Mining for ore in Joolian system

[Tada]

Many of you may remember my old project where I tried, with help of many great people from forum, to establish permanent colony on Laythe. It was around version 0.20 and resources were just behind the corner or so did we thought... In the end the whole project failed mainly because it was impossible to bring so many orange tanks from Kerbin to Laythe. But now things have changed and I want to re-boot the whole thing.

Questin is: Where would you get ore in Joolian system? Options are mostly just Vall, Bop and Pol.

Pol is far, but has low gravity and not as much inclination so getting refined fuel to Laythe orbit should not be that problematic and I see it as best option. What you guys think?

[SkyRender]

Once you're in a system, distance is by and large irrelevant. It's only if you're in a hurry that you have to consider distance, and I doubt you are if you're doing a Joolian mission. Bop and Pol are roughly equivalent in trouble for getting anything from them down to the inner moons, so it would be best to use Pol as your mining base.

[Andrewx21]

Wasnt it pol that is known to have the occasional land glitch, were the land is rendered lower than it is?

[Tada]

Meh, I made few experimental miners and everything seems fine. Just even with 8 giantor solar panels and 1 milion kerbal money worth of nuclear generators I cannot run more than 2 drills and even that I´m running out of power slowly. But in rich deposit I´m getting ore quite quick.

[Spatzimaus]

Yeah, the new mining system works fine as long as you design with heat transfer and such in mind. Once we get the hang of this sort of thing, it'll become a non-issue. This whole package was dropped into our laps with little warning as to the specifics, so we're all still learning as we go.

The bigger problem, for me, is the scanning; the clamshell scanner is just too big. Back in ye olden days, I'd put a Kethane or Karbonite scanner on an ion-propelled mapping probe capable of fitting inside a half-length Mk2 cargo bay and lofted by my light spaceplanes. The new narrow-band scanner is a bit larger than those, but it was still possible to make a decent design. However, the survey scanner is just far too large for anything like that. It'd be one thing if its mass actually required a larger probe design, but it's only 0.2 tons so you're still going to be moving it with tiny ion drives and such, and that leads to some ridiculous appearances.

[vej]

The bigger problem, for me, is the scanning; the clamshell scanner is just too big. Back in ye olden days, I'd put a Kethane or Karbonite scanner on an ion-propelled mapping probe capable of fitting inside a half-length Mk2 cargo bay and lofted by my light spaceplanes. The new narrow-band scanner is a bit larger than those, but it was still possible to make a decent design. However, the survey scanner is just far too large for anything like that. It'd be one thing if its mass actually required a larger probe design, but it's only 0.2 tons so you're still going to be moving it with tiny ion drives and such, and that leads to some ridiculous appearances.

I thought my little 26k ÃŽâ€V scanner probe is kinda cute, altho it's woefully inadequate in its power generating and storage capability, especially for an ion engine. Here's a screenshot of it scanning Pol:

And a view from the side:

A scanner probe like this really needs the jumbo solar panels and maybe some more battery storage. You won't get 26k ÃŽâ€V with that extra weight but it'd be much easier to do longer burns without having to time-accelerate through battery recharging every 30-40 m/s.

My plan is to have Pol be the refining center and have a dockable tanker that can move around to different orbits. Laythe adventures are probably going to be my biggest expenditures of fuel so I was expecting to fill up the tanker and then put it in orbit around Laythe.

[-RanZ-]

I wish Laythe had more ore... it is very little and in stupid places so I have no where decent to put a base that has a flat spot for a runway

[KatzOhki]

The only reason I'd avoid Pol is that it's gravity is so light that it actually can make landing more difficult.

[Spatzimaus]

A scanner probe like this really needs the jumbo solar panels and maybe some more battery storage. You won't get 26k ÃŽâ€V with that extra weight but it'd be much easier to do longer burns without having to time-accelerate through battery recharging every 30-40 m/s.

If you're going out to Jool's moons for something like this, just forget the solar panels altogether. They're really expensive, but go with RTGs; one RTG can offset the drain from that scanner, although it'd take 12 to produce enough electricity to keep an ion going at full thrust. Realistically, I'm planning my ion probes to use four of the things and run at 33% thrust once I'm near Jool. If you're only using this probe to scan each moon once and then leave, you could even do it with fuel cells, but I prefer probes that can stick around to fulfill science contracts as well so that's not really an option.

My plan is to have Pol be the refining center and have a dockable tanker that can move around to different orbits.

Back in ye olden days, that's exactly what I'd do with my Kethane and Karbonite fuel networks. Pol was the primary fuel depot for the Jool system, and I'd keep one refinery there and one tanker down at Laythe. I'm planning on doing the same with the new system, although it's also handy to have a land-based refinery (using a large rover) that can meet up with already-landed vessels. I had small 20-30 ton rovers and huge 600-ton megarovers for this sort of role, and it worked nicely.

[Bill Phil]

Just send a probe to see...

[Laie]

it'd take 12 [RTGs] to produce enough electricity to keep an ion going at full thrust.

Remember that there's a thing called "batteries". Once you're out of Kerbin SOI, you don't need to do any more 1000m/s burns (and I recommend to just use a rocket to get you to Jool). My ScanSat probe from 0.90 had a large 4k battery, four RTGs, and never needed to worry about power (iow, it had way too much).

Just bring enough RTGs to run the scanner(s) and a single large battery. It can power all maneuvers, and will be refilled in the time between.

[vej]

RTGs weren't even considered for my probe because I play career only and it's going to be a while before I unlock it. Yes the solar generated is much less out there but if you have to time-accelerate it doesn't really matter how long it takes. My puny battery and puny solar panel recharge in something like one in-game day, maybe less. I don't even have the 4k battery unlocked yet. Jool is where a lot of people go to finish collecting science for career mode so they aren't going to have the most advanced stuff to send on their probes.

[Tada]

It actually takes quite a bit Dv to travel from Pol to Laythe.

Thats true, that there is not really a lot of ore on surface of Laythe. But how much and for what you really need it. I just wanted it for running my VTOL rescue craft to pick up any stranded crews and for that I just need few hundred of units of luquid fuel...

Best would be to get few E class asteroids in orbit of Laythe and mine them

Edited May 15, 2015 by Tada

[vej]

I wish Laythe had more ore... it is very little and in stupid places so I have no where decent to put a base that has a flat spot for a runway

Seems like a coastline aligned with the rotation of the moon would be your best bet for a runway. I haven't scanned it yet so I don't know if there're any good mineable coastlines like that.