Kethane facilities

[Sokar408]

I keep seeing all these fancy cool looking Kethane builds, with "tubes" running between the different infrastructure. However I always wondered how people get it all placed. I have experimented on Kerbin myself, but have yet to figure a viable different and placement vehicle. So if anyone out there has some cool green dealing facilities and want to show off, please do

Also a little tell of how you managed doing whatever you have done would be much appreciated

[Monkeh]

May I direct you to this excellent thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/48876-The-art-of-modular-base-building

Have fun and good luck.

[Sokar408]

May I direct you to this excellent thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/48876-The-art-of-modular-base-building

Have fun and good luck.

I thank thee *bow*

[Richy teh space man]

You can use the KAS mod to connect buildings on the ground via cable, it's easier then using docking ports.

[Sokar408]

You can use the KAS mod to connect buildings on the ground via cable, it's easier then using docking ports.

True, but far less cool

It will be the "go to" method for refinery to ship transfer though

[Doctor Axel]

I actually prefer connecting ground bases via KAS, not sure why - I might just like that it gives my ground crews something to do during construction. Plus it cuts down on tonnage.

I'm also just bad at connecting things on the ground. So there's that.

[Spatzimaus]

I prefer to just launch a single gigantic rover with drills and such built in, so that I don't need to worry about connecting modules and can travel to wherever the Kethane is. My current version is a 400-ton monstrosity, Mun Unit Zappa, shown here on the runway during a test drive:

(I only deployed the solar panels and greenhouses on one side, to illustrate the layout. On Kerbin I have to retract the panels before moving, but on Mun or Minmus it's a non-issue.)

My previous version was quite a bit smaller, in the 250-ton range, but I felt like going bigger once career mode was added.

The problem is that once the new resource system comes in and replaces Kethane, things'll change quite a bit. You'll no longer be able to make usable fuel at a single location; instead, you'll probably have all your refineries in orbit (on space stations) and use landers to transfer the raw materials up as necessary, since that'll be the only practical way to get the multiple ingredients to the same location. That's part of why I wanted a mobile drill rig; in theory, I could refine fuel on-site by moving the drills to the locations of each ingredient. But it's more likely that I'll end up using smaller drill rovers and a larger central, mostly static, refinery.

[Scrogdog]

Chuckled at the name.

What a beast! It's great!

[SkyRender]

I tend to prefer something a bit... simpler.

The mining unit is kept as minimal as possible. It has almost no capacity of its own.

The fuel ferry is similarly minimalist. Its only job is to lug the fuel from the miner to the orbital fuel station (which happens to be the last tank of the launch stage that gets them up to their destination).

This particular variant of my mining mission profile (which needs one launch to get the whole operation going) is un-Kerballed. The small wheeled "mouse" seen on the mining unit utilizes KAS and docking to allow the ferry and miner to link up on the surface without any intervention from everyone's favorite little green men.

[Sokar408]

I prefer to just launch a single gigantic rover with drills and such built in, so that I don't need to worry about connecting modules and can travel to wherever the Kethane is. My current version is a 400-ton monstrosity, Mun Unit Zappa, shown here on the runway during a test drive:

(I only deployed the solar panels and greenhouses on one side, to illustrate the layout. On Kerbin I have to retract the panels before moving, but on Mun or Minmus it's a non-issue.)

My previous version was quite a bit smaller, in the 250-ton range, but I felt like going bigger once career mode was added.

The problem is that once the new resource system comes in and replaces Kethane, things'll change quite a bit. You'll no longer be able to make usable fuel at a single location; instead, you'll probably have all your refineries in orbit (on space stations) and use landers to transfer the raw materials up as necessary, since that'll be the only practical way to get the multiple ingredients to the same location. That's part of why I wanted a mobile drill rig; in theory, I could refine fuel on-site by moving the drills to the locations of each ingredient. But it's more likely that I'll end up using smaller drill rovers and a larger central, mostly static, refinery.

While I would absolutely question your ability to get that to go.. well.. anywhere, I have to applaud the awesomeness that is that!

[Superfluous J]

I prefer to send up a refinery, fuel shuttle, and station core in one go and then separate the station in orbit. The shuttle takes the refinery (which can drill and store kethane, refine it, and store the refined fuels) to the surface and drops it off, and then fills up with the first load of refined fuel to take it back up into orbit to the station.

Later, as I feel the need or desire, I bring out more station modules. I also sometimes upgrade the shuttle as I find a better way to do something.

I haven't uploaded the video to YouTube yet (It's scheduled for Wednesday or Thursday, I think) but here's the upcoming screenshot for my first Minmus refinery, taken during a transfer burn. You can see the 3 parts (station, refinery, shuttle). They're basic but hey, basic works.

[kiwiak]

I prefer to just launch a single gigantic rover with drills and such built in, so that I don't need to worry about connecting modules and can travel to wherever the Kethane is. My current version is a 400-ton monstrosity, Mun Unit Zappa, shown here on the runway during a test drive:

(I only deployed the solar panels and greenhouses on one side, to illustrate the layout. On Kerbin I have to retract the panels before moving, but on Mun or Minmus it's a non-issue.)

My previous version was quite a bit smaller, in the 250-ton range, but I felt like going bigger once career mode was added.

The problem is that once the new resource system comes in and replaces Kethane, things'll change quite a bit. You'll no longer be able to make usable fuel at a single location; instead, you'll probably have all your refineries in orbit (on space stations) and use landers to transfer the raw materials up as necessary, since that'll be the only practical way to get the multiple ingredients to the same location. That's part of why I wanted a mobile drill rig; in theory, I could refine fuel on-site by moving the drills to the locations of each ingredient. But it's more likely that I'll end up using smaller drill rovers and a larger central, mostly static, refinery.

what mod is this greenhouse from?

[annallia]

what mod is this greenhouse from?

Just a guess but I would say it is H.O.M.E 3m

Edit- Could be Ioncross as well.

[Beachernaut]

I tend to prefer something a bit... simpler.

The mining unit is kept as minimal as possible. It has almost no capacity of its own.

The fuel ferry is similarly minimalist. Its only job is to lug the fuel from the miner to the orbital fuel station (which happens to be the last tank of the launch stage that gets them up to their destination).

This particular variant of my mining mission profile (which needs one launch to get the whole operation going) is un-Kerballed. The small wheeled "mouse" seen on the mining unit utilizes KAS and docking to allow the ferry and miner to link up on the surface without any intervention from everyone's favorite little green men.

That's very similar to my setup. However, I never thought to use a "mouse" to connect them. Such a simple solution to a nagging problem. Thank you sir for the great idea. Now I can keep my Kerbals for less mundane jobs.

[ecat]

My most complex Kethane facility began like this

... having discovered Kethane just over the mountains West of KSC I decided it would be useful to keep a couple of tanks of the stuff on hand. On the right we have my Kethane hopper, it hopped over the mountains, drilled and was capable of hopping back. Still, it would have been nice to have a truck that could carry a greater load.

On the left we have the remains of one of my early trucks. It came over the mountains and after a not so small accident, most of it was destroyed. If nothing else, it showed just how strong the frame was, lol.

Development continued. Why stop at Kerbin?

Tehe.

Two modified aerospikes and a custom NERVA (and a thrust correction mod http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/47780-PLUGIN-0-21-x-Automatic-Centre-of-Mass-Tracking-0-01 ) are all it takes to reach for the stars. The initial launch vehicle is a bit of a monster but once in space it makes for quite a Grand Tourer.

Instructions for landing:

Land on back end.

Fall over.

There is little point landing to refuel if you can't take off...

... leaving Mun with a full load. Don't let the pictured deltaV fool you, once the 'spikes are switched off the Kethane converter is sufficient to keep the NERVA running for a long time. I tested it as far as Duna - from Minmus, land, refuel, take off, land Ike, refuel and back to orbit with a good fuel load - so that should give you some idea of its capabilities.

Instructions for take-off:

Drive really, really fast.

Ideally drive off the edge of a tall cliff.

Engage engines at maximum.

PANIC for about 5 seconds while trying to gain control of flight.

Switch off 'spikes asap.

IIRC the only stock parts in my last version were some of the lights, lol, so it became no longer Kerbal I guess, though I did try not to make anything too OP. If you're wondering it also makes for a fine, and fast, rover - oh the jumps it can make

[Spatzimaus]

While I would absolutely question your ability to get that to go.. well.. anywhere,

That current design hasn't been launched yet, but it shouldn't have any problems with the trip. I've got an 9000-ton SSTO booster for lifting stuff like this; it's a giant brick of rockets, basically, so there are plenty of points for attaching awkward payloads to the top. and the design is close enough to symmetrical that rockets attached to the bottom of the central stack can safely lift it without any balance issues. The rover actually has enough built-in rockets to have a TWR of about 2 on Mun (1320 kN for 400 tons), and obviously plenty of fuel, so landing under its own power shouldn't be an issue. I'm just not done tweaking the design yet, so I haven't actually put one on Mun in this version, but I've done it before with slightly smaller versions before.

Here's a picture of my old 0.19 version, after safely landing on Mun:

Perversely, the weak point in the new design is the wheels; on Kerbin, they just aren't strong enough to deal with the strain of a 400-ton rover. The 20 wheels do just fine when it's standing still, but go over any angles in the terrain, or try to make a turn, and one of the tires usually blows. This shouldn't be as bad on Mun or Minmus, though. I know there are mods looking to add caterpillar treads, and once those are ready I'll replace all the wheels.

what mod is this greenhouse from?

It's the most recent version of HOME. (The older versions used a fixed 3-way symmetry, as seen in the screenshot of the old rover above.)

The hub to which they attach doubles as a 9.5-ton fuel tank, but it also works nicely as a 4-way connector (as seen in the lower part of the central stack, where I use one to connect the various directions). The greenhouses themselves do nothing, but they only mass 0.5 tons and they look nice. For a manned moon base, I feel they're an aesthetic necessity. It's why I've also got an array of them on my 800-ton space stations; when you've got that much mass already, another couple tons of dead weight doesn't hurt much.

----------------------------

But honestly, that 400-ton rover isn't really practical, given how far apart the resource fields are. It's a proof-of-concept for once the real resource system is in place, but Kethane doesn't have problems with landing at a single location and refining all the fuel you need. That's why I invented the Valdez class of mobile Kethane refineries:

That's one refueling on Pol. Fully filled it runs about 300 tons; it's got enough thrust to land on anything lighter than Mun, so I've got copies of it at Gilly, Ike, Minmus, and two based at Pol (one of which moves down to Laythe), plus a couple acting as fuel depots in Kerbin orbit. And it's designed to basically act as a space station, refueling other vessels as necessary. Here is one refueling Jeb's favorite spaceplane over Laythe:

At 300 tons, it carries enough fuel to refuel one of those spaceplanes about a dozen times before it'd have to return to Pol to refuel. The engines are hybrid ions (ISP 900), from a mod of course, so it shouldn't have a problem making that trip. Getting to Pol from low Kerbin orbit took about 2/3rds of its onboard fuel, and it needed almost 100,000 Kethane to refill after that trip, but it's definitely doable.

How do I launch it? With the Brick-21:

That's a stack of 21 3.75m rocket stacks, linked together. It's an SSTO design, just under 5000 tons at launch, that safely places any payload under about 400 tons in a circular Kerbin orbit before de-orbiting itself to prevent debris accumulation. The Brick-29 and Brick-37 are made for larger payloads; I'll use a 37 for the big rover once it's ready.

I've also got a 500-ton combination refinery, using a 450-ton orbital fuel depot and a 50-ton kethane-refining lander. It's more useful for places with Mun-level gravity, and also works better as a rescue vessel. At the moment, I only have a couple around Mun and Minmus, but in previous versions I had three at Jool, two at Duna, two at Eve, and seven in the Kerbin system.

EDIT:

Besides, if you think MY designs are huge, go look at Whackjob's big Kethane-refining lander.

Edited December 2, 2013 by Spatzimaus

[panfish5]

Now I usually place my kethane bases with one launch seeing that multiple launches are a bit of a pain. I have only sent two considerably sized kethane facilities but both are lost when I deleted the save.

The P.M.I.S. Definitely the biggest kethane capable facility, it was meant for a grand tour of all the planets but only made it to the mun due to wobbliness and lag. The kethane mining unit wasn't even attached yet.

The kethane storage unit is the Green bit.

The other size able facility is this moon base that I never added more modules to (it was gonna be a really big base but I abandoned it.)

[Johnno]

Since this looks like a craft sharing thread it'll probably fit better in Spacecraft Exchange. Please consider carefully where you place new threads, Rule 2.4 is in effect.

Thread moved.