Mining Ship Dilemma!!

[eelooORbust]

I have a sort of challenge for all of you spacecraft engineers. I've been trying to solve this problem for almost a month and have had no such luck. I'm trying to make a Karbonite or Kethane mining ship that I can deploy from my mothership in low orbit that can land, mine, and then refuel my ship from just about any body in the system except Eve. I'm looking for a ship that can mine both Karbonite and Kethane that meets the following criteria:

2500-3000 deltaV

brings 7250 Karbonite OR 4000 Kethane to low orbit

Fits inside a MK3 - CRG-100 cargo bay

Carries one kerbal

Can mine both Keth and Karbonite

The only part mods I use are:

Kethane

Karbonite

Infernal Robotics

KAS/KIS

FTT

Any help in creating a ship would be appreciated. most deltaV I've been able to get was 1400 or so. I'm curious to see what others come up with. Have fun building!!

[Streetwind]

I'm willing to bet that this is physically impossible within the constraints of the cargo bay.

The kethane tank has a certain physical size, the karbonite tank has a certain physical size. The refineries and converters have a certain physical size. The Kerbal pod has a certain physical size, as does the engine, which will be a large engine because you need to be able to lift off of Tylo. Even if you mount everything else radially, you end up with a craft of a certain minimum size that you cannot possibly reduce in any way, shape or form. This minimum size will already consume most of the length of your cargo bay.

Then, the fuel tank you need to mount has a certain physical size, which is determined by your ship's total dry mass and your engine Isp. Since you have a heavy mining vessel full of ore and fielding drills, tankage and converters for two different resource mods that needs to lift off of Tylo, by definition that means that your dry mass is high and your Isp is low. This makes the fuel tank physically large. You will simply run out of space in the cargo bay.

To make things work, either sacrifice some of your requirements, or allow a larger cargo bay. Of course, even with a larger cargo bay your vessel will be impractical, because it will be tall and heavy, and therefore likely to tip over unless you find a perfectly flat spot to land on.

Edited November 5, 2015 by Streetwind

[Van Disaster]

If you added procedural parts it'd provide cfgs for ISRU mods, so that would ease some of the tank size issues ( and you could also delete all the tanks from the mods too, if you're worried about memory usage ) - but why are you using Kethane AND Karbonite?

[BoilingOil]

With all that mass put together, that mining ship is going to be a small planet! You have a mothership of such ginormous proportions that it can store a planet in its cargo hold?? Sorry, eelooORbust, I know not much, but even *I* know that all that functionality in a single ship is going to be impossible with your size constraints. If you've been failing at it for a month, what good can anyone else do?

[eelooORbust]

I use them both because I want to refuel sometimes without having to scan a planet first to find the resources. Karbonite is everywhere, but kethane can be harvested quicker