Squadcast revealed resources will be tied to asteroids. Thoughts?

[r4pt0r]

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?

Some people complain about that. my rig is fine personally.

[Red Iron Crown]

You need an awful lot of on-rails objects to have a noticeable effect on performance, even on my old rig.

[Tuareg]

well chasing down an asteroid already needs an awful lot of resources so whats the point of mining resources to refuel a ship which uses all of its resources to chase down an asteroid and then slow down from that orbit. its like building the only petrol station on earth into the middle of the sahara. u will use all ur fuel to get there and after refueling u will use all the petrol to get back from there, ergo its useless. (at least in current system where asteroids are random and not bond to planets) worst possible solution anybody could come up with

[Padishar]

What are the community's thoughts on this?

Well, my first thought is that I like the sound of it but Squad will need to squash the nasty claw-related bugs or it will be more trouble than it's worth. Yes, you can get fuel out of an asteroid somehow, as long as you don't mind your navball going screwy or your ship exploding when you hit timewarp...

[Superfluous J]

well chasing down an asteroid already needs an awful lot of resources so whats the point of mining resources to refuel a ship which uses all of its resources to chase down an asteroid and then slow down from that orbit. its like building the only petrol station on earth into the middle of the sahara. u will use all ur fuel to get there and after refueling u will use all the petrol to get back from there, ergo its useless. (at least in current system where asteroids are random and not bond to planets) worst possible solution anybody could come up with

If you go to each asteroid and refuel, and then go on to your destination then yes, this is a horrible idea.

If you capture an asteroid and bring it into LKO and make a refuelling station out of it, then any non-jet-engined SSTO with a docking port becomes a SSTA(nywhere) because it takes about as much dV (or more) to get into orbit as it does to get anywhere else. And once there, you can again refuel at the captured-asteroid-fuel-depot you smartly put in orbit there.

[Tuareg]

If you go to each asteroid and refuel, and then go on to your destination then yes, this is a horrible idea.

If you capture an asteroid and bring it into LKO and make a refuelling station out of it, then any non-jet-engined SSTO with a docking port becomes a SSTA(nywhere) because it takes about as much dV (or more) to get into orbit as it does to get anywhere else. And once there, you can again refuel at the captured-asteroid-fuel-depot you smartly put in orbit there.

yeah, but i can do that with an orange tank too... the refuelling should add to the far away missions not the lko refuelling

Edited October 20, 2014 by Tuareg

[tater]

Asteroids (and comets) are not unreasonable sources of resources. But it should be more tied to the resource, and perhaps a biome than specifically to asteroids. Make a resource (water?) and any such biome can be exploited anywhere. It's an important reason/requirement for planetary bases vs exclusively orbital facilities.

[Superfluous J]

yeah, but i can do that with an orange tank too... the refuelling should add to the far away missions not the lko refuelling

Not if an asteroid has 50 orange tanks' worth of fuel. Or is an infinite source.

[Tuareg]

Not if an asteroid has 50 orange tanks' worth of fuel. Or is an infinite source.

even if it has 5million orange tank worth fuel its pointless dont even mention how abusable to bring an asteroid to lko build a ship around it and u have a big infinite fueltank... i want to build bases, extract those resources not chasing fistsize asteroids and pull them to orbit kerbin. dont even mention that it doesnt extend the endgame while a proper mining system would. but sadly thats not something squad able to do

Edited October 20, 2014 by Tuareg

[Paul Kingtiger]

It's a good way to keep things simple. You create 1 new part, an asteroid refinery, which clamps onto a asteroid using the claw.

Each asteroid contains a set amount of a single resource, Liquid fuel, Oxidizer, Monopro, whatever. Which you can mine out with the new part.

You can even make it mod friendly by creating a list of all the resources an asteroid can contain, with a rarity number. That way you can add your resource to the list using .conf file something like:

RESOURCE_DEFINITION

{

name = Hydrogen

density = 0.0000000899

unitCost = 0.000055836

flowMode = ALL_VESSEL

transfer = PUMP

isTweakable = true

AsteroidMinable = 7

}

In this example there is 7 in X chance of any spawning asteroid containing Hydrogen, with the amount contained depending on the class. A number of 0 means that resources can't be found in 'roids.

Add to that a second part, an asteroid scanner, much smaller and needing less power it can be sent to 'roids on probes to see what resource is available before sending the miner.

It would also use a part module so that the scanner could be added to other parts.

[Red Iron Crown]

Not if an asteroid has 50 orange tanks' worth of fuel. Or is an infinite source.

It will be a bad, bad thing if the harvestable resources from the asteroid mass more than the asteroid itself.

[dryer_lint]

Wait a second. I just realized, maybe with the Upgradable KSC, you can improve your tracking distance and view further and further asteroids!

[chaos_forge]

Wait a second. I just realized, maybe with the Upgradable KSC, you can improve your tracking distance and view further and further asteroids!

Bingo. According to the squadcast, they're considering this

[Superfluous J]

It will be a bad, bad thing if the harvestable resources from the asteroid mass more than the asteroid itself.

Okay so Infinite is a bad idea, but a class E asteroid is about 40 full orange tanks in mass. Let's say you can get something like 1/4 of it in resources (just handwavy here). Is it better to get the asteroid or launch 10 orange tanks? What about a Class X asteroid that is 1000 orange tanks in mass, or 10000?

I can tell you I'd rather figure out how to wrangle one of those than I would launching a couple tanks worth of fuel over and over and over and over ... etc.

[Kegereneku]

I expected them to allow us to do that, however asteroid isn't the only way to refuel and some of their trajectory can be inconvenient. I can imagine several possibility, from capturing asteroid to riding along them.

What I'm really hoping is that you'll be able to refuel (an infinite amount) from biomes too. (if only to refuel on Minmus/Vall's ice which are basically just bigger ice asteroid)

Edit : on the unmissable question of how much propellant you can extract from asteroid, it should respect the mass of the actual fuel, so it become a question of how much of the asteroid can be turned into fuel.

The bigger class : E can weight a thousand of tons, if 70% can be converted into fuel it give us 700tons of liquid fuel, less what might have been needed to bring it here. And considering I've sent up to 150tons in orbit to catch one, it might not be efficient to move the smaller class (unless you are riding along one like a cycler*).

*a mission involving meeting a cycler asteroid would be fun to plan.

Edited October 21, 2014 by Kegereneku

[prophet_01]

It would at least give another good reason to get yourself some knowledge about slingshots and gravity assists. I hope that the devs think about aerobreaking. Otherwise It's a cake walk to get a class d (maxbe even an e) to lko. Just meet it in interplanetary space, long before it enters kerbin's soi. Redirection to an aerobraking maneuver is not that difficult. You don't even need to be precise about the periapsis, just aim for a capture and do the rest with a couple of soft breaks. I already did that woth a class d. And I used a reusable schuttle to do that with a class c It could most likely do that with a class e, but the mission profile was already exotic and I didn't see a reason to make it more difficult at that time.

The result would be: getting something like 10 orange tanks with launch costs of roughly 30 k funds (in case of my schuttle)

Edited October 21, 2014 by prophet_01

[CaptRobau]

After having played some Extraplanetary Launchpads I've come to the conclusion that I wouldn't mind having orbital or even planetary construction. It'd really open up the game after a while if it didn't take 3 in-game years between each exploration of Laythe, Vall, etc.

[Tuareg]

Okay so Infinite is a bad idea, but a class E asteroid is about 40 full orange tanks in mass. Let's say you can get something like 1/4 of it in resources (just handwavy here). Is it better to get the asteroid or launch 10 orange tanks? What about a Class X asteroid that is 1000 orange tanks in mass, or 10000?

so that you cant move to orbit then and chasing it to refuel would cost more than what u can get from it. dont forget not just the amount in the asteroid is what matter but the limited fuel capacity your craft has.

if chasing a 10000 orange tank asteroid eats all your fuel (and it does) what is it worth refueling on it? or will you launch 10000 rokomax engine to move it to orbit?

as long as asteroids are not bond to planets like asteroid belts, (aka tiny moons) its pointless even to talk about them...

[Superfluous J]

so that you cant move to orbit then and chasing it to refuel would cost more than what u can get from it. dont forget not just the amount in the asteroid is what matter but the limited fuel capacity your craft has.

if chasing a 10000 orange tank asteroid eats all your fuel (and it does) what is it worth refueling on it? or will you launch 10000 rokomax engine to move it to orbit?

as long as asteroids are not bond to planets like asteroid belts, (aka tiny moons) its pointless even to talk about them...

I really don't think we're talking about the same thing.

I can get a 1500 ton asteroid in an equatorial orbit around Kerbin for the same fuel on the launch pad it would take to get an orange tank into that same orbit. How? Get that orange tank into orbit with a command pod, claw, and some nuke engines and then use it to go capture an asteroid. In fact, the orange tank would be overkill, I could probably do it with half an orange tank.

And once I got the asteroid into orbit, I'd have a ship that could go get another one, and that ship would be CONNECTED TO A REFUELING STATION.

It does not take dozens of orange tanks to get an asteroid into LKO. It takes a lot of dV, sure, but 99% of that dV can be done with aerobraking and Mun gravity assists.