Why transport kethane around?

[Jackissimus]

Hi, I am a kethane newbie and I just learned that you cannot drill for kethane in the background. You have to be there with the craft for it to drill.

For me that begs the question - why are there all the large Kethane tanks?

See, if I can only drill when I am there, then it's most efficient to just have a big bunch of kethane drills in one place (instead of scattered around the planet). And when I have them all in one place, then I might just as well convert it at the time of drilling, I am not shipping any kethane around after all. And if I am converting at the time of drilling, the smallest kethane tank will suffice as a buffer. Why are there all the tanks then?

I just wanted to have one big base as a kethane converter, fuel depo and launch platform and small kethane drilling hoppers hopping from deposit to deposit, but that's just useless I think.

Or am I missing something?

EDIT: yeah, basically exactly like this guy here: http://oi42.tinypic.com/2r72e5g.jpg ... there is really no incentive to do anything else, is there?

EDIT2: even better - http://i.imgur.com/5iHiYjp.jpg

Edited August 1, 2013 by Jackissimus

[painking]

It's not efficient to carry Kethane everywhere you go. You mine it out of the ground via time warp, and deliver it to an orbital fuel station to convert into LFO and monoprop and what not for various ships. If you want to go for a reusable craft program then Kethane lets you refuel interplanetary vessels and fuel depots without ever having to launch another ship from Kerbin.

[KhaosCorp]

Hi, I am a kethane newbie and I just learned that you cannot drill for kethane in the background. You have to be there with the craft for it to drill.

For me that begs the question - why are there all the large Kethane tanks?

See, if I can only drill when I am there, then it's most efficient to just have a big bunch of kethane drills in one place (instead of scattered around the planet). And when I have them all in one place, then I might just as well convert it at the time of drilling, I am not shipping any kethane around after all. And if I am converting at the time of drilling, the smallest kethane tank will suffice as a buffer. Why are there all the tanks then?

I just wanted to have one big base as a kethane converter, fuel depo and launch platform and small kethane drilling hoppers hopping from deposit to deposit, but that's just useless I think.

Or am I missing something?

Seems like your missing that you can drill while time warping.

As for the actual question that is thread title....versatility!

Lets say you have a Wellhead (drill) at spot A, and a big base (storage/conversion) at spot B, and a tanker truck for transport between the two spots. The base, spot B, is designed to hold fuel types.

Now lets say the truck goes to spot A and fills with Kethane, drives to spot B and unloads. The truck has just delivered EVERY type of fuel to the base in one trip. The base can then convert to what is need at that current time.

Truck goes back to spot A, but this time fills with LiquidFuel, and goes to unload at the base. But maybe theres a probe at the base that needs Xenon....now the truck has to go back for the Xenon.

See where I'm going with this...versatility.

[maltesh]

Seems like your missing that you can drill while time warping.

As for the actual question that is thread title....versatility!

Lets say you have a Wellhead (drill) at spot A, and a big base (storage/conversion) at spot B, and a tanker truck for transport between the two spots. The base, spot B, is designed to hold fuel types.

Now lets say the truck goes to spot A and fills with Kethane, drives to spot B and unloads. The truck has just delivered EVERY type of fuel to the base in one trip. The base can then convert to what is need at that current time.

Truck goes back to spot A, but this time fills with LiquidFuel, and goes to unload at the base. But maybe theres a probe at the base that needs Xenon....now the truck has to go back for the Xenon.

See where I'm going with this...versatility.

I'd ask, "Why isn't your wellhead part of your storage/conversion base?" Kethane patches are huge, there must have been a good flat spot to place the base somewhere that doesn't require you to drive long distances overland carrying Kethane.

[strongest_2hu]

I'd ask, "Why isn't your wellhead part of your storage/conversion base?" Kethane patches are huge, there must have been a good flat spot to place the base somewhere that doesn't require you to drive long distances overland carrying Kethane.

Because sometimes (most of the time?) your storage/conversion base is in orbit, and the drills just aren't quite long enough for that.

[KhaosCorp]

I'd ask, "Why isn't your wellhead part of your storage/conversion base?" Kethane patches are huge, there must have been a good flat spot to place the base somewhere that doesn't require you to drive long distances overland carrying Kethane.

It was a hypothetical situation to portray the logistic implications of the 2 methods...

And also I do 99.9% of all converting in space, not planetside.

[SciMan]

Because Kethane is dense! Take a 1m lander pod, attach a 1m Kethane tank, Kethane fueled generator, battery, single xenon tank, and 5 ion engines, and the Kethane generator will provide both power AND xenon to the ion thrusters, and you get a ship that can use ion engines without the requirement of being in the sun to get enough power. Also, a similar drive solution could be used (suitaibly scaled) to transport Kethane to/from an orbit around any planet or moon in KSP. Granted, you might need to use quite a lot of ion engines to reduce the required burn time to a tolerable value, maybe it's not a reasonable way to do that, but since when has KSP been about doing things reasonably? (ref: MOAR BOOSTERS)

[KinkyFerrets]

Hi, I am a kethane newbie and I just learned that you cannot drill for kethane in the background. You have to be there with the craft for it to drill.

For me that begs the question - why are there all the large Kethane tanks?

See, if I can only drill when I am there, then it's most efficient to just have a big bunch of kethane drills in one place (instead of scattered around the planet). And when I have them all in one place, then I might just as well convert it at the time of drilling, I am not shipping any kethane around after all. And if I am converting at the time of drilling, the smallest kethane tank will suffice as a buffer. Why are there all the tanks then?

I just wanted to have one big base as a kethane converter, fuel depo and launch platform and small kethane drilling hoppers hopping from deposit to deposit, but that's just useless I think.

Or am I missing something?

EDIT: yeah, basically exactly like this guy here: http://oi42.tinypic.com/2r72e5g.jpg ... there is really no incentive to do anything else, is there?

EDIT2: even better - http://i.imgur.com/5iHiYjp.jpg

I enjoy the roleplay from time to time. I have, in essence, a KC-130 type aircraft that I use to move Kethane from landed tanks on kerbin back to base to reduce the "cost" of launches.

[rosenkranz]

I don't know but at .002 density, I don't consider Kethane dense. And at 500,000 units of Kethane in a deposit, I'm not sure you could argue that deposits are 'huge'.

I had a fuel tanker with two drills, a converter and 2000 unit tank for a buffer. The fuel tankage was 3.75m and 5m tanks using nervas to get back to orbit. I got the tanks just over 60% full when the deposit dried up. I wish i could remember the total capacity. I don't remember how much was in that deposit but it was a pretty big number.

Now something that is minable should take a bit longer to deplete. I mean deposits here on earth take years to mine out.

Since the density of Kethane was doubled (was .001) this effect is lessened. In fact, when that happened and I realized that effectively doubled the deposit, I started playing around with the density to further increase deposits. Heh, setting it to .3 was kinda insane (i set it thus because 'testium' was set at .3 and i wanted to see what mining that would be like.). LoL, I didn't realize what that would do. The little tank (full) massed 45 tons. The 2000 unit pancake tank massed 600 tons. Still playing with the numbers on these really

I'm of the thought process that while Kethane (once disturbed by the drills) is a gas but, as it is pumped into the tanks it really should condense down into a liquid form given the low temperatures where it's being mined. Also consider that Kethane has got to be a fairly heavy complex molecule given that it can be converted to a variety of other materials. Obviously .3 tons per unit was way, way, way to dense but it likely should be at least .005 or a bit higher.