TT's Kethane Adventure

[TouhouTorpedo]

One thing I love about this game, is you play it how you want to play it. And I decided I wanted to do an adventure around Kerbin, using satellites as little as possible, and aircraft and ground vehicles as much as possible. The idea would be to spread out, build fuel depos, and eventually have access to the other side of the planet even with the heaviest of aircraft and ground vehicles, through Kethane.

To start with, I built a simple satellite check for Kethane on the far side. I had no intention to use this to find nearby Kethane, only to test if the mod was even working. A big BIG deposit shown up, but its far too far away to do anything about right now. (well, i could probably fly something real small capacity there, but its not worth the bother - and dropping down from orbit isn't my goal here )

Kethane Scanning Soarer

So once that was done, I built a small fleet of scanning planes. To start with I built a Jet powered Kethane Scanning Soarer to scan from the air. It was fast, but limited by range and maneuverability, and didn't find anything (But did scan about half the height of the starting continents width) I got away with two refuels before an accident on landing damaged the engine, leaving it out of service. The second plane used solar power and an electric prop for massive range, but less speed. After searching for a long time though... still nothing!!

The unfortunate landing incident which disabled the Kethane Scanning Soarer

Solar Electric Kethane Scanning Soarer

A long time of flying later, the fruits of my search... (satellite tracks from testing can be seen as the scattered pockets of detection)

Eventually got desperate and built a kethane scanning satellite made for the job, put into an orbit for the job (near polar). It detected a large deposit to the north east, as well as a smaller deposit to the east (but how large not confirmed) but still not exactly close, as well as some useless ones in the sea, one on the other side of the north pole (reasonable size) and of course a massive one on the absolute opposite side of Kerbin.

Sending Solar Electric Kethane Scanner to investigate Easterly site (south here of aircraft here)

After sending the Solar Electric Kethane scanner to investigate the smaller nearer site in the east, I decided this was a prime spot. So, needed a mining base to go get that Kethane, didn't I? Made this for the job:

Now in theory, it should have been light with empty Kethane tanks and only 4.5 tonnes of liquid fuel reserve. I was quite wrong. It flew at a rediculous angle of attack and was difficult to fly, with low ceiling (5km) and low speed (~170m/s) On landing, I was concentrating so much on holding heading I forgot to shut off the throttle... resulting in the loss of both wingtips and engines. On the other hand, it got where I needed it with all the equipment surviving, so its now full of Kethane and ready to settle later.

Any landing you can mine Kethane from...

The dilema now was what to do about the higher up deposit. with some changes, I decided I should be able to make the plane get there and fly better. The wings were made longer and the piping for fuel improved (I had to manually shift a bit of fuel last time) and I set out. It was a quite easy journey aside from landing again. There was a stability issue that arose that meant roll control wasn't possible, or didn't seem so. But by combining yaw and roll it did become controllabe, and was successfully landed.

So what to do next? well, I'm thinking either deliver some more equipment (storage tanks, maybe a manned outpost) to the sites. Actually if I did this to the northen site, I can probably drill up all the Kethane and use the same plane to keep moving north.

I'll have to come up with a better name than Site Alpha.

EDIT : I've also just noticed on the East of the Planet another good direction to head in...

Edited July 6, 2013 by TouhouTorpedo

[TouhouTorpedo]

*reserving a post incase I want this later.

[Agent30632]

Good luck on finding the kethane!

Also, how much big kethane pockets have you found? I only see 2.

[TouhouTorpedo]

Good luck on finding the kethane!

Also, how much big kethane pockets have you found? I only see 2.

three of > 400,000

one of > 300,000 < 400,000

one of > 200,000 < 300,000

11 pockets in total.

And some Kethane exploration and technology development news!

On the Kethane Frontier:

The Mobile Kethane Base was design was further upgraded, though needed to do an emergency landing after the first flight attempt and was deemed nearly uncontrollable in roll (hence not landing directly on runway - too risky to attempt) but lucky no damage done. This was then relaunched with better Airelon placement, and worked perfectly. Its new Kethane Scanning function instantly bore fruit, too.

A very rich Kethane deposit, found only quarter of the way through the journey and halfway to the Site Alpha fuel stop!

Site Alpha fuel stop. Kethane was mined here as well to test the systems. Afterward, a cable was set between the two to offload any Kethane left onboard, since it was undesirable to carry Kethane inflight.

It was also a good oppurtunity for some R&R for the little runts.

Nearly onsite, flying at a higher altitude than these types had ever flown before, it became apparent an alternate landing site may be available. Course was altered to scan the unscanned area near the deposit.

Big mistake. At this higher altitude the aircrafts bad low load characteristics returned, and there wasn't enough airflow to fight the problem. However, the Kerbals hung on dear to their sickbags and stuck it out till lower altitude.

Sure enough, control eventually returned.

A fourth site has now been established. Interestingly, this is the lowest land I think I've seen near a shoreline. its 66m up, and thats including a slant from the shore. Although, it does drop steeper near the edge, like most beaches on Kerbin do.

Technology Update:

Having Kethane mining is great, but how do we get the fuel from one site to another, or offload the converted material? well we need trucks for that (or planes, but I'd rather my planes actually fly) but trucks -can't- fly. Or shouldn't. So how to solve this conundrum? Meet the newest craft in the TT arsenal of carriers, the "It Delivers" prototype.

"It Delivers" with a LFO storage truck about to enter. It didn't turn out to fit reversing in too well, so in the end it was turned around and drove in forwards.

Tying down the truck using KAS winches in "plug undock" mode. Don't use "plug dock" for this. Ever. Its bad news. We're still trying to pull the kerbals from the last phased through truck accident.

Inflight, it took a while for the payload to settle nicely, which meant to fly straight it was neccesary to take somewhat unusual angles.

I really wouldn't have wanted to be in that truck for the whole flight. (theres 3 Kerbals in there all the way)

approaching the landing site (about 50km away here) the carrier flies a lot more level by the end of the flight.

and reveals it has another trick up its sleeve - with the huge wingspan and a lot of fuel burned, as well as an empty fuel truck inside, it reveals that it has quite amazing gliding characteristics. able to more or less float to a stop almost parked next to the base.

speaking of the truck though, how did it fare in there...

releasing clamps, all looks good...

Its out! Theres now somewhat of a functional capability here now to drill and supply fuel for a reasonable distance around the site. (previously, aircraft HAD to land next to the base.)

Site Alpha just got a lot more populated!

Edited July 6, 2013 by TouhouTorpedo

[Tw1]

Is that base kethane you're using? Looks a lot fancier than what I've got.

This is an interesting way to scan for it. I'm going to try it now.

Edit: I upgraded my kethane.

Edited July 13, 2013 by Tw1

[warlordpat]

What mods did you use to make the truck and the cargo plane?

[james4832]

I second warlordpat's quetion, what mods did you use?

I am planning on doing something similar to this (among other things) and want to do as well as you did.

[TouhouTorpedo]

Sure, heres the mods used:

Basically everything from my TouhouTorpedo Releases Thread (Wheels and MK4 Fuselage on huge cargo plane)

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/29661-TT-s-Mod-Releases-JOYSTICK-VTOL-CONTROL-Pitch-Vector-Engine-2-with-pegasus-engine%21

Firespitter (A few aero parts but not much in this case)

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/firespitter-propeller-plane-parts/

Spherical Tanks

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-20-0-spherical-fuel-tank/

Kerbal Attachment System (Hold down Winches and Fuel Transfer)

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-2-kas-kerbal-attachment-system-v0-1/

Procedural Wing

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/29862-0-20-Procedural-Dynamics-Procedural-Wing-0-4?highlight=procedural+wing

Kethane 0.7

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/23979-Kethane-Pack-0-7-3-Geodesic-grid-overlay-%28hex-map%29-and-other-scanning-improvements%21

[J_Man_X_663]

Wow... I loved reading this, and I normally don't like reading :3

Please continue, it definitely has my intrest, because of the fact I myself love the kethane mod, but NO WAY can i build anything over 150 parts without some lag starting to kick in ( I need a better laptop aha ), makes this interesting to read....

[james4832]

Thank you very much

[james4832]

Hi TT, i was wondering, are you still working on this or have you abandoned it?

[TouhouTorpedo]

Its fairly abandoned now. With the newer version of KSP I can't see the save being compatible, but then if I wanted I still have the older version with this on there I think.

Or maybe I'll reboot it and start again? Not sure at the moment.