Kethane Miner Fail

[MinerKerb]

Hey there! First time poster so hope I'm posting in the correct forum. Anyhow, I started playing with kethane, but after landing this central tank and 4 little miners I can't seem to get them working. I can mine kethane, store it, convert it to monopropellant, and transfer to central tank. That cannot, however be done for liquid fuel/oxidizer. What did I do wrong? By playing with pipe connectors I could create liquid fuel and store in the tiny miner fuel tank, but it had to be manually transferred to the central tank, which was a pain...I cannot seem to get image to work but maybe this imgur link works?

http://imgur.com/BiD3EKu

[AlexanderB]

The kethane converter works as a reverse engine, so just like regular engines, they need to be on the same stack as the fuel they're using (making, in this case) in order to acces the tank. in other words, you need to provide a fuel tank (and/or fuel lines to a fuel tank) for the stack that the converter is in.

Monopropellant (and xenon gas) isn't bound by stacks and fuel lines, so it is automatically put in any of the availible tanks.

Edited April 2, 2014 by AlexanderB

[MrOnak]

@MinerKerb: That is unfortunatelly how Kethane works at the moment. It will only put fuel / oxidiser in the tank connected directly to the converter unit. All else has to be arranged like you did, with KAS fuel pipes or alternatives.

I believe you can use the stock fuel lines as well but point them in reverse - arrows on the lines pointing to the fuel tank connected to the converter. Since like Alexander pointed out the converter acts as a reverse engine you should end up with fuel being spread out to the tanks that are further out. However I haven't tried that myself - since Kethane mining takes a bit of time anyway I don't mind alt-clicking on tanks to distribute the fuel manually.

[MinerKerb]

Thanks guys. Guess making a miner carrier craft/tanker and separate, releasable small miners won't work then. Was a pain in the neck to land and spread out too hehe. Live and learn and all that, I suppose!

[AlexanderB]

Small miners work, but you have to have at least a small fuel tank on them, and a KAS line to the big tank to transfer from there. Just cram a Round-8 in there and its fine.

Fuel lines need to point *towards* the converter to transfer fuel into the tanks, oddly enough. Its because the converter "draws" fuel from the tanks like an engine, but it draws a negative quantity, hence filling the tanks instead of draining them.

[MinerKerb]

The individual miners have a small fuel tank, a kethane tank, and a converter...layered from bottom to top. Are you saying that should work if I hook KAS up from the fuel tank to the separate tanker ship? Or do I need the small miner fuel tank physically attached to the converter?

[AlexanderB]

Physically in the same vertical stack, yes, and from there on, you can move it with KAS to the tanker. (I don't see any in your picture, only the one where the KAS line leads to.)