Best way to make a compact mining unit.

[EdwardB3020]

I am having difficulty making a compact mining rig that is around the size of the 1.5m ISRU. I am also struggling on giving it enough power to mine at a reasonable timeframe and replenishing a moderately sized lander that is not over 6 years. Does anyone have tips on making a good mining unit with these in mind? 

[SkyFall2489]

On 11/17/2022 at 6:46 AM, CaptWhitmire said:

I am having difficulty making a compact mining rig that is around the size of the 1.5m ISRU. I am also struggling on giving it enough power to mine at a reasonable timeframe and replenishing a moderately sized lander that is not over 6 years. Does anyone have tips on making a good mining unit with these in mind? 

Fuel cells. Lots and lots of fuel cells. They'll provide all the power you'll need, and take barely any of the ISRU's output.

Also, take a look at where the ore concentrations are higher, or bring more drills.

[king of nowhere]

the 1.5 unit is intrinsecally inefficient, it wastes 90% of the mined ore. for this, i'm not sure fuel cells would work.

anyway, I'm having troubles understanding your problem. mostly because I have no idea what you would consider a "reasonable time frame" or a "moderately sized lander", and why you can't just add some solar panels if that is your problem.

There's also the engineer limitation. isru works awfully slowly without an engineer on board, while it works very fast with one. a 1.5 m convert-o-tron properly supplied and with a level 5 engineer can make roughly 1 ton of fuel per day; without an engineer, speed is 1/20^th of that. so if your "moderately sized" lander used a jumbo fuel tank (32 tons) and you have no engineer on board, it will take over 1 year and there's nothing to do about it except use an engineer or use the bigger convert-o-tron. Even a level 0 engineer already quintuplicates efficiency compared to no engineer.

also, if you're relying on solar panels and you're trying to mine eeloo, of course it won't be efficient. I suggest rtgs in that case.

here's a link to a rover with the small convert-o-tron. it's got 30 tons of fuel, which it can replenish in 30-50 days depending on ore concentration and level of the engineer on board. if you look at it - and ignore all the rover apparatus and focus on the isru part - you will see it's extremely simple; a convert-o-tron, two radiator panels, two small drills. the rover solar panels are enough all the way out to duna.

[EdwardB3020]

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

the 1.5 unit is intrinsecally inefficient, it wastes 90% of the mined ore. for this, i'm not sure fuel cells would work.

anyway, I'm having troubles understanding your problem. mostly because I have no idea what you would consider a "reasonable time frame" or a "moderately sized lander", and why you can't just add some solar panels if that is your problem.

There's also the engineer limitation. isru works awfully slowly without an engineer on board, while it works very fast with one. a 1.5 m convert-o-tron properly supplied and with a level 5 engineer can make roughly 1 ton of fuel per day; without an engineer, speed is 1/20^th of that. so if your "moderately sized" lander used a jumbo fuel tank (32 tons) and you have no engineer on board, it will take over 1 year and there's nothing to do about it except use an engineer or use the bigger convert-o-tron. Even a level 0 engineer already quintuplicates efficiency compared to no engineer.

also, if you're relying on solar panels and you're trying to mine eeloo, of course it won't be efficient. I suggest rtgs in that case.

here's a link to a rover with the small convert-o-tron. it's got 30 tons of fuel, which it can replenish in 30-50 days depending on ore concentration and level of the engineer on board. if you look at it - and ignore all the rover apparatus and focus on the isru part - you will see it's extremely simple; a convert-o-tron, two radiator panels, two small drills. the rover solar panels are enough all the way out to duna.

To clarify Eve Landers I usually make are around the 1.5-meter range usually with 1 Kerbal on board and what I meant by a reasonable timeframe is around a year at minimum. I’ll probably just send over a mining/refueling rover on the surface of Eve for this kind of task if I don’t already have an ISRU on board. 

[king of nowhere]

4 hours ago, CaptWhitmire said:

To clarify Eve Landers I usually make are around the 1.5-meter range usually with 1 Kerbal on board and what I meant by a reasonable timeframe is around a year at minimum. I’ll probably just send over a mining/refueling rover on the surface of Eve for this kind of task if I don’t already have an ISRU on board. 

eve lander - and by that we assume it's an eve ascent vehicle, since you have a crew and supposedly you want to bring him back - is still extremely vague. an optimized lander can be as light as 50 tons. an optimized lander using propellers to clear the atmosphere can be even lighter. an unoptimized lander can easily reach 500 tons. or it could be an ssto with propellers, vectors and nuclear engines, the most common design i saw is in the 200 tons range.

since apparently you already have a specific design, and it should work - stock isru is not hard - and it doesn't, you could post pictures of it and we could see what's the problem.

Is your one kerbal on board an engineer? because if you don't have an engineer, then it's going to take years regardless of anything else you do.

 

Also,

assuming you are not extremely good at making eve ascent vehicles and your lander is over 100 tons,

would it be viable to use a large convert-o-tron? it is a lot more efficient, and it only requires your rocket to be 3% heavier. and you drop it before take off, so it doesn't interfere with ascent anyway.

[EdwardB3020]

11 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

eve lander - and by that we assume it's an eve ascent vehicle, since you have a crew and supposedly you want to bring him back - is still extremely vague. an optimized lander can be as light as 50 tons. an optimized lander using propellers to clear the atmosphere can be even lighter. an unoptimized lander can easily reach 500 tons. or it could be an ssto with propellers, vectors and nuclear engines, the most common design i saw is in the 200 tons range.

since apparently you already have a specific design, and it should work - stock isru is not hard - and it doesn't, you could post pictures of it and we could see what's the problem.

Is your one kerbal on board an engineer? because if you don't have an engineer, then it's going to take years regardless of anything else you do.

 

Also,

assuming you are not extremely good at making eve ascent vehicles and your lander is over 100 tons,

would it be viable to use a large convert-o-tron? it is a lot more efficient, and it only requires your rocket to be 3% heavier. and you drop it before take off, so it doesn't interfere with ascent anyway.

That reminds me, my heaviest Eve lander I’ve built so far had like 5 Kerbals 2 of which were engineers and another 2 were scientist. Hopefully I can dig up the file at some point and reverse engineer it.