Ore Station Question.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

So I took a Minmus Space Station contract a while back and was just getting around to doing it, when I realized that I had misread the requirements, having thought it wanted 500 units of Ore...when it actually wants 5,000 lol. 

The Station itself is already designed and in place, it can only hold 600 units of Ore, it has 2 docking port's and I could feasibly use one of them to attach an "Ore Tank" module to hold the rest of the Ore I'm going to need to satisfy the contract. So my question is: Am I gonna run afoul of the whole "Multiple vessels joined together ruining contract requirements thing?" I'd appreciate if anyone could share their experiences with this if they've done it before.

Also; This is quite a bit more Ore than I had planned on and I think I'm going to have to redesign the miner/lander/ore-shuttle bit. I'd rather not make umpteen thousand trips. How do you guys usually like to do these contracts? Any tips on efficiency/design/approach? Thanks in advance!

Edited March 20, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[bewing]

9 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

"Multiple vessels joined together ruining contract requirements thing?"

The only problem with multiple vessels on contracts is if you use an old vessel as one of your vessels (or if you dock to an old vessel for refueling, because "oldness" is contagious). If all your vessels are new when you dock them together, there is no problem.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

2 minutes ago, bewing said:

The only problem with multiple vessels on contracts is if you use an old vessel as one of your vessels (or if you dock to an old vessel for refueling, because "oldness" is contagious). If all your vessels are new when you dock them together, there is no problem.

Alright, so as long as the Station itself was created after I took the contract, I can continue to add to it so long as the additions are also new (created after the contract was taken) vessels?

So basically just don't dock anything created prior to the acceptance of the contract and I'll be OK?

Thanks btw!

[Plusck]

47 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Also; This is quite a bit more Ore than I had planned on and I think I'm going to have to redesign the miner/lander/ore-shuttle bit. I'd rather not make umpteen thousand trips. How do you guys usually like to do these contracts? Any tips on efficiency/design/approach? Thanks in advance!

Actually, for these contracts I generally end up doing what you are having to do by error!

Basically, 5000 ore tank capacity is pretty much overkill.
I would definitely want to send up the tanks empty, but it would be a pain trying to design a useful craft around them. Therefore I'd probably send a second tank-only craft up to latch on purely for the contract and use one of my standard mining rigs to create the base.

[bewing]

1 hour ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Alright, so as long as the Station itself was created after I took the contract, I can continue to add to it so long as the additions are also new (created after the contract was taken) vessels?

So basically just don't dock anything created prior to the acceptance of the contract and I'll be OK?

Yup! That's how it works.

 

[GuyWithGlasses]

3 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Also; This is quite a bit more Ore than I had planned on and I think I'm going to have to redesign the miner/lander/ore-shuttle bit. I'd rather not make umpteen thousand trips. How do you guys usually like to do these contracts? Any tips on efficiency/design/approach? Thanks in advance!

 

As an example, an image of my actual refueler for mimmus (10k of ore, but wobbles when its mimming xD) ; https://imgur.com/2mwvdkG

Cheers

[radonek]

5 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Alright, so as long as the Station itself was created after I took the contract, I can continue to add to it so long as the additions are also new (created after the contract was taken) vessels?

So basically just don't dock anything created prior to the acceptance of the contract and I'll be OK?

Yes, for NEW stations. But there are also contracts for extending stations later on, and those are prefectly happy with older vessels. It's a great way to consolidate things a bit.

[Reactordrone]

If you don't have the miner there yet the easiest way to complete would be to have 5000 units of ore on the mine vessel. bring it up after it's full and you'll complete when you dock.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys!

Yeah, I thought about sending the Ore tanks up full, but that felt a bit "cheaty" to me.

I've got the "Ore capacity expansion module" designed and ready to send up. I'm thinking I'm going to shoot for around 1750ish Ore per trip on my miner/lander, so only 3 trips? Trouble is I didn't really design the station with any serious means of refueling a lander on that scale. I might have to go smaller, maybe a thousand per run for 5 trips. That or build refueling capacity into the lander itself?

[Draalo]

Lander just needs enough dV for landing, ascending and rendevouz/docking. The converter is heavy...

I ll recomment to leave the convert-O-tron in orbit because its heavy and just use enough tanks on the lander to do the trips.

One or two engineers onboard the station speed up the conversion rate.

Dont forget to mount enough radiators and solarpaneels. Test the Vessel on the runway.

[radonek]

8 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

That or build refueling capacity into the lander itself?

I pondered that question several times. But in your case answer is obvious - hauling isru unit AND ore tanks through the gravity well is wasteful. Orbits around Minmus are cheap,  so get you station up high to maximize solar power and build yourself a proper refueling station. Minmus is a good place for one.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

10 minutes ago, radonek said:

I pondered that question several times. But in your case answer is obvious - hauling isru unit AND ore tanks through the gravity well is wasteful. Orbits around Minmus are cheap,  so get you station up high to maximize solar power and build yourself a proper refueling station. Minmus is a good place for one.

Yeah, agreed; that's why I took the contract, Minmus seemed an ideal place to mine and I figured the Station could serve some useful purpose after the contract.

I suppose I could always send up a multi adapter docking port module and attach it to one of the existing docking ports, really expand the station into something more serious.

17 minutes ago, Draalo said:

Lander just needs enough dV for landing, ascending and rendevouz/docking. The converter is heavy...

I ll recomment to leave the convert-O-tron in orbit because its heavy and just use enough tanks on the lander to do the trips.

One or two engineers onboard the station speed up the conversion rate.

Dont forget to mount enough radiators and solarpaneels. Test the Vessel on the runway.

Thanks for the tips lol, not exactly my first rodeo though!