Pickaxe - Compact Mining Dropship

[Cupcake...]

UPDATES:

14/11/2015 - CRAFT UPDATED TO 1.05

CRAFT FILES:

https://goo.gl/Mtvg0g

CONTROLS:

1 - Toggle Main Engines

3 - Toggle Search Lights

5 - Undock Front/Back/Top Ports

7 - Deploy Drill/Begin Harvesting/Refining (Press Again After Drill Is Deployed)

8 - Retract Drill/Cease Harvesting/Refining

9 - Toggle Ladder

0 - Reduce Reaction Wheel Torque (For Navball Drift)

ABORT - Undock Bottom/Side Ports

NOTES:

When mining use action group (7) to activate the fuel cell, harvester and ISRU. Use timewarp until all tanks are full then use action group (8) to de-activate the same components.

Running the engines and ISRU at the same time is not recommended as the reaction wheel will loose power and the engines can become overloaded.

Ideally Ore should be processed during interplanetary flight.

The craft is designed for continuous deep space use and using it to return to Kebin is not recommended.

Usually when we think of mining rigs what comes to mind are huge behemoths which take the gods very own firecrackers to get into orbit! Fortunately with the Pickaxe all this gear has been squeezed into an extremely compact exoskelliton chasis that is simply a joy to fly.

The craft works seamlessly with the Matador and Scythe landers allowing you to keep the tanks topped up while you explore the surface.

The rig is powered by an on board fuel cell & RTG which can operate regardless of light levels.

The craft has been tested on Duna, Ike, The Mun, Minmus, Moho and Val. In short it'll work just about anywhere.

The vessel comes with it's own LV that'll get the Pickaxe to low Kerbin orbit with a belly full of Ore and add 1500m/s of DV to the base 1800m/s. The grand total is a respectable 3.3k that'll be plenty for a Duna mission. Destinations further afield can be reached by taking advantage of the rich bounty of asteroids, moons and planets that make up the Kerbal system.

Enjoy!

Cupcake...

Edited November 13, 2015 by Cupcake...

[ZodiaK]

Wow! Amazing as always!

[Dafni]

Nice one! Feels like the trio is complete now. Let's hope they last for a while, already dreading the next patch.

Thank you for adding the fuel cells to the action group!

I see you state it's not re-entry friendly, a helpful information to include in the craft description indeed. So I take it your other crafts should be able to survive re-entry? I believe I only did it with the Scythe so far and it worked.

I will re-attempt my first real Duna mission, including the new Cupcake Trio. First attempt was a disaster, but now I installed the alarm clock and feel better prepared.

Thanks again for sharing your awesome crafts!

cheers

-Daf

edit: almost forgot: AWESOME video, man. Very well done!

another thing that catched my attention were the RCS thrusters in the Scythes side-tanks. Another new feature??

Edited October 13, 2015 by Dafni

[AxleMC131]

Been loving your dropship design style for a while now, but this one really takes the biscuit! (Or the cupcake... ) A very cool vessel all around, and an amazing job at getting an ISRU mining & refining ship so compact!

[Cupcake...]

Thanks for the lovely feedback guys, I've gotta hit the hay but I promise I'll reply to your comments tommorow. In the meantime I just wanted to leave you with this:

That's right folks there's a new version of the Puff Puff on the way. While the driving position is a wee bit cosy, ventilation is excellent.

Gullwing doors, that could well be a KSP first!

Coming soon.

Cupcake...

[Dafni]

Holy Kerbol! Now that was unexpected! Can't wait to call all my TuffTuffs back to Kerbin for this upgrade. I have at least 10 of them on Mun and Minmus for base building duties. I am sure the Kerbals will appreciate the gullwing doors.

[Kevin Kyle]

Very nice, havent tried any of your stuff yet but you are getting my attention.

[Cupcake...]

Wow! Amazing as always!

Thanks man!

Been loving your dropship design style for a while now, but this one really takes the biscuit! (Or the cupcake... ) A very cool vessel all around, and an amazing job at getting an ISRU mining & refining ship so compact!

Cheers for that, lovely to see a fellow Kiwi on the forums too.

Nice one! Feels like the trio is complete now. Let's hope they last for a while, already dreading the next patch.

Thank you for adding the fuel cells to the action group!

I see you state it's not re-entry friendly, a helpful information to include in the craft description indeed. So I take it your other crafts should be able to survive re-entry? I believe I only did it with the Scythe so far and it worked.

I will re-attempt my first real Duna mission, including the new Cupcake Trio. First attempt was a disaster, but now I installed the alarm clock and feel better prepared.

Thanks again for sharing your awesome crafts!

cheers

-Daf

edit: almost forgot: AWESOME video, man. Very well done!

another thing that catched my attention were the RCS thrusters in the Scythes side-tanks. Another new feature??

Good luck with the Duna mission, may I recommend the A model Matador? The Scythe and Matador will have no problems with re-entry, the Pickaxe can do it but you'll have to add a liberal dose of parachutes, you're probably better off leaving it on Ike for future missions. The RCS thrusters do look pretty cool right? Unfortunately when I mounted them I made a bit of a rookie mistake in that the forwards/backwards RCS jets were missing so I had to move them back to the center of the outboard tanks otherwise I would have had to mount 6 thruster blocks. Anyway, glad you're fired up about the new Puff Puff, I'll try and get a pre-release version up as soon as I can.

Very nice, havent tried any of your stuff yet but you are getting my attention.

Go on, take the craft a spin you know you want to.

Cupcake...

Edited October 14, 2015 by Cupcake...

[nfpinto]

man, nice work!

you have to teach us how do you fly 2 or 3 ships at the same time like in the video

gratz!

[CrashTestDanny]

Very nice! Quick question - how do you fly multiple ships in unison in your video? is it just a video trick or is that for real?

Danny

[Kevin Kyle]

Ya, hows that done?

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

That's great! Just a tip: I've been testing mining rovers, and two large fuel cells will drive two drills and a ISRU module, plus a bit left over for wheels.

[nfpinto]

hey cupcake, my game dosnt seem to recognize your craft files /:

i already have downloaded a lot of ships so its not a noob (i think) problem. do you have any clues

recently update ksp to 1.0.4 but everything was normal...

downloaded a bunch of ships, but yours the only ones that i cant find while loading from vab and sph

thanks for insight

[Cupcake...]

nfpinto said:

man, nice work!

you have to teach us how do you fly 2 or 3 ships at the same time like in the video

gratz!

CrashTestDanny said:

Very nice! Quick question - how do you fly multiple ships in unison in your video? is it just a video trick or is that for real?

Danny

Kevin Kyle said:

Ya, hows that done?

Here you are folks.

Burn Together!

Mad Rocket Scientist said:

That's great! Just a tip: I've been testing mining rovers, and two large fuel cells will drive two drills and a ISRU module, plus a bit left over for wheels.

With this design I'm trying to keep the weight down to a bare minimum so I can still get decent performance out of the craft, hence the single fuel cell, drill etc...

nfpinto said:

hey cupcake, my game dosnt seem to recognize your craft files /:

i already have downloaded a lot of ships so its not a noob (i think) problem. do you have any clues

recently update ksp to 1.0.4 but everything was normal...

downloaded a bunch of ships, but yours the only ones that i cant find while loading from vab and sph

thanks for insight

That's odd. They won't load at all or they just don't show up? Where are you installing them BTW?

Cupcake...

Edited May 7, 2021 by Snark
Link to defunct website removed by moderator

[nfpinto]

That's odd. They won't load at all or they just don't show up? Where are you installing them BTW?

Cupcake...

installing then as usual

and they dont show up at all with the other ships list

[Cupcake...]

installing then as usual

http://i.imgur.com/NwAzWDX.png

and they dont show up at all with the other ships list

Is it just this design or are my other ones affected too?

Cupcake...

[nfpinto]

before ksp went to 1.0.4, downloaded a lot of your ships and everything was normal

guess only this pickaxe

gonna test the Scythe to see what happens, brb

[Cupcake...]

before ksp went to 1.0.4, downloaded a lot of your ships and everything was normal

guess only this pickaxe

gonna test the Scythe to see what happens, brb

Yeah, let me know. The crafts had quite a few downloads and I havn't heard of anyone having issues so far.

Cupcake...

[nfpinto]

same problem with the Scythe

downloaded 2 ships from kerbalx just to test and i can load both of em

man, thats odd

[Cupcake...]

same problem with the Scythe

downloaded 2 ships from kerbalx just to test and i can load both of em

man, thats odd

Thats is wierd, no error message nothing? Try installing them in KSP/Ships/SPH/.

Cupcake...

[nfpinto]

no errors...

but i realized that it did not loaded other new ships too

i will do a clean install

[Cupcake...]

no errors...

but i realized that it did not loaded other new ships too

i will do a clean install

Ok, let me know how you get on. Good luck!:

Cupcake...

[CrashTestDanny]

Thanks for that burn together mod cupcake - I've been wanting something like that!

[Cupcake...]

Thanks for that burn together mod cupcake - I've been wanting something like that!

No worries.

Cupcake...

[Dafni]

Anyway, glad you're fired up about the new Puff Puff, I'll try and get a pre-release version up as soon as I can.

Cupcake...

Cool. I wonder how much dV you had to sacrifice though. There used to be a monoprop tank were the bay is now, right? But I bet with your clip-magic you made up for that somehow.