Squad's accounced there will be Resources in Beta- how should they go about it?

[Red Iron Crown]

If asteroids are harvestable, they pretty much have to have finite resources, with the mass of the asteroid reducing as resources are harvested. Doing otherwise breaks the rocket equation.

I'd prefer planetary deposits to be inexhaustible, this makes permanent outposts more feasible and useful and is also more realistic (it doesn't make sense to me that a few rockets worth of fuel would deplete a natural resource deposit).

[Pthigrivi]

Also as a note there are polar craters on the Mun which never receive sunlight. They are nice analogs to similar places on the Moon which harbor sub-surface ice, and could be an in-game location of ice deposits. Fuel cells would be invaluable for mining there.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Pthigrivi

[Nuke]

big thing i want is resource distributions to reflect what planetary science has found in our own solar system. we know where water is. we know where hydrocarbons are just laying around. we know what kind of ices are available and where (craters, etc). we know whats in the soil on many objects. the kerbol system is loaded with sol system analogs, and i think resources should be distributed to reflect that. however resource abundance can be tweaked for gameplay reasons. obviously the richest resources should be on the hard targets like eve, and the least should be on asteroids which are close to kerbin and easy to land on. infinite resource locations should be restricted to planets and moons with reasonably high gravity. oceans and atmospheres would be effectively unlimited no matter where they are. low gravity locations should not have infinite resources, perhaps depletable patches (maybe with respawn).

1g or more: infinite resources, 3-4 different resources available

0.5g-1.0g: infinite resources, 2-3 different resources available

0.1g to 0.5g: infinite and/or depleteable resources, 1-2 different resources available

0.1g or less (including asteroids): depleteable resources, 0-1 resources available

you could also make depletion based on extraction cost (resources, usually electric charge) and time. for example you might be able to mine a location quickly at first and with a lower extraction cost. it would take longer and more power to extract the same resources as it is mined. eventually it might take a year of lighting a solar array to fill a tank. you would never completely deplete a resource, just make it harder to extract to the point where it would be less effort to just launch it from kerbin. but it would still put out resources in an emergency.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Nuke

[CaptainKipard]

That looks good Nuke. Could you briefly outline where resources should be found?

[Nuke]

for land deposits i would use biomes somehow. how is up for debate. the simple way: you could just have a list of resources for each biome, their availability and extraction cost (resources, such as electric charge or catalysts) and rate. pretty straight forward. for limited resources cost would go up and rate would go down as resources are collected (rate would never reach zero and cost would never reach infinite, so resources will never fully deplete, just become inconvenient to mine). just mine in a resource harboring biome.

a more interesting idea is to use visually identifiable terrain features to indicate resource locations. these would be created in the same way procedural craters work (and likewise craters themselves might harbor resources). you might have a lake bed, dried up river, volcano, crater, ice patch, etc mark the resource deposit. what they harbor may depend on what biome they are spawned in and the terrain feature depicted. a polar crater might harbor water, and a equatorial volcano might have a lot of frozen co2 in the soil. the resource extraction rules from the simple idea still apply. in addition to providing resources, it will add more visual character to the planets and moons in the game.

atmospheric and oceanic resources would be simpler. planets would simply define their oceanic and atmospheric compositions and they would be unlimited with no diminishing returns. you might use a layered definition for each planet, containing both hydrospheric and atmospheric compositions at various altitudes. you might skim jools upper atmo for hydrogen or its lower atmosphere for xenon. or you might be able to collect sulpheric acid from a cloud layer on eve for use as a catalyst in other processes, and get co2 at other altitudes. so you can make atmospheric mining difficult by requiring you to maintain altitude in a rich layer.

asteroids would pretty much be hard limited, single resource, stand alone deposits. just claw it and have access to its materials until its spent. even if each asteroid has a limited resource, asteroids are kind of unlimited in their numbers. you can just keep finding new ones with fuel. so to avoid making this a cheap and easy way to keep flying, kinda make it a craps shoot. you would have to wrangle an asteroid before you know what it contains, and some might not contain anything at all.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Nuke

[Pthigrivi]

If you did the catalyst thing, rather than making planetary deposits depletable, you could simply make weaker and stronger deposits based on how efficiently catalyst produces fuel. For instance a dense bed in polar crater on duna could produce at 1:50, but the basins of minmus only produce at 1:15, making them barely worth it. It would make things easy to balance that way too.

I love the idea of getting some nice visual terrain, and Im sure they'd love to long term, but for simplicity early on you could just lay graphic ice crystals or some other visual indicator across the surface where deposits are.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Pthigrivi

[Nuke]

"we require more minerals"

i like the idea of having to deal with a few catalysts. but i kind of think it should be harvestable just like any other resource. i had the idea to make xenon out of a planets atmosphere, you would eat up some liquid fuel (assuming lh2) as coolant, this would allow you to liquify the local atmosphere to perform fractional distillation (plus you need to push the intake through the air). splitting water is so easy anyone here can do it with stuff found around the house. the only thing that would be hard to explain is how to make monopropellant, or possibly nuclear fuel, the latter requiring a lot more than just a catalyst and the former requiring many compounds. i really dont want to over think the chemistry too much but it should at least make sense, you shouldnt have to use a catalyst for things you can just scoop up and zap.

another idea i have is that electricity is too simple. if batteries wear out and solar cells and rtgs degrade, then making everything cost electricity would make things a lot more challenging. power is probibly the toughest space problem to crack, and i kind of think we have it a little too easy in that department.

Edited December 1, 2014 by Nuke

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah I mean we've chatted about a lot of this and I dig the atmospheric Xenon stuff. For balance I think you should only be able to gather it on Eve, Jool, and maybe Laythe, but no catalyst required. I think you could even allow stationary collection but it should draw much more juice. I'm fine with not having to gather and process nuke fuel. The LV-N could use some balance but to me just a big cost increase would work.

In the proposal we bandied about on the previous page a single catalyst would be required to make LF/O and would be harvestable, but deposits would be much rarer than H20.

[kcs123]

I have found something interesting today on news portal. Didn't even thought that something like that already exist in real life. Here is link for Power to Liquids solution from Sunfire company.

Something like that solves problems when comes to fuel. Still need some kind of "ore" minerals as resource for creating rocket/building parts. Some kind of "greenhouse" could be used like in TAC life support mod for creating foods on long journeys.

[Capt Snuggler]

I know I'm probably way too late but I thought I'd show this anyway. take it or leave it. its still a work in progress (especially the life support part)

some bits may look complicated. I assure you it is not.

I've tried to keep it as simple as possible, with as few parts as possible. the new resources would be stored internally within the processor. external radial tanks could also be a thing.

although raw resource storage and processing could have its own tab in the VAB so as not to clutter up the lists too much.

the processor would come in 3 sizes with varying rates of production.

drills, pumps and processors could cause vibration when running. adding a structural stability requirement.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Capt Snuggler

[KrazyKrl]

I know I'm probably way too late but I thought I'd show this anyway. take it or leave it. its still a work in progress (especially the life support part)

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-EJ1YHC88vVI/VJQIxkaPITI/AAAAAAAAAd4/Uz9R3eMVZ2A/w512-h384-no/Slide1.JPGhttps://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-voVTg0KJ33Q/VJQIxq2zm-I/AAAAAAAAAeA/UiB8DzlZxjA/w512-h384-no/Slide2.JPGhttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-yp4Kl02pK7I/VJQIx_iX6lI/AAAAAAAAAeI/HE8iVVAx6Fk/w512-h384-no/Slide3.JPGhttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-qMo9a2gygl0/VJQIyBoOjTI/AAAAAAAAAd8/gM2GSsDOsD0/w512-h384-no/Slide4.JPG

some bits may look complicated. I assure you it is not.

I've tried to keep it as simple as possible, with as few parts as possible. the new resources would be stored internally within the processor. external radial tanks could also be a thing.

although raw resource storage and processing could have its own tab in the VAB so as not to clutter up the lists too much.

the processor would come in 3 sizes with varying rates of production.

drills, pumps and processors could cause vibration when running. adding a structural stability requirement.

Having CO2 as a separate resource seems redundant. CO2 can easily be tied into Waste; reclaimed to O2(Air), and solid Elemental Carbon(1/2 Components of Fuel).

This way, we have 3 resources base: Air, Water, Fuel. (And Energy in the form of Electricity)

Internally, referring to each as an element would work. But at an abstracted UI level, 3 resources should be the base, along with the energy and fuel final resources. Intermediate Resources for consumption like Snacks and Waste for reclamation would be required also.

This would take the proposed 13 resources down to a much more sane 8, 4 of which are tied to vehicle propulsion and power.

Oxidizer from Elec+Air, Kerosene from Elec+Waste+Water, Monoprop from Elec+Waste+Water+/Air, Xenon must be shipped from the surface in any measurable quantities.

Fuel could be turned into Kerbosene and Monoprop, with Air and Elec.

Edited December 19, 2014 by KrazyKrl

[Capt Snuggler]

Having CO2 as a separate resource seems redundant. CO2 can easily be tied into Waste; reclaimed to O2(Air), and solid Elemental Carbon(1/2 Components of Fuel).

yeah I thought this too but I just didn't like calling CO2 "waste" at the beginning of the chain.

This way, we have 3 resources base: Air, Water, Fuel. (And Energy in the form of Electricity)

Internally, referring to each as an element would work. But at an abstracted UI level, 3 resources should be the base, along with the energy and fuel final resources. Intermediate Resources for consumption like Snacks and Waste for reclamation would be required also.

This would take the proposed 13 resources down to a much more sane 8, 4 of which are tied to vehicle propulsion and power.

sorry, this has gone over my head a little. can you clarify please.

thanks for the feed back

[KrazyKrl]

yeah I thought this too but I just didn't like calling CO2 "waste" at the beginning of the chain.

sorry, this has gone over my head a little. can you clarify please.

thanks for the feed back

At the UI level (what the player sees). They should have an as simple as possible view of the game world. Limiting to only a few combined resources also causes the entire chain to not require additional convertors.

[Rdivine]

Eeloo - A hidden ocean underneath the icy crust. (Analog to europa)

Eeloo hides large pockets of methane due to microbial life forms living in the oceans creating them. A craft can visit the planet, drill through the thin crust, and reach the methane and pressurize it as rocket fuel.

Duna - A red, dusty planet with traces of methane.

A craft can visit duna , and use a gas extracter. After waiting several months, it will have gathered enough methane to use as fuel.

[Capt Snuggler]

Duna - A red, dusty planet with traces of methane.

A craft can visit duna , and use a gas extracter. After waiting several months, it will have gathered enough methane to use as fuel.

what about the Oxidizer? it wont burn without oxidizer.

wouldn't it be quicker to process the abundant CO2 and H2O on Duna in to syn-methane and Oxidizer using Electrolysis and the Sabatier reaction

[Nuke]

you left out xenon, but thats just something you can spew out of the converter when handling compressed air. just assume the converter has a fractional distillation plant in it (which is the usual method for extracting inert trace gas products from atmospheres). but otherwise i think its pretty good.

[CaptainKipard]

Snuggler what software are you using for that diagram?

[Capt Snuggler]

you left out xenon, but thats just something you can spew out of the converter when handling compressed air. just assume the converter has a fractional distillation plant in it (which is the usual method for extracting inert trace gas products from atmospheres). but otherwise I think its pretty good.

thanks! yeah I thought xenon was such a minor thing I just left it out. also Nuclear fuel can just be considered infinite.

I imagined the "converters" as being some kind of multi function chemical reactor plant.

I also thought it might be cool if an engineer or scientist kerbal would be needed to switch the operating mode. (you could set it in the VAB if you already know what you will be converting)

I also thought that the chem-reactor could have some kind of throttle to let you adjust the rate of production/conversion depending on how much electricity you have available. but this would also lower the efficiency and induce vibration? also, again an engineer kerbal could service the machine to temporarily boost the efficiency.

not really necessary. just ideas.

Snuggler what software are you using for that diagram?

MS powerpoint (at a glance it looks like i'm working )

**EDIT:

i will be refining this a bit with some suggestions from Cpt. Kipard. for example, its safe to assume the converter/chem-reactor has a compressor built in.

Edited December 19, 2014 by Capt Snuggler

[harlikwin]

If the mining part is as small as the Mobile Processing Lab, it's going to get used in almost every interplanetary mission. A few tonnes of extra payload is nothing compared to the fuel requirements of the return trip. I'd rather see a mining/refinery unit as heavy as the orange tank, or even as heavy as the S3-14400 fuel tank.

Agreed, any sort of resource extraction should be non-trivial since it will be abused if its not. Like some other poster mention, some lightweight part that magically refuels my rocket on any surface is not the way to go with this.

[Francois424]

+1 vote for it weighting in as a s3-14400 tank. It's going annoying to fly it around, but anything else and everyone will carry it everywhere. note that might still happen, haha.

[Pthigrivi]

This can be scaled. I do think you want to encourage people to use it, and I think its fine if its break-even-by-weight is rather easy to meet so long as its break even by cost is rather hard. Its subjective but my feeling is you should have to extract around 2 orange tanks of fuel to make it worth it.

[kcs123]

There should be separate resource recycle/synthesis parts. TAC life suport mod already have made steps in right direction. For CO2 to O2 recycle part it should not weight too much, also filtration from waste water to drinking water should not be too problematic. But fuel synthesis should be much heavier, it most probably require some catalyst item (platinum maybe) for sucessfull production.

For game balance purpose I think it should weight something between 15 and 30t. Should not be too heavy to discourage people from using it, but it should require some good planing to send fuel production machinery on some planet first and then other cratfts to folow in mission and asist to assembly fuel rafinery craft.

[Torquemadus]

I would like to be able to use ISRU in a similar way to Robert Zubrin's Mars Direct mission plan. Mars Direct is a way to do a manned mission to Mars with existing technology, using launch vehicles no bigger than the Saturn 5. No on orbit assembly or giant interplanetary cruisers are required.

[Whirligig Girl]

One thing I'd suggest is that you can not drill into an asteroid to complete an asteroid redirect mission.

- - - Updated - - -

How about Mun giving you SolidFuel to run in a SolidFuel+Oxidizer Hybrid rocket? OF course, the flow rules for SolidFuel might need to be changed.

[Myslius]

I'm a bit surprised noone mentioned Helium-3. It's the future. Heres the thing. There is no helium-3 on earth. Total reserves of helium-3 on earth is 65 pounds. On the moon, however, there are plenty of Helium-3.

The second space race is happening now, and it's for the helium-3.

"Helium-3 on the Moon Can Provide Mankind's Energy Needs for the Next 10,000 Years."

"Each year three space shuttle missions could bring enough fuel for all human beings across the world"

"China's State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry issued a statement Sunday that the next Chang'e-4 mission will be to launch an orbiter that will circle the Moon and then return to Earth. This is a vital step towards establishing the capability for transporting helium-3 from the Moon back to Earth and is preparatory to the 2017 Chang'e-5 mission testing the capacity to gather samples on the Moon"

"According to an official statement released in January, the mining of helium-3 on the Moon will be the main purpose of the Russian space exploration program."

China, Russia, USA, even Canada all are working on Helium-3.

Taking this into account i would like to see helium-3 mining.

Also i second that other resources, such as rare metals, required for unique and more powerful engines, or resources for lightweight ship bodies should be mined too, from other planets. This would give another purpose to visit them.