PSA: ISRU can be exploited for easy funds

[KerikBalm]

but I thought aggressie negotiations gave rep penalties everytime you roll out a vessel at a discount... unrelated to any "mission"

[OddFunction]

but I thought aggressie negotiations gave rep penalties everytime you roll out a vessel at a discount... unrelated to any "mission"

Ah okay, in that case you'd be correct. There should be a rep penalty. I only tested it to confirm the glitch was working and then I canceled the 'Aggressive Negotiations' because I hate gaming the system

[RoverDude]

As the guy who wrote this... I don't consider this an exploit. Way I see it, if you want to play 'Kerbal Fuel Refinery Program' instead of 'Kerbal Space Program' that's your call. It's completely legitimate.

Personally I think the ore tanks should only be fillable in sandbox for this reason.

The reason they are fillable is because people need to be able to test designs, including the actual ISRU process. This is why it's specifically allowed.

It's not an exploit. It's capitalism!

Pretty much

This, but only for the "Launch". In VAB/SPH they need to be fillable, for obvious CoM-testing etc.

No, as noted above, they need to be able to be launched with content for testing, etc. (and drillable for testing, etc.) - and Ore is not free, still costs funds. Not a lot, and less that liquid fuel, but if you really want to go full 'exploit' just launch a drill instead and drill to make a few more funds

It's an exploit, and it's a basic problem with the balancing.

ISRU should be efficient in mass at some level. If you are far from your planet, it should have logistical/mass benefits. It should not necessarily even be cost-effective (we'd be willing to spend more money on ISRU that fuel would cost, or maybe even another launch for the mass savings). It should also not be anything like 100% efficient in turning "ore" into the products. "Holding tanks" should just be there because drilling can outpace refining, and filling a large fuel tank should tank a LONG time.

It is not an exploit. If someone works all the way down the tree to ISRU, and is willing to make the capital investment in a local refinery, and then source local ore in order to either (a) fund their space program, ( roleplay where they have to harvest their own fuel, or © reduce launch costs, that's a totally legitimate and valid gameplay choice.

Filling in the VAB is there by design. Drilling on Kerbin is also there by design. Ore being less valuable than LiquidFuel is there by design. Changing any of those levers invalidates other gameplay choices. If someone wishes to build giant refineries (for any of the reasons mentioned above, or others) then they are free to do so.

[Jason Patterson]

This is a single player game. It's impossible to exploit or cheat. If you find this to be a game breaking way to make money, by simply launching an oil well and letting it run until it makes oil, then don't do it.

That said, it's trivially easy to open your persistence file and change the value of "funds" from whatever you have to whatever you want. It takes all of 20 seconds to find and alter, whereas your "exploit" takes time in terms of designing and launching the rig, operating it, and bothering with the timewarp to get it working, all in exchange for a tiny amount of income.

They don't even attempt to protect that sort of thing, and why would they? As long as it's not something that is forcing you to play the game in a way you dislike, it's not hurting anyone.

[AbacusWizard]

Essentially, once you've science farmed your way to the ISRU converter, you don't need to worry about doing contracts for funds anymore.

Once I've science farmed my way up to the ISRU converter, I have millions of funds already anyway and am pretty much just doing contracts for fun.

[Zild]

It is simultaneously realistic and an exploit. This comes back to the age old argument of "realism vs good gameplay".

Given that in the game you appear to pay Kerbals no wages (neither for Kerbonaughts nor ground crew), it seems perfectly reasonable to suggest you could get a few more slaves to dig up nearby ore for the process! Space centre running costs make be an interesting addition to career mode, though...

But perhaps the most obvious workable solution would be to give ore a cost (and refund value) - this would only marginally impact people testing designs (if they actually choose to run the machinery as part of the process) but if priced correctly should make any exploit unprofitable.

Doesn't sound like an exploit to me... that's just good business!

If you want real exploits just get the 'Aggressive Negotiations' perk, put an expensive rocket on the pad, and recover it without launching. You get more back every time

I have never used this (or any!) perk. It says negative reputation is calculated "per deal" - does this mean for example per launch, or per component? I mean does the reputation damage scale with cost? If so, this probably could be exploited using larger vessels...

[KerikBalm]

Once I've science farmed my way up to the ISRU converter, I have millions of funds already anyway and am pretty much just doing contracts for fun.

Thats not the situation I encounter.... I guess I harvest science faster than funds...

[AbacusWizard]

Generally whenever I'm planning a major project (visiting a moon or planet, sending a bunch of rookies on orbit to get experience, building a space station, etc.) I spend some time browsing through Mission Control to see if there are any available contracts that I could easily do at the same time. Tourists want to orbit Minmus? Sure; I have a couple of spare seats in the crew cabin. Science from surface of Mun? I was going to land there anyway. Space station orbiting Kerbin with a science lab and bunks for five kerbals? Exactly what I wanted to build in the first place. The funds add up.

[Goddess Bhavani]

Nothing exploity here - just disable being allow to fill ore tanks / start mission with filled ore tanks in the assembly facility, or give the ore a cost to purchase, that way manufacturing fuel on the launch pad gives little or no profit.

I for one would welcome the opportunity to manufacture fuel off-world and sell it to other space agencies at a hefty premium. Now how's that for a late game space tanking contract - deliver X units of fuel to an orbiting customer station!

[KerikBalm]

As the guy who wrote this... I don't consider this an exploit. Way I see it, if you want to play 'Kerbal Fuel Refinery Program' instead of 'Kerbal Space Program' that's your call. It's completely legitimate.

If you say so.... but as a refinery operations simulator, its not very in depth....

It is simultaneously realistic and an exploit.

Its realistic that you could make money by investing in manufacturing equipment...

Its not realistic to get >20% returns overnight...

The reason they are fillable is because people need to be able to test designs, including the actual ISRU process. This is why it's specifically allowed.

Fair enough, but I think the cost of Ore could be adjusted, to make the rate of return much lower. Many people already want ore to not convert to fuel at 100% efficiency, which would also help.

Ore is not free, still costs funds. Not a lot, and less that liquid fuel, but if you really want to go full 'exploit' just launch a drill instead and drill to make a few more funds

Cost of LF: 0.8/unit

Cost of Ore: 0.02/unit

1 ore -> 2 LF

LF is 80x more expensive than Ore. Monoprop is 120x more expensive...

The funds cost of ore is so low as to be irrelevant. IMO, it should be increased to the point that one could also turn a profit by just recovering Ore from off world (or from somewhere else on Kerbin)

But perhaps the most obvious workable solution would be to give ore a cost (and refund value) - this would only marginally impact people testing designs (if they actually choose to run the machinery as part of the process) but if priced correctly should make any exploit unprofitable.

Yes, I think the Ore cost should be increased. You could still turn a profit, but 20% returns is a bit much. I can ignore fuel costs by just having one of these run in the background between launches.

[RoverDude]

And if you increase the cost of ore, then your new 'exploit' is to just drill on the pad.

I mean, really.. you're going about it all wrong. Just make a ship with a couple of drills, and lots of ore tanks, and drill on the pad. You'll turn a tidy profit that way too.

And running one of these in the background to generate fuel... even on Kerbin... is a completely valid gameplay choice. As noted, the margin (by the time you are that far down the tree) is ridiculously low. Increase the ore cost, and the scenario above becomes even more profitable.

Edited June 22, 2015 by RoverDude

[Xannari Ferrows]

You technically aren't even getting the money for free. You're still taking an amount of Ore from a finite deposit.

[Sharpy]

Make KSC devoid of ore. Or even all of Kerbin.

I didn't even know you could pre-fill the tanks with ore. It definitely shouldn't be cheap.

(and I believe bringing the ore from space should be quite profitable! I mean, off-world rock samples!)

[Goddess Bhavani]

Make KSC devoid of ore. Or even all of Kerbin.

I didn't even know you could pre-fill the tanks with ore. It definitely shouldn't be cheap.

(and I believe bringing the ore from space should be quite profitable! I mean, off-world rock samples!)

This seems logical. The thought of selling off-world rock samples for profit (via contract?) seems fun too. There must be some way to verify the origin of the ore was from the target body though, as opposed to the quarry next door.

[Sharpy]

Yep, different planets, different prices - would need to attach "planet of origin" tag to the ore.

Another fun thought how to "exploit" the current state for savings: An ISRU truck with the Klaw, deploy your crafts without fuel and refuel them on the launchpad.

[KerikBalm]

And if you increase the cost of ore, then your new 'exploit' is to just drill on the pad.

That certainly won't get you 20% returns overnight...

Good luck filling ~7 orange tanks by drilling on the pad in one night (assuming you do LF+Ox so the tank is actuall full, not just filled with only LF, in which case... 14 tanks)

Its like the science lab thing.... maybe I care about ingame time, and I down want to just sit around at maximum timewarp so that years pass by...

Increase the ore cost, and the scenario above becomes even more profitable.

Not by much, especially relative to running a convertor.

What kind of ore deposit did you find? Or were these orange tanks lifebuoy shaped?

No ore deposit, I filled the Ore tanks in the VAB, the cost is miniscule (1/80th of the value of LF you can produce from the ore, 1/120th if you do monoprop)

[tutike2000]

Personally I think the ore tanks should only be fillable in sandbox for this reason.

Wha? no! just add unit cost to Ore, so this exploit is no longer profitable.

I want to be able to see if I can lift off with full ore tanks !

[RoverDude]

As noted, I do not consider this an exploit, it's a perfectly valid gameplay choice (i.e. if you want to have your space program funded by capital investment in a fuel refinery) for the reasons above. It's perfectly fine if we agree to disagree on this, merely clarifying that it was not an oversight, rather it was a conscious design decision when evaluating the mechanics involved.

That being said, if you feel strongly about this, feel free to log feedback on the public bug tracker.

[goldenpsp]

I'm still trying to figure out why anyone cares, given this is a single player game. If YOU feel this is an exploit don't use it. If others find it a valid gameplay option they can utilize it. Their single player game has ZERO effect on yours.

[percyPrune]

I think RoverDude has unwittingly created 'Kerbal Plant Engineer'

Glad it was intentional, though. This happens all the time IRL, taking somebody's free issue material and getting paid for processing it.

Consider it as just another contract job. You could put several of the things on wheels and roll them out onto the plane around KSC to get on with it while you were launching other things (although you would probably need a few spare engineers to supervise if you wanted a decent rate of output).

Going one step further, it is perfectly possible to build a rig and drill for ore around KSC and process it. See my post #16084 at: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/29533-What-did-you-do-in-KSP-today?p=2006360#post2006360

The rig is half a kilometre from the end of the runway and, with a few storage tanks added, it just grinds away in the background. All I do is spend 10 minutes to visit it between missions and haul away 16,000 funds worth of monoprop.

Not a fantastic profit but a steady income which, at the moment, is covering the cost of a science gathering expedition to the North Pole in career (but not under contract). It has also allowed me to experiment with the ISRU kit in-game without having to send it into space. I have learned an awful lot about what % reserve is viable and the power required to exploit it. By turning some of the drills or fuel cells on and off I can simulate the % fractions I have so far found on Mun/Minmus and look at the effects on output.

Me, nerdy? Never!

[Janos1986]

That isn't an exploit, it is the true unsaid goal for space travel in general, on Kerbal and Earth alike. It's a typical trait of the human nature.

"Get to another planet and MINE IT. MINE UNTIL THERE'S NOTHING LEFT. Then sell the resources for profit and move to the next one."

Edited June 22, 2015 by Janos1986

[Nich]

I have never played with ISRUs yet as I am still in early game however I have to say it feels like it is processing ore way too fast. The MPLs take about what a year to fill up? at 1 science to 103 Kredits that is about 51,500 kredits. Unless you have 100+ ISRUs working out there I think they need to be slowed way down and have a requirement of 1 engineer per ISRU and 1 ISRU per base. At least a year to fill an orange tank so it is on par with an MPL.

Really though at the end of the day 31,000 kredits are a drop in the bucket by the time you have unlocked the ISRU. I am not even close to ISRUs and I can already make 30,000 kredits in 20 minutes rescuing a Kerbal from the orbit of Kerbin. Not to mention science data from space or the moon as I have permanent bases.

Edited June 22, 2015 by Nich

[Sharpy]

ISRU can process ore that fast. The drills are usually the bottleneck, mining not fast enough. The only problem here is that you can fill your ore tanks in VAB.

[tater]

If people want to transfer this fuel to their own craft, that's one thing, but who are they selling it to? How are they selling it at retail with no costs? KSP doesn't model the fixed or labor costs of the KSC at the level of daily revenue from mining, hence I think it is broken. It doesn't really matter, as people could just save the trouble and give themselves whatever funds they want, anyway.

What is more concerning to me is the idea (fed by the terrible ore missions) that moving ore would ever make sense. Really we need some benchmark of what % of the mined material is actually turned into our desired end product (and at what rate). Studies of isru ideas for the moon have shown it would basically offset landing costs in propellant. Landing uses more fuel than ascent, so you can move small amounts of refined propellant to orbit (the tanker-ferry would need to keep enough to land again, after all). There would be enough waste that the dv "economics" would fail for raw materials. It starts looking better for very low gravity bodies (makes more sense to mine Phobos and ship product (propellant, not raw material) to earth soi than from the moon, for example).

The process to extract O2 (and that is pretty much it) from lunar regolith is nontrivial. Huge temps (1000-1500 degrees C), and then getting the spent soils out without gunking everything up. Still, over 40% of the regolith is oxygen. C and H are not really a thing on the moon (hence most moonlike worlds in KSP) in enough quantity to matter. Reduce the USRU areas on the mun to rare, shadowed craters (water), maybe.

On Duna (mars) and other places with more complex chemistry available, then the "drill" would not be a drill, it would use the atmosphere. Hydrogen still hard to come by, but there is loads of carbon (CO2).

Edited June 22, 2015 by tater

[Daid]

ISRU can process ore that fast. The drills are usually the bottleneck, mining not fast enough. The only problem here is that you can fill your ore tanks in VAB.

And that that's free.

But by the time you are that deep in the tech tree, you should have more efficient money makers already, like science contract spam...