Resource discussion?

[KerikBalm]

So my thoughts:

* This game is an approximation of the current state of human space travel. We have no space ladders or antimatter engines.

We do have ion engines, and did build prototype NTRs.

ISRU is at about the technological level of NTRs-> solid understanding, but hasn't been tried. There are very feasible and detailed proposals for ISRU on mars, for example.

* The alternative is fuel depots, and I already can send massive quantitites of fuel anywhere, using heavy SSTO lifters. SO from a gameplay perspective, this isn't much different, and is something for the rocket folks -> just put it at the end of the tech tree (similar to the state for very large SSTOs... medium-end of tech tree, require fully upgraded facilities)

* The equipment should be either very bulky, or require precise positioning.

Ice in a polar crater on the Moon may be easy to extract and use.

Extracting Lunar regolith near the equator to make aluminum (ie, like used in a SRB) or something like that is going to take a lot more equipment.

From a purely gameplay perspective, I'd like to see setting up a refueling base require more investment than just sending a small fuel depot there.

An alternative could be a small ISRU that provides oxidizer or liquid fuel, but not both...

so that you can't infinitely refuel craft, but you can make the resources they took last longer (it send a lot of oxidizer, combine with ISRU LF)

or a large ISRU that can provide large amounts of all the fuel required.

[Frank327]

IMO what we need is:

1. Life support system that needs oxygen, food and water to keep your kerbals alive (toggleable ofcourse)

Knowing KSP, you'd have to take a big enough supply of snacks on your mission. You'd have a "snacks" meter just like you have a fuel meter and there'd be a varying supply of them in every type of cockpit and other parts that hold kerbals. Also there would be snacks containers. It would have pretty much the same function as something like TAC life support (having to make your crafts bigger if you want to make your missions longer), but be more kerbalized.

[EdFred]

I would love it if the only places that you could get resources were Moho and Tylo.

[RoverDude]

Will ore be the final name or is that just what they are referring to it at this point? I would hope they would come up with something more creative like "Kelium (3)"

Yep, the name is final. See details/explanation/etc. earlier on the thread on why this name makes pretty good sense.

[KerikBalm]

Nah, Eve and Eeloo if you want to be evil.

I plan on making a moho base.

It has very frequent launch windows, trip times are relatively short, and the dV costs for an intercept to anywhere aren't too bad.

Its easy to haul fuel up from the surface to an orbital depot.

Moho orbit to Jool aerocapture is only a dV of 6km.

Moho, as the most dV intensive place to reach, is also a prime place for a mid journey refuel.

Eve is easy to reach, but good luck getting any extracted resources up to orbit.

Presuming processing fuel takes power, Eeloo will be at a disadvantage.

It will also not have launch windows very often, and the trips will be long.

Tylo also has a problem of hauling fuel up to orbit with a reusable tug.... its just barely possible.

Its easy, however, to have a SSTO lander that will use about 2,200 m/s to land, then refuel, and get back to orbit.

Of course, to build up a surplus of fuel in an orbiting depot, thrugh repeated use of a single stage lander, that lander will have to have ~2,200 m/s to get the fuel to orbit, and then another 2,500 m/s to land again for the next cycle... which will leave a rather small payload fraction.

It would still help a lot for exploring tylo,

I already have designs to get a fuel depot with at least an orange tank's worth of fuel to any body in the system.

Making a reusable tylo lander to make use of that fuel depot was quite a challenge*.

Surface refueling would cut the dV requirements of the lander in half, and make the whole thing feasible

*My first success had 16 m/s left in the tanks, so that I had to maneuver the large mothership to rendevous with it, which is wasteful.

Each refuel took a lot of fuel, and of course that margin was far too close. Another 2 seconds of fighting gravity drag, and jeb would have had to bail and jet pack into orbit as the craft scrapes a mountain top near PE.

Tylo surface refueling would make my resuable program able to operate anywhere except Eve.

Right now, disposables are only needed for Tylo and Eve. (though my tankers to top off the moho fuel depot have a poor payload fraction)

[Xavven]

Are you sure Moho is a good stop before going to Jool? I mean, it costs less delta-v to go from Kerbin to Jool than it does to go from Kerbin to Moho in the first place. Therefore, if my final destination is Jool, and I have enough delta-v to get to Moho, I already have enough delta-v to get to Jool...

My plan will be to set up mining facilities somewhere in each of the planetary systems, but I'll probably use them for exploring that system, not as truck stops on the way to a different system.

Example: Mining on Pol to explore Jool and its moons, but not as a fuel stop for Eeloo.

[Francois424]

It would be nice if LV-N used some other kind of fuel, and that fuel would only be available from 1-2 placed in the Kerbal System. Places where no one ever goes or only goes once (Dress and Eeloo comes to mind).

- - - -

However with the advent of ressources, Stock HUGE solar system becomes an interesting prospect. Imagine is Jool is Jupiter and you "enlarge" the Kerbal system to include FAR OFF planets like our system. Then the resources becomes an interesting part of your travels. Right now most ppl can get anywhere in the system with chemical rockets, with LV-N or Ions(if you're patient) it's even easier. If the system was 7,5 as large (as Pluto is 7.5 times as far as Jupiter), forget your puny chemical rockets man... the real show is beginning.

The foundations have been set for a future expansion at any rate.

[SkyRender]

It would be nice if LV-N used some other kind of fuel, and that fuel would only be available from 1-2 placed in the Kerbal System. Places where no one ever goes or only goes once (Dress and Eeloo comes to mind).

- - - -

However with the advent of ressources, Stock HUGE solar system becomes an interesting prospect. Imagine is Jool is Jupiter and you "enlarge" the Kerbal system to include FAR OFF planets like our system. Then the resources becomes an interesting part of your travels. Right now most ppl can get anywhere in the system with chemical rockets, with LV-N or Ions(if you're patient) it's even easier. If the system was 7,5 as large (as Pluto is 7.5 times as far as Jupiter), forget your puny chemical rockets man... the real show is beginning.

The foundations have been set for a future expansion at any rate.

Not to be pedantic or anything, but it's not that hard to get a chemical rocket in KSP to go much further than out to Jool or Eeloo. Distance traveled scales exponentially with velocity, after all. Launching one's craft out of the sun's sphere of influence is often one of the first things players do, in fact. Coming to a stable orbit that far out would be slightly challenging, of course, but not as much so as you might think thanks to the other half of the Oberth Effect (it's easier to slow down when you're already going slow).

[EtherDragon]

Knowing KSP, you'd have to take a big enough supply of snacks on your mission. You'd have a "snacks" meter just like you have a fuel meter and there'd be a varying supply of them in every type of cockpit and other parts that hold kerbals. Also there would be snacks containers. It would have pretty much the same function as something like TAC life support (having to make your crafts bigger if you want to make your missions longer), but be more kerbalized.

Ok, Snacks as an expendable resource that you have to bring with you, I could totally go for.

[Twreed87]

Ok, Snacks as an expendable resource that you have to bring with you, I could totally go for.

That seems the simplest way. Just one single resource to worry about. Different capsules have different amounts, and extra tanks can be added. There could also be a part that would generate snacks, maybe something the size of the Mobile Processing Lab that's like a farm.

[-RanZ-]

I am hoping they allow the media team to do videos soon so we can see this in action

[KerikBalm]

Are you sure Moho is a good stop before going to Jool? I mean, it costs less delta-v to go from Kerbin to Jool than it does to go from Kerbin to Moho in the first place. Therefore, if my final destination is Jool, and I have enough delta-v to get to Moho, I already have enough delta-v to get to Jool...

My plan will be to set up mining facilities somewhere in each of the planetary systems, but I'll probably use them for exploring that system, not as truck stops on the way to a different system.

Example: Mining on Pol to explore Jool and its moons, but not as a fuel stop for Eeloo.

Yea, its not really practical. My point was simply that it could be done... Eve on the other hand.... you're not going to be able to use mining on Eve to lift fuel up to orbit (sending an emtpy multistage craft to the surface wil return less fuel than if you just sent fuel there directly).

At best.. I could see using Moho for fast transits. If you want to depart for Jool/get there as soon as possible, and the planetary alignment is as bad as possible, the dV costs are rather high

-as high as 18,000 m/s accordng to this: http://alexmoon.github.io/ksp/

The ratio's aren't rigth for a bi-eliptic transfer to be more efficient than a straight hohman.... but moho's launch window to Jool is much much more frequent

There's pretty much always a launch window from kerbin to Moho with a transit time between 60-120 days

Its about 400 days between launch windows from jool to kerbin

Jool launch windows from moho occur every less than 100 days...

If the alignment is *terrible* for Kerbin->Jool, I think you could get to Jool faster with a craft capable of a dV of only ~6,500 m/s between refeullings, if you stopped at Moho.

Its a pretty fringe case.... but still potentially useful (also useful just for visiting moho and returning, of course).

I also plan on just having them as refueling stops for trips to a particular system.

Sure... If I wanted to go to Jool, I could use a smaller craft, and stop along the way at Duna for a refuel... but I doubt I'll bother with that

-That would also be much much slower, and I was just talking about using moho out of impatience

I'm certainly not going to stop again at Dres for a refuel...

The lack of aerobraking at Dres actually means your craft would need more dV to go Duna->Dres -> aerobrake at Jool than Duna-> Jool aerobrake.

TL:DR

Moho refueling isn't very practical for going anywhere but Moho - but it still seems more practical than Eeloo or Eve

(Eeloo has pretty much the same problems, without the rapid launch window benefit)

[pandaman]

I'm looking forward to resources and the game play options it provides (as well as all the other new toys in 1.0) It's looking good. Nice work.

I was wondering, will the new resource scanners also be capable of detecting anomalies?

[Yakuzi]

It would also be nice to have a high resolution ore scanner to find the specific deposit locations on the surface... So you'd get a general overview of ore deposits by satellite, and need to use a rover to pinpoint high yield deposits on the ground.

Would give the player incentive to actually build/use rovers.

[LostOblivion]

IMO what we need is:

1. Life support system that needs oxygen, food and water to keep your kerbals alive (toggleable ofcourse)

2. A way to make a self sustaining base/colony but that should NOT be easy at all. That should need proper planning and choosing a good spot and a massive infrastructure there to mine/haul/refine and transport all needed materials to the base. So a way to somehow generate oxygen, food, water and also refine some fuel on the spot.

I'd love to see an ECLSS in KSP, even though it's only a matter of a single life support resource such as snacks. It would make a really good difficulty setting too, that really makes sense!

[RoverDude]

It would also be nice to have a high resolution ore scanner to find the specific deposit locations on the surface... So you'd get a general overview of ore deposits by satellite, and need to use a rover to pinpoint high yield deposits on the ground.

Would give the player incentive to actually build/use rovers.

The narrow band scanner is pretty darn detailed (pic from SquadCast for those that missed it)

That being said, I would expect folks to still use rovers to validate landing sites, etc. based on the broad survey data and detailed NBS data.

[-RanZ-]

I am assuming Ore is a infinite resource like karbonite? Once you find a deposit you can mine it forever right?

Are the deposits randomly generated per save?