Rapid Asteroid Depletion???

[TyroneAlfonso]

Ok, so I just captured my first asteroid with a fairly simple mining/engine rig. I refueled once from it and the resources were 87% to begin with, then about 85.5% when I was done. After nearly an hour of getting it in to a perfect 200k orbit, I went to mine/refuel again just to realize that all the resources are depleted. Is this a known bug? Intentional "no refueling in korbit" FU, or just a glitch for me?

Sorry if this has been mentioned before but I didn't find anything with basic search criteriorerions.

EDIT: Mass went from 118 tons down to about 16 tons as well... most of which is the ship itself.

Edited May 17, 2015 by TyroneAlfonso

[vej]

I've never mined or captured an asteroid but I did read somewhere that if you leave your drills running they will deplete the asteroid even if the ore tanks are already full.

[TyroneAlfonso]

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[Skalou]

Hi,

I've had the same problem, i was bringing to kerbin an asreroid and let the drills active during the travel, when i loaded the ship to a few days after, what a surprise when i saw the empty asteroïd!!

BUuuut i've found a solution to correct it after the disaster:

1) Save your "saves" folder in a safe place to have a back-up just in case.

2) remember the name of the asteroid and the % of ressource of the asteroid before the depletion (you can find it by lauching an old save). (for me there was 85% od ressource inside my asteroid named VZR-046 , a Valentino Rossi hommage? )

3) open the persistant.sfs and research this line with your asteroid name (you can use "notepad" or the better "notepad++" programs):

AsteroidName = Ast. VZR-046

4)

A few lines below you need to find this lines:

MODULE
                {
                    name = ModuleAsteroidInfo
                    isEnabled = True
                    massThreshold = 325.544919433594
                    currentMass = 325.544919433594

massThreshold is the empty mass of the asteroid

currentMass is the total mass (empty mass + ressource mass)

So you understand now why it's empty.

5) you can calculate the value to replace the currentMass one's with this:

%ressource: the % of ressource you want ( for me 85% )

ressource mass = (%ressource x massThreshold) / ( 100 - %ressource) ,(for me ressource mass = (85 x 325.5) / ( 100 - 85) = 1844.5 )

and then,

currentMass= massThreshold + ressource mass ,(for me currentMass = 325.5 + 1844.5 = 2170.0)

so this persistant.sfs line become for me:

MODULE
                {
                    name = ModuleAsteroidInfo
                    isEnabled = True
                    massThreshold = 325.544919433594
                    currentMass = 2170.0

6) lauch KSP and Enjoy!

Edited September 4, 2015 by Skalou

[falloutaddict]

Remember not to run your isru converter at the same time as your drills. I remember someone mentioning that the way it converts the ore will waste quite a bit, but I can't verify this. Maybe someone smarter will chime in.

[Nich]

Yes I Have seen that as well

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/128707-PSA-how-to-not-waste-ore-when-mining-asteroids?highlight=PSA

[Skalou]

Remember not to run your isru converter at the same time as your drills. I remember someone mentioning that the way it converts the ore will waste quite a bit, but I can't verify this. Maybe someone smarter will chime in.

Right, good to notice it again.

But i consider it as a bug, my mining ship was with a skilled engineer inside (too dumb or not enought initiative to stop the drills when the oretanks are full?),

and it had depleted the asteroid in a fews hours, much less time as it takes to my ship to empty this asteroid!

if this is a feature of gameplay, i find it really bad, but i think it's just a bug, a bit like the one mentionned in the linked thread by Nich (thank's interesting to know this ).

This gamelay mechanic is not polished. (whatever let them work on unity5 first! whouhooo! )

[MLWostal]

Hi,

I've had the same problem, i was bringing to kerbin an asreroid and let the drills active during the travel, when i loaded the ship to a few days after, what a surprise when i saw the empty asteroïd!!

BUuuut i've found a solution to correct it after the disaster:

1) Save your "saves" folder in a safe place to have a back-up just in case.

2) remember the name of the asteroid and the % of ressource of the asteroid before the depletion (you can find it by lauching an old save). (for me there was 85% od ressource inside my asteroid named VZR-046 , a Valentino Rossi hommage? )

3) open the persistant.sfs and research this line with your asteroid name (you can use "notepad" or the better "notepad++" programs):

AsteroidName = Ast. VZR-046

4)

A few lines below you need to find this lines:

MODULE
                {
                    name = ModuleAsteroidInfo
                    isEnabled = True
                    massThreshold = 325.544919433594
                    currentMass = 325.544919433594

massThreshold is the empty mass of the asteroid

currentMass is the total mass (empty mass + ressource mass)

So you understand now why it's empty.

5) you can calculate the value to replace the currentMass one's with this:

fR= fraction of ressource you want ( for me 85% so fR= 0.85)

ressource mass = (fR x massThreshold) / ( 1 - fR) ,(for me ressource mass = (0.85 x 325.54) / ( 1 - 0.85) = 1844.75 )

and then,

currentMass= massThreshold + ressource mass ,(for me currentMass = 325.54 + 1844.75 = 2170.3)

so this persistant.sfs line become for me:

MODULE
                {
                    name = ModuleAsteroidInfo
                    isEnabled = True
                    massThreshold = 325.544919433594
                    currentMass = 2170.3

6) lauch KSP and Enjoy!

Um, is it not simpler to just (in your case) divide 325.5 by 15 and multiply by 85? Returns the value 1844.5 which is darned close enough for government work.

[Laie]

But i consider it as a bug, my mining ship was with a skilled engineer inside (too dumb or not enought initiative to stop the drills when the oretanks are full?),

and it had depleted the asteroid in a fews hours, much less time as it takes to my ship to empty this asteroid!

Your problem was that your ore bunker was only almost, but not quite, full. The drill only comes to a stop if your ore bunker is 100% totally full. Which is good practice: imagine you brought just enough storage to take exactly the amount a contract requires, and then notice that it won't fill to the brim?

Now comes the troublesome part: every moment the converter takes a small amount of ore and refines it. The drill senses room in the tank and springs into action. If the amount of ore the drill produces in that single moment is bigger than the free space in your ore bunker, the remainder will be spilled. And the very next moment, the converter takes another small amount and the process repeats itself.

I don't think it was meant to be that way. In 1.0, the mining rate was supposed to be limited by heat generation. This worked badly, the heat was just too damn much and we had no heat sinks, so in 1.0.1 they introduced the engineer skill instead. I guess someone has blundered, as now the mining rate from asteroids is insanely fast even without engineer: a single unmanned drill can already outpace a converter, and if you bring a three-star scientist, a single drill can easily provide for 17 converters. Running the drill and converter at the same time, you will waste 16 units of ore for every unit you refine.

Since 1.0.3 we have heatsinks; I suspect that in the next version of KSP, heat may be brought back into mining.

Now, the problem won't go away just because the mining rate is reduced: whenever someone spams enough drills and heatsinks (or whatever) to outpace the refinery, there will be spillage. But a small loss of (say) 2-5% may go unnoticed, while the 94% losses we have right now are pretty hard to ignore.

Edited September 3, 2015 by Laie

[Skalou]

Um, is it not simpler to just (in your case) divide 325.5 by 15 and multiply by 85? Returns the value 1844.5 which is darned close enough for government work.

right i have modified the formula.

Laie, everythink was full (100.00%) for me ore, LF, OX, mono, Ec,... and it depleted the asteroid faster than my drills could do it, for me it's a bug.

Edited September 4, 2015 by Skalou

[jiminator]

I noticed that mining occurred at an incredible rate on an asteroid, vs a moon. The first one I did was much slower and had more content. But I also had a researcher on board for the second one. Others say that is the problem. So next time it will just be my mining rig.