Mine Kethane and return efficiently

[Olvirm]

I recently decided to get into the Kethane mod. So far I have scanned the munar surface and plopped a rover on a nice pool of Kethane to mark it for my base of operations. However I'm completely lost on how I should mine the Kethane and then return it to my space station around Kerbin. I was wondering if you guys could provide me with ideas (and maybe pictures) of how your Kethane mining operations operate.

[triffid_hunter]

I usually mine from minmus and have a fuel station in minmus orbit. I'll also have a fuel station in kerbin orbit which can supply enough fuel to interplanetary craft to get to minmus if necessary.

Since minmus is such a little rock, achieving orbit from its surface is trivially easy

[Eleven]

I have a lander with drills and 4 4000L tanks to hold the Kethane. I also have a space station in Minmus orbit with lots and lots of fuel tanks. I also have a rover with drills and a 16000L tank that can dock with the lander. I use lots of different mods, but I think the only mod parts aside from Kethane is B9 for the nose-part of the rover and KWparts for the crew compartment of the lander...oh I also use CBM docking ports, I think the new large stock docking port is the same size as the 2.5m CBM one that I use, I may switch over if it holds well. The CBM docking ports hold real well.

Here is the rover with its lander, it can dock back and re-orbit as well:

And here is the lander, on the launch pad:

[Olvirm]

would you recommend going to minimus instead of the mun?

[Eric S]

Yes. The lower gravity of Minmus makes a major difference.

[John FX]

I use this to mine. It has 300Kn of thrust (Novapunch 1.25m NERVA) can hold 64K of kethane and 8kLf and proportional Ox and 750 mono. 2 pilots as well.

It uses Kethane mod, mechjeb 2.08,novapunch, CORE Anvil, TAC fuel balancer, speedy fusion reactor 6000 (I think that is it) (Novapunch is a bit huge, I only install the 1.25m NERVA and the heavier strut)

The version in the image used Damn Robotics but I took that out after DR fell over with 0.20. I use it to mine on Minmus and can get about 58k of kethane to a 30km orbit with full (standard) fuel tanks.

[magnemoe]

I always mine and convert to fuel during drilling as drilling is slower if you don't use loads of drills.

4.5 orange tanks with fuel, just an small kerthane tank for drilling at night. This was used on the grand tour mission so it carries an rover for exploration.

This is so large it can act as an mobile fuel depot, take it from Minmus to LKO, use it to refuel multiple ships and send it back.

[Olvirm]

Thanks guys, I shall try some of these out