The Claw as docking bay clamps?!

[Arugela]

Could you use the claw as passive docking bay clamps for large items for reusable vehicles or would that be to difficult to do. I was thinking of making a mining vessel that lands on eve and flies back up to a mothership. This vehicle would need to dock into a docking port inside the vehicles cargo bay then have clamps to hold it in place after going back into the cargo bay. This would not be doable with struts I assume. But could you do this with well placed Claws. Would they all latch on potentially from multiple sides after docking inside a cargo bay?

The eve lander would be based on finding minimal delta V and using mining to refill as needed and move to desired locations fore gather science etc. If it can mine it can get to a high peak and refuel potentially even if it initially lands in a lower area. Or so I'm assuming. But I need a way to hold it in the bay. And the larger vehicle being a mining vessel can refuel and take fuel from this vehicle to minimize weight and maximize deltaV.

I'm still trying to figure out the minimal Delta V needed. I know I can get to approx 3.5-4.5k Delta V. With the correct setup I can potentially explore eve endlessly.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Arugela

[Alshain]

Yes, I've done it before. It requires some skill in docking, but it isn't overly difficult. However, I don't reccomend using the claw to dock and a docking port to dock. The claw is a finicky thing. It could work... it could also destroy the universe.

[Arugela]

Ah, lol! I was thinking using the docking port to empty fuel then open up the claw on it's outsides and see if it would grasp it. Does it require movement to do this or can it catch a stationary vehicle. Or would I need to wiggle the craft with RCS to catch the claw?

Any idea how little Delta V could get you off of Eve in 1.0.4? I've seen info but wasn't sure how much was up to date. One thing gave info on per altitude and was as low as 4500m/s. Or do I have to use the tallest peak like mt. Arrarat?

[The_Rocketeer]

I was thinking of making a mining vessel that lands on eve and flies back up to a mothership.

Bwahahahahahahahaaaa! Good luck with this undertaking.

[Arugela]

It seems like the easier path to take. You can always fly and refuel until you get to a peak to ascend.

[Alshain]

It seems like the easier path to take. You can always fly and refuel until you get to a peak to ascend.

I think what The_Rocketeer may have been eluding to is that Eve is the hardest planet in the game to ascend from. It's considered a sort of "final boss of Kerbal Space Program" due to it's sheer difficulty. It is not impossible, however. Hauling ore or fuel would just be that much harder. Eve has a high gravity coupled with a very dense atmosphere, not unlike Venus. You are better off swinging on over to Gilly and do your mining there.

As far as exploring Eve, 7 small probes with your standard science gear are your better choice for each biome. It isn't that hard to land.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Alshain

[KerikBalm]

You do realize that SSTOing from Eve is at the extreme limits of what is possible in KSP?

As far as I am aware, there is only a single mountain on all of eve where it can be done.

The only one to do so ussed a mammoth engine, and several kerbodyne fuel tanks equalling ~10 orange tanks... It massed hundreds of tons.

And it got a single mk1 pod to orbit with no dV to spare.

Also, it had no airbrakes, and couldn't actually be de-orbited and landed on eve - its landing gear were far too flimsy for landing that thing when heavily laden with fuel.

Nobody has ever landed on Eve, and gotten back to orbit with a SSTO.

Now you want to SSTO it> and bring up not just a single pod, but 4.3 tons of an ISRU mining rig, at least 0.75 tons for a drill, empty ore tanks, and power generation equipment.

If its not an SSTO, you can't re-use it, and you should just have a dedicated Eve ascent vehicle, and then if you want to explore around eve... an eve exploration vehicle that does ISRU.

-Keeping in mind that if you land in a region with no ore, you'll be stranded very far away from the ascent vehicle.

[Arugela]

I'm not hauling ore. I'm hauling a small amount of mining equipment to refuel on the ground and hop around in the atmosphere to move on the planet. I would minimize weight the whole time. It just gives me more than one tank full. I would, at the end, take it to the highest peak and then go back up to the mothership above. Or from where ever I can get the DeltaV to ascend from. I would not be hauling ore. The mothership would go to gillly to land and refuel itself when needed. it also has fuel to refuel it's smaller vessels as much as it needs. It is a much bigger mining ship. But it can easily land on small gravity bodies.

And the mothership weighs from 3720 tons to 5760 tons and has a cargo capacity of 600tons designated and is a mining vessel with probes. I could make a several hundred ton lander. In fact that is what I want it to be to fill up most of the cargo capacity. I just need to figure out the delta v needed to ascend and return to it's cargo bay or be rescued. And the vehicle can be up to 600 tons empty of fuel. It does not need to be the full weight of the vehicle. I can fully fuel it before descent.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Arugela

[Warzouz]

5700 tons in Eve orbit !!! How many parts does it have ? How did you launched it ?

As for SSTO to eve, I'm more of a rocket SSTO guy, but my heavier SSTO lifter, capable or reaching LKO with 600tons payload, may not even reach Eve space with a single mk1 pod.

Cygnus SSTO launchers

Edited October 16, 2015 by Warzouz

[Arugela]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/136120-StarCitizenReplicas-The-Orion!<- I will likely remove most of the aerobrakes and keep just enough to do do things like aerobreaking and transfer some fuel to electricity for certain maneuvers. The latest save may be full of fuel and ore because of testing. You can dump ore with the abort key. If needed you could try to remove the fuel at the nose of the ship. this saves 66 tons.(5k LF tank, 4x1k MP tanks, 1x 5k LF+Ox tank.)

I don't have the absolute latest version uploaded yet. And I may remove a lot, or all, of the air breaks from it as it really doesn't need them. it's about 1900 to 2600 parts depending on if the boosters are installed. or you just use the base ship. Insanely laggy.

If you fly it. Do no seperate the booster stage unless exactly pointed at prograde. If you don't they will activate explosions and other code that will CTD at that parts count. I'm still testing if it can even do it at all without CTDing since I increased the parts count. Although I think I may have done it already.

How much does it reduce DeltaV requirements taking off from the highest peak and not needing to circularize orbit? I plan on flying straight up to the mothership. Which may or may not be in geostationary orbit around Eve. Either way I can fly to it as a target.

And it is a hopper. You take it to the lowest gravity body in reach and land to refuel then takeoff to go to your final destination. Just don't get stranded at the destination with no way back! 8)

Edited October 16, 2015 by Arugela

[Mastikator]

The escape velocity for Kerbin is 3431m/s, you generally need 3500m/s to get in LKO, but 3431m/s is enough if you're doing it really well.

Eve on the other hand has 4832m/s escape velocity, and since the atmosphere is much much thicker (even at the highest peak) the drag is also higher. So you're looking at 5000m/s delta-v just to get into orbit, that is with a thruster firing at thicker than sea level atmosphere and needing 22m/s^2 acceleration just to get a 1.4 TWR

The claw can be used as a docking port, but you can't set up your space ship to be pre-clawed.

4.5km/s delta-v is not enough, the minimum you should aim for is 5.5km/s IMO

Edit- honestly you're better off with a cluster of rovers landing on different parts of the planet.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Mastikator

[cantab]

When it comes to the original question, I don't recommend doing it with the claw. You can dock multiple docking ports at once for extra strength, though it's more challenging than a single one. For example you could have one port at the stern of the cargo bay and two ports on the bottom, and dock a ship to all three of those at once.

[Stoney3K]

Also, if the issue is keeping your vessel in place in the cargo bay, try pulling it in with a pair of KAS winches before you dock it.

[Warzouz]

The escape velocity for Kerbin is 3431m/s, you generally need 3500m/s to get in LKO, but 3431m/s is enough if you're doing it really well.

Well, my usual recoverable SSTO launch stages are 3400m/s, but they i get into LKO with 150m/s left. A streamlined payload will only need 3200m/s (VAC) to go to 75km. I even did it with 3150 once.

3400m/s is a very comfortable LKO launch. 3300 m/s. 3250m/s would be reasonable without recovery. 3500 would only be needed for very non streamlined payload or underpowered launch stage.

For Eve, you won't be able to orbit with only 5500m/s. I did it with 6500m/s one (from 1200m midlands) but after sizing down the vehicle, I failed to orbit with 7000m/s. The dedicated forum thread recommends 8000m/s (which I think is overfueled). 7500m/s is reasonable.

[KerikBalm]

I would, at the end, take it to the highest peak and then go back up to the mothership above. Or from where ever I can get the DeltaV to ascend from. I would not be hauling ore.

...

I just need to figure out the delta v needed to ascend and return to it's cargo bay or be rescued.

Just to be clear... you intend this to do a single stage ascent to eve orbit? you intend this to be re-usable? You do not want your craft to shed parts on the way up?

This is the only SSTO I've ever seen from Eve:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/132211-Eve-SSTO-Limbo?p=2176272&viewfull=1#post2176272

6882m is the lowest it has been done.

I think there is only one peak where that altitude can be reached.

If that peak does not have ore on it in your save, then its pretty much impossible.

Note that craft's flimsy landing gear, and gentle placement via hyperedit.

He's never landed it on Eve as far as I know.

As far as I know, nobody has landed on eve and ascended again as a SSTO

And you want to do it carying tons of mining equipment up?

I seem to recall that you were having trouble just keeping your rocket from flipping over in another post...

This is an extremely hard challenge to undertake, keep that in mind.

You'll need ~5,100 m/s dV, and roughly 1.9:1 Eve-relative TWR, which is quite hard to get at those atmospheric pressures.

Edited October 16, 2015 by KerikBalm

[Alshain]

I don't think he said anything about Orbit. I think he's building a biome hopper, and you aren't answering the question. He didn't really ask about Eve getting to orbit of Eve.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Alshain

[The_Rocketeer]

I don't think he said anything about Orbit. I think he's building a biome hopper, and you aren't answering the question. He didn't really ask about Eve getting to orbit of Eve.

Nope:

Could you use the claw as passive docking bay clamps for large items for reusable vehicles or would that be to difficult to do. I was thinking of making a mining vessel that lands on eve and flies back up to a mothership. This vehicle would need to dock into a docking port inside the vehicles cargo bay then have clamps to hold it in place after going back into the cargo bay. This would not be doable with struts I assume. But could you do this with well placed Claws. Would they all latch on potentially from multiple sides after docking inside a cargo bay?

The eve lander would be based on finding minimal delta V and using mining to refill as needed and move to desired locations fore gather science etc. If it can mine it can get to a high peak and refuel potentially even if it initially lands in a lower area. Or so I'm assuming. But I need a way to hold it in the bay. And the larger vehicle being a mining vessel can refuel and take fuel from this vehicle to minimize weight and maximize deltaV.

I'm still trying to figure out the minimal Delta V needed. I know I can get to approx 3.5-4.5k Delta V. With the correct setup I can potentially explore eve endlessly.

Seems to me he's talking about an orbital refinery with a drilling lander. Trying to dock by flying up the side of a landed craft on Eve would be madness!

[Arugela]

No, I have a giant flying mining spacecraft that is the mother ship for this lander. This lander will be in the docking bay for dropping a few crew and mining equipment to hop around Eve(Or almost anywhere else in the solar system.). Then it is to get back up to the ship to redock. I'm hoping to go straight at the ship to avoid the deltav of getting a full orbit. Hooking up and save a little bit of the process if it's possible. If not I could go unmanned and just do a pure one way hopper that could permenantly explore Eve. Although I've wondered if I could do a low flyby with the mothership to catch the lander part way up. But I would need to prepare specifically for that and prepare the mothership with the exact fuel or whatever is needed I'm guessing.

The Mothership is a miner and a spacestation/explorer. It would land on Gilly fill up with ore and then go around Eve. It would fill it's explorer vehicles with stuff refined from the ore. The Lander has mining solely to fill up to move around Eve's surface and then hopefully get back up to the Mothership and dock in it's cargo bay. It does not refuel the Mothership. The mothership is to minimize the Launchers DeltaV if possible.

Here is the mothership:

This is how it will land on low gravity bodies:

With Boosters:

These simply get off kerbin to refuel on minimus or the mun for further travel.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Arugela

[The_Rocketeer]

I'm hoping to go straight at the ship to avoid the deltav of getting a full orbit

This doesn't make sense to me. If you want to get to space, you're going to have to expend the dV to do that.

I'm struggling to understand what you're suggesting. It sounds like you're saying the mothership will descend into the atmosphere and you'll make an atmospheric rendezvous and docking with the lander/ascender, then use the mothership to boost back up to orbit. Is that right?

If so, this would be an epic stunt, but speaking practically I think there's no chance at all of you pulling it off. Docking or even colliding two smallish aircraft is hard enough without the sheer mass of your Eve ascender, and if you stuff up the docking and get the ascent stage clamped off line, your CoM/CoT alignment will be horribly skewed.

Please by all means try, but I wouldn't want you to waste your time if you haven't understood the extreme difficulty of the task you're setting yourself. Have you even visited other atmospheric bodies like Duna or Laythe yet?

It seems you may have much to learn, young padawan...

Edit:

But could you do this with well placed Claws. Would they all latch on potentially from multiple sides after docking inside a cargo bay?

I haven't seen anyone try this in 1.0.4 but I have seen the result of multiple klaw grabs in the past, and the outcome was kraken.

Re-edit:

Of course it just occurred to me you needn't make the rendezvous inside the atmo if your ascent stage is in a ballistic trajectory.... but timing would be horribly tight. I wouldn't like it.

Edited October 16, 2015 by The_Rocketeer

[magnemoe]

I don't think he said anything about Orbit. I think he's building a biome hopper, and you aren't answering the question. He didn't really ask about Eve getting to orbit of Eve.

That was my take too, note that it would be posible to use an Eve rocket SSTO for suborbital jumps however I don't think you will get an impressive range as you burn fuel fast in the start but its still a way to go.

One issue might be aerodynamic, you have to be stable during accent and decent without dropping parts. My only Eve rocket needed to drop some top mounted fins to keep stable during decent, yes I could use airbrakes but needed them for trajectory adjustment, one option might be two set of airbrakes, say 2-4 for stability and the rest for control.

- - - Updated - - -

This doesn't make sense to me. If you want to get to space, you're going to have to expend the dV to do that.

I'm struggling to understand what you're suggesting. It sounds like you're saying the mothership will descend into the atmosphere and you'll make an atmospheric rendezvous and docking with the lander/ascender, then use the mothership to boost back up to orbit. Is that right?

If so, this would be an epic stunt, but speaking practically I think there's no chance at all of you pulling it off. Docking or even colliding two smallish aircraft is hard enough without the sheer mass of your Eve ascender, and if you stuff up the docking and get the ascent stage clamped off line, your CoM/CoT alignment will be horribly skewed.

Please by all means try, but I wouldn't want you to waste your time if you haven't understood the extreme difficulty of the task you're setting yourself. Have you even visited other atmospheric bodies like Duna or Laythe yet?

It seems you may have much to learn, young padawan...

Edit:

I haven't seen anyone try this in 1.0.4 but I have seen the result of multiple klaw grabs in the past, and the outcome was kraken.

Yes, you are not able to intercept an object going strait up with something in orbit. Yes its theoretically possible, keyword is theoretical.

To give you an perspective, too his something going multiple kilometer seconds is ABM (anti ballistic missile) after spending lots of billions this work however its less than 5 systems in operation US has two, Russia and Israel probably have one, catch this is an upper stage of an missile and its not slowing down.

Yes try it, makes EVE SSTO simple.

[KerikBalm]

*sigh* why can't he answer a yes or no question... people still aren't even sure what he is trying to do...

I will repeat (slightly modified) my questions to him:

1) you intend this to get this back to the orbiting mothership from Eve?

Yes or No?

2) you intend this to be re-usable?

Yes or No?

3) You do not want your craft to shed parts on the way up?

Yes or No

4) You want the mining equipment to be brought back to the mothership?

Yes or No

If the answer to (1) and (2) or (3) is yes, you should probably give up.

You could make an Eve biome hopper... but don't expect it to leave Eve.

As to those who think he was talking about simply a biome hopper:

"Then it is to get back up to the ship to redock." - This could be done if it sheds parts on the way up... like some landers for Jool 5 missions, or that sort of thing... the lander has stages to deal with Tylo and/or laythe( Though laythe often gets its own lander, you could take a tylo lander, add some airbreathers and chutes on it, and discard the airbreathers and chutes, refuel it, then go to tylo), then the "core" functions as a SSTO lander (or maybe not even SSTO... maybe it stages at val and after transfers from Moons) for the remaining moons.

"I'm hoping to go straight at the ship to avoid the deltav of getting a full orbit"

Have you ever done orbital rendevous before? it doesn't work like this... you don't just point at your target ant thrust, except when you are very very close.

The mothership is orbiting at ~3km/sec.

If you try to just go straight up to intercept the mothership, and actually manage to make contact...your lander will impact the mothership at 3,000 m/s relative velocity... there will be much destruction.

If you match heading and velocity with something in orbit, as you intercept that thing in orbit... you are also in orbit.

Your only alternative is to de-orbit the mothership and perform an extremely difficult suborbital rendevous, and then once docked boost back up to orbit...

LV-Ns have a poor TWR, and I doubt your mothership is suited for that... maybe if it had some mammoths or KR-2Ls for when high thrust is needed... but again... suborbital rendevous are incredibly difficult... and even more difficult the further underground the perapsis is. In order to have a chance of pulling this off with a LV-N pwered mothership, you'd need to get within a couple hundred m/s of orbit.

Based on what you've posted so far, I doubt you could pull it off, it is extremey difficult... you are setting yourself up for frustration and failure.

"If not I could go unmanned and just do a pure one way hopper that could permenantly explore Eve"

This is much more reasonable... but you could do a manned mission, but the ascent vehicle is simply single use.

Your Kerbal(s) get one trip up from the surface of Eve... no more unless you bring additional landers.

"If it can mine it can get to a high peak and refuel potentially even if it initially lands in a lower area."

#1) not every spot has Ore. The high peaks may not have ore (this part is random for each game, you may get lucky and find ore at the highest point on eve)

#2) The highest part on Eve is not at the equator... this means your mothership will need to be in a highl inclined orbit, and if you can't wait several orbits (such as if your ascent vehicle only manages to get close to orbit, but is still suborbital), you will need very precise timing of your launch and ascent.

[Arugela]

I may have the thrust to do an intercept. I have 40k worth or rhinos, 40k worth or mammoths, 18k in mainsailes to aid one or the other, 5.2k in skippers for forward maneurver/soft low grav landing, and 5k in reverse thrust with poodles. I might be able to attempt a lower altitude recovery.

But yes I'm trying to get a single stage return ship. Mostly because the mothership is a long term interplanetary explorer and taking it back to kerbin for a single vehicle would be a slight pain. Although, the lag could counter that argument naturally. I could stick the mothership in orbit at eve and simply use it for a fueler and take off from kerbin with the lander and use the motherhip to store it after eve or something and then use the launcher as a normal reusable on other planets. I was hoping to eke out a quick drop ship for eve though if possible. Even if it's by the hair of it's teeth. And yes I realize Eve is the end game.

1) yes

2) yes

3) Preferably yes. But I could work with no. See above statement about special mission for eve. I could launch from kerbin and simply retrieve after and use as a normal reusable vehicle in it's final stage for other planets. But I want to see first if I can make a fully reusable version that is Eve capable. Though Ironically If not for parts count lag I might almost be able to get the mothership off eve in the same manner using the boosters and extra mining equipment for a one shot eve trip. And that would require a nother ship to come refuel it to get it to gilly more than likely to be on it's way afterwords.

4)yes

I could leave it as a hopper though. I would just need to send one back to the mothership afterwords as a possible replacement or use a second vehicle for the rest of the Solar system(Or make a separate ship to haul with me.). The mothership is a one shot deal to do almost everything in the game.

And I answered the questions previously. You also never asked a yes or no question...

And I guess before there is any other confusion. This vehicle is not refuelling the motherhip. it's only refueling itself to get around and back to the mothership if possible. Or I wouldn't be refueling from Eve... It's a lander/explorer vehicle that goes with the mothership. It's purpose is to extend the range of the mothership via being a vehicle I can take in it's cargo and going to places too annoying to get the mothership.

Here is a link to the ships share page: (I thought I added this with the photos. Guess not.)

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/136120-StarCitizenReplicas-The-Orion! And, FYI, I did Kerbalize it a little bit. If you are curious it is designed to be 1:2.5 scale. The engine pods are but the rest may not. I haven't back over and fixed it yet. I think this is close to the presumed scale difference of a kerbal to human height.

Edit: On a seperate note. I had a weird idea. Can you get enough maxed out engineers to get enough of a bonus to get small amount of minerals even from locations without supposed minerals? I assume it's a multiplier, but if it's not actually a value of zero but a very small decimal maybe it's possible.

Accompanying joke: How many kerbals does it take to take off from eve... 1576!

Accompanying question: How do they all get their little hands on the controls at the same time to make a difference?

Accompanying thought: Dear god! Don't tell me they are all using hand held devices... And if so where are the batteries being recharged from?! Must be some kerbal touch regenerating feature. Or maybe some advanced kerbal solar panel...

Edited October 17, 2015 by Arugela

[KerikBalm]

I may have the thrust to do an intercept. I have 40k worth or rhinos, 40k worth or mammoths, 18k in mainsailes to aid one or the other, 5.2k in skippers for forward maneurver/soft low grav landing, and 5k in reverse thrust with poodles. I might be able to attempt a lower altitude recovery.

You might be able to stick your mothership on a suborbital trajectory (I confused your ship with a LV-N carrier I saw recently in another thread), but I wouldn't try anything in even the upper atmosphere. Suborbital docking is still a very bad idea.

Particularly given the ridiculous part count you've got (your computer must be a whole lot more powerful than mine)

But yes I'm trying to get a single stage return ship.

This is not going to end well

Mostly because the mothership is a long term interplanetary explorer and taking it back to kerbin for a single vehicle would be a slight pain.

Don't send it back, send the Eve ascent vehicle to eve under its own power, but without staging, just have it refuel once it reaches the Eve system (from Gilly), then drop it down to Eve. Your mothership would just be there to refuel the ascent vehicles as they arrive, and collect the kerbals from the pods that reach orbit

I was hoping to eke out a quick drop ship for eve though if possible. Even if it's by the hair of it's teeth.

No one if the game has ever done this without mods or physics glitches.

1 persion recently made a SSTO ascent craft, others are trying to do likewise and coming up just short (like 58 m/s)...

But these designs are hyper edited there, and can't deorbit and land. The added stuff they'd need to make a soft landing on Eve would make them unable to reach orbit.

You're not going to knock-out a quick SSTO dropship for eve.

But I want to see first if I can make a fully reusable version that is Eve capable.

Has never been done. You're very very ambitious here.

I might almost be able to get the mothership off eve in the same manner using the boosters and extra mining equipment for a one shot eve trip

Given the stats you've supplied, your mothership could not reach orbit from Eve... not even close.. those boosters would need to be very powerful.

Poodles, Rhinos, Skippers - all do very very very poorly on Eve. You're going to lose at least half their thrust (all the thrust on the poodle, for practical purposes)

Mammoths only get 280 Isp at the highest places on Eve, only about 75% of their vacuum thrust.

Cumulative... about 60,000 kN I'm guessing.

3720 tons with no ore, no cargo.

Eves gravity is 16.7 m/s

60,000/3720/16.7 = 0.96... not even a 1:1 TWR ... it won't lift off at all.

Assuming 340 Isp, you're about 2000 m/s short of the bare minimum needed to ascend from eve.

Your ship is not streamlined enough to make orbit with 5,100 m/s (which would be about the bare minimum) anyway.

Even with the boosters which you say add ~3k dV...

Your claims for the boosters:

Total Thrust for stage: 272,000 -> reduced to 75% because of the atmo pressure: 204,000

BaseTakeoffweight: 15,800.8 -> 204000/15800= 12.9 m/s/s

Eve's gravity is 16.7 m/s/s... Even with the boosters, it won't get off the ground

See, what you thought would come close (just not feasible due to lag) in a disposable system... is actually not even close to getting off the ground, let alone reaching orbit.

Eve is HARD!

I could leave it as a hopper though. I would just need to send one back to the mothership afterwords as a possible replacement or use a second vehicle for the rest of the Solar system(Or make a separate ship to haul with me.). The mothership is a one shot deal to do almost everything in the game.

Yea... ISRU made this too easy...

Something like this can go everywhere except Tylo, Eve... and maybe Laythe:

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

Its only 300 tons full though.

I mostly focus on making SSTO launchers, and try to design my space payloads to be purpose built, minimal, and reusable (I'm not sure I'll even bother with a re-usable Tylo lander)

Edit: On a seperate note. I had a weird idea. Can you get enough maxed out engineers to get enough of a bonus to get small amount of minerals even from locations without supposed minerals? I assume it's a multiplier, but if it's not actually a value of zero but a very small decimal maybe it's possible.

I'm not sure multiple engineers helps. A maxed out engineer extracts ore 25x faster. It is a multiplier, and many places have exactly 0 ore, not 0.000001.

In my save, the Duna lowlands have ZERO ore.

I wanted my base in the lowlands, so that a low pressure hab (nearly pure oxygen, 20% of normal pressure = normal partial pressure of oxygen) would be of nearly equal pressure to outside (so a hull breach has more time to be repaired), temperature would be better, radiation shielding higher.. ie RP reasons...

There was no ore, so I had to leave my ISRU tanker with enough dV to make suborbital hops to the highlands which do have ore, and then return to the base with nearly full tanks.

http://i.imgur.com/NarYTg2.png

http://i.imgur.com/nhOyk51.png

No amount of engineer skill can make that site produce Ore.

I couldn't find a single place on duna with atmospheric pressure >.15 that had any ore at all.

[Arugela]

Those engines I listed are the main engines. The boosters equal 288,000 thrust. And I think would be like 1.17 TWR on launch from eve if I used them. But I can't get the extra parts on the boosters to mine without the computer CTDing to test it out. Let alone get it to eve quickly. I also, sadly, reintroduced a problem with the booster seperation stage Ctding the game. It's either a parts explosion or I went to high on the parts count or some other random thing overloading the game unfortunately.

Edit: I had a cool idea. Was having difficulty with minmus because of too many landing gear. If you had a different ammount for landing and another for takeoff via shortcuts. Could you get enough landing gear to bounce any ammount in eves atmosphere and help get off the planet. Call it the Landing ship with 1,000 legs! (Like the greek myth of the 1,000 armed monsters.) hell could you make something so bouncy you could bounce from the moon to minmus or vice versa!? Or eve. Maybe a bouncing return vehicle would be possible... or help reduce Delta V a little more. It could also be called the tiger... From whini the poo not the animal.

So far I have a rudimentary lander I will test on eve later that has 5 twin boar engines and 8 Orange tanks with around 100t empty weight. I'm sure it's not enough but it's my testing bed to start making one. Have yet to take it to Eve.

Edited October 17, 2015 by Arugela

[Arugela]

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/6881867520/h46340EE3/~

Nobody has tried getting a bounce to leave orbit? I bet it's possible on Minmus at least. That could vary well be an exploitable part of the game! 8) And I bet you could try that in real life if you really wanted to. Or if it was worth it over fuel costs. Maybe you could make something bouncy enough to bounce off the real moon and head to mars. Just need to make corrections afterwords!! >< Maybe unmanned packages! Kind of like the bouncy mars lander system but used to get to the planet. maybe a guided bounce to keep it on target! Keep some thrusters just before and after or maybe even during the bounce to control the direction and head out a bit. You never know!! maybe a giant balloon filled with helium and lighter than air gases for delivery and use in orbit or above. You could launch and bounce it all the way to the moon or further!! 8D How weak a set of thrusters could you use to send a giant gas bag into space! >< Maybe even using the gas as the fuel. But leaving enough left over to bounce and land or whatever.

Could you put up a giant wall in space and angle it to make the balloon hit another wall in orbit around the moon to make it bounce towards the moons surface for landing. Take into account anything to slow it down and maybe you have a workable simple bouncing system. Just need to know where it will be and how hard it will hit. Then maybe another set to bounce to mars off the moon....! I say it can be done!!

Then if you can afford to or have to use large amounts of light gasses you could send packages it can carry with it to the location or along the way. Maybe drop stuff to a moon base on the way to mars etc. It could even act like a satelite taking pics before landing on a planet or moon or diving into an atmosphere of some kind. maybe float on the winds of saturn and take readings...

You mock me, but I bet one day someone will make it!! 8d Where are the NASA guys in the forums. Lets see what one of them has to say!

Lets see, they bounce around the moon for a path to mars. they have extra pads or bounce a few extra times to angle it and fix any errors in the trajectory and bounce to the correct position using basic geometry and fix with changing where it bounces. Hopefully a cheap set of large satellites. They get it up to speed then hit boosters to speed it along if needed. Gas bags to mars. The predecessor to the manned missions to mars! >< Or the predecessor to the pre manned missions to mars even. They could do floating readings around the atmosphere and watch the weather more carefully and land and be resources for any people or machines. And have beacons etc to help machines find and make fuel, water, air, etc. maybe try to make floating water collectors and use some amount of internal pop can affect and a greenhouse affect to create warmth and float above and use a basic pressure system to get the warm air down or maybe some trick with the water drip to create a small amount of heat transfer and maybe chill factor at night that goes and it stored for the day in fridges or like devices. Just need materials to hold the cold or warmth during a part of a day..

if it's part of a heating system in some small way it may need to take tempuratures and whatnot for the sake of any equipment or people using it. So they could send those readings back and test how much water heat fuel they could get from them over time if it's cheap to send. Could be a cool preset up for a mars colony. How many processes could you do via floating cold/hot gas bags. I would bet you could produce various things as the temperature changes.

Edited October 17, 2015 by Arugela