Questions re: Mining, ISRU, and Engineers

[Srpadget]

These have doubtless already been answered in the past, but I have not been able to find them anyplace obvious (then again, search seems to be my Kryptonite; I've searched using terms like the above, and will doubtless 'get schooled' by someone pointing out the 'obvious to anyone except me' related search term that takes me right there).

When first introduced, drills were highly prone to overheating. I gather that's not a problem in their current incarnation, but I'm unclear on the details: do they not produce heat at all any more, or is the change merely that their heat production has been reduced to where overheat/explosion is not an issue, or what? (For my own RP enjoyment, I get annoyed when heating leads to crew compartments substantially hotter than the inside of a pottery furnace. Even if nothing explodes, per se.)

Engineers are useful for mining. I know they speed up drills, with higher-level engineers having a larger effect. Are there any other aspects to that 'increased efficiency' that I should know? Increased/decreased power usage or heating, for instance? And do they have any effect on ISRU converters, or just drills?

This equipment is also notoriously power-hungry. Are the power-consumption figures in the part description accurate? (i.e., can I use the part descriptions to figure out how much solar/battery I need?) If not, what's a decent rule of thumb for power generation (assume Kerbin's distance from the Sun for solar-generation purposes)?

I thank the more-knowledgeable among us for the help. (And my poor kerbals thank you even more, as their chances of survival increase!)

[Alshain]

Well I can't speak to the IRSU parts because I don't use them. However, the part description is not a separate display text, it is directly constructed from the specs of the part dynamically as defined by its config file. In short, it is impossible for it to be inaccurate.

[FyunchClick]

Well, this is what google threw up when entering 'kerbal isru engineer', and this was linked on that page. Apparently the ISRU doesn't benefit from an engineer but the drill sure does. I also saw someone make a breakdown of the minimum engineer level required to make drilling worth while when using fuel cells for power (which is a requirement for some missions now solar panels are useless past Dres), search term 'kerbal minimum ore drill fuel cell' (a stripped down version of what I began searching with as that's what I usually do if the first pass doesn't give me what I was looking for).

[Srpadget]

Well I can't speak to the IRSU parts because I don't use them. However, the part description is not a separate display text, it is directly constructed from the specs of the part dynamically as defined by its config file. In short, it is impossible for it to be inaccurate.

Well, I must concede it is impossible for the numeric values in the part descriptions to be "inaccurate" (literally defined). But the part descriptions can most certainly be sufficiently misleading as to be useless to those who haven't reverse-engineered the source code--and in that sense, though they are accurate they are nonetheless "wrong". Using the drill as an example, the part description notes that it produces ore at a max rate of 1.00 units/sec with a max rate of electric consumption of 15 E/sec. That is, no doubt, "accurate", in the sense that they are values pulled directly from the config file. But by itself it's ... not helpful. Does the electric usage scale with ore production? IS the actual absolute maximum production 1.00 Ore/sec (and thus assuming a Level 5 Engineer, 100% Ore concentration, and all the Electricity the drill can eat)? Or is that an input to a formula which presumes NO Engineer, and an Engineer improves on that--thereby, in fact, allowing theoretical maximum production to be *considerably* higher than that? If the latter, and a high-level Engineer IS present, so the Ore production actually EXCEEDS 1.00/sec, what happens to Electricity usage? Does it go above 15E/sec correspondingly?

Maybe I can take those numbers as gospel. Maybe it turns out that I only need to supply 7 E/sec if the best available site only has ~40% Ore concentration. Maybe I'll find out that a high-level Engineer will allow it to produce Ore WAY faster than that--and suck down Electricity way faster than expected, such that I'd better be prepared to shovel 100 E/sec if I want to take full advantage of that high-level Engineer....

That's the sort of thing I meant by asking if the power-consumption figures were "accurate". Can I use those numbers as a GOOD, USEFUL data point for refinery design/sizing? (Using some other types of data from part descriptons: mass and Isp I can use as gospel. Drag coefficient? That was nigh-unto useless prior to V1.0 due to the wonky drag mechanics...and just as it became a useful/necessary parameter with the 1.0 drag redesign, Squad pulled it OFF the part descriptions. But that's a topic for another time...)

[Alshain]

No. it's absolute. When active it will always consume 15 energy per second regardless of how much ore it is producing. Think of it this way, you are pulling something out of the ground, be it ore, regolith, or bedrock, something is there coming out of the ground and for simplicity they require equal amounts of energy to extract. Regolith and rock is then discarded and you don't really see it. Now, if you turn the drill off it consumes nothing. Only the probe cores will consume all the time, unless I'm forgetting something. The level of engineer only affects the Ore Extraction rate according to the wiki (I don't know what the 'justification' for that is or if there is one, I also can't promise the wiki is correct but it probably is).

Edited October 4, 2015 by Alshain

[Srpadget]

Well, this is what google threw up when entering 'kerbal isru engineer', and this was linked on that page. Apparently the ISRU doesn't benefit from an engineer but the drill sure does. I also saw someone make a breakdown of the minimum engineer level required to make drilling worth while when using fuel cells for power (which is a requirement for some missions now solar panels are useless past Dres), search term 'kerbal minimum ore drill fuel cell' (a stripped down version of what I began searching with as that's what I usually do if the first pass doesn't give me what I was looking for).

Ooh, that last link certainly seems to imply that the drill uses constant 15E/sec power, regardless of how much or how little Ore it's producing. Good to know.

(Though I suppose I COULD actually run my own experiments -- *gasp* -- and find out for myself!)