Change type of fuel in tanks

[Vortygont]

In KSP we fill tanks with two combinations for liquids -  kerosine and kerolox, and in ksp are special tanks for each combination.  I would like to suggest a more complex but more comfortable mechanic for future. You can fill tanks with any  (I mean liquids) type of resource and limit is only volume of tank and total volume of your resources. Here how it will work

You open settings of tank and choose what you want to fill the tank with - specific mix (methan, metalox, hydrolox, hydrogen), which provides right proportions of components, or your custom mix. To avoid confusion in which tank what fuel I propose to make a filter that when you turn it on the tanks displayed the type of mix. So that a beginner is not confused by all this at first, it is possible to make methalox as the basic mix

There aren't mentioned xenone, ores or exotic fuels becuase for these resources the special tanks are needed

I think that function will reduce amount of tanks -> amount of parts and simplify using of different fuels for all spacecrafts

[Drakenred65]

In reality you would be doing that kind of switching  in a VAB as you would need to rebuild tanks, plumbing, and motors, and using refueling at an outpost would require you to have the right fuel for your current configuration, as the last thing you want to do is store kerosine in your not depleted liquid hydrogen tank.

[Vortygont]

On 12/19/2022 at 8:37 PM, [email protected] said:

In reality you would be doing that kind of switching  in a VAB as you would need to rebuild tanks, plumbing, and motors, and using refueling at an outpost would require you to have the right fuel for your current configuration, as the last thing you want to do is store kerosine in your not depleted liquid hydrogen tank.

I didn't understand the statement about kerosene and hydrogen in one tank, why not if for example your craft is tanker. And we already have second fuel - hydrogen,  which is used by nerv engines, so you don't need to fill oxyfen in your tanks and it will be so comfortable to fill it with hydrogen fully. It will be so frustrating to choose another tanks for hydrogen because of huge amount of parts. Of course in reality hydrogen needs good heat protection and special tanks, but I believe for this case in context of liquid fuels tanks must hold any components of liquid fuels

[darthgently]

I'd like to see any tank be usable with any resource (excepting electric charge), even outside the VAB, with huge caveats:

1) Engineer(s) presence required for conversion

2) A matrix of current tank type to desired tank type would determine how many engineer hours the conversion takes and how many, if any,  parts kits are required

So going from liquid non-cryo to liquid non-cryo would be easiest while going from a bare bones non-cryo tank to solids or to cryo would be more involved. 

Some conversions could require specific parts on hand, like a bolt-on cryo control unit, thermal radiators, and barrels of spray foam insulation or similar, or it could just be "a few more parts kits" to keep it simpler.

Solids would require something beyond liquid valves for transfer implying fairly complex screw feeds and such so should not be super ready to do, but doable with enough engineer hours and parts kits.

I'd also like to see a stock "machine shop" part that would allow engineers to create parts kits from existing parts and perhaps also reduce engineer hours required to convert tanks.  Perhaps the more difficult conversions could require the shop.  

All this should be tunable via difficulty settings from the easy "engineer presence" only up through also requiring kits, with the highest level requiring time, kits, maybe parts that can't be fabbed, or a shop to fab them in

 

[Drakenred65]

Hydrogen is kept at −252.87 °C; −423.17 °F. Its container is kept insulated.

 

because of its behavior at Thoes temperature a tank and its plumbing  needs to be designed with this behavior in mind.

 

Methain is kept below -161.5 C at sea level, and can be phase changed into a solid fairly easily, something that Germany found out in i think 2007 by accident. Granted its easier to avoid solid phasing. Also many liquid methain containers and even rocket tanks are often not insulated.

 

Kerosine generaly does not need insulation apart from insulation between it and any LOX plumbing, Because Kerosine Iceing from lov turns out to be a problem but a fairly minor one

 

 

Edited December 22, 2022 by [email protected]

[regex]

I'd be for mission-capable fuel switching but only if the type of tank is specifically "any" and pays a (heavy) mass penalty for versatility.

Any other tank switching should only be allowed in the VAB. That is, you specify the type of fuel in the tank at the time of building.

Edited December 21, 2022 by regex

[poopslayer78]

On 12/21/2022 at 12:01 PM, darthgently said:

I'd like to see any tank be usable with any resource (excepting electric charge), even outside the VAB, with huge caveats:

1) Engineer(s) presence required for conversion

2) A matrix of current tank type to desired tank type would determine how many engineer hours the conversion takes and how many, if any,  parts kits are required

So going from liquid non-cryo to liquid non-cryo would be easiest while going from a bare bones non-cryo tank to solids or to cryo would be more involved. 

Some conversions could require specific parts on hand, like a bolt-on cryo control unit, thermal radiators, and barrels of spray foam insulation or similar, or it could just be "a few more parts kits" to keep it simpler.

Solids would require something beyond liquid valves for transfer implying fairly complex screw feeds and such so should not be super ready to do, but doable with enough engineer hours and parts kits.

I'd also like to see a stock "machine shop" part that would allow engineers to create parts kits from existing parts and perhaps also reduce engineer hours required to convert tanks.  Perhaps the more difficult conversions could require the shop.  

All this should be tunable via difficulty settings from the easy "engineer presence" only up through also requiring kits, with the highest level requiring time, kits, maybe parts that can't be fabbed, or a shop to fab them in

I like the set of mechanics you laid out here, basically requiring engineer(s) and time to convert resources.

Perhaps this could simply be rolled into the "refining" process, where it could be possible to attach various conversion / factory parts to spaceships as well as colonies.  I could imagine cooling down refined fuel to cryo levels being a normal part of a colony production chain, which could also be available on spacecraft willing to pay high mass/energy penalties of the equipment.