Resource Mining - Impressions and Questions

[Drillgorg]

@Roverdude Bravo.

As someone who hasn't played Kethane or Karbonite (or 1.0 yet, I'm waiting for 1.0.1) I think that stock sounds great.

This is what I understand of the mission profile: send a probe to polar orbit with the global scanner to get a rough idea of where the good ore is. Then send down some ground scanner probes to where you think the good ore is, they'll give you good enough resolution to pick a landing site. Maybe a rover(dude) with the ground scanner would be even better. Finally, send your factory down with the narrow band scanner turned on, so you can land right on the best ore vein.

I can definitely see myself sending out a factory ship with deployable probes for planetary and ground scanning. The factory ship would set up a fuel depot for future missions to use.

Quick question: will the mining equipment overheat faster on say, Moho, and slower on say, Dres due to the ambient temperature difference?

[RoverDude]

@Drillgorg - ambient temperature would affect it. The overheat just adds additional heat into the system. tho right now I am doing some reviews of that system

[Drillgorg]

I bet the bottom of the Mohole is a 100% rich ore vein.

[klesh]

I gave a quick try in sandbox to see what a scan looked like. I, too was kind of turned off by the science-experiment one-timeyness of the global scan... Until i read a bit more here. Seems to make sense that it is just step 1 in determining the best spot for you to mine things. I like that more steps are required to follow through with a mining operation, especially if you want it to have a good and timely yield.

Could someone post some pictures of how the map covering the planet changes once some higher-detail information on resources is found? What I saw after the first scan showed hotspots and such, so I am trying to visualize what "better" information about ore abundance and terrian would look like.

[RoverDude]

Here you go:

(And best to view at full resolution due to the rescale of the image making a moire pattern that you would not see in game)

[Drillgorg]

Can you show us ground scans too?

And am I right in thinking that the narrow band data is only visible with the scanner turned on, it doesn't get permanently added to the planetary map?

[RoverDude]

Note that the map on the planet does not change. That's by design. The planet view gives you that very rough approximation, but you do the more detailed flybys and snap images that you then use for final planning (after of course you've landed and ground truth'd since you probably want some high accuracy data).

- - - Updated - - -

Can you show us ground scans too?

And am I right in thinking that the narrow band data is only visible with the scanner turned on, it doesn't get permanently added to the planetary map?

Correct. So kinda like the SCANSat big map, but with much higher detail and terrain data, but limited to an 8 degree square. The pic does not update live - you do a flyby and snap one of the place you are interested in, then can cycle through the resource data, review the info, etc. as your ship continues to fly around (again, kinda like big map).

[goldenpsp]

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.

I think everyone gets the point. The main issue is in the reverse. You are harping on the instant high level, low accuracy scan, which is frankly one small part of the entire process. It is akin to taking a quote out of context.

When taken as a whole, the stock resource system is actually more complex than say Kethane. With Kethane, yes I must build a probe with the proper power requirements, go into a polar orbit and scan. But once I have done that I am done.

With stock, I need to build a probe that can first get a high level scan (which is instant yes) but this basically lets me know if ore is present. Now I still go into a polar orbit, because that makes it easier to get my ground probes to the various biomes. So no I don't need to build a probe that has the power requirements to scan from orbit. But I do need to make a probe that can land and do ground scans of any or all biomes I might want to get more detail on. This could be a multi biome hopping probe. A probe with multiple mini ground probes. A probe with mini muli biome hopping probes. So many design choices! Once I'm done with that I still can use the narrow band scanner to get an ever better idea of the ultimate landing spot.

Honestly I hadn't really even noticed the first step was an instant scan, because I was already gearing up for the follow up steps. The benefit here being that those steps are very active. Picking and landing probes etc rather than just put in orbit and wait for scan to complete.

You may still not like the instant aspect of the first step. But in all honesty when taken as a whole, it is a pretty minor aspect either way.

[Geschosskopf]

Overheat rates are already being looked at btw.

This is good. A few posts/pages back (this thread is hard to keep up with), you said the design is for only a 5* engineer to avoid overheating completely. That's actually a pretty tall order given how much gametime is required to grow your own 5* anything. Gettin that much KXP requires mulitple interplanetary round trips (flags on Mun, Minmus, Duna, Ike, and Gilly, plus orbiting Eve), or a round trip planting flags or orbiting on most of Jool's moons. Only after returning home from all that will you have a 5* you can then send out again to actually do the job you hired him for.

That's a huge amount of both playing time and gametime that goes by doing all this, complicated by the timing of launch windows. And if you want refueling bases on multiple planets, you have to create numerous 5* engineers this same way. And because they're such a bother to create, those you have become permanent exiles, slaving away in the mines for all eternity for the evil space empire .

So it seems to me that while a 5* Kerbal might be totally worry-free, the 3* and 4* engineers should be largely worry-free as well. IOW, shape the curve of engineer benefit so that those with 0-2 stars are pretty hopelss but the mid-level ones make a big difference. You can't even make a 3* Kerbal within the Kerbin system. You need 16 KXP for that, and there's only 13.25 available between Kerbin, Mun, and Minmus. The only way to send a 3* out on your 1st trip to Duna is to escape Kerbin's SOI into solar orbit just briefly, return to Kerbin, THEN go to Duna.

Anyway, something to think about.

[panzer1b]

Im really happy with whats been done to mining (i actually like the instant scan, although i could care less honestly how its done as timewarping isnt really too annoying imo). I also like the fact that unlike one of the other mining mods (dont recall which one i messed wit, back in like .23) the equipment is MASSIVE and actually hard to work with especially for some very small landers.

Now to rebuild my tyllium refinery replica i made a long time ago so that it can actually mine fuel and refuel the ships i have around (actually a raider MIGHT be possible now with new aerodynamics as wing orientation doesnt make it so the craft has 0 lift).

[lajoswinkler]

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.

OK, but that has nothing to do with the fact you can't scan the whole planet at once which is the cornerstone of stock system mistake.

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.

I'm not a Kethane fanboi. I've tried the mod and I liked it, but I haven't used it for long because I had other missions to do.

I'm well aware of Kethane's constraints and I agree they are not a good thing. All I'm ridiculing here is the fact an orbiting satellite scans the whole planetary surface in a few seconds. This is no better than reading a gravioli instrument. It's downright ridiculous. Save that for an albedo instrument or something. This way it dumbs down something that could've been a gread KSP addon.

If Squad was gonna implement a resource system, then a scan method of Kethane, ScanSat and ISA MapSat should've been used.

[klesh]

Here you go:

Thank you!

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to RoverDude again.

[goldenpsp]

OK, but that has nothing to do with the fact you can't scan the whole planet at once which is the cornerstone of stock system mistake.

I'm not a Kethane fanboi. I've tried the mod and I liked it, but I haven't used it for long because I had other missions to do.

I'm well aware of Kethane's constraints and I agree they are not a good thing. All I'm ridiculing here is the fact an orbiting satellite scans the whole planetary surface in a few seconds. This is no better than reading a gravioli instrument. It's downright ridiculous. Save that for an albedo instrument or something. This way it dumbs down something that could've been a gread KSP addon.

If Squad was gonna implement a resource system, then a scan method of Kethane, ScanSat and ISA MapSat should've been used.

http://ucanr.org/blogs/wat/blogfiles/2497.jpg

You should probably then read and respond to my post #83 above as it is the most relevant. In essence you are picking on just one of the pieces to the scanning puzzle. As I said above, akin to taking a quote out of context. When viewing the entire process as a whole the first part instant scan really becomes a minor portion of the work needed. You may still not like it (your prerogative) but it really becomes a minor nitpick as part of the whole.

[Drillgorg]

This way it dumbs down something that could've been a gread KSP addon.

I don't see the problem. Literally the only thing they omitted is the time warp. You still have to achieve a polar orbit to scan the whole planet. And forcing us to do it in real time without time warp would be awful.

And even better, the planetary scan is vague and not suitable for mining. You still need the local scanners to actually get good concentrations of ore.

[paelleon]

Well, I think SQUAD should rename ORE in WATER. After all the stuff can only be converted into fuel. This will help life support mods and free the name ORE for some more resource gathering (ELP....).

[RoverDude]

The name Ore actually makes perfect sense. It's simply dirt/rock from which it is economically viable to extract valuable stuff. full stop. Most ores are metals, but not all (Asbestos being one). And it is not a geological term, but an economic one. Keeping a very generic term like Ore also fits in with other KSP resource names, and leaves it's final composition not only open to interpretation, but also completely flexible. This is a good thing.

[Pipcard]

Except liquid rocket propellants are usually compounds of non-metals like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

Edited April 29, 2015 by Pipcard

[m4inbrain]

Well, i would've liked "minerals" more than "ore", but that's just me, in the end it really doesn't matter if it's called water, ore, kethane, or whatever. "Stuff that makes rockets go", maybe. As a suggestion.

[Matt516]

It's 1:1 mass-wise, the assumption is that some rudimentary sorting takes place during excavation. Yes, for realism there should be a loss factor. However had to compromise for gameplay reasons on this one (so in that regard, it's closer to Kethane (which is nearly lossless) than Karbonite (which is very lossy).

Doesn't this present a problem in which it's actually better to store fuel as ore than in fuel tanks? Since the ore tanks have a better mass ratio than the fuel tanks?

[bitbucket]

With the size and diversity of the fanbase, there's no way possible to come up with something that satisfies everyone. I doubt anyone is 100% happy with the end result, but the stock systems are what they are, and for those who can't live with it, there are always mods to change it.

[Payload]

Ok RoverDude, since you think everything is just fine, explain to me why both of my drills go to 100% heat the second that I unfold them on the moon. I have Bill as the ship pilot, five star engineer. I have no less than 96 panels added to try to keep cool. I cannot remove a single ounce of ore resource from the moon. Not a single ounce! No matter the warp level, no matter how much heatsink I add, nothing works. Also, linear mode is not working with RCS anymore. I cannot translate unless I use the translation keys. The only mod I have installed is MechJeb. I uninstalled it and I get the same results. I don't think the resource system is working like you think it is. Something is very broken.

[ComradeWolfe]

Hi all, first post ever here. Played since October 2013...

First of all, thanks for the stock ISRU system RoverDude. I've used Kethane, Karbonite, and SCANsat and can generally say that I'm satisfied with the new system (caveat: I haven't had a whole lot of time to play yet).

To the detractors, please take a moment to remember that this is not Kethane or Karbonite -- it's a new system which you will have to LEARN in order to utilize (just like all of KSP was when you first started playing). When offering up any criticism, please also be sure it's productive. If all you're doing is saying "it sucks" without any input as to how to fix it, you're only serving to make RoverDude feel sad... And sad devs write sad code.

So my observations:

Overheats: Radiators are a good quick fix. Also, the bell-curve for 3* engineers seemed good. I didn't test yet, but would adding multiple low level engineers help thermals too (IE: a handful of novices = an intermediate engineer)?

InstaScan: I'd like for the wide scanned to do scan only what it has LOS to. This means 2-3 scans for a whole planet (this keeps simplicity for the player while removing the "it's magic!" factor of instascan (with the side-effect of being tons of code, I suppose - sorry!)).

Ore conversion: I'd like to see ore heavier or producing a lower amount of fuel/oxidizer mass. To me, ore should be noticably less convenient to move than "processed" materials (it's got a lot of dirt mixed in).

Thanks again, and keep up the good work.

[RoverDude]

Doesn't this present a problem in which it's actually better to store fuel as ore than in fuel tanks? Since the ore tanks have a better mass ratio than the fuel tanks?

This has already been looked at and tweaked.

Ok RoverDude, since you think everything is just fine, explain to me why both of my drills go to 100% heat the second that I unfold them on the moon. I have Bill as the ship pilot, five star engineer. I have no less than 96 panels added to try to keep cool. I cannot remove a single ounce of ore resource from the moon. Not a single ounce! No matter the warp level, no matter how much heatsink I add, nothing works. Also, linear mode is not working with RCS anymore. I cannot translate unless I use the translation keys. The only mod I have installed is MechJeb. I uninstalled it and I get the same results. I don't think the resource system is working like you think it is. Something is very broken.

I've already noted on a couple of threads now that we're aware the ISRU/drill bits are a bit toasty right now. And your translation keys have as much to do with resources as ham does with hamsters

[Drillgorg]

So, anyone else planning to mine a class E near Kerbin asteroid, continually generating fuel to propel the asteroid? I want to attempt to push a very large asteroid into Kerbin orbit this way, then use it as a gas station. I think it will depend in how much ore the asteroids actually hold.

[RoverDude]

Hi all, first post ever here. Played since October 2013...

First of all, thanks for the stock ISRU system RoverDude. I've used Kethane, Karbonite, and SCANsat and can generally say that I'm satisfied with the new system (caveat: I haven't had a whole lot of time to play yet).

To the detractors, please take a moment to remember that this is not Kethane or Karbonite -- it's a new system which you will have to LEARN in order to utilize (just like all of KSP was when you first started playing). When offering up any criticism, please also be sure it's productive. If all you're doing is saying "it sucks" without any input as to how to fix it, you're only serving to make RoverDude feel sad... And sad devs write sad code.

So my observations:

Overheats: Radiators are a good quick fix. Also, the bell-curve for 3* engineers seemed good. I didn't test yet, but would adding multiple low level engineers help thermals too (IE: a handful of novices = an intermediate engineer)?

InstaScan: I'd like for the wide scanned to do scan only what it has LOS to. This means 2-3 scans for a whole planet (this keeps simplicity for the player while removing the "it's magic!" factor of instascan (with the side-effect of being tons of code, I suppose - sorry!)).

Ore conversion: I'd like to see ore heavier or producing a lower amount of fuel/oxidizer mass. To me, ore should be noticably less convenient to move than "processed" materials (it's got a lot of dirt mixed in).

Thanks again, and keep up the good work.

Overheat fix is in the works. Insta-Scan is a design choice, totally get it's not everyone's bag. Some love it, some hate it, some hate it then love it after they realize that it's just a first step in the rest of the system. Since I can't please everyone, we'll leave it as-is.

The ore conversion - I personally prefer lossy reactions, but in this case there was a design issue where we had to make some choices, and we chose to remove the lossyness here to ensure we did not violate conservation of mass somewhere else.