Mining Base Purpose

[Floby]

Hey everyone, just curious if it's worth creating a mining base on a planet or moon, and for what purpose? Is the best value to have the ability to refuel away from Kerbin or is there another feature that I am missing?

 

Thanks,

Floby

[bewing]

The best value is probably that if you can refuel in space, then you never need to land at KSC or take off anymore. You just keep reusing the ships that you already have in space. The second best value is that if you can refuel at your destination, then you only need to carry a fraction as much fuel -- because you don't need to haul around enough fuel to get yourself back, too.

[Floby]

Excellent response, thanks bewing.

[Clipperride]

One other advantage to off world mining operations is; they're fun to set up and run! 

[Floby]

Good input. Thank you both!

[WanderingKid]

On a side note, one of the best mining/refueling stations I've built so far wasn't a Minmus/Mun operation, but drilling the devil out of Class E asteroids in LKO so I could get empty tank deep space vessels to orbit on a budget.  One of these days I'll actually MAKE that video... XD

Edited October 26, 2016 by WanderingKid

[psychogre]

My mining base on Minmus simply started out for fulfilling a contract.  Learned a lot from it: got lots of practice for targeted landings, and launch/rendezvous operations with the orbiting ship.

Then I got offered contracts to rescue stranded Kerbals (and their capsules) in orbit of Minmus.  Heck, I'm already there, so I collected them.  I found I had several spent rocket stages (from early flights) around Minmus.  Using the KAS/KIS mod, I was able to go collect them, refuel them, then stick the rescued Kerbals and their craft to the front, and sent them back home.

[Clipperride]

One thing that helped me with a previous mining base on Minmus, if you plan to put wheels on your mining vessel, add a few Vernier RCS thrusters (or similar) to the upper side.  Being able to force the craft back down makes driving on Minmus a little less hairy!

[SpeedDaemon]

The big reason: If you have limited funds, getting fuel to LKO from Minmus is cheaper than from the surface of Kerbin. Everything involved is reusable, and the fuel is free!

Having a lot of cheap fuel in LKO means you can either launch larger craft empty, or use their fuel for ascent, which drastically reduces the size/cost of your launches.

I also like to have a few high-TWR reusable stages at the station that can be docked to inter-planetary craft to kick them out of Kerbin SOI, then return to refuel.

[Floby]

Great answers guys. Thank you so much!

[crackerbal]

21 hours ago, SpeedDaemon said:

 

I also like to have a few high-TWR reusable stages at the station that can be docked to inter-planetary craft to kick them out of Kerbin SOI, then return to refuel.

the first part of  my first "kerbin space station" was exacly this : an almost empty stage i spend on fly to duna/orbit ( undock the lander / land / back to the stage) and back to kerbin/orbit

i simply added an isru and some ore tanks on this, and since then i'm only using this first interplanery drone to put my lander(s) almost everywhere on the kerbol system, btw the better way to plan all this thing is to have an isru on the moon /planet to transform directly the ore on the fuel kind u need it becomes way more lightweight

 

On 27/10/2016 at 2:16 PM, Clipperride said:

One thing that helped me with a previous mining base on Minmus, if you plan to put wheels on your mining vessel, add a few Vernier RCS thrusters (or similar) to the upper side.  Being able to force the craft back down makes driving on Minmus a little less hairy!

i prefer the "twitch" for moar power !

[Clipperride]

3 hours ago, crackerbal said:

i prefer the "twitch" for moar power !

Good idea - I did end up with quite a lot of vernier's on my Mining "Crawler" (old image of her in the spoiler below.....

Spoiler

Notice the lopsided solar panels, the result of a less than perfect deployment following a vertical landing

[crackerbal]

3 minutes ago, Clipperride said:

Good idea - I did end up with quite a lot of vernier's on my Mining "Crawler" (old image of her in the spoiler below.....

  Hide contents

Notice the lopsided solar panels, the result of a less than perfect deployment following a vertical landing

euhm how do u crossffed fuel from this " ant" ? ( the grabber unit do not crossfeed fuel if my memory is still working well

[Clipperride]

@crackerbal It's an old picture from KSP version 1.0.4. But I'm almost certain the Claw still allows fuel transfer as it forms the front end of my refuelling tug.  I'm 99% sure I've used that method since 1.2 was released.  The mining vechile had aeroplane understand carriage and forward and aft verniers for propulsion.  There was also an additional, large landing gear under the nose making docking with the tank seen in the image easy.   

[crackerbal]

7 hours ago, Clipperride said:

@crackerbal It's an old picture from KSP version 1.0.4. But I'm almost certain the Claw still allows fuel transfer as it forms the front end of my refuelling tug.  I'm 99% sure I've used that method since 1.2 was released.  The mining vechile had aeroplane understand carriage and forward and aft verniers for propulsion.  There was also an additional, large landing gear under the nose making docking with the tank seen in the image easy.   

last i i was playing it was on 1.0.0, and dont remember how was this working but i supose the fuel crossfeed was on, since i play on 1.2 i'm discovering lot of new stuff .... i've just chek Claw in the VAB and yeah the orange message "no fuel crossfeed" is there... dunno what to think about i will test it, but seems legit it allows u to transfer what u want once in space.

[Clipperride]

You're right @crackerbal - like other docking ports, transfer is allowed once the Claw (Advanced Grabbing Unit) has been used to dock with another vechile.  I checked the KSP Wiki and found;

"The AGU is the primary means of capturing and redirecting asteroids. It's also useful for craft-to-craft docking or for exchanging resources with craft or debris without a docking port. As with docking ports, resources (liquid fuel, electricity, etc.) can be exchanged with the target."

[crackerbal]

@clipperide

when i used this for the first and (almost) last time was long time ago on 1.0.0 when i send some turism mission out of kerbin sol, with not enought fuel to come back but just enought to catch the mun encounter. I send a "probed" ship into mun orbit to set up a randez vous with incoming guests crossing this way, I only remember I made them back to kerbin both ships clip each other ... i remind much better all the trubles to set up a right orbit  for a nice encounter with a "fly by" random orbit of the other ship,  pray to have enought time for correct maneuvers to catch this before it will leave the sphère of influence etc.... it was an horrible day in my kerbal life history

btw i'm actually having same kind of frustrations : set up a viable crewed landing mission to eve and back... this will causing me horrible purple nightmares this night

i will probably next time use your concept of grabber into minning rover + landing gear as elevator

i'm usualy working to build my docking connexions at hight of a reckomax/2.5m structure type, revert by 90°, for exemple this small station on duna, everything that's build with the 2,5m pieces will easliy clip on and as i always know the hight, it's then easy to build the next part and set up a good alignment for a docking port on the VAB

here are the shoots first the station then the rover

Spoiler

 

Edited October 29, 2016 by crackerbal

[COL.R.Neville]

dunno how km's worth of flea boosters will autostrut hold?

you do it cuz it there man. 

[Clipperride]

@crackerbal  Nice looking base you have there.  The reason I used a claw on my miner was - I was less organised and I already had some craft with no docking ports for surface refueling.  It was one of those sudden moments when I thought "but the Grabber Unit should work!"