is mining kethane on Mun economical?

[lammatt]

i tried building a kethane station at mun (~20km 0deg orbit) with a large empty tank and a convertor

and fly landers to the mun to mine and then dock it to the station for conversion and storage.

but i run into a problem that the landing takes me ~900m/s -1300m/s so as the take off depending on the latitude of the kethane site i land on and i get 4000unit of kethane each time in return.

taking into account the docking needs ~20-100unit of RCS depending on whether i screw it up the approach (the full kethane tank is pretty heavy indeed)

it seems the kethane mining doesnt provide any surplus at all...

so... is Mun not a good mining site for kethane or am i doing something wrong?

[stupid_chris]

It takes you 900m/s and more of delta V to land on the Mun from a 20km orbit? That's really high, a munar landing should be around 700 at worse, the takeoff should be around the same value.

[Sof]

You could do with building more economical landers.

But even then, there isn't much point unless you want to have a grand tour in a single ship. Launching from the Mun is inefficient to go travel anywhere else apart from well timed Kerbin gravity assists to Eve. It is better to simply launch to LKO and add any fuel you need from Kerbin.

[TheDarkStar]

It might be worth making a base on Minmus though, since it has very low gravity.

[Tarrow]

I found fairly recently that mining on minmus is better for return than mun. Gravity is massively reduced and orbital speeds are much lower, making landing and takeoff much more leisurely Downside is that the surface of minmus can be a lil craggy in places.

[TheDarkStar]

Downside is that the surface of minmus can be a lil craggy in places.

Minmus has those perfectly flat plains though.

[tfm]

I found that mining kethane and then transporting it up to a space station for processing not as efficient as converting it on mun and then bringing up the finished product.

[lammatt]

Kethane sites on Mun are of >30deg latitude

and it takes ~150m/s to get there from a 0deg orbit in my trials...perhaps i am doing it the fuel wasting way tho....

[Tex_NL]

A few tips on making mining more efficient: Leave the drills on the surface. And leave your converter either on the surface or in orbit. Docking in orbit or on the surface costs a lot less fuel than hauling it up and down each time.

[stupid_chris]

Kethane sites on Mun are of >30deg latitude

and it takes ~150m/s to get there from a 0deg orbit in my trials...perhaps i am doing it the fuel wasting way tho....

Then you should leave your orbital station in a 30deg orbit too. But as said above, Minmus is indeed more efficient than the Mun.

[Nuke]

i use nuke engines on all my kethane landers. i always seem to get a large amount of fuel. it helps to offload any unneccisary delta-v from the lander, and have just enough thrust to take off when its full. i almost always come back with a 3/4 of a full tank (not counting what i need to land again). of course i usually think big:

[Galacticruler]

I don't see any kethane tanks...

[ZingidyZongxxx]

Minmus has those perfectly flat plains though.

Yeah, but there's no guarantee that there will be any Kethane there. On the Mun, almost every deposit can be reached and landed at easily.

As for making the trip more economical, I recommend using the nuclear engines. They provide more than enough thrust to land on the Mun and have a great ISP. They should increase the amount of fuel you can get from the surface into orbit.

[KhaosCorp]

Honestly your better off on Minmus for effeciency.

Also ever since the density change made to Kethane (couple updates ago) its kind of even bust exporting Kethane or processed fuels from the surface of a planet. I actually prefer to do my refining in orbital stations, its more versatile this way. Transporting kethane off-surface is just that..only kethane. If your processing your fuels on the surface then in order for your jumpship to be as effective it needs to carry up LF, oxidizer, mono, and possibly Xenon.

[Hiromoto]

What I've found to work for me is a refueling station in orbit around kirbin and Minus. A Kethane Drilling and refining rover on the surface. I have one version that uses quantum refueling mod to transfer to my refueling tanker, and another version that is unmanned that uses a docking port. My refueling tanker comes in two versions a 2,000 unit that goes from minus to the refueling station in orbit. Then I have a 5,000 unit one that goes back en forth from kirban.

[Yalin Hawk]

Its not as efficient to carry kethane up to a refinery. Sure, it takes more tanks (one tank for monoprop, one for LF/Oxo, one for xenon, etc.) but the density of kethane vs the refined product makes it a better idea. The best idea is to have the kethane drills+converter as one unit on the ground, and leave it behind when you go back up to orbit to refuel your station/ship/etc. Running that way, I keep a very large fuel depot in 20km orbit of the mun fueled up for stopping ships. Same setup over Ike, planning on setting up over Gilly and Vall sooner or later. Might wait till after .21's save wipe for that.

[Scotius]

Build two ships. Kethane miner with only enough thrust to land and return to orbit on the Mun. And fuel hauler powered by nuclear engines. With the hauler you should go for 'barebone' design: fuel tanks, engines with highest ISP you can manage, landing gear, probe body, enough batteries/solar panels to keep probe functioning...and not much more. Every unnecessary part lowers fraction of fuel you can get into orbit.

[Nuke]

I don't see any kethane tanks...

there are two medium tanks in the middle. one fore and one aft. this is a convert on the ground type rig. it has sizable monoprop and xenon reserves as well as the 8 lf/oxy tanks. when its not mining it launches to orbit and is my primary fuel station for interplanetary missions.

[strongest_2hu]

I don't see any kethane tanks...

You only need one when you're just converting, it's probably underneath the platform.

Regarding carrying the kethane up versus in-place refining, kethane has about the same density as other fuels, does it not (maijir doubled the density a few updates ago)? Furthermore, you can turn kethane into LFO at greater than 100% mass-efficiency if I understand the workings properly. In addition to its versatility in raw form, it is for this reason that I do my major refining in orbit and not on the surface.

[KhaosCorp]

You only need one when you're just converting, it's probably underneath the platform.

Regarding carrying the kethane up versus in-place refining, kethane has about the same density as other fuels, does it not (maijir doubled the density a few updates ago)? Furthermore, you can turn kethane into LFO at greater than 100% mass-efficiency if I understand the workings properly. In addition to its versatility in raw form, it is for this reason that I do my major refining in orbit and not on the surface.

THIS^

It USED to be much more effective to refine on surface, thats true.

I think it was Kethane 0.6 when the actual density of Kethane changed. Majiir himself even said it was done to try and open up more mehtods of use and maintain same efficency as before.

[Nuke]

my platform was made back before 0.6, to take advantage of on the ground conversion. the platform had structural issues so landing one on mun was impossible, but it still serves its purpose in my save. will probibly come up with a better one when the next ksp version comes out and i clear my save.

[jgjiscool]

I had an amazing experience in orbit around the Mun. One scanning station + maybe landing capable probe with drills. The probe had electricity and computer brain, but the station was man powered. One crew member. I tried the "Deconstitutor NONOSTOP" on him... economical that was. :L RIP Bill "Blended" Kerman

[lammatt]

Wow... this is a huge tank...

i use nuke engines on all my kethane landers. i always seem to get a large amount of fuel. it helps to offload any unneccisary delta-v from the lander, and have just enough thrust to take off when its full. i almost always come back with a 3/4 of a full tank (not counting what i need to land again). of course i usually think big:

[Captain Sierra]

I use the Mun as a learning curve. It's great for starting out (I got 3 big deposits all on a perfect equatorial orbit) but it is higher gravity than other places. The moons of Jool provide some interesting operations. Kethane is also good in conjunction with the extraplanetary launchpads (but don't use the stock pad, use the Hooligan labs pads). My base experienced several delays and then ultimately got postponed indefinitely after they announced that .21 would be save breaking.

[KhaosCorp]

I use the Mun as a learning curve. It's great for starting out (I got 3 big deposits all on a perfect equatorial orbit) but it is higher gravity than other places. The moons of Jool provide some interesting operations. Kethane is also good in conjunction with the extraplanetary launchpads (but don't use the stock pad, use the Hooligan labs pads). My base experienced several delays and then ultimately got postponed indefinitely after they announced that .21 would be save breaking.

I have Laythe base plans as well! Second Laythe base actually.....first one fell over.

I was actually holding off till MSI/WC releases their animator control plugin, and I have some special legs made for Laythe base number 2...no falling over this time regardless of terrain.