Mining Resources for profit in career (CRP mod?)

[ShadoxFilms]

Hello! One of the ideas that I've been wanting to play with again is the idea of mining resources off of other planets, moons or asteroids and return them to kerbin for a profit. Now I just reinstalled KSP the other day, and I remember using a mod called The Gold Standard to accomplish this before.

Since that mod is not being supported anymore, and I don't know if it is compatible with v1.7, is there a way to accomplish this with the Community Resource Pack? It came bundled with one of my other mods, and I'm wondering if I can accomplish the same goals with the Rare Metals resource listed.

What do I need to do to be able to mine for profit? There's a few parts that I can think of that I need to solve, or maybe someone in the community has already come up with a solution. I'd appreciate some input on what changes I need to make to get started

• enable storage of the resource in the default ore containers?
• set planets to have this resource?
• set value of the resource?

Thanks for your time, and if anyone knows of a solution already in place, please point me towards it! Being able to mine for profit serves a few purposes, it pushes me to go to less traveled to planets like dres, eeloo, or asteroids, And it makes career mode less of a grind, and more of a business.

[RocketSquid]

20 hours ago, ShadoxFilms said:

Hello! One of the ideas that I've been wanting to play with again is the idea of mining resources off of other planets, moons or asteroids and return them to kerbin for a profit. Now I just reinstalled KSP the other day, and I remember using a mod called The Gold Standard to accomplish this before.

Since that mod is not being supported anymore, and I don't know if it is compatible with v1.7, is there a way to accomplish this with the Community Resource Pack? It came bundled with one of my other mods, and I'm wondering if I can accomplish the same goals with the Rare Metals resource listed.

What do I need to do to be able to mine for profit? There's a few parts that I can think of that I need to solve, or maybe someone in the community has already come up with a solution. I'd appreciate some input on what changes I need to make to get started

• enable storage of the resource in the default ore containers?
• set planets to have this resource?
• set value of the resource?

Thanks for your time, and if anyone knows of a solution already in place, please point me towards it! Being able to mine for profit serves a few purposes, it pushes me to go to less traveled to planets like dres, eeloo, or asteroids, And it makes career mode less of a grind, and more of a business.

Sorry if I'm a bit redundant here, but:

1. There are a number of mods which add containers for these resources. One of the USI mods, the name of which is escaping me right now (Just Kontainers?) adds shipping containers which can hold all manner of resources, and the stockalike station parts expansion adds similar, more space-looking containers. FTT, also from USI, adds some really huge containers and parts for shipping massive amounts of resources. There's also the WBI family, most notably Pathfinder, which among other things adds adds a number of reconfigurable containers which can hold rare metals, and also adds an even-more-valuable resource called Aurum. In classic stock mode, you won't be able to hold rare metals from CRP but it will add its own, called Precious Metals, as well as gemstones. If you get kerbal flying saucers, there's also graviolium, which has the added complication of being more common near anomalies. 

2. CRP itself adds rare metals to planets, but doesn't favor harder to reach or less travelled worlds. Pathfinder does in its placement of Precious Metals and Gemstones, kinda (a lot of the worlds with precious metals are ones you'll probably visit for other reasons), but it doesn't quite use the stock mining system for them (Your best bet is to put a minidrill onto a rover and go on a road trip, stopping every 3-4 km to check for gold). There's also Karborundum, which can only ever be found on eeloo, eve, in space very close to the sun, or in some asteroids, but you need the Karbonite and Karbonite Plus mods to extract it.

3. Values are included in the resource definitions for all of these resources already. Rare Metals are a 140 funds a unit. Exotic Minerals, also from CRP, go for 160. Karborundum is 4000. For comparison, the most expensive stock resource is xenon, at 4 funds per unit. In the WBI corner, precious metals are 150, Gemstones 175, Aurum 600, and Graviolium 1000. 

 

Keep in mind, some of these resources are available on Kerbin, and some might need new types of drills.

Pathfinder definitely provides the drills needed for all of the WBI resources, and I think modifies the stock drills so they can get the resources as well. If you put it in "CRP" mode it'll be able to harvest the CRP resources; in "Classic Stock" it won't be much use for mining Rare Metals but it will add gemstones and Precious metals. If you get Kerbal Flying Saucers there will also be Graviolium, which is even rarer.

Karborundum requires Karbonite for the drills that can mine it, and Karbonite Plus to make the drills recognize it.

Rare Metals and Exotic Minerals can be mined by the stock drills (and the ones from the stockalike mining expansion) if you have the OSE workshop mod. They can also be mined by some of the pulse drills added by MKS, but that's a whole extra layer of complication that may not be worthwhile.

[ShadoxFilms]

Thanks for the insight, I'll dig into some of the mods you've mentioned and see if I can't find something that will work!

[RocketSquid]

If you decide to go with Rare Metals and Exotic Minerals, I heartily recommend the stockalike mining extension, which adds some truly enormous drills (which can pull up exotic minerals and rare metals if you have OSE workshop) as well as some humongous landing legs to support large mining ships. It also adds ore-propelled engines, so you can propel your mining ships without needing an ISRU processor onboard.

Edited May 6, 2019 by RocketSquid

[JadeOfMaar]

On 5/5/2019 at 7:28 PM, RocketSquid said:

Sorry if I'm a bit redundant here, but:

1. There are a number of mods which add containers for these resources. One of the USI mods, the name of which is escaping me right now (Just Kontainers?)

USI Core is the mod that adds just tanks and reactors.

I must mention that you can't mine for Xenon. You can only get it:

• Using Near Future Electric's nuclear reprocessor on DepletedUranium.
• In WBI and Classic Stock, mining Zeonium and extract from that. Zeonium is a fairly abundant ore of inert gases, and XenonGas becomes very useful if you end up building things with the Flying Saucer's anti-gravity engine or USI Warp Drive.

On 5/4/2019 at 10:32 PM, ShadoxFilms said:

Hello! One of the ideas that I've been wanting to play with again is the idea of mining resources off of other planets, moons or asteroids and return them to kerbin for a profit. Now I just reinstalled KSP the other day, and I remember using a mod called The Gold Standard to accomplish this before.

Since that mod is not being supported anymore, and I don't know if it is compatible with v1.7

 

Gold Standard is a very simple parts mod. It will never break.

Edited May 7, 2019 by JadeOfMaar

[RocketSquid]

26 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

USI Core is the mod that adds just tanks and reactors.

I must mention that you can't mine for Xenon. You can only get it:

• Using Near Future Electric's nuclear reprocessor on DepletedUranium.
• In WBI and Classic Stock, mining Zeonium and extract from that. Zeonium is a fairly abundant ore of inert gases, and XenonGas becomes very useful if you end up building things with the Flying Saucer's anti-gravity engine or USI Warp Drive.

Gold Standard is a very simple parts mod. It will never break.

Yeah, xenon was just a comparison to show how cheap the stock resources are. I picked it because it’s the most expensive in stock. Sorry if I gave the impression that it was mineable. I’d note that you can also scoop it from atmospheres if you have the stockalike mining expansion, and maybe with near future... propulsion?

[JadeOfMaar]

Oh yes, you can scoop from atmospheres. NF Propulsion and Karbonite's air filters handle Xenon.

[ShadoxFilms]

2 hours ago, JadeOfMaar said:

Gold Standard is a very simple parts mod. It will never break.

Wow, did not realize this. I'm not familiar with what goes on with mod development.

[Xurkitree]

Mine Monoprop on the Launchpad. Profit!