Resource Mining - Impressions and Questions

[lajoswinkler]

And if Kethane ever had background scanning I maybe would have stuck with it, but having to spend all that time scanning while also having to be focused on that planet was just really bad

Yes, that is the only downside of Kethane's scanning system as far as I see it. However you didn't have to scan the entire body to see where the deposits are, and if you really wanted a total scan, tweaking the orbit a bit would help and that did not require the whole night of scanning. It could be done in like half an hour or much less.

I see Kethane way more superior to stock system and I'm just puzzled why Squad didn't hire its author.

Even ScanSat and ISA Mapsat with their crude looks are better cause at least you could see how these images form right in front of your eyes.

Edited April 29, 2015 by lajoswinkler

[Drillgorg]

As someone who has never played Kethane or Karbonite, and has yet to play 1.0, from what I've read 1.0 sounds best to me. One large planetary scan at low quality, then higher quality scans with narrow band or ground based sensors. Seems like the best one.

[Bobe]

Sandbox or career? What level of engineer? What's your ore abundance where you are mining?

Sandbox, so Bill was max level. The ore level at the landing site was a little over 7%, so I wasn't expecting it to go quickly, but surely that shouldn't factor into the drill heating. Obviously the higher the level the more ore it can extract before overheating, but I would expect there to be a way to prevent overheating. You can place engines and RCS relative to the CoM to ensure propulsive balance, you can place enough solar panels and generators that exceed usage to ensure constant operations, so why can't you reasonably place parts that prevent overheating.

I'm sorry, but the way thermal absorption seems to vaguely be attributed to the parts in general seems somewhat silly to me. If there is need to dissipate heat, especially the seemingly volcanic heat from the drills, there needs to be radiators. It's no fun if I have to sit there manually stopping and starting them, and even doing that I really get nowhere and all I can do is think about how simple it was to drill with Kethane (again, I'm just using it to compare, I'm not saying stock should be like Kethane).

[Xaver]

Mining the Launchpad. Never tought there could be ore.

That was my first impression...

[Kerano]

Question regarding resource contracts - does the X units of ore have to be extracted in one go? For example if I have Ore tanks with 1200 units of space and the contract requires extracting 2350 units, will I be able to complete the contract by filling the Ore tanks twice on the same ship?

[goldenpsp]

Yes, that is the only downside of Kethane's scanning system as far as I see it. However you didn't have to scan the entire body to see where the deposits are, and if you really wanted a total scan, tweaking the orbit a bit would help and that did not require the whole night of scanning. It could be done in like half an hour or much less.

And it's a fairly big downside, especially if you are playing a game where you are trying to juggle mutliple launches and so forth multitasking your space missions.

hmm finger hit enter while typing. edit to continue.

I see Kethane way more superior to stock system and I'm just puzzled why Squad didn't hire its author.

And some of the Kethane Fanboi comes out. Maybe for one Kethane's author has been AWOL for 6+months. Additionally while Kethane is nice (I wouldn't call it the best) it is pretty closed. Roverdude, not only created Karbonite, but more importantly Regolith, which is a very open and highly moddable general resource engine. My guess in some ways is that Squad kept the stock resource system fairly simple, but built it to be very open to being moddable specifically so stock players looking for something relatively easy to use and understand while allowing the underlying engine to feed more advanced mods.

Edited April 29, 2015 by goldenpsp

[RoverDude]

Sandbox, so Bill was max level. The ore level at the landing site was a little over 7%, so I wasn't expecting it to go quickly, but surely that shouldn't factor into the drill heating. Obviously the higher the level the more ore it can extract before overheating, but I would expect there to be a way to prevent overheating. You can place engines and RCS relative to the CoM to ensure propulsive balance, you can place enough solar panels and generators that exceed usage to ensure constant operations, so why can't you reasonably place parts that prevent overheating.

I'm sorry, but the way thermal absorption seems to vaguely be attributed to the parts in general seems somewhat silly to me. If there is need to dissipate heat, especially the seemingly volcanic heat from the drills, there needs to be radiators. It's no fun if I have to sit there manually stopping and starting them, and even doing that I really get nowhere and all I can do is think about how simple it was to drill with Kethane (again, I'm just using it to compare, I'm not saying stock should be like Kethane).

You will not need to manually start and stop - it's smart and auto throttles. 7% is not bad, and I'm currently looking at the drill settings because in observing this out in the wild, some of the heat levels are a tad too high

The design intent is that a five star engineer, with a reasonable drill rig on Kerbin and no extra heat mitigation will level off at a very hot level, but the overheat level should not kick in in the time it would take them to fill several large tanks. One controlled by just a probe however (or a pilot or scientist) would have a much rougher time, and it would throttle down. (Yep, it looks a bit off, but sharing the design parameters just so folks know what the designed behavior is).

http://i.imgur.com/RupA0jg.jpg

Mining the Launchpad. Never tought there could be ore.

That was my first impression...

Watch out for that collider And yep - if you're on normal mode you have some quantity of ore everywhere but the oceans. If you go to hard or custom that can be tailored.

[Mister Spock]

I haven't tried the new stock resource system yet, but I think Roverdude's design decisions make a lot of sense. I'm actually more stoked to try it now than before I read this thread! I've used Karbonite and Scansat before (but not Kethane, which sounds tedious to me), and I'm looking forward to this new implementation. I imagine modders will eventually give us more Kethane-like scanning options for those who prefer that.

[WanderingKid]

Mining the Launchpad. Never tought there could be ore.

That was my first impression...

Hard to play with "easy" tests if it didn't. Not saying it needs 80% there, but you'd like to know you rig works before you go and build a launcher for it.

[Joonatan1998]

"The player can just timewarp" is really strange thing to say, of course the player can just timewarp if there are not time based mechanics.

You basically say that time based mechanics are useless because there are no time based mechanics.

[Creature]

I think the insta-scan is oversimplifying so much it clashes with KSPs general level of realism. Gameplay-wise you can say it's not exactly "fun" to timewarp through something but on that same principle you could just as well skip all travel through space since hey, that's just timewarping too right? We have timewarp exactly so we can retain the realism level of having to actually do the travelling but still have it condensed to under one minute no matter where you're going. I don't think it's a major issue and in any other game I'd probably back it up as a good decision but not in KSP, it just doesn't fit.

Having to actually complete the orbits also forces you to think about the power requirements in the craft design. How much power does the scanner use? Do you have enough batteries to keep it going on the dark side of the planet/moon? Enough solar panels to keep it running in the sunny side as well as to charge the batteries? Now you don't have to think about these things.

Having a map being drawn in front of your eyes actually teaches you about how real world satellites move and how the different orbital changes affect the path over ground. It shows you exactly why you have to be on polar orbit if you want to scan everything. If you can't make it to polar you should still be able to scan something, it's just not as complete. But now the scanner magically can't scan at all on equatorial orbit. Just doesn't make sense.

It just seems like several interesting mechanics are being thrown out and you're being imposed an unrealistic and potentially infuriating limitation all just so people can avoid 20 seconds of timewarp after first timewarping probably 10 times to get to their destination. Not a big issue but just feels like you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[Bobe]

You will not need to manually start and stop - it's smart and auto throttles. 7% is not bad, and I'm currently looking at the drill settings because in observing this out in the wild, some of the heat levels are a tad too high

I did go on a bit of a rant, but decided to instead ask you, or anyone else, if they have successfully gathered and converted an entire container's worth of ore with minimal "smart throttling". If so, what methods did you use and how long did it take?

[youkofoxy]

thank goodness I not to alone in this.

because speak / write English is not my strong, anyway, I love timelapses.

nothing like seeing a map being draw or the bloom of an flower.

very different to see the result, is to monitor the process.

even more at 10X normal speed.

on the drills, I prefer that they break, I know that overheating is something that happens.

but if I had an engineer on my team, I would say, makes this don't over-heat and have to stop.

exchange drills? I would understand, after all ... even diamond drills require inspection / maintenance, the rest can be automated.

even replacement, but someone will have to adjust the system when it jams.

by the way, I hate HP printers, they live jamming or trouble in the cartridge.

you know what, if the i only need send a "maintenance guy" one time or another, I would be happy.

I even have a plan to make kerbals relevant without sacrificing much in automated systems.

but that's beside the point.

PS: I do not like the idea of having an engineer on a year-round care of a drill.

Because it insists in overheat as soon as my engineer "turns its back"

bad drill, get back to work, no rest allowed

bad scaner, me hate that scaner, it's scaner all, it's scaner to fast, me don't like it.

[Pipcard]

I like ISRU being a stock feature, but the overheating rate is ridiculous (and is nonexistent at x1000 time warp for some reason), even if you have the large solar panels which allegedly radiate heat.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Pipcard

[RoverDude]

Overheat rates are already being looked at btw.

- - - Updated - - -

Also - I'm going to cross post this from the SCANSat thread, since it seems to me a lot of folks are comparing apples and tomatoes WRT a SCANSat or Kethane scane, and the low-resolution survey scan in stock (especially since a lot of the arguments are about the technical challenges involved in scanning, etc.).

RE the instascan.

What folks are not realizing is that the mechanic is radically different from Kethane or SCANSat. Meaning, in both of those cases the orbital scan is the end game - that's basically it. In the case of stock, the orbital scan is just your very first (and very low resolution) step at getting a rough approximation of what is on the planet. It's not until you use all three scanners together (which have different mechanics) that you get that whole view, and each has their own series of limitations.

I was actually working with someone over skype last night who was in the Kethane/progressive scan camp until about half an hour in when they finally went through all of the mechanics, and the proverbial light bulb went off and they realized how the system's pieces tied together, and how the orbital surveyor tied into things (and they became a very strong convert in favor of the new mechanics).

Not saying everyone will have the same epiphany, but I would say that the orbital scan is a very small part of a much larger series of mechanics, and really is not meant to be your primary way of figuring out where to land

[Akinesis]

@Akinesis - ping me if you want me to hang out on your stream and answer resource questions

RoverDude, that will be awsome! Maybe you would come on Skype over a dedicated 'resources walk-through' stream so viewers can get a live Q&A?? Some time over this weekend??

There are so many mixed opinions on here and some uncertainty. I'll put up a live demonstration with mining rigs in lots of different situations so we can explore what works and what doesn't. I'll prep all this before the stream, if people would be interested in this? It definately deserves a dedicated night on a Twitch stream.

If you are happy with this, RoverDude, then I put it to the people in here to mail me questions (I will trawl through this thread again to suck up as many as I can) - this is especially important to those who struggle with Twitch as I will upload it to YouTube after. That way, questions can be asked, answered and demonstrated for both live an catch-up viewing.

Edit:

From what you have just said above, it is evident that the new Resources system has not been given a chance for a good explanation and some people are perhaps looking at this from the wrong angle. I hope people can come along to the stream as I have (at least partly) recognised the amount of ground work that has gone into 1.0. The problem with under-the-hood stuff is a lot of people don't see the possibilities straight away.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Akinesis

[allmhuran]

I think the logic of the stock mechanics makes very good sense. In fact it's some of the best thought through gameplay design I've seen in KSP or even games in general. I particularly agree with RoverDude's comments differentiating scanning (as an activity that takes a finite amount of time) from mining (which could theoretically go on forever), and that this is a good reason to have insta-low-res-scan but background processing for mining. Well done!

[micha]

@RoverDude - I'd like to come back to my original question, which unfortunately got overlooked by the Insta-scan controversy.

Is it possible for a modder to replace the stock Insta-Scan with a different scanning mechanic? For me personally I'd quite like the stock resource scan to be integratable into SCANsat (even if the resulting map is still at the same rough resolution as the stock one until the player performs the detailed scans). That is, can a mod modify/prevent the game from displaying the resource level overlays until a scanner has actually scanned the terrain?

Thanks.

[RoverDude]

All of the data and api calls are there (already made sure DMagic had the info on the api calls he needs). So if someone wants to build their own mechanic over the same data they can.

(Edit) you can't stop the stock parts from doing their thing but you can change their configs to do something different.

@Akinesis - I'd be happy to do a Q & A - pm me your contact info (I use Skype among others) and we can set something up.

[Creature]

RE the instascan.

What folks are not realizing is that the mechanic is radically different from Kethane or SCANSat. Meaning, in both of those cases the orbital scan is the end game - that's basically it. In the case of stock, the orbital scan is just your very first (and very low resolution) step at getting a rough approximation of what is on the planet. It's not until you use all three scanners together (which have different mechanics) that you get that whole view, and each has their own series of limitations.

I think you're kinda missing the point that at least I was trying to make. It's not about the survey itself, that's actually a great mechanic you built there. The process of orbital mapping is the issue, not how it relates to the resource system.

Like you said yourself on the first page regarding scansat, it takes 10 seconds to timewarp through the mapping process. That really shouldn't be a problem for anyone since we constantly timewarp anyway. So we gain 10 seconds of timewarping but what we lose is (at least to me) interesting mechanics. And what happens if I mess up something and end up in 60 degree inclination with no dV left to get polar? Normally I should still be able to map out a sizeable portion of the planet. Now the scanner for whatever magical reason just doesn't even work.

But anyways I don't mean to criticize the resource system as a whole, it looks great and I can understand your reason for the instascan even if that's not what I'd personally prefer. I just feel this game has too much "right click - press button - you're done" -mechanics as it is.

[tomf]

Did you consider an option where the high level scanner instantly scans all of the surface - up to the sattelites current inclination?

[micha]

All of the data and api calls are there (already made sure DMagic had the info on the api calls he needs). So if someone wants to build their own mechanic over the same data they can.

Great, thanks

(Edit) you can't stop the stock parts from doing their thing but you can change their configs to do something different.

Uh.. so does this mean that a modded-scanner can, or cannot, modify the stock resource overlay?

That is, could a hypothetical mod display a partial scan of a body using the stock map view overlay?

[Corw]

I just feel this game has too much "right click - press button - you're done" -mechanics as it is.

I think you are missing the point. With big scanner you are not "done" with scanning. You are just done with fist step, you got the vague idea where to start with medium scanner that is not one click affair, and when you are done with medium scanner you are only ready to start working with small scanner on the surface. Big scanner has wide range but low resolution, its result alone is not enough to star mining effectively.

As the Churchill said:

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

[Crzyrndm]

Uh.. so does this mean that a modded-scanner can, or cannot, modify the stock resource overlay?

Thats a yes, but the stock parts will require a MM config to change from stock behaviour to theoretical mods behaviour (which is pretty standard for part behaviour altering mods)

[RoverDude]

Did you consider an option where the high level scanner instantly scans all of the surface - up to the sattelites current inclination?

Yep, that's kinda what the NBS does, although it only shows you the 8 degree square.

I think the majority of the confusion is trying to compare the orbital survey scanner with the scanners from mods, and you're comparing apples and bananas at that point - i.e. the resolution is incredibly low, and it's a wholly different beast entirely.

So probably a better way of viewing the orbital survey scanner is that it takes data from observations coupled with more localized data to make a 'best guess' as to where stuff will be. It's really the surface scanner and the narrow band scanner that refine that detail and put you at a level comparable to a Kethane map or SCANSat big map. This, again, was a design choice.

I was not a fan of the all seeing eye that mod scanners had, and wanted to do a slow reveal - not in the sense of progressive detail scanning, but in terms of dialing in the resolution, with different technical challenges for each layer. For example, the very best data requires ground truthing with rovers or probes, but in turn enables the other scanners to have more accurate data. And your fine grained area detail has a limited FOV, and requires manual flybys (and also incorporates terrain data for planning landings).

This is what I mean when I say you really have to take the system as a whole, yet folks are fixated on one bit (the least significant, actually) because, in fairness, it appears to be the closest analogue to what they are used to.