Kethane Pack 0.9.2 - New cinematic trailer! - 1.0 compatibility update

[Fyrem]

I'm not particularly looking for efficiency as much as I'm looking to reduce mass and number of parts, while at the same time not wasting any kethane, which is a limited resource. -snip-

Let us turn on conversion into liquidfuel, oxidizer and monopropellant simultaneously

do NOT convert any more than 1 type at a time if you are looking for efficiency. You dramaticly lose kethane if your convereter is working on 2 types, and horrendously lose kethane if your converter is running 3 types at the same time.

[COL.Neville]

that's the same thing im finding out with ground based mining equipment. having to create a dustoff ship to pick up the demv miners and move them around. trying to get the height right on the docking clamp to pick them up is mind boggling difficult. since what works on the pad or kerbin doesn't necessarily work on a mun hillside low gravity etc..

[Dudeman1420]

I found having sub assembly really helps for this, i can build an entire "train" of kethane tanks,drills and charge racks.then pull them apart at the clamp o trons and save them in sub and launch each ,piece up one by one. But having them built together usually insures no height issues, for me atleast.Hope this helps

[Mihara]

I am redesigning my miner to make it more conversion friendly, been using the small converter and not liking the overall results. But given how quickly deposits can be depleted I still think having a relaunchable miner to move it to a new field is a better option than a permanent ground based one. I saw Scott Manley move his ground based setup just 30k distance and it was a chore and a half.

My very first attempt was an all-in-one unwieldy monster that had problems taking off and too easy to tip over. Subsequently I tried to replicate Manley's setup as well. Turns out I'm nowhere a good enough manual pilot to make this work, hence the multiple independently landing ships set up, a self-propelled tanker, and a manned operation. Mechjeb lands very well if there's a kerbal down on the ground waving flares in the exact location the ship needs to be.

do NOT convert any more than 1 type at a time if you are looking for efficiency. You dramaticly lose kethane if your convereter is working on 2 types, and horrendously lose kethane if your converter is running 3 types at the same time.

"lose" as in how exactly? Does it overheat and destroy kethane or something?

Regardless, if I did the numbers right and correctly understood the scales, the whole thing is massively skewed. It takes at least 29 drills simultaneously working to overload the large converter converting everything at once. Even working only on a single type of resource at once, it would take 14 drills to cover the highest consumption rate. As a result, larger kethane tanks serve no practical purpose unless I burn kethane directly anywhere, except when I'm incapable of supplying enough electric charge to run both the drills and the converter. If I settle on the highest amount of drills I can expect to conveniently mount on one ship, which is something like 4, and converting only one resource, I only need 48.5 electric charge per cycle.

I'm not sure if the cycle is a second or a minute, but I'm pretty certain a few large solar panels cover it completely. Which means that one landing tanker and one manned processor ship are going to be the least pain in the long run.

[Fyrem]

"lose" as in how exactly? Does it overheat and destroy kethane or something?

I do not have KSP where I am right now, but I am sure if you click on the converter while it is operating (doing ONE conversion), you see it will say 100% effiecentcy. if you click on it when performing 2 converversions it will say 80% effiecentcy. if you have it doing 3, I says something like 60%.

(note: these numbers are likely to be off, since I am going on memory, but you get the idea).

If you are converting 2 fuel types at the same time, you are losing 20% of your kethane as waste.

if you are converting 3 fuel types at the same time, you are losing 40%

------

proof:

fill your kethane tank -then turn off your drills. use the converter to produce a given amount of one fuel, then change it to produce another, then a third, but only do it one at a time. - when you are done, note the amount of kethane you have LEFT in the tank.

now, refile your kethane tank, turn off the drills, and produce the same amount of fuel but this time do it all at the same time.

when you are done, note how much LESS kethane you have in the tank.

Edited May 3, 2013 by Fyrem

[BloodyRain2k]

I'm not particularly looking for efficiency as much as I'm looking to reduce mass and number of parts, while at the same time not wasting any kethane, which is a limited resource. Doing that correctly requires understanding the consumption rate of the convertor, which I currently don't.

I have an effective kethane mining setup, but it consists of four ships -- one lander for personnel, one automated driller ship, with eight drills and consisting mostly of kethane tanks, one automated processor ship with generators and the convertor, and a tanker. When all four land, the personnel connects them by KAS cables, sets up the TAC fuel balancer to suck fuel out of the convertor's tanks, and starts the show. Within a munar day, the tanker is inevitably full.

However, while the setup works, I can't get rid of the impression that it's massively overkill, and it also produces horrendous physical lag, which slows time at least double, making it a pain to work with. The ships are also annoying to launch, most weighing in a 40+ tons. A simple convertor probe on Minmus has been able to refuel ships while only weighing in at 15 tons, but it's using the smaller convertor, which (at least from the description) wastes kethane -- it's good as an emergency measure, but probably not what I want to keep using.

So I'm trying to figure out a two ship setup -- a manned driller/converter and a tanker - and work out exactly how few drills and how little electric charge I can get away with.

You shouldn't carry Kethane into orbit, mine it and turn it into fuel, then haul that over, even with the large converter it's weight isn't worth it as it has roughly the same weight of what you're making from it (or worse in case of monoprop and xenon).

My Miner only has 2 drills, a large converter and 4 radial Kethane tanks so it minimizes the junk and can carry a good amount of fuel with it. I could give it 4 drills and maybe I should try it but it's just a bit faster at the expense of some more weight it has to carry up so I hadn't yet. I mainly went for this so I'd have the good efficiency when converting but have everything in one ship.

I also had the idea of making a small detachable mining part so only the fueltank goes back to orbit, now that I kinda get my hover control for MJ working I could try that again.

[KerbActual]

I'm a bit confused as to how to go about extracting, converting, and storing kethane. I've got a drill, converter, and tank all on one ship, but I can't seem to find the pump or kethane control panel I've seen in earlier videos. Halp.

[Mihara]

I'm a bit confused as to how to go about extracting, converting, and storing kethane. I've got a drill, converter, and tank all on one ship, but I can't seem to find the pump or kethane control panel I've seen in earlier videos. Halp.

There was one? It's all in the rightclick menus on their respective parts right now, anyway. Deploy drill on drills, convert to X on converters...

[COL.Neville]

so check out my post on the previous page. middle pic shows my miner. now this is the only I'VE been able to get it working. if there is another way illuminate the rest of us please because it is most frustrating. so top to bottom contact pod fuel control panel which comes out this http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/v-f-m-fuel-panel/ sas now to the real stuff fuel tank converter kethane tank. with fuel lines running out of the fuel tank TOUCHING the converter and fuel lines out of the big kethane tank to the lil one touching the converter. like I said the only way ive been able to do it is with the tanks actually touching the converter I haven't been able to use lines to connect to it ever and I think ive tried every combination with exception of the one that actually works hehe.

[Majiir]

I do not have KSP where I am right now, but I am sure if you click on the converter while it is operating (doing ONE conversion), you see it will say 100% effiecentcy. if you click on it when performing 2 converversions it will say 80% effiecentcy. if you have it doing 3, I says something like 60%.

The efficiency indicator on the large Kethane converter is cooling efficiency, which impacts the speed of conversion but not the waste portion, which is a fixed property for each converter type. If the converter actually produces more waste while overheating, that'd be a bug. (...or a feature that I forgot I put in...?)

[Fyrem]

Majiir, well that would be a different situation. I presumed it meant conversion effincently, not cooling. my bad

[KWall24]

Is there any way to get the map to co-operate with the ISA Mapsat map? Or at leat a way to find the same type of coordinates in the Kethane map as in the Mapsat map?

[Specialist290]

IIRC, the " + / - " coordinates on the kethane map translate to "north / south" or "east / west" (axis-dependent) in the ISA system. Otherwise, the numbers themselves are the same.

[HGGundamReviews]

I'm a bit confused as to how to go about extracting, converting, and storing kethane. I've got a drill, converter, and tank all on one ship, but I can't seem to find the pump or kethane control panel I've seen in earlier videos. Halp.

The Pump and Controller were removed in the current version you don't need them anymore.

[Malachai]

Ok, I'm a little confused. I'm building a tanker/converter rover, and I'm not entirely sure how large of a destination tank I need. I'm using the heavy converter, which lists a conversion efficiency of 99%. By that logic, a full 16000 unit tank of kethane should produce 15840L of liquid fuel/oxidizer. This seems like too much.'

On the other hand, there's the kethane consumption stat. This lists a 13.5L/s for liquid fuel, and 16.5L/s for oxidizer. Do I apply the 99% conversion efficiency to these stats? This would result in an output 13.365L/s of liquid fuel a second. At this point, I'm a little unsure of how to do the math (which isn't my strong point).

Then, upon further reading, I come across this several pages ago:

No, i tested it and did the math. As it stands, Kethane is a bit heavier than it's combined Fuel/Oxigen-Product. This, of course, mean the heavy converter. I hope i didn't make am mistake, though:

1T of Kethane (1000Units) results in ~89,4 Units of Fuel(+Oxygen)

1T of Fuel(+Oxygen) is 90 Units

So, according to this, and my own (shaky?) math, a 16000L tank would produce 1350.4L of fuel? And when Temeter says "oxygen," does he mean oxidizer? And this is where I get confused with this. If he does indeed mean oxidizer, then is there a ratio of fuel:oxidizer in his calculations? I mean, I know that you can only convert to one resource at a time and maintain maximum efficiency.

So yeah, a little help would be greatly appreciated, as I'm a lost lamb on this one, and I'd like to get all my ducks in a row before I start firing my gear to the Mun.

[HGGundamReviews]

Well What I do is just attach a small tank to my converter and use Quantam Fuel Transfer mod to beam the produced fuel to another tanker ship landed nearby. That way I don't have to worry about that kind of thing.

[Malachai]

Well, the whole point of my mobile platforms is so I can easily transfer and store resources. I've got a mobile drilling platform, and the aim is to link it up with my mobile tanker/converter, and go on extended mining excursions. Then I return, store the resources at base camp, and go back out again. As such, I'd like to know exactly how much fuel/oxidizer/monoprop/xenon is produced by a unit of kethane so I can build accordingly. I know it's a slightly complicated affair, but this is just how I'm going about it. Besides which, knowledge is power. GI Joe and all that.

[paranoidsystems]

I know I asked this once before...it was before the great forum crash....but how on earth do you use the kethane jet engine? mine just runs out kintake on kerbin....I cannot figure it out.

[Achilles223]

Hi guys, I have been playing KSP for a while now but haven't posted on the forums yet! (Until now)

I am currently building a base on Minimus and I am using the Kethane mod. I currently have a small probe on the surface that I used to pick out my landing spot and as a point of reference. I have a base unit and a rover. However I find that whenever I try and land something with a Kethane part (IE sensor, drill, tank etc...) I hit immense lag about 10k off the surface which does not go away. I managed to land a couple of times but even when I do the altimeter goes all crazy and the lag persists. I am unable to end the flight or return to the space station meaning the only way to get out is to alt-tab and shut the program down.

I am hoping this has been experienced before and theres something I am missing but I can't seem to find anything on the matter so I thought I would ask! Needless to say any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated!

[Hremsfeld]

Kethane-->Fuel/LOX conversion math

Kethane converts to fuel and oxidizer based on their densities; Stock Kethane has one fifth the density of fuel/ox, so five units of Kethane will, at best, equal one unit of the others. Next, efficiency comes in, so yes you'd apply 99% efficiency to your maximum output.

The ratio of fuel to oxidizer is 0.9 fuel : 1.1 oxidizer, or 0.81818... fuel : 1 oxidizer.

[Malachai]

Danke. Yeah, I did some digging and found a video talking about the conversion rates with everything but xenon. Since I don't really use xenon, nor would I with anything other than an interplanetary ship, I don't really need to worry myself with that.

[Throggdor]

The efficiency indicator on the large Kethane converter is cooling efficiency, which impacts the speed of conversion but not the waste portion, which is a fixed property for each converter type. If the converter actually produces more waste while overheating, that'd be a bug. (...or a feature that I forgot I put in...?)

That is the way it functions, I observed it when I was doing my Mun refinery design tests.

Ok, I'm a little confused. I'm building a tanker/converter rover, and I'm not entirely sure how large of a destination tank I need. I'm using the heavy converter, which lists a conversion efficiency of 99%. By that logic, a full 16000 unit tank of kethane should produce 15840L of liquid fuel/oxidizer. This seems like too much.'

On the other hand, there's the kethane consumption stat. This lists a 13.5L/s for liquid fuel, and 16.5L/s for oxidizer. Do I apply the 99% conversion efficiency to these stats? This would result in an output 13.365L/s of liquid fuel a second. At this point, I'm a little unsure of how to do the math (which isn't my strong point).

Then, upon further reading, I come across this several pages ago:

So, according to this, and my own (shaky?) math, a 16000L tank would produce 1350.4L of fuel? And when Temeter says "oxygen," does he mean oxidizer? And this is where I get confused with this. If he does indeed mean oxidizer, then is there a ratio of fuel:oxidizer in his calculations? I mean, I know that you can only convert to one resource at a time and maintain maximum efficiency.

So yeah, a little help would be greatly appreciated, as I'm a lost lamb on this one, and I'd like to get all my ducks in a row before I start firing my gear to the Mun.

Your initial conversion was wrong, you were right to think the output you were getting was too high. The conversion is based on essentially two main factors "density" and "efficiency". The densities for liquid fuel and oxidizer is 5000 kg/m³, RCS fuel is 4000 kg/m³, and I have no idea about Xenon, I've never really used it (if anyone knows please feel free to share).

The base equation you are looking for is (KethaneConsumption/density_of_fuel_in_tons)*efficiency=Units_ of_fuel, having said that there are small errors somewhere in the calculations, or possibly in one of my conversions that introduces a small error I have observed when refining large quantities of Kethane into various types of fuel. I was working on some different experiments to help me figure out where the error was when I had to abandon my game because if I land on anywhere my game wont let me do anything.

Well, the whole point of my mobile platforms is so I can easily transfer and store resources. I've got a mobile drilling platform, and the aim is to link it up with my mobile tanker/converter, and go on extended mining excursions. Then I return, store the resources at base camp, and go back out again. As such, I'd like to know exactly how much fuel/oxidizer/monoprop/xenon is produced by a unit of kethane so I can build accordingly. I know it's a slightly complicated affair, but this is just how I'm going about it. Besides which, knowledge is power. GI Joe and all that.

With a large converter every second gets you:

13.5 kethane gets you a little under 2.7 liquid fuel

16.5 kethane gets you a little under 3.3 oxidizer

6 kethane gets you a little over 1 monopropellant

I actually developed the same concept you did, however I think our implementation is different. It sounds like you want a base on the surface of something and you bring it there for refinement. What I did is I put a small space station in orbit and I began with a lander to drill the kethane (i developed a lander that was 2 parts, 1 had all the kethane equipment I needed and the other was for orbital redevious, when it refueled the space station it would go back down to the kethane section and dock), drill/convert/ferry/dock over and over, but once I started going out to other planets I realized I needed something that was able to produce in larger quantities, that's when I developed my refining rigs the down side is this is where i found out deposits could run out (enter the debugger, to replenish the kethane supply), and I built a cargo ship to ferry the fuel back and fourth with quantum fuel transfer mod. So I had a stationary tanker, that had wheels for positioning, and would drill kethane, another to store the fuel, and another to provide power and convert the fuel.

[paranoidsystems]

I know I asked this once before...it was before the great forum crash....but how on earth do you use the kethane jet engine? mine just runs out kintake on kerbin....I cannot figure it out.

Hi Guys, Im still really at a loss as to how to use the kethane jet engine....I have a rover testbed full of kethane with a kethane jet engine on the back and it always says kintake depleted...even if I cheat and fill upp kintake with hyperedit it just runs till that depletes...I am not sure what I am doing wrong.......I don't understand what I am doing wrong....I know I had this same issue when the engine first came out and I am sure it's me but can someone tell me what I am doing wrong?

[ahd1601]

could you help me out, im not very good with C# and i need to make a resource converter module, could you make your converter module universal by adding an input resource instead of default to kethane. or can you help me make a plugin?

[BloodyRain2k]

could you help me out, im not very good with C# and i need to make a resource converter module, could you make your converter module universal by adding an input resource instead of default to kethane. or can you help me make a plugin?

Just use a generator

MODULE
{
	name = ModuleGenerator
	OUTPUT_RESOURCE
	{
	   name = LiquidFuel
	   rate = 0.9
	}
	INPUT_RESOURCE
	{
	   name = Kethane
	   rate = 1.0
	}
	INPUT_RESOURCE
	{
	   name = ElectricCharge
	   rate = 10.0
	}
}