Show off your Kethane Mining Designs!!

[Immashift]

Reminds me of my Lazarus.

Very cool to know it has the ÃŽâ€v necessary. I'll take a look at your design after I finish docking the probes to the hub of my ship

Puller design was chosen because of unique look as well as stability under time acceleration.

The only problem I see with my design is it needs RCS to turn at any decent rate, and I've only got the one tank and two tiny radials on the lander. I may have to stick a couple more tanks between the end of the puller and my lander. I'll do a test burn out to the mun first and see what happens.

[Captain Sierra]

Mine is highly modular and each module has 8 RCS blocks to make handling them with the tugs a breeze. The problem with that is if I turn on RCS, it will drain my RCS tanker in 60 seconds flat (untested, may be faster). For comparison, that is 8 of the large RCS tanks, biggest I can get! I will be updating it to the .21.1 SAS system and adding a bunch of reaction wheels (maybe even a dedicated "torque" module) to make it turn at decent speeds. My Nova 1 launcher (designed to have a deorbitable probe tug stage to dock modules) is having problems with docking stuff so soon as I get that worked out, I will go over to the mission reports thread and start a whole mission log on the Lazarus (because I'm gonna do a lot with it).

[Immashift]

I will go over to the mission reports thread and start a whole mission log on the Lazarus (because I'm gonna do a lot with it).

Please do! I like reading people's missions.

Torque module.. hmm. That might actually work. I wonder if the physics of the game cause multiple SAS units to help each other.

Anyway my ship isn't that bad, the lander has RCS ports (puller does not), and since it's on the very back, if I use its RCS, it swings the back end of the ship around pretty well. Doesn't use much RCS either, which is good. Probably has a dozen or more course changes in it before I need to refuel RCS. Enough to get to a planet and drop the kethane lander in any case.

Docking probes to the hub of my kethane grand tour vessel

Ion probes might have trouble with small solars, but I'm not really concerned. They're just for orbiting various bodies. I don't plan to need to burn much with them.

EDIT: Performed my Mun injection burn just now. Used 950 units of liquid fuel, out of 11k onboard, and 23.4k maximum. Yeah I think we're good for IP travel

What I think I might actually do, is build a second craft to fly in tandem with Rigel (the grand tour ship above). It would be a cargo vessel of sorts carrying extra Kethane if needed and tons of RCS. I'd refuel it with the lander as well and both ships would travel planet to planet.

Edited July 29, 2013 by Immashift

[Amphiprion]

Amphiprion, Part of the problem is your rig is very high. Realistic looking, but not parctical by KSP physics. What I would suggest is a flatter, lower rig. Also, do not try and whinch the whole rig down, that will never work. What I would suggest is once you are grappled to the seafloor, make sure the winch suspending the drill is let slack and then winch the drill down. As for stability, try a larger, flatter rig with the landing pad in the middle and drills on the edges so they can serve both as drills and anchors. Then add your refining equipment and storage tanks in whatever space is left.

One question, how did you get that rig to the water?

It is high because I wanted to go for some realism. the initial design had much shorter legs

Ya with the winches and winching the rig down, I was again going for real life Oil Rig mechanics.

I got the whole rig to the ocean buy using the Hooligan Labs .cfg Module, and applying it to the long stability legs that attach to the black fuel tank weights at the bottom. Once again, going for realism as this is I think how they do it IRL(obviously not floating mid air oil rigs, but the bouyant forces in the pylons once at the water surface), I OP'd the bouyant forces so I could float the whole thing above ground to the ocean.

I managed to solve the problem with unrealistic means. I added the HL bouyant force to a modified stayaputnik probe CMD module, and attached those over various places near the top of the rig between the white and red fuel tanks, one on the crane boom, and one under each landing pad.

This has solved the stability and height issue, and the rig is sitting where I want it. Unrealistically, but hey, its unrealistic of KSP to not allow me to solve it realistically.

Landed the VTOL on it, and its looking good.. Now to get it to Laythe.

It can take two VTOL's Or I can do something else with the other landing pad..

There should be an option now to take your VTOL's/Heli's to the top of the VAB.. such a nice landing pad there..

Edited July 29, 2013 by Amphiprion

[The Scientific Moustache]

what engines are those with the sphere above the bell?

[Captain Sierra]

it's an atomic engine pack. I forget what it's called.

[Amphiprion]

They are Fatman Nuclear rockets

search for Kommit. Awesome Mod. very cool., not available for dowload right now.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/24712-Nuclear-Rockets-WIP?highlight=kommit

Edited July 30, 2013 by Amphiprion

[BubbaWilkins]

The old mining rig:

The old refining/refueling rig:

The two docked together:

My current one is a variation of the two which covers extraction, refining, and more crew accommodations.

[Amphiprion]

Nice Bubba, What does the arm on top do?

[Immashift]

I'd guess the arm is used for grabbing vehicles to transfer fuel from/to, or just for fun

Edited August 1, 2013 by Immashift

[glutymax]

Hey guys, this is exactly the thread I'd like to be a part of. I recently designed, launched, and assembled a self-sustaining (I hope) interplanetary ship that relies heavily on the discovery, mining, and retrieval of kethane in order to refuel throughout the solar system.

It's got two ports with scanner probes, a garage for the rover, and a skycrane for retrieving and converting kethane, as well as the rover. Additionally, it has an empty docking port for future rendezvous. Two nuclear engines and two higher powered liquid fuel engines make for a highly efficient, albeit slow, boat. There's a 5X Bearcat engine for emergency acceleration, if needed. To top it off, or fill in the center, I've got enough living quarter space for Jeb and 9 of his buddies. But only 3 or 4 will inhabit the ship, making it all the more roomier. After seeing a few of your rovers though, I might have to take this back to the assembly building.

I skipped past all the prior posts, to post this first. Don't worry, I'll be going back to check out the amazing designs you guys have come up with.

Here's the ship in it's entirety. RCS and general mobility testing.

Here it is after assembly.

The launches were smooth except for the 3rd and final launch, the engine, which was a huge pain in the ass.

After achieving orbit, I went about my first mission: mapping out Kerbal's kethane deposits.

After I'm finished, I'll attempt to reach and mine the Mun. And then Minmus. And so on.

[Amphiprion]

Gluty, It might just be me, But I can't see any of your pictures.

[Ventis]

Nope, can't see anything either.

[Thorbane]

Is there a config file somewhere that sets the average size of kethane deposits?

[Amphiprion]

If you want to spawn deposits where your craft is, you can use the debug function,.

Otherwise there is a Kethane .cfg in Gamedata/Kethane/Resources where you can screw around with deposit min/max quantities, never done it myself but that looks like where I would start

[Thorbane]

Thanks, I find it unrealistic when you can deplete a deposit in a single dropship run. I want a reason to put epic bases on things.

[Wrench Head]

BHS Inds. Drill rig, With Bill working hard.

[noxcarakus]

BHS Inds. Drill rig, With Bill working hard.

QUOTE]

Rather interesting design. Curious though, why did you use Lazor instead of KAS?

[Immashift]

Rather interesting design. Curious though, why did you use Lazor instead of KAS?

Probably so he doesn't have to attach a line with an actual Kerbal. Stuff takes time when you have to do it a hundred times.

I found that out with my robotic drill rig and cargo lander. Kerbal would have to walk between them each time and string the KAS line.

Led to me condemning a poor Kerbal in a tiny lander to sit there forever and man the Kethane site..

A guy a few posts up has images that don't work (dropbox doesn't like hotlinking). I found quoting him shows the links, so I've put the images somewhere that works. I'm gonna fix it so the images show. That is the ONLY reason I'm quoting its entirety:

Hey guys, this is exactly the thread I'd like to be a part of. I recently designed, launched, and assembled a self-sustaining (I hope) interplanetary ship that relies heavily on the discovery, mining, and retrieval of kethane in order to refuel throughout the solar system.

It's got two ports with scanner probes, a garage for the rover, and a skycrane for retrieving and converting kethane, as well as the rover. Additionally, it has an empty docking port for future rendezvous. Two nuclear engines and two higher powered liquid fuel engines make for a highly efficient, albeit slow, boat. There's a 5X Bearcat engine for emergency acceleration, if needed. To top it off, or fill in the center, I've got enough living quarter space for Jeb and 9 of his buddies. But only 3 or 4 will inhabit the ship, making it all the more roomier. After seeing a few of your rovers though, I might have to take this back to the assembly building.

I skipped past all the prior posts, to post this first. Don't worry, I'll be going back to check out the amazing designs you guys have come up with.

Here's the ship in it's entirety. RCS and general mobility testing.

Here it is after assembly.

The launches were smooth except for the 3rd and final launch, the engine, which was a huge pain in the ass.

After achieving orbit, I went about my first mission: mapping out Kerbal's kethane deposits.

After I'm finished, I'll attempt to reach and mine the Mun. And then Minmus. And so on.

Your ship looks quite like my grand tour vessel - this one unfortunately only had about 4k ÃŽâ€v:

And its successor, with closer to 14k ÃŽâ€v when full, aerobraking to orbit around Eve. If I can't land on things,

I shall at least have a stable orbit around everything I can't land on

Edited August 2, 2013 by Immashift

[Amphiprion]

Thank you Immashift for enabling us to see Gluty's Pics. Much appreciated.

[Captain Sierra]

so, Ima setting down a ketholander like the earlier one in my new .21 kethane operation to test a deposit and place a flag as a marker. I also have Munstation Bravo up. I need to get the low alt Munstation Alpha up for the scouts to rendezvous with. I also want a Munstation Charlie up high for my refueling and for Minmus recieving. Minmus is gonna be a big operation that ships to Munar orbit (better for refueling).

[Amphiprion]

Nice one Captain, I'm also working on a few new Crystal Keth Labs/ways of getting fuel into orbit.

1. Simple VTOL SSTO with keth buggy/miner on it

2. Catapult that shoots barrels of Refined Fuel into Orbit. (Low G moon)

[Commander Zoom]

Just wanted to say, Amphiprion, that your VTOL sitting on your rig (back on page 16) reminded me strongly of a SPACE:1999 Eagle... the details are different, of course, thanks to the aesthetics ('look') of the B9 Aerospace pack, but the actual design, including the landing legs and side doors...

[Amphiprion]

I've never seen that, Is that a movie?

Here's a cool Keth Kart/rover for refuelling the vtol ssto and for exploring the surface.

Loading up at Kerbin

HyperEdit To Laythe

I messed the landing up, so Will post the keth extraction in an update.

Edited August 12, 2013 by Amphiprion

[Immashift]

I've never seen that, Is that a movie?

*Me shakes his head in awe of someone who hasn't seen that movie. Go watch it. Right now.

Not a bad VTOL... One of the problems I kept having with my own (which was an SSTO designed with a kethane mining rover inside) was that the rover inside the cargo bay had a hard time getting on and off the ramp of the plane. It was like the ramp was made of ice - rover kept slipping around coming off the ramp before I could get it up into the plane.