What is the point in karbonite?

[nascarlaser1]

Hi guys!

My question is, what are the reasons for using karbonite. We already have a stock mining system that lets us refuel stuff, so what exactly makes karbonite so special?

 

Thanks!

 

p.s. Not sure if this should go here or go into general questions since its about mods. Please move if I'm wrong.

[Tyko]

Karbonite offers an additional type of resource along with a new fuel type and new engines to burn it. It even offers the option of extracting Karbonite from atmospheres - which is kinda cool. For people looking for more diversity it's a great option. If you don't feel like you need more diversity to enjoy your game, then it's your call 

You might want to check out the forum page for more insights: 

 

 

Edited October 26, 2016 by tjt

[nascarlaser1]

2 minutes ago, tjt said:

Karbonite offers an additional type of resource along with a new fuel type and new engines to burn it. It even offers the option of extracting Karbonite from atmospheres - which is kinda cool. For people looking for more diversity it's a great option. If you don't feel like you need more diversity to enjoy your game, then it's your call 

You might want to check out the forum page for more insights: 

 

 

ok thank you! I had only heard about in other threads, and they only talked about the ability to make fuel. Thank you!

Also, does anyone know if kethane does the same thing as karbonite?

[Flamingo]

6 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

ok thank you! I had only heard about in other threads, and they only talked about the ability to make fuel. Thank you!

Also, does anyone know if kethane does the same thing as karbonite?

It does but karbonite uses the stock resource system, while kethane uses its own. Kethane also offers engines and converters and so on. I believe that kethane has less parts, so if that is what you are going for, just use that. I like karbonite the best, but it is your choice.

[nascarlaser1]

Just now, Flamingo said:

It does but karbonite uses the stock resource system, while kethane uses its own. Kethane also offers engines and converters and so on. I believe that kethane has less parts, so if that is what you are going for, just use that. I like karbonite the best, but it is your choice.

ok thanks! I do not care about parts. I'm using mods for the first time so I'm going for a bunch of ones that add parts without changing aero/other important things that will make my life harder.

[Tyko]

9 minutes ago, nascarlaser1 said:

ok thanks! I do not care about parts. I'm using mods for the first time so I'm going for a bunch of ones that add parts without changing aero/other important things that will make my life harder.

helpful hint: if you google "KSP [any mod name]" the first hit is usually the KSP forum for the mod. Googling "KSP Karbonite", in this case, gets you there. I use that a lot if I hear about a mod and want to read up on it.

[nascarlaser1]

I've encountered a problem... the only kethane forum post I can find hasn't been updated since 1.0... anyone know of a newer post for it?

[sebi.zzr]

 

[Kielm]

Some history may be helpful here.

The first widely adopted resource/ISRU mod was arguably Kethane. KSP Interstellar had ISRU too, but came along later and had lots more than just resources.

So everyone was using Kethane, but it had some problems. Most notably, updates between KSP versions became erratic, and the licence was very restrictive. The resources were also finite, which was a problem for some (and a benefit for others).

RoverDude came along with Karbonite, and more importantly, Regolith, which was a biome-based resource generation system with converters to make drill modules easier to mod. Unlike other resource mods, it allowed mining to be done in the background (it ran a catch-up on vessel switch), and was very flexible and easily modified. It was a resource generation mod that worked with other mods; KSPI, CRP, and all of RoverDude's mods. Karbonite used Regolith to do all it's resource goodness, and was the first widely adopted alternative to Kethane.

 

Eventually, Regolith was migrated into stock KSP and RoverDude became part of SQUAD. Now, Karbonite still does what it used to, but there are now stock drills and ISRU solutions too. 

 

So Karbonite is the same mod it used to be, but it's been blunted somewhat by the new stock resource capabilities. It's still got some nice parts, but in terms of capability, it doesn't do much different than stock - and now you know why!

[Zhetaan]

To flesh out that history a bit, before Regolith, Karbonite originally used ORS (and then RoverDude's fork, ORSX), which was the KSP-Interstellar resource system.  ORS had the advantage of being concentration-based, meaning that if you found a good deposit, it would never run out, but the disadvantage of being totally nonrandom.  In other words, once you knew where the goods were, every game had you going to the same spot, which rendered the exploration side of it irrelevant after you played through it once.

The great advantage of Regolith was arguably not the biome-based resources so much as the fact that each game had a different, random resource distribution among those biomes, which increased the replayability by leaps and bounds.  A moon of Jool, for example, might be totally lacking in a resource, thus forcing you to create a freight infrastructure, where your next game wouldn't require that--or would require something different.  Regolith also lets you define resources absolutely, so ore will never be found in the ocean, and water will always be found at the ice caps, for example.  Granted, that's more relevant to MKS, not Karbonite, but Regolith was built for both.

The big difference between Karbonite (the resource, not the mod) and stock ore is that Karbonite can be used directly as a fuel, no ISRU converter required (correct engines and tankage, however, are required).  Ore, on the other hand, is used only to either make LFO+Mono or to provide ballast for stock submarines (also for those 'Bring X Amount of Ore to Planet Y' contracts, but the ore isn't really doing anything in that case).  Karbonite can be found in atmospheres and oceans, but ore cannot (the oceans are especially nice, and a big selling point if you're only looking for an alternative to stock ISRU mechanics for Eve and Laythe) (On the other hand, it's easy enough to mod ore so it's found in the oceans, too).

The Karbonite-burning engines all tend to be very-low-efficiency-but-ungodly-high-power parts.  The description of one Karbonite engine says using it is like 'riding a crazed robot made of explosions'.  It's not wrong:  you can rip rockets apart with Karbonite engines if you're not careful.

There are a couple of other little extras in Karbonite (the mod) that do things like-but-not-quite-stock in there, too:  there are Karbonite fuel cells, Karbonite engines that produce monopropellant as a side product instead of EC, refillable Karbonite SRBs, and so on, so I would hesitate to say that it doesn't do much different from stock, but I would agree that stock does blunt it a bit:  a lot of what it does that is different was crowded into more of a niche role by the stock mechanics.  Then again, it could be said that all mods serve a niche role, so that's not really a problem.

[nascarlaser1]

Thanks guys!