How efficient is your Minmus mining operation? Share your pics

[Jesrad]

Yes, securing a huge asteroid is a bit of work, but from now on I can conveniently refuel in LKO without further ado. Translate that amount into large tanks and tell me how often you'd need to get back and forth to gather that much from Minmus -- I guess that supply will last me for a long, long time.

Nice ! Although, 3098 tons worth of fuel is equivalent to about 31 trips of my Tanker Last from Minmus. More if it's meant fro LKO directly, less if you're meant to refuel interplanetary round-trips.

By my calculations, using a similarly ~90% ore asteroid, a 10-drill, 1 ISRU, 1 small ore tank, 10 fuel cell array + 1 48-7 engine can mine, convert the ore and feed its rocket continuously at full thrust, for a minimal mass of a little over 32.5 tons. I need to see whether having an engineer aboard or using a nuclear engine with LF only is more efficient, but that should make it possible to move any rock almost anywhere

[georgTF]

For me Minmus is the takeoff point for interplanetary flights, not LKO. I lift things with less than full tanks, reach Minmus, refuel and away we go.

Having a mining operation in LKO strikes me as fairly pointless since Kerbin is itself a source of fuel. It's true that lifting that fuel costs cash in droptanks and fuel used but i what i usually do is take a lifter without payload into LKO and leave it there for spaceplanes and such to use, then deorbit and recover what is possible. A nuclear tug can easily move larger bits to Minmus for assembly or refuelling.

I know LKO offers a bonus from the Oberth effect, but Minmus has almost no gravity to interfere with either mining or launching interplanetary flights. Maybe i just prefer it.

[Laie]

By my calculations, using a similarly ~90% ore asteroid, a 10-drill, 1 ISRU, [...] whether having an engineer aboard

Beware: Drills on asteroids are always 100% effective. That is, a single unmanned drill is enough to keep one converter busy. Drilling faster than your converter(s) can handle it will waste resources. On my first attempt, I brought two drills and an engineer and wondered why 2000t of resources would only yield 50t of fuel. The solution turned out to be simple: Once your ore bunker is full, stop the drill.

Also be aware that this is the heaviest rock I've ever seen. When I set out, I expected something on the order of 2000-2500 tons.

[Jesrad]

What about using a Minmus-analog orbit as "exit port", high above Kerbin ? You then don't incur the cost of depature from Minmus, don't need to land your spacecraft at all, and interplanetary injections are much easier to do - they can even take days if needed so your TWR is not constrained at all

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Beware: Drills on asteroids are always 100% effective. That is, a single unmanned drill is enough to keep one converter busy. Drilling faster than your converter(s) can handle it will waste resources. On my first attempt, I brought two drills and an engineer and wondered why 2000t of resources would only yield 50t of fuel. The solution turned out to be simple: Once your ore bunker is full, stop the drill.

Good to know, thanks I figured that 2 or 3 drills with a basic engineer are enough to feed a pair of ISRU and a LV-N continuously at 100% thrust.

[Laie]

Having a mining operation in LKO strikes me as fairly pointless since Kerbin is itself a source of fuel. It's true that lifting that fuel costs cash in droptanks.

I hear you, and I try to launch my vessels with enough fuel just to save me the hassle of refuelling.

But in many cases, the payload/interplanetary vessel can "almost" make orbit on it's own. It's certainly good for the last 1000m/s of the ascent, often more. So it doesn't really need a lifter but merely some launch assistance... at the price of being mostly depleted when it makes orbit. I find that the amount of lifter needed to make it arrive in LKO with full tanks often bloats the launch vessel beyond recognition. That's not only a question of cost, but also of part count and structural inegrity. You can't just slap it together any old how.

For me, it's a question of "will refuelling in orbit be more of a hassle than designing a large lifter to begin with?" The answer is informed, sometimes determined, by whether I'm in the mood to build a huge launcher.

What about using a Minmus-analog orbit as "exit port", high above Kerbin ? You then don't incur the cost of depature from Minmus, don't need to land your spacecraft at all, and interplanetary injections are much easier to do - they can even take days if needed so your TWR is not constrained at all

Well, launch windows are a good reason to stay in a lower orbit. Minmus' orbital period is, what, 58 days or something? That's a tad much even when going to Jool, not to mention Duna or Eve. But you can get pretty similar results from a sub-Munar orbit. With a 2-3 day orbital period, you can already afford burns of one hour or more.

[georgTF]

Call me lazy but when departing Minmus i just burn prograde or retrograde relative to Minmus' orbit and ignore the period businness altogether. The influence of it's gravity accounts for less than 100 m/s or thereabouts.

It takes about a week to reach Minmus, and orbiting there can be painfully slow (and burning direct to target is not 100% accurate). Add in the whole business or constructing an orbital base and i certainly understand why it would be more complicated. Thing is, i like having a station there anyway. Plus fuel production is very cheap in terms of Dv lost to gravity, and there's a lab there analysing various types of icecream collected from the surface, and i enjoyed constructing a station from several bits.... In a way, since it's there anyway i like using it, but it's not THE way to do it. And using Minmus for departue can mess with ideal launch windows, i have to admit that.

[Grek]

simple:)

[Evanitis]

Here, my first stock miners - not too efficient, but neither ore nor time will run out.

I chose to refine on orbit, because I hate having to land accurately. The ISRU and the lander on the middle are simple and distinguishable. That's a mission craft on the right - it has ore to bring home, rescued kerbals from Munar and Minmus orbits, also two tourists who only wanted a Kerbin suborbital flight.

The tug on the left is an ancient piece - it has the first jumbo tank, nerve engines and docking port ever produced by our company. It brought my first sats to Duna, and came home. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy to know that it's still operational. The good memories make me want to reuse it, even though I forgot to add RCS or reaction wheels, so it takes like 8 minutes to do a 180' turn with it.

[Khazar]

I finally have landed my well overpaid ship on Minmus mining site

[Mikki]

Huge Success!

After many... disasterous... tests my chiefengineer Bill build finally this:

Miner and mobile Tank, filled up and stabilized (krakensafe on landinggear...), waiting for the the fuellifter.

I had some issues with unreasonable shaking miningrigs on wheels,... so here is a giant mobile miner attached to a bot fuellifter harvesting that ore tho ...

(Here is an advice to all who try to mine Minmus: Tape some landings legs to your mining rig, or you wont have alot of fun up there... if your rig is on wheels, you wont be able to leave the scene without loosing the craft, i had to grab an older Savegame after killing the mining crew !)

The KLAW is very usefuel for that task...

Edited June 29, 2015 by Mikki
uuh typo, changed scene

[oversoul]

this game is so broken

I just wasted 6 hours trying to get various plane-ish type mining craft to orbit

for some reason symmetrical craft want to yaw right

ugh this is not the game I was playing yesterday what the hell

sry but I had to vent after I looked at the clock

all these designs have cargo bays so I know that's it. I just... didn't want to give up on those designs.

[Fenris]

I have a few questions.

When using the narrow-band scanner on Minmus I'm finding readings of 7.49% for ore. Is that good for Minmus or should I look for a better spot? I know I could do a mobile mining set-up in case I find something better but I have a more permanent set-up in mind.

Rovers on Minmus, about how much mass do you need for the wheels to get a decent grip (I'd rather avoid downward facing thrusters)? I landed a rover with a mass of roughly 5 tons and that seems to be way too light; lot's of tire spin, understeer, and slow to come to a stop. I'm guessing that with Minmus' low gravity this problem will not be entirely erased, but is there a mass & tire combination that seems to help alleviate this?

[oversoul]

Hah! I got that a**!

Fu** you physics.

Sorry.

/rant

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Rovers on Minmus, about how much mass do you need for the wheels to get a decent grip (I'd rather avoid downward facing thrusters)? I landed a rover with a mass of roughly 5 tons and that seems to be way too light; lot's of tire spin, understeer, and slow to come to a stop. I'm guessing that with Minmus' low gravity this problem will not be entirely erased, but is there a mass & tire combination that seems to help alleviate this?

My opinion is it's always better to fly on minmus, be it with some RCS setup or VTOL unless you absolutely need the wheels from some kind of precision docking port work.

[Fenris]

My opinion is it's always better to fly on minmus, be it with some RCS setup or VTOL unless you absolutely need the wheels from some kind of precision docking port work.

Yep, it was the precision docking port work I was thinking of. I think I may need it to build the surface station on Minmus I'm thinking of. I guess I could just hack gravity since that takes gravity to .1g and test stuff out on Kerbin to get a rough idea of what I need for the job.

As far as exploring, scanning, and moving assets on Minmus I think I have to agree with you on flying or VTOL

[Jesrad]

for some reason symmetrical craft want to yaw right

ugh this is not the game I was playing yesterday what the hell

I had the same thing, my mobile base kept spinning backwards... until I noticed the trim was set two nothces down. Alt-X reset the trim, no more spin.

[Mikki]

I have a few questions.

When using the narrow-band scanner on Minmus I'm finding readings of 7.49% for ore. Is that good for Minmus or should I look for a better spot? I know I could do a mobile mining set-up in case I find something better but I have a more permanent set-up in mind.

Rovers on Minmus, about how much mass do you need for the wheels to get a decent grip (I'd rather avoid downward facing thrusters)? I landed a rover with a mass of roughly 5 tons and that seems to be way too light; lot's of tire spin, understeer, and slow to come to a stop. I'm guessing that with Minmus' low gravity this problem will not be entirely erased, but is there a mass & tire combination that seems to help alleviate this?

Hi Fenris

So somewhere around the equator of Minmus i think you can find still more Yield... i have found a comfortable place with more far more than 8.0... How it is at the higher latitudes and poles... i am researching still.

Mining in Low gravity... i think you found your answer by yourself... i personally ended up with a huge thing on Minmus, after many severe problems... it is somehow very complex getting that ore and move/transfer stuff around safely. Manouvering on ground is tricky. I have 8 Wheels on my crafts up there, tweaked breakingtorque in front and back... maybe sixwheelers work also but fourwheelers... i guess not so good.

Me personally i prefer mobility than precise landing. The last meters to the Fuellifter rolling, connect and putting down the drills... easy. And moving around Ressources... the same.

Other makes no sense to me, a all in one system seems not efficient.

Edited July 2, 2015 by Mikki

[Homusubi]

I got a Minmus miner on the ground today. Rockomax 32 (big) fuel tank, a few much smaller ones, one ore tank, four drills, one ISRU, some surface and hexagonal scanners, two Gigantors, and two nuclear charge generators. not exactly thrilled with progress, but it's probably more convenient than most of what's been exhibited here (I haven't read all ten pages), for the simple reason that it only takes one Kerbin launch to get it to Minmus (so if I want to add more solar panels, I can do so easily - which I will have to do seeing as my current setup is only sustainable with three drills active).

Also, it carries way more fuel than is required to land on Minmus from a fairly low Minmutian (is that the adjective?) orbit, so it is then possible to simply bring the mining station up to my interplanetary rocket rather than using shuttle craft while still being able to transport about 2/3 of a big Rockomax tank's worth of fuel each time. Only tried it out on one spot so far (about 4% ore) but hopefully I should be able to find some 10%'s.

I'm awful at docking in Kerbin orbit, see. It always takes so much fuel and I've managed to send (tiny) probes as far as Laythe without Kerbin-orbit docking. Minmus-orbit docking is far easier, thankfully.

Edited July 22, 2015 by Homusubi

[HoloYolo]

I haven't been to Minmus since 0.90.

[Jett_Quasar]

I simply build ships with everything on board and take it with me everywhere I go. It's not the most efficient way to do it but it's a lot of fun flying to and landing on different moons and planets.

I call this one Littleman

All KSP images have been moved here.

JR

Edited September 28, 2015 by Jolly_Roger

[Homusubi]

Still slow... Added Rockomax 16 fuel tank (so overall capacity is now slightly under 1.5 times as much as previously), and excess solar power to make sure all four drills can keep going at once. Are there any planets which are particularly rich in ore?

[Edax]

Cause I'm really lazy, I don't bother with dedicated miners or refiners, too much docking involved. So I just made a hyprid Spaceplane Carrier, refueling station, refinery, miner, capable of sending itself long distances to where it's needed. (So far I have it rated at 8420 Delta V without the Spaceplanes and 7468 Delta V with them). Hopefully when I'm done testing this thing, I can send a expedition to Jool and gain some sweet medals for my signature.

Basic stats:

760 Monopropellent

6900 Ore

11940 Liquid Fuel

1760 Oxidizer

4 LV-N Engines for main propulsion, 4 aerospikes for emergency thrust and 4 drills. Crew capacity 7 + 2.

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Edited August 6, 2015 by Edax

[AbacusWizard]

Here's my setup.

On the left is the Minmus Mobile Ore Combine, which includes eight drills, four ISRU converters, small temporary holding tanks for ore and fuel, and enough solar panels and generators to keep it all running. It's on wheels to move around (and has tiny rocket jets to fly when needed). The tapering vertical column in the center is the Engineering Bay, housing two engineers and their (KAS/KIS) equipment, which can detach and move around (on rockets or wheels) to seek out better ore deposits or make repairs. On the right is the Minmus STO Tanker, which connects to the Combine via medium docking clamps, accepts new fuel as it is produced, and, when full, takes off and orbits.

Right now I'm using this to gradually fill up an utterly colossal fuel depot in low Minmus orbit; when it's full, I'll move it to medium Kerbin orbit as Midway Station Fuel Depot.

I don't remember the exact numbers but I think the Minmus STO Tanker holds something like 20,000 units of liquid fuel and an equivalent quantity of oxidizer, plus 2000 monoprop. The fuel depot in orbit holds about six times that much.

[JeSuisPret]

Here's my small Minmus minig operation. Small is beautiful I guess!

[Archgeek]

HAH! That looks like its own little mini-hype train.

[Jett_Quasar]

I use Minmus as a first-stop fueling center for all my interplanetary craft.

All KSP images have been moved here.

I can't say how efficient it is but I've been able to get them everywhere they need to be...

JR

Edited September 28, 2015 by Jolly_Roger