in situ resource utilization: practical details & logistics

[king of nowhere]

i want to set up a base on Mun to extract and process rocket fuel to keep a refueling station in Mun orbit.

which, admittedly, is not such an original plan, i'm sure 90% of you already did something like that, the real NASA il planning to do something like that, but it just means it's a good idea.

 

what i'm interested is how to actually set everything up in the game. perhaps my questions are stupid, but i haven't tried this before and i don't want to spend top only to find out, after landing everything, that my whole operation won't work because i missed a small detail i didn't knew about.

So, if I get this right, i will need 4 parts: the drill-o-matic, that will extract "ore" from the ground. A storage tank, to put ore in it. A convert-o-tron, that will process ore into fuel and oxidizer (1). and a fuel tank, to store the fuel (2, 3).

the major problem is linking all those parts, because i am not sure i can/want to send all those on the ground in a single piece. i may want to send separate pieces to move them around better, this begs the question: what about resource transfer? attaching stuff on the ground with a clamp-o-tron is complicated and impractical, and i'd lose all the advantage of sending separated parts. but i just noticed that the CLAW does not allow resource transfer. so having a dedicated rover to move stuff from one tank to the other is out of the question, unless i can provide it with clamp-o-trons and line them up perfectly with those on the tanks. (4)

and then there is the problem of actually transferring stuff to a ship, because there's no way i'm going to land one precisely enough to attach to something on the ground. so, i'm not sure how i'm going to move my fuel to the ship. unless i put clamp-o-trons aligned perfectly with the transfer rover on the ship too, of course, which would again require very careful alignments. (5)

(1) question: is it possible to also recover xenon gas for the ion engine in this way?

(2) question: Did I got the mechanic right or am i missing some piece?

(3) question: the convert-o-tron and drill-o-matic say in the description that they work better with an engineer. but they have no crew cabin. where do I have to put the engineer to get the bonus?

(4) question: how do i handle resource transfers between the various tanks?

(5) question: how do i transfer the fuel from the tanks to a landed ship?

[bewing]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

1) question: is it possible to also recover xenon gas for the ion engine in this way?

Not in the stock game, no.

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

(2) question: Did I got the mechanic right or am i missing some piece?

You also need a source of electricity (solar panels), a radiator, and usually a crew compartment of some sort.

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

(3) question: the convert-o-tron and drill-o-matic say in the description that they work better with an engineer. but they have no crew cabin. where do I have to put the engineer to get the bonus?

The craft needs some kind of crew compartment, or a command seat. But the answer is "anywhere on the craft that has crew capacity".

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

(4) question: how do i handle resource transfers between the various tanks?

You either turn off the "resource transfer obeys crossfeed rules" -- because that allows klaws to work for fuel transfer. Or you dock with clamp-o-trons, as you say. Or you use a mod.

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

(5) question: how do i transfer the fuel from the tanks to a landed ship?

Same as 4.

[king of nowhere]

3 hours ago, bewing said:

Not in the stock game, no.

You also need a source of electricity (solar panels), a radiator, and usually a crew compartment of some sort.

The craft needs some kind of crew compartment, or a command seat. But the answer is "anywhere on the craft that has crew capacity".

You either turn off the "resource transfer obeys crossfeed rules" -- because that allows klaws to work for fuel transfer. Or you dock with clamp-o-trons, as you say. Or you use a mod.

Same as 4.

not the answer i was hoping for. having to make it all part of the same vehicle makes it much more complicated as far as launching it goes. i have to make a vertical pile to put it on a rocket, but i will want to spread it horizontally once on mun. luckily i already sent a robotic arm that can move pieces around.

so, i am planning to send something like in the image. https://imgur.com/a/P0riJWf

once on the ground i detach the lower part and connect it horizontally. and i'll need a rover with storage tanks to move the fuel to a ship.

would that be functional? shall i maybe send additional drills, or converters? are there enough heat radiators? are the solar panels enough, or too many? will the tanks last a reasonable time before filling up completely? is there some huge mistake i'm not aware of?

thanks

[AHHans]

7 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

(4) question: how do i handle resource transfers between the various tanks?

Actually the resource transfer rules do not apply to fuel / oxidizer / monoprop that is freshly created with a convert-o-tron. That newly created fuel will also be added to tanks that are only connected via a claw. (I use that "exploit" regularly to refuel some of my craft. My reasoning is that if I have an engineer that can run can complicated ISRC refinery then they can also rig a fuel line to the connected craft.) I haven't tested if this also work for ore - i.e. if freshly mined ore is also filled into tanks on the other side of a claw - but I would guess that it will work.

3 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

so, i am planning to send something like in the image.

The drills should work. But the fixed radiator panels will only cool their parent part and the parts that are connected to their parent. I.e. in your setup the convert-o-tron will not be cooled! Add some radiator panels to the upper fuel tank or use the (extendable) thermal control units. (The latter cool every part in the craft.)

There is way too little electricity generation power on that craft! You'll need at least 2 Gigantor XL arrays to power a Convert-O-Tron 250. More are better! I think I have at least 6 on my craft. The EC consumption of a convert-o-tron depends on the level of the engineer on the craft. Also, if you want to run that during the night, then you need *bleep*loads of battery power. Again: more is better! Four Z-4k batteries are O.K. for my miner on Minmus if I don't use a high-lever engineer. (Whenever I think I finally added enough batteries my engineers gain more experience and the craft run out of ECs again. )

I don't know if an engineer in a passenger cabin is good enough. My guess is yes, but I don't know.

Other notes: I usually have my mining rigs in one craft, i.e. drills, ore tanks, convert-o-tron, batteries, and solar panels together. I also have one "rover" with mining rig and a claw on the nose that can grab a stranded craft, deploy its drills, and refuel the craft. (Or use that claw to grab a stranded capsule and lift it into orbit again for Mun / Minmus surface rescue contracts.)

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by AHHans

[bewing]

1 hour ago, AHHans said:

Also, if you want to run that during the night, then you need *bleep*loads of battery power.

Ah, yes. I forgot to mention batteries in my list. But one additional exploit, as far as that goes, is that if you don't focus the craft, then it uses no electricity.

[Spricigo]

Dmagic's EVA Resource Transfer Mod is something you may have a look at if you want to avoid the docking shenanigans. 

But If that is not an option for you, my suggestion is a Flatbed Rover with docking ports facing up and everything else with docking port facing down. Use landing Struts (or gears if you prefer) to raise the modules,  maneuver the rover in position and retract the struts to couple. Crude example:https://imgur.com/a/Fn5QGqd 

Just make a long rover with docking ports spaced enough to link different modules (e.g. mining rig to refueler ship) and make it wide if you plan to move the modules around with it. 

 

[king of nowhere]

not having access to the more advanced pieces, i used 64 basic batteries and i completely covered the thing in solar panels. it's ok if it does not work in the night anyway, at first. I left plenty of space for coupling, so i can always send a new part with more power capacity. in fact, i plan to put them on the transfer rover; when i don't use it i leave it coupled, anyway. the rover will need multiple hatches, because my actual refueling vehicle has an attach point downward - it's the same i use to bring stuff down, after it lands i refuel and bring fuel up, it saves one trip. but in the future i may want to have a dedicated vehicle with less dead weight, and it would be easier to build it with a hatch on the side

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

Try the SimpleLogistics mod, it lets nearby landed craft share their resources so you could have miners, converters and fuel tanks parked within physics range but not have to physically connect them.

Personally, I would build one big mining rig with the drills, ore tanks and ISRUs in one place plus all the batteries, radiators, solar panels and crew pod for engineers to make it work, and then use big flying fuel tanks to take in the fuel and then fly it up to wherever it was going. I used that system to do some Munar mining until the miner glitched inside the terrain and exploded one time I loaded it up. I also did a similar thing to refuel a ship around Duna by mining on Ike and flying the fuel to the mothership.

Building a very modular system with lots of little trucks each with a specific task (e.g. one with a drill, one with ISRU, one with ore tanks) seemed like a good idea at first, but ended up with too many parts and combining robotic parts with klaws and much mass resulted in the entire assembly wobbling constantly before I eventually gave up on that idea. One big miner is the better approach.

[TheFlyingKerman]

1 hour ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Building a very modular system with lots of little trucks each with a specific task (e.g. one with a drill, one with ISRU, one with ore tanks) seemed like a good idea at first, but ended up with too many parts and combining robotic parts with klaws and much mass resulted in the entire assembly wobbling constantly before I eventually gave up on that idea. One big miner is the better approach.

This, and you'd end up spending more time managing the operation than using the fuel produced. I'd go even further, with one single ship doing all the mining, refining, and then lifting the fuel (and the drill and ISRU) off to refuel in orbit. That wastes some fuel but ISRU fuel is free.

[jimmymcgoochie]

2 hours ago, TheFlyingKerman said:

I’d go even further, with one single ship doing all the mining, refining, and then lifting the fuel (and the drill and ISRU) off to refuel in orbit. That wastes some fuel but ISRU fuel is free.

I disagree on that point. It’s better to build one ship that is built solely for mining and has only enough fuel capacity to get itself to the ground and (maybe) back to orbit, and another ship(s) that are solely for fuel hauling. That level of specialisation is more efficient than hauling the entire thing into space each time plus the flying fuel tanks can be sent separately, are generally easier to dock and can be flown somewhere else afterwards- I used the two I sent to Duna as deployed seismometer impactors after the main ship was refuelled for MOAR SCIENCE!
OF course, I also tried to land the miner on Duna, which was successful to a point; the ship landed relatively intact but the engines, solar panels and radiators broke off on impact so it couldn’t actually mine anything after that and I had to send a lander down to rescue the engineers.

[king of nowhere]

lifting the whole mining complex is out of the question at this point. eventually i want to make a huge starship that can land an isru complex anywhere to refuel itself, but it's a very long term plan.

between the drill and convert-o-tron it's 10 tons of dead weight. add in the crew cabin and energy and heat apparatus and ore tanks, it's almost 15 tons of dead weight that you have to lift off and land every time.

sure, i could have the flying tanker land directly over the mining complex, if i had that kind of precision.

a rover to transfer fuel from the tanker to the mining complex is simply because i'm never going to land exactly on the spot. coupling a rover is not difficult anyway

[Spricigo]

4 hours ago, TheFlyingKerman said:

I'd go even further, with one single ship doing all the mining, refining, and then lifting the fuel (and the drill and ISRU) off to refuel in orbit.

Landing/taking off with all that stuff that bend and shake while I fly and have to restart everything each time? No, thanks. 

For me is either:

§ mining+refinery in one module sitting on the ground and refueler ship carrying fuel to were it is needed. 

§ refinery stays in space and mining ship is sent to get the ore. 

 

 

 

[AHHans]

15 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

I left plenty of space for coupling, so i can always send a new part with more power capacity.

Well, that is also a tried and tested method of Kerbal engineering. (Although it is more traditional to upgrade the power capacity on a craft because you forgot to install them in the first place, not because you didn't have the right parts unlocked. *looksatmyValllander* )

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

between the drill and convert-o-tron it's 10 tons of dead weight. add in the crew cabin and energy and heat apparatus and ore tanks, it's almost 15 tons of dead weight that you have to lift off and land every time.

I dealt with the efficiency issue by going big. My Kerbin system refueling setup is a station in a 500 km "gateteway" orbit around Kerbin and a big miner that goes to Minmus for refueling. The miner has the full mining suite (2 drills, one large convert-o-tron, and support equipment) , space for 18.000 units (180 tons) of ore, and enough thrust and fuel capacity to get into Mun orbit with a full load (not that I do it, but it could). So to get from Minmus to docking at the station it has to refine ore on the way, the end result is that it can deliver 10.000 units of ore to the station in one round trip. In other words: more than half of the fuel  that was mined on Minmus gets "wasted" on the trip to Kerbin orbit. That doesn't sound very efficient, but on the other hand for each round trip I get 100 tons of useful fuel on my station. Which means that I can fuel up several "reasonably sized" interplanetary craft with one round trip of the miner. And when I fuel up something like a Nauvoo class station then that is moved to Minmus orbit to be refueled there, allowing the full 18.000 units to be transferred each round trip.

So there are several ways to tackle this issue.

[king of nowhere]

all those are just stilistic differences, i only realize one issue:

why am i mining mun when i could be mining minmus? i'd spend a fraction of the fuel to land and lift off...

never thought much about it. i started building a ground station on mun to get science, and when i planned isru coupling it with the science station seemed natural...

well, whatever. i can and will have multiple similar facilities around the system

[AHHans]

43 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

all those are just stilistic differences,

Yupp. That's one thing I like about KSP: there are many different ways to play it!

[Spricigo]

10 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

why am i mining mun when i could be mining minmus? ...

never thought much about it....

well, whatever. 

Like anyone else. 

In the end is just stilistic differences as you said. People will point out that such and such bother them too much but if it works for you keep the "suboptimal" setup. 

 

[king of nowhere]

heh...

so far, the first piece i designed was the sky crane. it brings stuff on mun from orbit, then it goes back in space and attach to something else.

then i designed the mun rover, i landed it with the sky crane, and took off again. the rover works quite nicely, even though it was made without proper pieces and aligned manually. it won't go straight and requires course correction. it goes better after i accidentally broke a wheel.

then i launched the science lab, to bring down with the sky crane. here i realized one major flaw of the sky crane: not enough reaction wheels. not a good attribute on something that is planned to do a lot of orbital rendez-vous. took me the better part of one hour to dock it to the science lab. at this point it only had 700 m/s of deltaV left, it needed refueling for a safe landing, but not wanting to bother with it since i was going to scrap the sky crane, i decided to land anyway with the help of save scumming. after many tried i landed without exploding, but the lab capsided. it now lies on its side.

so i designed a land crane rover to put the lab back in its proper position, and i sent it with the sky crane 2. landing was good. then i realize i installed the hatch in the wrong direction, so that upon detaching the clamp-o-tron remained on the land crane and not on the sky crane; do notice that the land crane had a clamp-o-tron on top to couple to the sky crane, but for some reason the VAB wouldn't let me attach it properly. it only let me attach the sky crane to the bottom of the land crane (it was delivered on mun upside down, good thing i included a mechanism to upturn it if it capsizes). so now the sky crane 2 lost its clamp-o-tron and is unusable (i sent it to the mun space station so i can at least recover the fuel before terminating it), while the land crane had a big hatch on the bottom touching the ground and interfering with its movement. at least with a bit of sport driving i managed to explode the hatch without damaging the rest of the rover. so i brough the land crane to the capsized science lab, only to discover that the rotory motor on the crane arm is not powerful enough to lift the lab.

meanwhile i sent the isru complex on mun orbit, where it will now wait the sky crane 3. which i plan to send coupled with the transfer rover, that will carry the fuel from the isru facility to the shuttle. it will also carry some science instruments that i hadn't yet unlocked when i sent the first science rover (which meanwhile went to fulfill two contracts to take measures on the ground, where i had to drive through most of mun at 10 m/s top speed. i must have totaled 20 hours of driving at least, and i'm not back yet. no, i can't abandon it; it has a pilot).

this time i decided to test the rover on the ground as extensively as i can. so, i placed the isru complex on the launch pad, and then i launched the rover from the airstrip to go couple them and try a fuel transfer.

first try: the coupling hatch on the rover is too high for that on the isru facility. I make a robotic hinge that lets me move the clamp-o-tron up and down to get the right orientation.

second try: i discover the small clamp-o-tron on the rover won't couple with the medium clamp-o-tron on the facility. i change the hatch on the rover to a medium one

third try: the hatch coupled, but the torque generated broke the piece off from the rover. later this evening i will look for a solution to that. i'm also wondering if i should try to make a new robotic arm to lift the lab (but it will make the rover less stable), or if i should just leave it where it is

meanwhile i exploded the rover on the airstrip a half dozen times, because even though it's pretty stable, i'm getting tired of doing the same thing everytime and i'm starting to drive recklessly

this is so much like a real space program. there must be a reason they run so many tests before sending anything in space

[AHHans]

58 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

this is so much like a real space program. there must be a reason they run so many tests before sending anything in space

(SCNR!)

[Spricigo]

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

So far, the first piece i designed was the sky crane.

then i designed the mun rover... 

 

Unfortunately I don't have a time machine to warn you earlier, so I hope that is something you already took in consideration. 

If this two pieces of equipment will be moving everything you'll send to your base, things will be a lot easier if everything 'feels the same' no matter what is being moved. Which asks for standardised modules, if everything is same weight, same size, have same coupling mechanism, same, same and same then it will have the same feel. 

4 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

The rover works quite nicely, even though it was made without proper pieces and aligned manually

I'd argue that is often a case of the pieces not being properly classified. Take a look at the Kickback for example, how is that long cylinder not an structural part?

[king of nowhere]

well, i feel i have to give an update on this.

i sent the transfer rover on Mun. i made it as big as i could while still fitting on the sky crane, so big, in fact, that it could not get away from it until the crane took flight again, and even then it got stuck between the landing struts. but with careful take off and a few tries i was able to get the thing unstuck while still at a low enough height that it would survive crashing on the ground.

then i went to orbit and grabbed the mining complex. it was a lot of weight and it strained the sky crane, but the anti-wobbling mechanism i devised (four hinges closing in on the cargo to block it) worked perfectly. the sky crane brought down with ease a cargo much heavier than itself, and i'm proud of it. not so proud to not realize that 90% of the people here are veterans who have done much more complex things and will not be impressed, though.

anyway, space offers so many ways to unexpectedly screw you up: when i activated the freshly landed mining complex, it capsized: https://imgur.com/a/60gvOQB

(and since i forgot to save before it, i was also forced to land again. landing the sky crane would be easy even with heavy load, but landing it close to the previously-deployed rover, in an heavily cratered area, with minimal fuel, was not)

after several minutes of pure desperation, i tried to stabilize the mining complex by coupling the rover to it. i wasn't expecting it to work, because the rover is much lighter than the complex, but apparently it was enough of a difference. or maybe it was the lever https://imgur.com/a/zt4p5Ke

anyway, the drilling complex now works. it has no problems with energy even though it's barely twilight; not sure if battery power will last all the night, but not important.

only downside, i will need to remember to turn off the thing every time i want to use the rover

 

 

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

.. and i'm proud of it. not so proud to not realize that 90% of the people here are veterans who have done much more complex things and will not be impressed, though.

 

Good thing you don't need to impress anyone, just enjoy the game. Still, I guess your troubles can bring memories from most of those veterans. 

BTW, you can make things wider if you design it to be launched sideways. Useful to make a skycrane with room for bulk stuff, surface structures that don't tumble and rover's that don't capsize. Of course, don't rush to replace your current working designs.