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Making a space material scoop


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So since i'm new to modding and i really want to get a hang of it, i want to understand how everything works. For now i've challenged myself to make a space scoop. A part, that collects a fuel while floating in space (basically out of nothing). 

What would be the easiest way of making it?

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I haven't learned to make a part animate except for engine heat/throttle, and it's been quite some time since I did even that so I'm no use to anyone with animation, but for ideas for how the scoop should look, I went with a simple design based on a basktball hoop or laundry basket. And I gave it the same harvester module as in the stock drill but changed the harvester type (from 1) to 3. And I know how to configure resource bands in space so here's a scoop I made, picking up Helium3 in low Jool orbit and showing that there's Helium3 in Jool's atmosphere (through instances of the surface scanner's scanner module with resource types 2 and 3).

e4pxM3A.jpg

Lookup "bussard scoop" and you'll see many examples revolving around the idea of a conical frame with extreme outer radius and a framework of concentric rings and supporting beams between the rings. In space where ambient pressure is usually practically zero, useful particles are usually incredibly few and incredibly sparse (except for maybe Hydrogen and Helium?) which force this idea for the scoop shape as to provide enough surface area to capture useful amounts of particles at a given time.

Edited by JadeOfMaar
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1 hour ago, JadeOfMaar said:

I haven't learned to make a part animate except for engine heat/throttle, and it's been quite some time since I did even that so I'm no use to anyone with animation, but for ideas for how the scoop should look, I went with a simple design based on a basktball hoop or laundry basket. And I gave it the same harvester module as in the stock drill but changed the harvester type (from 1) to 3. And I know how to configure resource bands in space so here's a scoop I made, picking up Helium 3 in low Jool orbit and showing that there's Helium3 in Jool's atmosphere (through instances of the surface scanner's scanner module with resource types 2 and 3).

e4pxM3A.jpg

In short, lookup "bussard scoop" and you'll see many examples revolving around the idea of a conical frame with extreme outer radius and a framework of concentric rings and supporting beams between the rings. In space where ambient pressure is very low, useful particles are incredibly few and incredibly sparse (except for Hydrogen?) which force this idea for the scoop shape as to provide enough surface area to capture useful amounts of particles at a given time.

Heyyyy... that's pretty goood... But how do you configure the resource(Helium3) to be gatherable? When i make my scoop to collect my resource, it just says "Nothing to harvest" or something between those lines...

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@KerboNerd Before you see how the numbers work, you must imagine this exosphere resource band as an additional "hollow" atmosphere around your planet, an atmosphere that, as you climb through it, it starts to become thick long after you've climbed from sea level, then it reaches peak thickness, then it becomes thin and zeroes out again. The height of this atmosphere before and after the thickest point is always identical. (But this atmosphere does not carry any pressure and has no physics to affect ships passing through it.) Whether a given planet has an actual atmosphere or not is not important at all and will cause no conflict.

Now, resource distribution in space works like this:

PLANETARY_RESOURCE:NEEDS[CommunityResourcePack]
{
	ResourceName = LqdHe3
	ResourceType = 3
	PlanetName = Jool
	
	Distribution
	{
		PresenceChance = 1000
		MinAbundance = 0.2
		MaxAbundance = 0.45
		MinAltitude = 0.8
		MaxAltitude = 10
		MinRange = 0.5
		MaxRange = 0.5
	}
}

ResourceType's values are as following: 0 (Crustal), 1 (Oceanic), 2 (Atmospheric), 3 (Exospheric). Only the number is a valid input.

ResourceName can be anything as long as it's a valid resource defined in the Community Resource Pack or in any mod that adds its own exclusive resource. For every additional resource you want to make available for one planet you must make a new instance of the whole PLANETARY_RESOURCE configNode and change the ResourceName value.

PlanetName means: "This configuration is for this planet." For every planet you want to personalize the resource band for you must make a new instance of the whole PLANETARY_RESOURCE configNode and change the PlanetName value.

MinAbundance and MaxAbundance are abstract. The RNG picks a number between these two (which can have the same value if you want it not to vary). The picked number, (per save) is the maximum that you can hope to encounter with a scanner. It's the amount that you get at the thickest point, the midpoint in the exosphere.

MinAltitude and MaxAltitude are where Math gets challenging. The RNG picks between these, per save. The numbers you put here are calculated as (x * half planet radius) + planet radius and are measured in km from the planet's center (SemimajorAxis), not actually km from sea level (altitude).
These values are what decide the height of the midpoint of the exosphere.

MinRange and MaxRange are easy. The RNG picks between these, per save. The numbers here multiply by the planet radius in km for the height of the exosphere around the mid-point of the exosphere, half above and half below.

Edited by JadeOfMaar
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8 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

@KerboNerd Before you see how the numbers work, you must imagine this exosphere resource band as an additional "hollow" atmosphere around your planet, an atmosphere that, as you climb through it, it starts to become thick long after you've climbed from sea level, then it reaches peak thickness, then it becomes thin and zeroes out again. The height of this atmosphere before and after the thickest point is always identical. (But this atmosphere does not carry any pressure and has no physics to affect ships passing through it.) Whether a given planet has an actual atmosphere or not is not important at all and will cause no conflict.

Now, resource distribution in space works like this:


PLANETARY_RESOURCE:NEEDS[CommunityResourcePack]
{
	ResourceName = LqdHe3
	ResourceType = 3
	PlanetName = Jool
	
	Distribution
	{
		PresenceChance = 1000
		MinAbundance = 0.2
		MaxAbundance = 0.45
		MinAltitude = 0.8
		MaxAltitude = 10
		MinRange = 0.5
		MaxRange = 0.5
	}
}

ResourceType's values are as following: 0 (Crustal), 1 (Oceanic), 2 (Atmospheric), 3 (Exospheric). Only the number is a valid input.

ResourceName can be anything as long as it's a valid resource defined in the Community Resource Pack or in any mod that adds its own exclusive resource. For every additional resource you want to make available for one planet you must make a new instance of the whole PLANETARY_RESOURCE configNode and change the ResourceName value.

PlanetName means: "This configuration is for this planet." For every planet you want to personalize the resource band for you must make a new instance of the whole PLANETARY_RESOURCE configNode and change the PlanetName value.

MinAbundance and MaxAbundance are abstract. The RNG picks a number between these two (which can have the same value if you want it not to vary). The picked number, (per save) is the maximum that you can hope to encounter with a scanner. It's the amount that you get at the thickest point, the midpoint in the exosphere.

MinAltitude and MaxAltitude are where Math gets challenging. The RNG picks between these, per save. The numbers you put here are calculated as (x * half planet radius) + planet radius and are measured in km from the planet's center (SemimajorAxis), not actually km from sea level (altitude).
These values are what decide the height of the midpoint of the exosphere.

MinRange and MaxRange are easy. The RNG picks between these, per save. The numbers here multiply by the planet radius in km for the height of the exosphere around the mid-point of the exosphere, half above and half below.

So basically i need the Community Resource Pack. Without it it's a no go, right?

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Yeah. You're going to need that. Imagine a dozen other modders went and did the same thing you're doing (to some extent this is already true). If everyone defined their own Helium resource it would get ugly fast. Preventing that is why CRP exists.

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5 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Yeah. You're going to need that. Imagine a dozen other modders went and did the same thing you're doing (to some extent this is already true). If everyone defined their own Helium resource it would get ugly fast. Preventing that is why CRP exists.

I tried CRP. Actually my resource is quite original. It's called Neptunium Gas. It's totally fictional (obviously), but you can gather it across the galaxy, compress the gas into Pure neptunium and convert it into plutonium-238. And after that convert the plutonium into the even more fictional resource - HyperPlutonium. It's just highly compressed plutonium.

EDIT and yeah, i already did the digging on the configs. 

Edited by KerboNerd
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