[0.90] Regolith - an open ISRU and Resource framework [0.1.7 - 2015.02.26]

[Donziboy2]

Github issues please

You asked for it

[invultri]

Are the lasers the hollow tube kind that will funnel the gasses upwards? I still am trying to imagine how a laser can be used to extract things

[scottpaladin]

Are the lasers the hollow tube kind that will funnel the gasses upwards? I still am trying to imagine how a laser can be used to extract things

The lasers just do the vaporizing, the harvester does the actual sucking of the useful stuff.

[RoverDude]

Actually the lasers work without a harvester (they both do the same thing, just different visuals). The laser is pretty and hand-wavey, the harvester is a lot more like what you'd see actually used

[riocrokite]

RoverDude,

Don't know whether you have concrete idea considering random resource generation.

I digged current system and from my understanding resource concentration is based on pixel map, namely on pixel BW color.

I might be wrong but " "easy" " step to evolve into random seed generation would be to just build random color image generator that works each time you start game. It would generate color maps for every planet that is there.

Why colors?

In this way we could embed 3 parameters for each resource, for example:

- red; initial concentration

- blue; size of deposit

- green; depth or generally difficulty to obtain resource

Why concentration and size? I.e. to have ability for small rich deposits that deplete very fast (i mean rich very low concentrations), or having vast deposists that would almost never deplete thus concentration would seems to be stable no matter how much you mine.

For better resolution and local differentiation the image size could be bigger, i.e. proportionally to planet size so the resource points size would be fairly consistent between different planets. But it's optional. Personally I would be happy if those maps could have more resolution.

The game then would use dynamic concentration that is derived from initial concentration and size + smoothing between pixels. That would fix problem of initial resource generation. However resources would still be static.

As for depleation implementation:

As I imagine ordinary player mines in very few places compared to whole map pixel count. Therefore there wouldn't be any need to write information for each pixel about how many resources were already mined.

Instead, when you start mining KSP would write information in small file that holds only points that you mined in -> point coordinates and resources mined in that point. Then, whenever game state updates for mining or else and there are more resources mined than the specific threshold game would re write only map with updated blue color for that pixel (deposit size) and then reset counter for 'resources mined' in that pixel.

I'm not professional programmer myself, so it might be too cumbersome to introduce. But if it helps solving or planning regolith future I'm glad.

[Seyvern]

I'm picking on riocrokite here - sorry, but you are a stand in for a bunch of posts.

Why is it so many people feel that resource depletion must be included (is it because Kethane did it that way first?)

Quite frankly, it they are making the argument from a 'realism' POV, its wrong. IT would be nearly impossible to deplete even a comet's worth of volatiles to create reaction mass for a space program of the size produced here over any reasonable time frame, much less a planet or moon. If its from a gameplay argument, thats fine because thats preference, but there is ALREADY a mod that plays that way.

RoverDude,

Don't know whether you have concrete idea considering random resource generation.

I digged current system and from my understanding resource concentration is based on pixel map, namely on pixel BW color.

I might be wrong but " "easy" " step to evolve into random seed generation would be to just build random color image generator that works each time you start game. It would generate color maps for every planet that is there.

Why colors?

In this way we could embed 3 parameters for each resource, for example:

- red; initial concentration

- blue; size of deposit

- green; depth or generally difficulty to obtain resource

Why concentration and size? I.e. to have ability for small rich deposits that deplete very fast (i mean rich very low concentrations), or having vast deposists that would almost never deplete thus concentration would seems to be stable no matter how much you mine.

For better resolution and local differentiation the image size could be bigger, i.e. proportionally to planet size so the resource points size would be fairly consistent between different planets. But it's optional. Personally I would be happy if those maps could have more resolution.

The game then would use dynamic concentration that is derived from initial concentration and size + smoothing between pixels. That would fix problem of initial resource generation. However resources would still be static.

As for depleation implementation:

As I imagine ordinary player mines in very few places compared to whole map pixel count. Therefore there wouldn't be any need to write information for each pixel about how many resources were already mined.

Instead, when you start mining KSP would write information in small file that holds only points that you mined in -> point coordinates and resources mined in that point. Then, whenever game state updates for mining or else and there are more resources mined than the specific threshold game would re write only map with updated blue color for that pixel (deposit size) and then reset counter for 'resources mined' in that pixel.

I'm not professional programmer myself, so it might be too cumbersome to introduce. But if it helps solving or planning regolith future I'm glad.

[RoverDude]

Actually... there will be no PNG maps for this one

Wrapping up some of the work with the goal of having this buttoned up right after beta hits the streets.

Also bear in mind Regolith is a framework and will have lots of data for folks to work with, but in itself will not be opinionated.

RE depletion - I disagree with the whole 'suck up half a continent of stuff with a tiny drill' mechanic, and at least for anything I make that utilizes Regolith, will use a much more localized depletion mechanic, and even that will not be part of something like Karbonite, but would be part of my Advanced Mining Tech mod. Both styles of which will be supported by the framework.

(another edit)

And even within AMT, depletion will be on a curve, not linear.

Edited December 4, 2014 by RoverDude

[Threadsinger]

That seems sensible, Rover.

[johnsonwax]

I once depleted 1/3 of Minmus's Kethane with a single fueling ship (two full deposits plus part of a third). Took about 3 days in-game time to do it, including moving from deposit to deposit. Not very realistic.

What would make more sense (though I still wouldn't advocate for it) is to be able to exhaust hotspots while leaving a residual concentration behind. Even there it's not worth doing because even with things like TAC, there's no cost to sitting there mining stuff for hours on end, so it becomes an exercise in warp control.

If I'm reading Rover properly, his EL integration will mean you need to get a diversity of resources, possible from different places but certainly in different concentrations in order to accomplish things. And the mechanic for Karborundum where it's quite scarce to find at all is intriguing as well. The scarcity angle can actually also be solved by adding drills in the tech tree that are increasingly efficient for geometrically higher cost and mass, and/or limiting access to low concentration resources until you get those bigger drills. And that kind of stuff can be easily modded in by the player using MM.

[undercoveryankee]

What would make more sense (though I still wouldn't advocate for it) is to be able to exhaust hotspots while leaving a residual concentration behind. Even there it's not worth doing because even with things like TAC, there's no cost to sitting there mining stuff for hours on end, so it becomes an exercise in warp control.

For a long-term mining and manufacturing base, time is cheap because you can easily make as much as you need before the next transfer window to ship it out. So the system should be balanced around setting these up on the long-term stable concentration and not hopping from hot spot to hot spot.

But it's also cool to have a rover that finds a hotspot 20 or so meters across, slurps up a tank or two of material, then looks a few hundred meters away for the next patch of material that its lightweight extractor can reach. It makes sense for those small-scale patches of naturally exposed material to deplete so that an expedition that's relying on them has to keep moving, and if you want to settle down you'll need to bring in the hardware to drill down to the main deposit. I seem to recall Rover saying that depletion on that scale would be implemented.

[Angelo Kerman]

One thing I did not like from kethane was limited resources on planets. Karbonite has been a godsend in that regard. A system that can do what karbonite does today is great, and one flexible enough to have limited resources on asteroids too is definitely appreciated. Given that asteroids in KSP are meters across instead of kilometers, limited resources makes sense.

Originally I wanted to use karbonite to make fusion pellets, but it looks like regolith will be a better fit.

[sidfu]

think rover wants to do it how it is on earth. very rarely does a spot contain just that mineral normaly there a few others mixed in. so a area would have say iron+coal+silicates etc etc in various ammounds so one area if u mine u might get 50% iron and 10% coal with traces ot others wher another might be just 10% iron and 50% coal.

[RoverDude]

yep to pretty much most of the posts above. Or, more accurately, there will be options built into Regolith to square this away.

[DivisionByZero]

yep to pretty much most of the posts above. Or, more accurately, there will be options built into Regolith to square this away.

Will planetary resources still be homogeneous? I would expect so but no one's asked.

[RoverDude]

Will planetary resources still be homogeneous? I would expect so but no one's asked.

I really don't understand what you're asking to be honest.

[Helix935]

I really don't understand what you're asking to be honest.

i think he is asking about how much variety will there be with resources per planet/asteroid and if there will be just specific resources per planet/asteroid

[RoverDude]

i think he is asking about how much variety will there be with resources per planet/asteroid and if there will be just specific resources per planet/asteroid

..Which is why I am confused as asteroids already have randomized makeups, so I would not call them homogenous... and it's completely configurable.

[undercoveryankee]

Will planetary resources still be homogeneous? I would expect so but no one's asked.

I expect that karbonite and the four MKS resources will continue to be on every planet and moon with a landable surface, with similar variations in extraction speed to what you find with the current ORSX implementations of those resources.

You'll be able to configure resources that are available only on certain bodies or in very few places on a body's surface if that's your cup of tea. AMT will demonstrate some of the possibilities; more possibilities will be there for other mods with different needs.

[DivisionByZero]

Sorry. I mean will the composition or concentration of resources still vary from place to place on a planet. Will I still find a map with good and bad locations? Or will any location on the planet be just as good as another?

[DivisionByZero]

..Which is why I am confused as asteroids already have randomized makeups, so I would not call them homogenous... and it's completely configurable.

I would say that since you can extract the same resources from any side of the asteroid, the composition is homogeneous throughout.

What Undercoveryankee suggests: is regolith going to retain the game mechanic of looking for the good spots? It wasn't so clear to me as the asteroids have uniform composition and you are doing away with png files for the resources. Not looking at any code, I could guess you'd procedurally generate the things on the fly but I may have missed all of those comments earlier in the thread.

Edited December 5, 2014 by DivisionByZero
I hate tablets.

[riocrokite]

I'm picking on riocrokite here - sorry, but you are a stand in for a bunch of posts.

Why is it so many people feel that resource depletion must be included (is it because Kethane did it that way first?)

Quite frankly, it they are making the argument from a 'realism' POV, its wrong. IT would be nearly impossible to deplete even a comet's worth of volatiles to create reaction mass for a space program of the size produced here over any reasonable time frame, much less a planet or moon. If its from a gameplay argument, thats fine because thats preference, but there is ALREADY a mod that plays that way.

Well, I think there is no need to worry, as RoverDude wrote - Regolith will be configurable, so you can set up regolith to your own liking and i.e. switch depletion off.

Secondly, I think even with depletion you probably won't be able to deplete resource completely since it will include non-linear curve that never touches zero.

So for example in future you could configure RoverDude mods in a way that water/substrate/karbonite resources are infinite or depletable like in real life (you won't be able to deplete them even if you harvest them for 100 kerbin years). Then you can set up ore (and possibly minerals) to become depletable (but still non-linear depletion so no worry about depleting to zero).

It would then encourage you to build mobile ore tanks / mining rigs to go few hundred meters away where concentration is higher. Then you'll be able to fill up resources much quicker. This is where my mod comes in handy.

Thirdly, from the realism point of view this set up holds its own - small scale mining would never tap out liquid / gas resources (like water or karbonite). But when we are talking about rock resources like ore and minerals you are actually limited to 10-20 meters below ground (largest blasthole drill rigs limit is 60-85 meters but those drill rigs have different purpose than harvesting ore). In order to harvest material/rocks you would need something like futuristic broad auger which has much smaller depth limit, 10 meters below ground?(think about auger that drills into rocks not muddy ground) If you think about strip mining you're also limited to a few meters below ground and also it makes sense to move around when stripmining, not just collecting rocks in one point (giant hole in the center of your colony:P).

In this respect local depletion of non-liquid, rock-embedded resources actually makes sense from the reality standpoint.

RoverDude: localized depletion mechanic - thanks for this!

Edited December 5, 2014 by riocrokite

[RoverDude]

I would say that since you can extract the same resources from any side of the asteroid, the composition is homogeneous throughout.

What Undercoveryankee suggests: is regolith going to retain the game mechanic of looking for the good spots? It wasn't so clear to me as the asteroids have uniform composition and you are doing away with png files for the resources. Not looking at any code, I could guess you'd procedurally generate the things on the fly but I may have missed all of those comments earlier in the thread.

Aha! Now I get what you are saying

Asteroids are homogenous because of their size (and it just is not worth it to do otherwise). Planets are not homogenous - there will be variance accross a planet, just not through the use of PNG resource maps.

[DivisionByZero]

Cool.

will you be keeping some way of creating those images for scansat compatibility? Or, I suppose you might have other methods in mind...

[Neowulf]

Is the resource system going to allow altitude to be used as a variable in the randomness?

Like say define ice cream as a resource on minmus and have it generate a random map that heavily favors everywhere but the flats. Or a beach sand resource on kerbin that only shows between elevations 0-20 and has a hard cutoff to 0 at 21m+.

Maybe as a stacking modifier along with biome and latitude?

[RoverDude]

Cool.

will you be keeping some way of creating those images for scansat compatibility? Or, I suppose you might have other methods in mind...

SCANSat does not require PNG maps, so other methods will be used (already talking to DMagic)

Is the resource system going to allow altitude to be used as a variable in the randomness?

Like say define ice cream as a resource on minmus and have it generate a random map that heavily favors everywhere but the flats. Or a beach sand resource on kerbin that only shows between elevations 0-20 and has a hard cutoff to 0 at 21m+.

Maybe as a stacking modifier along with biome and latitude?

Altitude is not part of the equation, but is something that could easily be extended.