new resources would be needed, something that is only available on Duna, or blue asteroids, or etc.

Totally agree.

Also make it so any contract that asks you to bring ore to Kerbin pays less than it would cost to just fill the tanks with ore! I mean, what.

[KerbMav]

1 hour ago, monstah said:

Also make it so any contract that asks you to bring ore to Kerbin pays less than it would cost to just fill the tanks with ore! I mean, what.

Well, either make the stuff worth nothing on the open market - not a good gameplay choice really - or, as you will be credited for the value upon recovery of the vessel, the contract payment is a mere compensation for expenses in addition to the recovery value.

Problem might be that the drills would need a special button for any and all resource to drill for, no?

[monstah]

1 hour ago, KerbMav said:

Problem might be that the drills would need a special button for any and all resource to drill for, no?

You mean that in the GUI sense? I'm pretty sure some smart minds at SQUAD can figure this out.

As it is, I think soon we'll need expanding submenus.

[W. Kerman]

On 9/28/2016 at 3:44 PM, Magzimum said:

I work on the assumption that visiting the planets is still a novelty, just like visiting Mars in our current times.

If some company would actually succeed to deliver 10 tons of Martian regolith to Earth in 2017, then I am sure they'd get more than the current marketprice for sand on Earth. In fact, I think that several space agencies, as well as companies that plan on some Mars missions, would happily pay millions to be able to do some tests on the material, ranging from using it for building purposes to using it for growing potatoes. 

Obviously, the value of such material is decreased over time. If you come in with the 15th mission with again 10 tons, then at some point no more researchers will have a need for it, and it loses its value. But I typically don't repeat too many missions in this game. 

 

If the dust has some precious metals in it in huge quantities (in quantities uncommon on Earth), then it may have a value as a mining material.

 

Only a potion of the ore would be useful/valuable. If you have a large scale operation, it makes sense to refine it on the planet/moon and then bring it home.

It's all about that $/Kg!

[Wjolcz]

On 30/09/2016 at 4:41 PM, monstah said:

 

It can recognize where it was mined from at the moment it's being mined  After that, it's all ore, which is why you can have a harvester in Duna finish the first objective, then have a clone ship move out of the VAB with its ore tanks full and complete the contract.

Ok, so that's a problem, but there's a way to deal with this. Imo the ore tanks should be able to be filled in VAB/SPH, but when the vessel is launched the tanks would become empty. That way there would be no possible exploits and the payload would have to be brought from some other body in order to complete the contract.

Edited October 2, 2016 by Veeltch