Ore drilling/fuel refining in 1.0 : a built-in cheat, or not a cheat?

[Torham234]

For clarity. Ore does not deplete. See comment above

Ah, my bad than. I saw his output go down, and the percentage of the concentration went down from around 2.42% to 2.03%. That must have been the result of sample analyzing refining the scans, it refined the estimated concentrations. I really like it so far, you have to do a lot of ground work to properly set up a refilling station.

[GoSlash27]

For clarity. Ore does not deplete. See comment above

Thanks for the clarification! I'd imagine you're the go-to source on this one

Is it also unlimited for asteroids, or does it deplete there?

Thanks again,

-Slashy

[RoverDude]

I will say that trying to make an all-in-one craft that's both fuel efficient and also hauls around a bunch of ISRU gear is going to be a challenge. Which is how it should be.

[GoSlash27]

I will say that trying to make an all-in-one craft that's both fuel efficient and also hauls around a bunch of ISRU gear is going to be a challenge. Which is how it should be.

Yeah, sounds like.

Judging from what I've seen so far, it'd be more efficient to set up a drilling farm, process the fuel in situ, then transfer the fuel to wherever it's needed using a tanker.

The logistics will be interesting to sort out.

Best,

-Slashy

[RoverDude]

Ah, my bad than. I saw his output go down, and the percentage of the concentration went down from around 2.42% to 2.03%. That must have been the result of sample analyzing refining the scans, it refined the estimated concentrations. I really like it so far, you have to do a lot of ground work to properly set up a refilling station.

Depends. If you saw it on the drill itself, those are always dead on and it was overheating. If you saw it on one of the scanners and it changed when he did a biome scan, that just reflects going from biome average to the concentration in that specific spot.

[m4inbrain]

Still far from what i would consider "too op/cheating". Although i will say, it'll probably more fun with life-support mods, to take the "infinity" out of the whole thing. But that's just me.

[Xavven]

Question: did the OP actually mean "cheating" or did the OP really mean "imbalanced"? I'm seeing the word "cheaty" being thrown around against SLS parts and the LV-N, and I'm guess some people have taken issue with how they affect game balance, not whether or not they're within the stock rules.

[GusTurbo]

How can a game feature be a cheat? It sounds like your real concern is that it will be unbalanced with other parts of the game. And really, you can't know that it will unbalanced without having played 1.0.

[Walker]

Depends. If you saw it on the drill itself, those are always dead on and it was overheating. If you saw it on one of the scanners and it changed when he did a biome scan, that just reflects going from biome average to the concentration in that specific spot.

Wait, do new scanners let you do biome scans? What does that mean?

[Mister Dilsby]

Hopefully it's balanced, and the drilling and refining equipment should be heavy enough to prevent a ship that carries it from refueling itself and making orbit again single stage. A permanent base that drills and stores fuel, though, would be very cool. Rover tankers could transfer the fuel to landed ships, or shuttles could take the fuel to an orbiting station. I suppose I want the game to encourage 'model railroad' style building, not a fantasy realm where a ship can go everywhere and back with zero infrastructure. If the stock game doesn't do that I'll just move the slider until it does--but wow, the folks running big challenges are going to have to scrutinize everyone's resource settings.

[Hotblack Desiato]

I guess, the problem with refuelling in space as a gameplay-mechanic is, that there are players out there, who actively argued against the use of the kethane mod. mostly because they invented ways to transport huge amounts of fuel over great distances, while others just've set up a drill, the refinery and watched the spaceship refuel itself.

and now, that very system (with the tweak that it doesn't deplete) is suddenly a stock gameplay-system. These people feel a bit cheated, because they went great distances for their way of gameplay.

My opinion: That happened more or less with every new version. remember 0.23.5? the SLS-parts? lifting a 100t payload became trivial, even doing it SSTO... a similar thing happened with the rapier engine introduced in 0.23. suddenly, it was easy to build a spaceplane. just toggle the engine mode when the air-breathing-mode wasn't feasable anymore. or docking ports. prior to them, refuelling in space wasn't possible at all. a eve surface return was either possible if the ascend vehicle was discarded afterwards and the kerbals EVAed over to the transfer ship, or by having enough fuel in order to get all the way back home.

EDIT: @ kuzzler: valid point. I'd like to see something like that too: deploy the drill and run it. and it behaves like nailed to the ground. as a bonus, this forces squad to add a stock-method to attach a part (or group of parts) to the planets ground. something that KAS tries to add, but with limited success.

Edited April 26, 2015 by Hotblack Desiato

[Xavven]

Hopefully it's balanced, and the drilling and refining equipment should be heavy enough to prevent a ship that carries it from refueling itself and making orbit again single stage. A permanent base that drills and stores fuel, though, would be very cool. Rover tankers could transfer the fuel to landed ships, or shuttles could take the fuel to an orbiting station. I suppose I want the game to encourage 'model railroad' style building, not a fantasy realm where a ship can go everywhere and back with zero infrastructure. If the stock game doesn't do that I'll just move the slider until it does--but wow, the folks running big challenges are going to have to scrutinize everyone's resource settings.

Yeah, I'll have to see the tonnage values on the ISRU equipment before I decide on where and how I'll process things, but I can see it needing at minimum an SSTO lander/driller and an orbital refinery. OR, a permanent base driller/refinery with a rover tanker (because landing on top of a docking port is too hard for me, honestly) that brings fuel to your exploration vehicle, or the rover tanker brings fuel to an SSTO lander that brings fuel to an orbital tanker. In all the above scenarios, there's meaningful infrastructure and permanent presence involved. I think Squad did a good job at giving us more stuff to DO on the surface of planets instead of "land + click my science + leave forever."

[SelectHalfling0]

SelectHalfling,

Do you remember which stream you saw this in? My gameplan is going to depend on whether or not resources deplete.

Thanks,

-Slashy

It was in KSPTV (I think the guy's username was akinor, something like that). He landed in a pocket of 2.8% and it took him 3 munar days to get 5 units of ore. Also, you have to manage overheating, which decreases efficiency (an engineer and more solar panels increase efficiency. Resources do not deplete, but overheating and pocket percentage balances this.

I would imagine landing in a pocket of +50% would only take in-game hours to fill up the small tanks.

[m4inbrain]

Oh wait, i thought it only goes up to max. 10%?

I remember on KSP TV yesterday someone said 6% already is pretty decent. Might've misunderstood then.

[SelectHalfling0]

Oh wait, i thought it only goes up to max. 10%?

I don't know what the max is. We'll find out tomorrow!

[m4inbrain]

No we won't, i live in the UK, and i think it'll be tuesday for me. TT

[Justin8Ball]

If you are feeling it as making things too easy then throw in the snacks mod. It doesn't kill your kerbals but it will cause your rep to go down which in the new update should kill you program and game over.

[Monger]

We are talking about balancing here, right? Well, it really depends on how SQUAD implemented it. Currently it seems like a technology that comes almost at the end of the science tree. Also, a drilling operation is quite complex: getting down the heavy equipment down to the surface of whatever, filling a tank, putting it back into space and fill up whatever is waiting for it...

Also, whatever craft wants to fuel up first has to rendezvous with the drilling station. Of course it depends on the mission, but most small to medium vessels within the inner Kerbol system are probably better off flying to their target directly, without making a stop in between. It is cost effective for big missions to the outer planets, ergo: it only comes into play in the very late game.

I don't see how any any player could "cheat", in the sense that they are suddenly able to achieve something easily that was impossible before.

[Xyrus]

I guess, the problem with refuelling in space as a gameplay-mechanic is, that there are players out there, who actively argued against the use of the kethane mod. mostly because they invented ways to transport huge amounts of fuel over great distances, while others just've set up a drill, the refinery and watched the spaceship refuel itself.

and now, that very system (with the tweak that it doesn't deplete) is suddenly a stock gameplay-system. These people feel a bit cheated, because they went great distances for their way of gameplay.

And yet they don't feel the same way when they add lots of impossi-struts to make their MOAR-FUEL-MEGA-ROCKET get off the launchpad without kesslering. Or hitting an atmosphere at 5000 m/s for aerobraking and not even getting a scorch mark. Or adding 100 air intakes to their SSTOs so they can use their air breathing engines practically in space. So on and so forth.

Point being it seems hypocritical to get worked up over this and not all the other "exploits" people can and have utilized to do things that aren't exactly "realistic". That's one of the reasons why we even have a "challenges" sub forum. Doing X is easy. Doing X without using Y is hard.

Again, it's about choice. I expect many challenges in the challenges sub-forum will now have an additional "no ISRU" requirement, but no one is forcing anyone to use ISRU. You want to use big fuel transports instead of ISRU? Go ahead. You want to brag about your achievements and then add "And I did this without using ISRU!", more power to you. But not everyone likes building big fuel transports, waiting for transfer windows, etc.

Adding ISRU does not cheapen past victories and achievements. In fact, it makes them all the more meaningful.

[panzer1b]

I welcome the thing, but im still not going to stop giving my ships absurd dV from teh get go. Im going to use mining ro replace the annoying needs to bring dedicated fuel barges to where i need it, and to perhaps lower weight, but i dont feel its a cheat any moreso then things like old jet engines, ions in general (ok thats subjective but 4200 isp is just absurd, i can pull 6K dV out of a 10t SSTO thanks to ions), and stuff liek part clipping ect. There will always be a crowd claiming its cheating, but i for one dont care what the cheat screamers say. Unless its in teh debug menu, i consider anything teh stock game allows you to do (with teh possible exception of kraken-drives and infinigliding) to be 100% legit and ok.

[Sandworm]

There is an area where "use it if you like" is insufficient. KSP has a complex career mode touching every aspect of the game. In the late/end game, are the contract rewards balanced against launching resources from Kerbin, or is it expected that by that point players will have developed a minmus mining facility? That sort of distinction cuts across play styles and should not be left by squad to "give it a try and see".

But I am still laughing at the concept. Diving into gravity wells with a refinery on your back is only efficient in pint-sized kerbin. Anyone playing beyond beginner mode (stock) on a 3.2/6.4/10/RSS game will not be mining anything from the surface of planets/moons.

[SelectHalfling0]

But I am still laughing at the concept. Diving into gravity wells with a refinery on your back is only efficient in pint-sized kerbin. Anyone playing beyond beginner mode (stock) on a 3.2/6.4/10/RSS game will not be mining anything from the surface of planets/moons.

Thats because it is balanced for the stock game, not RSS.

[GusTurbo]

There is an area where "use it if you like" is insufficient. KSP has a complex career mode touching every aspect of the game. In the late/end game, are the contract rewards balanced against launching resources from Kerbin, or is it expected that by that point players will have developed a minmus mining facility? That sort of distinction cuts across play styles and should not be left by squad to "give it a try and see".

But I am still laughing at the concept. Diving into gravity wells with a refinery on your back is only efficient in pint-sized kerbin. Anyone playing beyond beginner mode (stock) on a 3.2/6.4/10/RSS game will not be mining anything from the surface of planets/moons.

Really? Have you ever read Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars? It's not science fiction, it's an actual concept explored in depth, and is potentially possible with existing technologies. ISRU is the mechanism by which the return vehicle is able to make it back to Earth, because it gets rid of the need to land a huge mass of fuel on Mars. It's not as silly as you are making it seem.

[Wintersdark]

The ore does not deplete. What you probably saw with that streamer is the efficiency dropping as the drill overheated. Poor deposits are NOT fun

Roverdude, can you talk a bit about how that works?

Will the drill always overheat, or only in low concentrations? Is that something that can be managed, or just what happens when you're drilling in a bad place? What sort of concentrations result in overheating?

[regex]

But I am still laughing at the concept. Diving into gravity wells with a refinery on your back is only efficient in pint-sized kerbin. Anyone playing beyond beginner mode (stock) on a 3.2/6.4/10/RSS game will not be mining anything from the surface of planets/moons.

Oh, we'll probably get RealISRU pretty soon after 1.0 releases. If someone else doesn't do it, I will. It won't be anything like stock, but you'll be able to refuel in a realistic manner using CO2, oxygen, methane, and argon products. You are correct that the "refinery on your back" scenario is silly, especially when the resource you're using is essentially unicorn poop, but there is at least one study I've seen showing that 750kg of equipment can refuel a craft from ice products. We already have Sabatier equipment and are well into testing methane/LOX engines. ISRU is not a far-fetched concept it's just that most stock-alike implementations (EPL, immensely fun as it is, comes to mind) succumb to incredibly wishful thinking.