Squadcast revealed resources will be tied to asteroids. Thoughts?

[chaos_forge]

In friday's squadcast, Maxmaps revealed that the "deep-space refueling" method that was mentioned in the Beta plan would be somehow tied to asteroids. What are the community's thoughts on this? I for one think it's a good idea, but I hope they also give us a way to refuel on the ground.

[Tery215]

The asteroids weren't good for enough things.

60 science from an asteroid? You could get 200 science from the money you spent launching the asteroid redirector.

[Joonatan1998]

I hope it isn't just "asteroids are naturally spawning fuel tanks that contain oxidizer and fuel"

[Laie]

The asteroids weren't good for enough things.

I've yet to visit an asteroid. At all. Refueling needs might actually make me do so.

Asteroids are a good idea for several reasons: kinda-sorta infinite yet not so simple as to plant a single refinery and never worry about fuel ever again. And very flexible: while not as convenient as (say) Minumus, the good thing about asteroids is that you can move them around -- and create the necessary fuel as you go along. If the asteroid gets used up in the process... well the fewer rock there is, the easier you can move it. So you will probably still have *something* left by the time you arrive at your destination.

Asteroid redirect would become terribly easy, though. "Incoming asteroid! 1200tons, ETA three months! Correction: 900 tons. Correction: 400. Correction: no asteroid."

Edited October 19, 2014 by Laie

[Superfluous J]

I think it's a great idea. Asteroids aren't actually a threat anyway and it'll be great to have a reason to go to them.

I still hope they'll each only have one resource, so you can't just top up your fuel, oxidizer, monoprop and xenon in one go. It'd be nice to have to search several asteroids to make a refueling base, and also have to connect them to actually build such a base.

I don't watch Squadcast episodes, anybody have a breakdown of exactly what was said? Or was it literally, "Asteroids will be involved in deep space refueling."? If so, I'm still going to caveat this whole thing with the concept that asteroids might actually be gas stations where you can simply pay to refuel. Jeez I hope not but there is no evidence to the contrary

[chaos_forge]

The squadcast was rather light on details. All I remember is that asteroids would be linked to refueling, and that there is the possibility that we would be able to discover asteroids near any body, not just Kerbin.

And I hope that you can replenish oxidizer, liquid fuel, and monoprop all from the same asteroid, having to capture multiple asteroids would be quite annoying. And from a realism standpoint, if you find a comet/astroid with water ice, then you can make oxidizer (O2), liquid fuel (H2), and monoprop (H2O2) all from water ice. I imagine there would still be some type of refinery part involved in the resource extraction, though

EDIT: Just re-watched the squadcast, and Maxmaps said that refueling will be more complicated than just "pressing right click and hitting refuel"

Edited October 19, 2014 by chaos_forge

[Starwhip]

The squadcast was rather light on details. All I remember is that asteroids would be linked to refueling, and that there is the possibility that we would be able to discover asteroids near any body, not just Kerbin.

And I hope that you can replenish oxidizer, liquid fuel, and monoprop all from the same asteroid, having to capture multiple asteroids would be quite annoying. And from a realism standpoint, if you find a comet/astroid with water ice, then you can make oxidizer (O2), liquid fuel (H2), and monoprop (H2O2) all from water ice. I imagine there would still be some type of refinery part involved in the resource extraction, though

EDIT: Just re-watched the squadcast, and Maxmaps said that refueling will be more complicated than just "pressing right click and hitting refuel"

Mining, anyone? :hoping:

[pxi]

Frankly, it wasn't what I expected, but I've come to like the idea.

I'm hopeful that Squad might use this opportunity to make some subtle changes to asteroids in general. For one thing, the composition of asteroids has a spectrum, broadly speaking, this is your C, S, and M class asteroids. For another, within our own asteroid belt, there is a region, generally known as the snow line - wikipedia tells me this is at 2.7 AU - this is the point beyond which, where ice tends to accrete.

What I'm getting at with this, is a hope that not every asteroid that is generated happens to contain a uniform amount of ice, or whatever it is that Squad decide is the fuelstuff. Finding suitable asteroids would hopefully be a bit of a challenge in itself, as opposed to just grabbing the first rock you see.

Likewise, I would like to see some kind of refinery, probably operating something similar to the science lab insofar as it would need to be manned in order to work. I'm hoping for more reasons to set up, and maintain space stations.

These are just my hopes, I'm mindful that "asteroid as gas-station" is within the realm of possibility.

Edited October 19, 2014 by pxi

[dryer_lint]

Oooh, that would be cool. Track an asteroid for a while to find out how much of each resource it has, and then send a refinery probe to it. Maybe if the asteroid has some special resource (like xenon because it sounds cool) you could recover it for a contract and get a bunch of Funds!

[juanml82]

Oooh, that would be cool. Track an asteroid for a while to find out how much of each resource it has, and then send a refinery probe to it. Maybe if the asteroid has some special resource (like xenon because it sounds cool) you could recover it for a contract and get a bunch of Funds!

Real asteroids can have ice, which is useful. I don't think they'll have xenon.

[pxi]

Real asteroids can have ice, which is useful. I don't think they'll have xenon.

Actually, it seems xenon is one method that is used to date meteorites. It may not be as unlikely as you think.

http://earthandsolarsystem.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/xenon-in-the-intriguing-meteorite-graves-nunatak-60129/

[m4v]

Actually, it seems xenon is one method that is used to date meteorites. It may not be as unlikely as you think.

http://earthandsolarsystem.wordpress.com/2011/04/12/xenon-in-the-intriguing-meteorite-graves-nunatak-60129/

Interesting but irrelevant, it says nothing about the prospects of mining Xenon from asteroids, you only need trace amounts of it for use it as a dating tool.

[prophet_01]

Mining from asteroids was pretty much what I expected after the big 0.90 post. I like the idea and I hope for an asteroid belt. I hope they get the balancing right... it might be tricky. If the extraction process is too fast and/or asteroids have too much fuel I see all kinds of weired rock-ships flying around

[pxi]

Interesting but irrelevant, it says nothing about the prospects of mining Xenon from asteroids, you only need trace amounts of it for use it as a dating tool.

I hear you, but at the same time, if Xenon is present in asteroids in any quantity, theoretically it can be extracted. It becomes an issue of how much xenon you can expect to extract. It seems to me that player demand for xenon is going to be far lower than conventional fuel. For the sake of argument, you might say that 0.1% of the volatile content of the asteroid contains xenon. Having said that, considering that you are probably having to extract it from the rock itself, presumably through melting the rock, you would expect that the energy cost of doing this would be considerably higher than mining ice.

Now on the other hand, one place where xenon seems to be in relatively high abundance, is in Jupiter's atmosphere. So Jool might be considered as an alternate location perhaps.

[John FX]

I`d rather scoop fuel from Jool than an asteroid.

I prefer it much more

[m4v]

Now on the other hand, one place where xenon seems to be in relatively high abundance, is in Jupiter's atmosphere. So Jool might be considered as an alternate location perhaps.

That can be, though in my opinion Xenon is an exotic enough fuel (an ingredient for ions witchery no less!) that you can leave it as something you get from the launchpad only and don't worry over how to harvest it realistically.

[Laie]

I still hope they'll each only have one resource, so you can't just top up your fuel, oxidizer, monoprop and xenon in one go. It'd be nice to have to search several asteroids to make a refueling base, and also have to connect them to actually build such a base.

Xenon and monoprop? Will that even be necessary?

That can be, though in my opinion Xenon is an exotic enough fuel (an ingredient for ions witchery no less!) that you can leave it as something you get from the launchpad only and don't worry over how to harvest it realistically.

Never mind realism, if I had to bring all my Xenon from Kerbin (and monoprop too, for that matter) it wouldn't be a problem, gameplay-wise.

[Red Iron Crown]

If asteroids are the only mode of ISRU I hope they spawn in more places than the Kerbin neighborhood. That's where I need in flight refueling the least.

[Endersmens]

If asteroids are the only mode of ISRU I hope they spawn in more places than the Kerbin neighborhood. That's where I need in flight refueling the least.

Last page:

The squadcast was rather light on details. All I remember is that asteroids would be linked to refueling, and that there is the possibility that we would be able to discover asteroids near any body, not just Kerbin.

He did say possibility, but that means SQUAD is considering it, and it's probably coming. Maybe.

[Red Iron Crown]

Endersmens: Thanks, my reading comprehension is apparently lacking this morning.

Tough to plan around an asteroid, the encounters and trajectories are so random. It also takes a good bit of propellant to get to one and even more if it needs to be captured. I'd rather it be available from the surface of bodies, too.

[Endersmens]

Endersmens: Thanks, my reading comprehension is apparently lacking this morning.

Tough to plan around an asteroid, the encounters and trajectories are so random. It also takes a good bit of propellant to get to one and even more if it needs to be captured. I'd rather it be available from the surface of bodies, too.

You're welcome.

I agree, but also I hope you will get a considerable amount of resource from one asteroid. Like you said they are hard to plan and hard to achieve, and use quite a bit of fuel to reach. I would hate to spend 1000 units of extra fuel from my return craft to catch an asteroid in or around Eeloo orbit and find out I only get 100 units back. Makes it kinda pointless to refuel if its more trouble than it's worth. Maybe find an exlanation that gives asteroids farther away from kerbin more fuel? Like temp. You get little resources from asteroids that get blasted by the sun, but you get lots of fuel from the ice in asteroids around jool and eeloo. Or maybe something else.

[Superfluous J]

Xenon and monoprop? Will that even be necessary?

For me personally, Xenon is not necessary. I've never used ion engines for anything other than playing around and have no real plans to use them. The only thing they're good for IMO is one-way probes and by the time I unlock them, I'm not using one-way probes.

But monoprop? Moho, yes! It's not as good as fuel and oxidizer but I've never played a game with Kethane installed where I didn't at least convert SOME of it to monoprop.

[tHarvey303]

Perhaps there will be actually belts of asteroids, like the main asteroid belt and if Jool ever gets rings then you could mine them. Squad did create a resource tree but decided it was far to complicated to work. Each asteroid may only contain a large amount of one resource so you would have to visit a number of asteroids to collect fuel. If it was Ice you would get then you should require a large amount of electric charge to perform electrolysis. This could tie in if Squad implement resources utilization by Kerbals and you could refill oxygen tanks from the asteroid. Just some ideas I had, sorry if these have already been posted I only skimmed some of the other posts.

[r4pt0r]

Assuming asteroids spawn orbiting other bodies, wont that strain some of the lower end pcs?

[pxi]

Assuming asteroids spawn orbiting other bodies, wont that strain some of the lower end pcs?

I would imagine they would tweak the system so that the overall rate of asteroid spawning remains the same as it is currently, just that where they spawn is different.

Is this already a problem?