Kerbfleet: A Jool Odyssey-END OF CHAPTER 21! (and hopefully not so many talking heads in 22!)

[Mister Dilsby]

So yeah, this will be something of an expensive test  Sorry but you'll have to wait until later to see what's in the 'package' -- hey, if the next page comes in time for your local sundown, you can consider it a Hanukkah present!

Edited December 6, 2015 by Kuzzter

[Starwhip]

Ah, the good ol' smack-the-nosecones-together trick! Never fails to make somebody scream.

4 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

hey, if the next page comes in time for your local sundown, you can consider it a Hanukkah present!

I have approximately eight hours to go. But sundown's early here. P:

[CAKE99]

8 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

hey, if the next page comes in time for your local sundown, you can consider it a Hanukkah present!

I think that has already started for me.

It's 2:40 AM on the 7th of December for me.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

The "Longsword"? Wha-

[DMSP]

I wonder how nice the rover will look!

What Moon are you using it on?

I also have a few landing sites you may want to land on/in. They have a large amount of Biomes close by.

 

I'll post them when I get the list.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Can I film Mort's reaction to the price tag and and put it on FaceKerb?

[Chemp]

500k for a test?!? Mort isn't in the comic because he's probably being rushed to the hospital right now .

Love the green uniform btw. What's the insignia?

[Mister Dilsby]

1 hour ago, CAKE99 said:

I think that has already started for me.

It's 2:40 AM on the 7th of December for me.

Well that's the nice thing about Hanukkah, if I miss you the first time I get seven more tries  Wonder if I should tell a story about them only having enough charge in the batteries to run the drills for one sol, but when they time warped to 1000x they were able to keep them going for eight?

36 minutes ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

The "Longsword"? Wha-

Whoops, I don't think I called it that. It might look like a sword, but if you gave such an implement to a Kerbfleet kerb he'd wonder "why would anyone make a cake knife this long?"

25 minutes ago, DMSP said:

What Moon are you using it on?

"Nice" might not be the operative word here  It's intended for Vall, but I may end up using it in other places as well depending on how things go.

10 minutes ago, Chemp said:

500k for a test?!? Mort isn't in the comic because he's probably being rushed to the hospital right now .

Love the green uniform btw. What's the insignia?

Yeah, we'll get Mort's reaction before too long  You can get a better look at Sarge's insignia in Chapter 9 of Eve: Order Zero where he served as bailiff in the trial scenes. It's meant to be sergeant sarjint stripes, of course, but they didn't come out straight when I pasted the image onto the IVA suit texture file. Sleeves are strange. Sarge has the distinction of being the only non-commissioned officer in the comic, so he's going to be saying 'sir' and 'ma'am' a lot.

[SpaceplaneAddict]

Anyway, I am here to ask for rights to film Mort's reaction and put it on FaceKerb. Pretty Please?

[Mister Dilsby]

5 minutes ago, SpaceplaneAddict said:

Anyway, I am here to ask for rights to film Mort's reaction and put it on FaceKerb. Pretty Please?

Oh, right, I forgot you could do that for reals! OK, go for it

[Starhawk]

Very nice first look at the longboat and Sarge in action.  Can't wait to see the contents of that cargo bay.

I must be getting senile.  I don't actually remember posting a complaint about a stupid quote box.

Thanks @Kuzzter

Happy Concerned landings!

[Mister Dilsby]

48 minutes ago, Starhawk said:

Very nice first look at the longboat and Sarge in action.  Can't wait to see the contents of that cargo bay.

Here you go then, I had a little more time today than I thought:

Yup, there it is. Those two aerospikes are the only engines. If Sarge is going to drive it on the surface, he'll have to use RCS motors. Four drills and six large fuel cells, 30 tons ore capacity and should be able to lift all of it back to orbit. That shielded docking port on top is mostly to give a "Control From Here" point. Should be a fun descent, especially since Sarge doesn't know how to do a retrograde hold yet. Fortunately he's got the best engineer in the Fleet aboard to balance fuel tanks on the fly. Ooh-rah!

Edited December 6, 2015 by Kuzzter

[Starhawk]

Now that's beautiful! (See?  It really is in the eye of the beholder.)

Excellent craft.  I had wondered about how the STOL/VTOL capability would work.

I very much like the way you did it.  Aren't those aerospikes nice?

Thanks very much for the great gift!

Happy Concerned landings!

Edited December 6, 2015 by Starhawk

[Angelo Kerman]

Wow, looks like fun! Interesting to see that KSCM rover drivers (a.k.a. hotrods? Kind of like jarheads are Marines) are pilots as well.

[Mister Dilsby]

39 minutes ago, Angel-125 said:

Wow, looks like fun! Interesting to see that KSCM rover drivers (a.k.a. hotrods? Kind of like jarheads are Marines) are pilots as well.

I thought of using 'marines' in Kerbfleet some time ago and am finally getting around to it--there's a reference buried way back in the EO0 thread I think. I always intended them to be rover drivers, which I suppose could include Engineers as well as pilots, since you really don't need SAS on the surface but you do often need wheel repair! 

Kerbal occupation actually gets assigned based on name. (Would be interesting if someone could determine the formula used) So when I edited the .sfs file to create Sarge Kerman for the courtroom scene, that name just happened to make him a Pilot. Glad it worked out that way--makes sense for him to be able to drive his rover from the ship to the 'beach' as it were.

[Alchemist]

39 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Kerbal occupation actually gets assigned based on name. (Would be interesting if someone could determine the formula used) So when I edited the .sfs file to create Sarge Kerman for the courtroom scene, that name just happened to make him a Pilot.

It seems to have changed in 1.0.5 - now there's such a line in the save file:

trait = Pilot

[Windspren]

45 minutes ago, Alchemist said:

It seems to have changed in 1.0.5 - now there's such a line in the save file:

trait = Pilot

That's cool, I always thought they should use that system instead of the weird name/profession formula. Now all we need is multiple professions!

[fourfa]

On 12/4/2015, 6:38:07, Kuzzter said:

Big drill: needs 15 e/s and produces up to 1.0 ore/s

Small ISRU: needs 30 e/s and produces .50 total LFO/s when supplied 2.5 ore/s... so if it gets 1 ore/s it should operate at 40% capacity, using 12 e/s and producing 0.2 LFO/s (yes? I'm not really sure how they work w.r.t. resource consumption when partially supplied with feedstock, and I can't test that right now)  

So, to provide 27 e/s I could:

1. Crowd on lots of sail panels: at 0.85 per Gigantor, I'd need over 30 of them, massing 9 tons and looking really stupid.
2. RTGs: would need 36 of them at .08t each, totaling 2.88t
3. Fuel cell: would need two of the big ones, massing .48t and consuming (at 27e/36e= 75% load) .067LFO/s out of the 0.2 the system should be making.

Here's my read on the situation.  That max output of 1.0 ore/s is with 100% ore deposits.  You can come very close to that on asteroids, but AFAIK on planet surfaces 10-14% is more typical of a rich spot that you can see from a M700 survey.  (Surely you can find higher ones with the narrow-band  scanner, but the interface is fussy and I just haven't found it worth the bother - if your system does not produce on low ore spots, you're bound to get stuck sooner or later.)   So why bother scaling your power system to handle such a rare situation?  If you hit a rich vein and overdraw your power, the drills and ISRU will just throttle down anyway, right?  Just make sure to throw in a RTG or two to reboot the battery if you really get stuck.

EDIT:

This is what's on the kerbal wiki, but who knows how out of date this info is:

"While the drill is active, it extracts ore depending on the ore concentration in the area, and the presence and level of engineer on-board. The ore extraction rate is 0.075·c·m where c is the concentration between 0 and 1 and m is the multiplier supplied by the level of the highest level engineer on-board. These are as follows:

Level	Multiplier
☆☆☆☆☆	5x
★☆☆☆☆	9x
★★☆☆☆	13x
★★★☆☆	17x
★★★★☆	21x
★★★★★	25x

"

So if this is correct, 1 ore/s would be reached on a 53% deposit with a 5-star engineer, 64% with 4-star, 78% with 3-star. 0-2 stars will never reach 1 ore/s even on 100%.  On sparser deposits (like the typical 10%), you're far better off leveling up your engineers to 5 stars than optimizing the power system to the nth degree.

Edited December 7, 2015 by fourfa

[DMSP]

Nice rover, it looks well made!

Be careful at Vall though...

[Mister Dilsby]

7 hours ago, DMSP said:

Nice rover, it looks well made!

Thanks! Let's see how it lands

Am very pleased to say that everything from launch to this point was without a single F5/F9. Isn't it just the greatest feeling to throw an untested concept into a huge rocket, roll it to the pad and stick a Munar landing on the first go? Woo hoo!

Next up you'll see the rest of Kerbfleet's version of the US Marines' Hymn, and an answer to @fourfa's excellent analysis. Spoiler: I have a five-star engineer aboard, and actually I DO want that much power!

Edited December 7, 2015 by Kuzzter

[Starhawk]

1 hour ago, Kuzzter said:

Am very pleased to say that everything from launch to this point was without a single F5/F9. Isn't it just the greatest feeling to throw an untested concept into a huge rocket, roll it to the pad and stick a Munar landing on the first go? Woo hoo!

Next up you'll see the rest of Kerbfleet's version of the US Marines' Hymn, and an answer to @fourfa's excellent analysis. Spoiler: I have a five-star engineer aboard, and actually I DO want that much power!

Yes, it really is a great feeling.  Especially with something as sophisticated as that ship!

Gotta love that mid-flight fuel balancing.

Yay!  Another song.  It appears you use a two-syllable pronunciation of Laythe.  Interesting - I'm a 'lathe' man myself.

Thanks Kuzzter.

Happy Concerned landings!

[Mister Dilsby]

38 minutes ago, Starhawk said:

Yay!  Another song.  It appears you use a two-syllable pronunciation of Laythe.  Interesting - I'm a 'lathe' man myself.

Well, it works out better for that song so I guess I'll have to stick with Lay-thee. (and hope no one here mistakes that for an obscene Shakespearean invitation) 

As to the song, it may not be one that the non-US readers are familiar with, though anyone who bought a Hohner harmonica as a kid may have learned it from the songbook. Maybe next time we'll send up a red-jacketed Preston Kerman of the R.K.M.P. (Rolling Kerbfleet Munar Patrol.)

16 hours ago, fourfa said:

So if this is correct, 1 ore/s would be reached on a 53% deposit with a 5-star engineer, 64% with 4-star, 78% with 3-star. 0-2 stars will never reach 1 ore/s even on 100%.  On sparser deposits (like the typical 10%), you're far better off leveling up your engineers to 5 stars than optimizing the power system to the nth degree.

All looks correct; however the design criteria for me is to come as close to a 100% ISRU reactor load as possible with a net power gain. It actually worked out perfectly well at the second landing site, and here are the numbers:

With Bill's 25x engineer bonus each drill is pulling .136 ore/second. This indicates a surface concentration of about 7.25%, pretty decent for the Mun and probably about what I could expect for a good site in the Jool system. Four drills together gets us .544 ore/s, just over the .500 capacity of the reactor in LFO mode. This means that the equipment is pulling 90 e/s all together (4x15 for drills + 30 for the reactor at 100% load). That's the entire output of five large fuel cells, so I am very glad I brought six.

Total net output of LFO is 0.78, meaning that the fuel cells are drawing .22 LFO/s to run everything. Not a bad ratio at all! The funny thing is that I need less power if Bill steps out of the vehicle, leaving poor Sarge to try and make sense of all that complicated mining gear. Without Bill's knowhow the drills only pull a total of .02176 ore per second, meaning the reactor is only running at about 4%. That makes the total power draw a mere 62 e/s instead of 90, for which I would only need 3 1/2 of the fuel cells. 

So contrary to your analysis, it looks like in practice having a high level engineer aboard actually increases the power need! More importantly, of course, it maximizes the drill output rate, to use a higher percentage of the capability of that very massive and expensive reactor module. If I knew I was going to be in a low ore concentration zone i might add even more drills, and then of course even more fuel cells to run them.

 

 

Edited December 7, 2015 by Kuzzter

[Starhawk]

12 minutes ago, Kuzzter said:

Well, it works out better for that song so I guess I'll have to stick with Lay-thee. (and hope no one here mistakes that for an obscene Shakespearean invitation) 

As to the song, it may not be one that the non-US readers are familiar with, though anyone who bought a Hohner harmonica as a kid may have learned it from the songbook. Maybe next time we'll send up a red-jacketed Preston Kerman of the R.K.M.P. (Rolling Kerbfleet Munar Patrol.)

...

...it looks like in practice having a high level engineer aboard actually increases the power need! More importantly, of course, it maximizes the drill output rate, to use a higher percentage of the capability of that very massive and expensive reactor module. If I knew I was going to be in a low ore concentration zone i might add even more drills, and then of course even more fuel cells to run them.

We're actually saturated enough in U.S. culture here that I know the song.  Probably from watching too much TV.

Hey!  I'd actually be qualified as a remote pilot in the R.K.M.P.
I once drove a remote-controlled rover something like 150 or 200 km up on the edge of the Mun's polar region.  Just to go and get some seismic data.

Very interesting stuff regarding ISRU.  I've been working on a Mk2 spaceplane with ISRU capability.  This data will be very useful despite the different equipment.

Also, LOL'd at the Shakespeare joke.

Happy landings!

[fourfa]

That's interesting, thanks.  For industrial-strength mining, 1 large ISRU, 4 drills, and 6 Fuel Cell Arrays is probably the hot setup.  The FCAs sip fuel so slowly, I find it's not even worth using big solar panels any more (too fragile, variable, and hard to design cleanly for aero and aesthetics), or to even bother ever turning them off. I only wish I had understood this math when I first started sending out mining ships.

Less relevant; I've been concentrating instead at the most minimal-mass setup that can still fill the tanks in acceptable time.  And whether landing on spots with less than 2.5% ore is worthwhile, as the mass and size savings with the mini drills is substantial.  Computing ore production rate, power draw, fuel output rate for all levels of engineers, variable ore concentration, small and large ISRU, small and large drills - turned into a monster spreadsheet.  But now I can say for sure where the fuel profitability threshold is, before finding out the hard way on the backside of Tylo.  Apparently I find that to be an evening well spent.

[Farex]

Sarge Kerman, oorah? Really? Ok then, where are his friends called apone kerman, hicks, hudson, drake and vasquez?

 

And if you go this road, why not build a 'proper' dropship?