Resource Mining - Impressions and Questions

[Drillgorg]

Hey, can I use an asteroid as a heat sink? Giving each nuke its own grabbing unit to attach to the asteroid would be hilarious.

And BTW I think you're doing a great job Roverdude.

[Moon Goddess]

Scanning doesn't play nice with modding resources, if you add a resource to a save after you've already scanned the planet you can't scan again to pick up the new resource, and removing resources after the scan gets really out of wack. (map screen thinks you've not scanned the planet, scanner shows remaining resources.)

[Tw1]

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 have to agree.

I get where you're coming from, RoverDude, but I do think having to timewarp a little more would be something a lot less people would be bothered by.

Part of KSP's appeal over other space games is it generally tries to give an impression of realistic, close to current day space exploration, and having insta-scans is another immersion breaker.

Plus, as I, and others have talked about, the career mode could be a lot more fun if it moved away from clicking and grinding, and towards planning and managing things over time.

I do get that sometimes, you just want to land straight away, but scanning that takes time could be an incentive to send smaller, cheap probes to the outer planets at a time when you can't afford bigger missions.

Why not give the long distance scanner a really wide field view?

You'd still scan everything pretty quickly, but it would feel like you actually did it.

Plus, this would allow extra possibilities, like getting some data on a flyby, and eliminate the oddness of slow rotating planets like Moho being mapped straigh away.

Why not have another tier between the long distance and landing scanners, which you could leave in place for a while to slowly map the planet?

This would be especially useful if the long distance scan was even less accurate, so using the narrow band scanner to guide landings could still be something useful. Maybe the orbital scanner should have a close up mode.

I particularly like the way the narrow, and ground level scanners work btw. That's quite clever.

It seems to be a bit of a waste, to just gloss over this orbital stage, when the stock game is lacking in features where we actually get to collect meaningful data on the planets.

Plus, isn't the whole point of timewarp so things can take time in a meaningful way, without needing to bore the player?

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 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 .

That's a good point, but maybe once/if radiators become a thing we have, using the teir 5 kerbal won't be the only option.

Edited April 30, 2015 by Tw1

[paelleon]

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.

ok... you mean that the goal is to have a single resource (ore) with different converters to obtain different products (monopropellant, life support stuff...), is it right?

[RoverDude]

Scanning doesn't play nice with modding resources, if you add a resource to a save after you've already scanned the planet you can't scan again to pick up the new resource, and removing resources after the scan gets really out of wack. (map screen thinks you've not scanned the planet, scanner shows remaining resources.)

Can you provide some more details on this? Ideally on the tracker (including screenshots)?

The design is that resources should retroactively show - i.e. once a planet is unlocked, you do not have to do subsequent scans to have modded resources light up.

@Paelleon - only that the name Ore was chosen since it was ambiguous to represent a single valuable thing. Right now, the valuable stuff we get from it is LF/Ox/MP

[Dewar]

I think that roverdude is doing an amazing job.

Its impossible to satisfy everyone, but for the new player without any experience of modded resource gathering, the new system allows for both ease and complexity through the two offered scanners.

The heat issue will be solved in an update as mentioned in another post, and I'm sure that rover dude will at least take a look at the conversion rate issue as well.

I have one question that is related to resource gathering which I have posted in another section that I'm curious about: what are the mining yields for each size of asteroid?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/117920-What-are-the-mining-yields-for-each-size-of-asteroids?p=1883447#post1883447

Apologies for my sloppy linking, I'm writing this from a phone.

[Greenfire32]

The only thing I'm unhappy with regarding ISRU is how it's always 100% of the time overheating. SQUAD, we need radiators in stock.

[Geschosskopf]

That's a good point, but maybe once/if radiators become a thing we have, using the teir 5 kerbal won't be the only option.

Well, the whole experience system is badly in need of a major overhaul, but that's another subject. Still, until that happens, 5* Kerbals of any type in a career game are only going to be available in very small quantities after huge amounts of playtime and years of gametime. As such, they shouldn't IMHO be considered as the standard by which all things are measured. Level 3, right in the middle of the spread, should be the standard. After all, the main abilities of Kerbals are all gained by that level and you can't even achieve 3* without leaving Kerbin's SOI (and coming back), after trips to Mun and Minmus beforehand.

So if it was up to me, overheating would be a thing of the past for a 3* engineer, without needing the hypothetical radiators which may or may not ever exist. At higher levels, you could increase the rate of resource extraction, the efficiency of ISRU converter, etc.

- - - Updated - - -

The only thing I'm unhappy with regarding ISRU is how it's always 100% of the time overheating. SQUAD, we need radiators in stock.

Or we don't need heat transfer, take your pick. Seriously, what's the gameplay advantage of having to add new parts to make old parts work like they used to? Without heat build-up and transfer, we have parts working as intended without the player having to worry. With heat transfer and radiators, we have parts working as intended without the player having to worry. Both roads lead to the same place, the only difference is with the latter your rocket now contains a few more parts and weighs a bit more. So why bother at all?

[Greenfire32]

Or we don't need heat transfer, take your pick. Seriously, what's the gameplay advantage of having to add new parts to make old parts work like they used to? Without heat build-up and transfer, we have parts working as intended without the player having to worry. With heat transfer and radiators, we have parts working as intended without the player having to worry. Both roads lead to the same place, the only difference is with the latter your rocket now contains a few more parts and weighs a bit more. So why bother at all?

Solid points, but I'll say that I'd rather have the heat transfer with radiator parts, than have no heat transfer at all. Reason being, if you under-design your crafts, you risk overheating.

It would be similar to forgetting solar panels I suppose.

[gavman420SSJ]

i noticed when mining an asteroid that even when ore tank is full, the asteroid mass still depletes. so beware of that if you don't want to waste your asteroid

[Cerbero]

Not sure if this has been asked before...

Let's say you have a mining station and then you land your lander next to it. The idea would be to transfer the Fuel/Ox from the mining station to the lander without having to dock. Is this possible? I have been looking through the stock parts but I don't find anything helpful.

Thanks!

[Geschosskopf]

Not sure if this has been asked before...

Let's say you have a mining station and then you land your lander next to it. The idea would be to transfer the Fuel/Ox from the mining station to the lander without having to dock. Is this possible? I have been looking through the stock parts but I don't find anything helpful.

Thanks!

Well, if you're staying stock, your best bet is to have a fuel truck with the Klaw on it. Land the lander in the vicinity of mining base. Neither of them can move. So you have this rover made of fuel tanks. It drives up to the base, grabs it with the Klaw, and transfers fuel into itself. Then it drives over to the lander and transfers the fuel into it. Doing it this way avoids the nightmare of trying to use docking ports on uneven ground with vehicle suspensions doing whatever they want to under different loading conditions.

The main mod method to do this is/was to the pipes of KAS, but that's not yet working with 1.0.

Or course, the Klaw can cause physics weirdness, but so could/can KAS, so the operation is always fraught with some risk. Save early, save often.

[RuBisCO]

I use a "fuel truck" with wheels to dock to the mining station then drive off a few km to a lander. I used the smallest docking port and put it on a pilli off to the side to make way for a drill for harvesting experiments. Make sure the two docking ports are are the right height in testing.

Actually I have not needed to use it for fuel transfering yet, Minmus gravity is so low that I can dock Jumbo size fuel shuttles right to the top of the minning station.

Anyways my minning station was peforming horrible, took 1 year just to fill 3 jumbos, many suggested heat sinks of some kind, requiring redesign, but others suggested engineers, so I added hab module and put in engineers and that increased performance greatly.

[Geschosskopf]

I use a "fuel truck" with wheels to dock to the mining station then drive off a few km to a lander. I used the smallest docking port and put it on a pilli off to the side to make way for a drill for harvesting experiments. Make sure the two docking ports are are the right height in testing.

Just beware that this method, while it works well on the perfectly flat areas of very low-gravity Minmus, is rather problematic further afield. There is no level ground anywhere else in the universe and the gravity in most places is rather higher, causes real suspension flex differences between empty and loaded, not to mention due to ground irregularities.

[Wintersdark]

Solid points, but I'll say that I'd rather have the heat transfer with radiator parts, than have no heat transfer at all. Reason being, if you under-design your crafts, you risk overheating.

It would be similar to forgetting solar panels I suppose.

Indeed. I'm much happier with Heat as another mechanic to deal with, rather than abstracting it away entirely. Much like Electric Charge, for example.

Having heat be a thing, and needing to design our craft with it in mind makes craft design more interesting.

[Wayfare]

Just beware that this method, while it works well on the perfectly flat areas of very low-gravity Minmus, is rather problematic further afield. There is no level ground anywhere else in the universe and the gravity in most places is rather higher, causes real suspension flex differences between empty and loaded, not to mention due to ground irregularities.

In the past I used a "forklift" technique for this. Basically you put a docking port facing down under any piece of hardware you need to interface with. You could put it out on a boom if you need more space to maneuver. Then you stick another docking port facing up on a boom extending from your tanker truck, prime mover or whatever you want to call it. Place a landing gear or leg underneath. Drive the boom under the hardware, extend the landing gear to bring the docking port up higher and - with a bit of wiggling - they should dock up.

Here, let me dazzle you with my amazing Paint skills:

The good part about this system is that it's low-tech, easy to engineer around and copes well with mild terrain and varying gravity. The latter especially can mess things up - what works well during testing on Kerbin may not be functional under the lower gravity of the Mun or Minmus as landing legs and wheel suspensions are then less compressed.

Edited April 30, 2015 by Wayfare

[Wintersdark]

Well, if you're staying stock, your best bet is to have a fuel truck with the Klaw on it. Land the lander in the vicinity of mining base. Neither of them can move. So you have this rover made of fuel tanks. It drives up to the base, grabs it with the Klaw, and transfers fuel into itself. Then it drives over to the lander and transfers the fuel into it. Doing it this way avoids the nightmare of trying to use docking ports on uneven ground with vehicle suspensions doing whatever they want to under different loading conditions.

The main mod method to do this is/was to the pipes of KAS, but that's not yet working with 1.0.

Or course, the Klaw can cause physics weirdness, but so could/can KAS, so the operation is always fraught with some risk. Save early, save often.

I can't wait for KAS to be working in 1.0; it's awesome for these things. However, the Rover/Tanker with a claw is a really great idea for moving resources between your base and a lander/shuttle. I feel kind of silly for not having done that thus far, and instead working hard at complex systems for aligning docking ports

[RuBisCO]

Just beware that this method, while it works well on the perfectly flat areas of very low-gravity Minmus, is rather problematic further afield. There is no level ground anywhere else in the universe and the gravity in most places is rather higher, causes real suspension flex differences between empty and loaded, not to mention due to ground irregularities.

Oh I have been able to us it on Pol too (back in like 0.22 with kethane), also on the Mun with a research truck and a larger port, but yes, lining up the docking ports perfectly is tricky and flat terrian makes it elementry, but I have 8 tiny tanks attach to each other to make the pilli: there is a degree of flexiability in that.

[MiniMatt]

Seeing as this thread has turned into an awesome resource for all things scanning, may I ask a question regarding proper use of the Surface Scanning Module?

Step one: I performed a M700 "clamshell" scan of Minmus, which suggested an area of the Lesser Flats may be worthy of further investigation.

Step two: I landed a Surface Scanning Module on the Lesser Flats (at the flag location, below) and ran the scan. Map now looks like this:

(clicken to embiggen)

So, questions - what did this Surface Scanning Module survey do? Did it further refine knowledge of the biome as a whole? Or a fixed radius from the survey location? Did it update the map? How do I subsequently make use of the information this scan provided?

Presumably step three is to fly a Narrow-Band Scanner over those promising blooms north and south of the flag location. Which, if I've understood correctly will provide precise realtime imaging (as per RoverDude's image on page 8) but won't update the map?

And step four is to land this:

(clicken to embiggen)

... on the spot the Narrow-Band scan pinpointed.

(and yep, in sandbox, that whole contraption has been taken in one piece into LKO successfully! It was an... interesting ascent, but hey, orbit is orbit)

[Aerindel]

Here is my question, is it possible to design a mining rig that doesn't have heating problems or is that just how its supposed to work?

[RoverDude]

Aerindel - I'm reviewing the heating mechanics - expect it to iterate as I observe how players use it and fine tune the system.

MiniMatt - you now have high level detail for that entire biome This reflects in the NBS and the Survey scanner. Congrats

[Wintersdark]

Wait, if you use the Surface Scanner within a biome, you get complete data for that biome? As in, all of it, or just a particular location?

I'm a little hazy on narrow band vs. Surface scanner differences. The narrow band brings up the "minimap" of the nearby square region, if i understand correctly, but doesn't update the main resource map. The surface scanner.... Does? Add detail to the main map?

I suppose I should start a sandbox save to explore it, but I'm torn - there's so much new stuff I haven't seen before and I'm hesitant to do that because I'm sure I'll just start monkeying around in sandbox and lose interest in my career save. Which would be sad, because my career game will keep my attention longer.

Is there a user guide of any sort? Or an instructional video that's not some random streamer monkeying around himself?

[Fengist]

Dunno if anyone has mentioned this yet but here's some clues on heat generation.

Open the debug menu (F12)

1. Click on Physics, Thermal and show thermal data in action menus.

2. Click on Physics, Thermal and check thermal debug colors.

This will give you some new info on the drills and various parts including all part temperatures as well as 'thermal mass.' Just right click on any part to see the info.

The cool part is the thermal colors. When you start drilling, you'll see your drill start to change colors as it heats up. That heating spreads to nearby parts first and eventually, every connected part. And another interesting part... heat does not transfer across docking ports.

My test vessel... before drilling and after drilling.

Before I added the 'cooling fins' it would overheat and shut down. After, it held at 86%.

Notice, this is three vessels docked. The temperature of the two end ones did not change as the mid one heated up.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Fengist

[Aerindel]

Aerindel - I'm reviewing the heating mechanics - expect it to iterate as I observe how players use it and fine tune the system.

MiniMatt - you now have high level detail for that entire biome This reflects in the NBS and the Survey scanner. Congrats

Its not a complaint, I'm just wondering if there is a right way to do it or if its just something that needs to be fixed. Right now I don't know if its me or the game that is overheating.

My test vessel... before drilling and after drilling.

Before I added the 'cooling fins' it would overheat and shut down. After, it held at 86%

But does it work in vacuum? As we have seen with the atomic engines, there is a huge difference between cooling on Kerbin and in a vacuum.

[Fengist]

But does it work in vacuum? As we have seen with the atomic engines, there is a huge difference between cooling on Kerbin and in a vacuum.

working on that....