[0.22] Extraplanetary Launchpads Legacy Thread

[germalto]

I BRING YOU MY LAUNCH PAD !

coming soon to a spaceport near you

[pasty2k2]

Never actually tried to land on Laythe before, and wow is it hard... I think I need parachutes, it just keeps flipping over. Fuel is an issue indeed... I'm trying to land on about 700m/s, no chutes. I got lucky and found a Kethane and Ore patch together on an island, so woot all 3 converters going at once Mechjeb auto-land is dumb though, I don't think it takes aero-braking into account for your braking speed, it just burns for ages when it could suicide burn essentially? Trying that manually when even MJ flips the thing around in the atmosphere is too hard for me at the moment! Perhaps I need more RCS...

Mod is too awesome, makes me try and get to other places, as there is now a reason to stay. Laythe is the most interesting body to visit I think, Spaceplanes launched there would be very other-worldly.

Latest version of my pad complex thing:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g0r1wxnzg570u2p/SuperPad.craft

[KhaosCorp]

Never actually tried to land on Laythe before, and wow is it hard... I think I need parachutes, it just keeps flipping over. Fuel is an issue indeed... I'm trying to land on about 700m/s, no chutes. I got lucky and found a Kethane and Ore patch together on an island, so woot all 3 converters going at once Mechjeb auto-land is dumb though, I don't think it takes aero-braking into account for your braking speed, it just burns for ages when it could suicide burn essentially? Trying that manually when even MJ flips the thing around in the atmosphere is too hard for me at the moment! Perhaps I need more RCS...

Mod is too awesome, makes me try and get to other places, as there is now a reason to stay. Laythe is the most interesting body to visit I think, Spaceplanes launched there would be very other-worldly.

Latest version of my pad complex thing:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/g0r1wxnzg570u2p/SuperPad.craft

More RCS and drogue chutes.....Laythe is a pain to land on. Not only the atmosphere but your LZ has to be pinpoint or green dudes go swimming. Atmosphere presents a whole new set of issues when it comes to large or cumbersome industrial landers.

And don't think mining kethane or ore has to be done on land. With KAS and a quick config edit you can drill off-shore. And with this mod its not to much work to get that going on Laythe or Eve.

[Patupi]

My earlier attempt at Laythe landing (actually successful... after a few quicksaves during landing) used jets to come down... unfortunately trying vertol landing with jets is tricky. They take too long to cycle up and down as you change throttle so I had difficulty with positioning for landing. Plus my ship was a bit imbalanced as the fuel was used up. I did get down in one piece but I think next time I'll go with rockets and parachutes... and I'm not landing on that island with the large lake on the eastern side. It's all cliffs everywhere! Didn't see much that had a gradient less than 30 degrees!

[dexan]

At last, it came out. Good to see this

[Mechrior]

I BRING YOU MY LAUNCH PAD !

*snip pic*

coming soon to a spaceport near you

WHEN!? loving this look!

[germalto]

soon, I'm still tweeking it, making sure that it is working as it should, the collision meshes are slightly out of alignment and i'm considering re-scaling the size of it as it's a tad on the small side. got some built in rockets and fuel as well which needs to be added

[slashvalintino]

soon, I'm still tweeking it, making sure that it is working as it should, the collision meshes are slightly out of alignment and i'm considering re-scaling the size of it as it's a tad on the small side. got some built in rockets and fuel as well which needs to be added

I dont know if its possible but if there is a way to make it self level that would be amazing

[KhaosCorp]

I dont know if its possible but if there is a way to make it self level that would be amazing

I have actually been testing ideas for this.

A round bottom lander (I been using heat shield from HOME kit) and 3 KAS grappling hooks mounted on DR hinges. Lander set down, fires hooks into ground, and lowers legs so it sits on heat shield. Then the winch cables can be tightened/released to level and then hold the pad upright on uneven terrain.

Still testing though..

[Galacticruler]

If I add a Kethane resource to my mod, will it require the plugin to even load or will KSP ignore the definitions?

Also, did you do the colors by trial and error or was there some voodoo involved I don't know of?

2 questions that remain unanswered.

Anyone know?

Posted this in the kethane thread but have no replies.

Ignore the above.

Now, how do I setup the detector and drills?

or do the stock kethane ones work?

Edited June 30, 2013 by Galacticruler

[taniwha]

I'm sure I've seen this mentioned before, and it being on the TODO list, but I thought I'd try to speed up the process by doing some of the work Thusly...

I had a bit of a play with ore mining last night, and had a nasty shock. Ore is 200t/m^3. I use a conversion of 200u/m^3 for my balancing work (I don't remember which one now, but there's at least one stock fuel tank for which this works perfectly).

The large hexcan is ~1.04m^3 (I checked with Greys), and thus holds 208 units (by my calculations, I'm not worried about the extra 4.5 units, especially since my more accurate calculations put it at 211.25 units).

What does bug me is the "fact" that we're mining neutronium ore. Going by this page on bulk materials, ores seem to average out around 5t/m^3 (the average density of the earth is around 5.5t/m^3). I suggest using a resource density of between 0.025 and 0.03 for ore.

For metal I suggest somewhere between 0.013 (aluminum) and 0.04 (iron).

Rocket parts should probably be very low, maybe 0.001 (yes, lighter than LFO, this reflects the fact that most parts are mostly empty space). Admittedly, 0.001 might be too low, 0.01 might be ok (2t/m^3).

[skykooler]

I'm sure I've seen this mentioned before, and it being on the TODO list, but I thought I'd try to speed up the process by doing some of the work Thusly...

I had a bit of a play with ore mining last night, and had a nasty shock. Ore is 200t/m^3. I use a conversion of 200u/m^3 for my balancing work (I don't remember which one now, but there's at least one stock fuel tank for which this works perfectly).

The large hexcan is ~1.04m^3 (I checked with Greys), and thus holds 208 units (by my calculations, I'm not worried about the extra 4.5 units, especially since my more accurate calculations put it at 211.25 units).

What does bug me is the "fact" that we're mining neutronium ore. Going by this page on bulk materials, ores seem to average out around 5t/m^3 (the average density of the earth is around 5.5t/m^3). I suggest using a resource density of between 0.025 and 0.03 for ore.

For metal I suggest somewhere between 0.013 (aluminum) and 0.04 (iron).

Rocket parts should probably be very low, maybe 0.001 (yes, lighter than LFO, this reflects the fact that most parts are mostly empty space). Admittedly, 0.001 might be too low, 0.01 might be ok (2t/m^3).

I know, I really should make some larger parts for storage. Perhaps something like silos? What do they store ore in anyway?

[Galacticruler]

I know, I really should make some larger parts for storage. Perhaps something like silos? What do they store ore in anyway?

Their pockets?

no wait...

The rockets, where else did they get that SAS module?

anyway, some silos sound good but I think troughs of ore/metal would work better, silos work for light objects that can be pumped upwards easily and down through the top, where as metals simply follow the will of gravity and fall down chutes to bins or "troughs"

It would be even better if you could get an animation in for the amount of ore/metal/parts inside.

If you do go the route of troughs:

just an idea (minus the train parts of course.)

Edited July 1, 2013 by Galacticruler

[Krisism]

You've also got to think about the fact that this is space mining, not earth mining. Technology would be much more advanced likely - or at least futuristic looking I've been using the spherical fuel tanks for my storage of all ore/metal/parts and it's been working great. The visual color differences are nice too, as you can see the 'process' in action. (For the sphere tanks I'm using the stock skin for ore, oxygen skin for metal, and white skin for parts - with the rimmed versions of each skin used for processing relative materials.) I'll make an imgur account one day.

[skykooler]

Their pockets?

no wait...

The rockets, where else did they get that SAS module?

anyway, some silos sound good but I think troughs of ore/metal would work better, silos work for light objects that can be pumped upwards easily and down through the top, where as metals simply follow the will of gravity and fall down chutes to bins or "troughs"

It would be even better if you could get an animation in for the amount of ore/metal/parts inside.

If you do go the route of troughs:

just an idea (minus the train parts of course.)

That has a slight problem though - what if you're using a spacecraft to mine on, say, Gilly? As soon as you're orbital or even suborbital there is no gravity to hold the ore in.

[BlazingAngel665]

That has a slight problem though - what if you're using a spacecraft to mine on, say, Gilly? As soon as you're orbital or even suborbital there is no gravity to hold the ore in.

Add some form of lid maybe? It could open when ore is being deposited and shut when not in operation. No one can mine ore on a suborbital trajectory.

[KhaosCorp]

I think realistically if people were mining bulk ore in space the actual mining machine would do a bit a pre-processing. You think a plant that processes corn stalks it too? Nope, the combine harvesting does it mostly because its more effective to the overall process. I think something like this would be applied here.

The auger equipment probably wouldn't just dig, it pre-process. Crush the material for better storage, maybe even do a bit of presorting and kick out some waste material (like a gold dredge does as it mines). The end product would be bulk material 'ore' that's easy to store in a silo or tank as opposed to chunks strait from the ground.

edit: I have been teaching myself blender the past 2 day, one of things I decided to make was a idea I had for smelter...once I get something that (haha at least somewhat) looks like my idea ill send it to you.

Edited July 1, 2013 by KhaosCorp

[Galacticruler]

That has a slight problem though - what if you're using a spacecraft to mine on, say, Gilly? As soon as you're orbital or even suborbital there is no gravity to hold the ore in.

Good point, but remember

just an idea.

[taniwha]

For all those battling to get the smelter into orbit, my answer is: don't.

It looks like you need to get only two things into orbit: the launchpad (and the HL pad is pretty easy to get into orbit) and a supply of rocket parts.

Note that this is using a tweaked version of EPL with "realistic" densities for the resources, so there is a problem with being able to get about 4000% efficiency on rocket parts to rocket production, but I haven't poked at that part yet.

[edit]Note, also, that I had trouble getting the smelter off the pad: the tracks didn't want to move (because they're not on the ground?). It took some finagling with moving around and 4x time acceleration to get it to slide off. Surprisingly, it didn't fall over: I guess it's wide enough with a low enough CoM.

Edited July 1, 2013 by taniwha

[Climberfx]

Still won't have a good and pretty 3D model...

[taniwha]

It's a smelter. Where you gonna find a good'n'pretty smelter? They're hot, smelly (thank goodness for the helmets) and ugly.

[Climberfx]

Taniwha, i'm not saying that about your post, normally i quote when i do that.

My comment is about the mod itself.

I'm waiting to install only if it get cool. For now it is only useful.

[taniwha]

So make a cool smelter model (the hard part,, really). Once you have one, it's pretty easy to make it work:

(taken directly from the smelter's part.cfg)

// Convert Ore to Metal
MODULE
{
    name = KethaneConverter
    SourceResource = Ore
    TargetResource = Metal
    ConversionEfficiency = 1
    SourceConsumption = 3
    PowerConsumption = 10
}

[Climberfx]

I'm thinking a lot these days about that...

I'm thinking in do a full system in one modular body, but need to learn the process to have a Maya model working on KSP. I use Maya...

[Patupi]

As to models for the various containers, I'd say make them visually different for ore, metal and rocket parts. Right now (I know, only placeholders) it's tricky to tell apart. I put two metal containers on one system by mistake instead of metal and ore and got to Minmus before I realized it. Try drums for ore (probably powdered or at least in small chunks), large square or hexagonal containers for metal (stored in ingots maybe?), and Something with some kind of feed mechanism for rocket parts (maybe a squarish box with some visible extension on it? Not sure. Might make it awkward to build on if it was too much. Perhaps just a small raised section to indicate a loading bay).

I did consider just sending rocket parts mined from my moonbase to get my Minmus base to build a smelter of it's own, but in the end chickened out and made the whole thing as a all in one unit. *shrugs* Honestly I wanted to prove to myself it was possible to lift the whole kit and kaboodle up from Kerbin. Though it's still awkward. The damn thing had to have the smelter as the primary unit and that's on it's side. Means I have to select the probe body and click 'control from here' to avoid the thing from seeming to be on it's side via the nav ball