What Resource System to use?

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

So I've been wanting, I think, maybe, perhaps I would try resources...

Now what I want to do is pretty simple: I want a base to extract "stuff", process it into fuel/RCS, and fuel ships with it.

So after some research, what I get is that there are two systems: Karbonite and Kethane. Kethane seems to be on-hold and not entirely working with 0.90, and Karbonite requires the use of specific engines (the fuel you produce is not regular rocket juice), which is something I don't like.

... so, any other system that I overlooked or any of this I got wrong?

As I said, my basic goal is to have some sort of use for a station around some moon or planet. Nothing fancy or overcomplicated (at least for now), just something that would give a station/base a bit of purpose, even if a little.

[Vanamonde]

These do not exist in stock, and so, moved to Add-on Affairs.

[Mecripp]

Karbonite for sure and it has stock fuel too but does add some engines that can burn Karbonite too but has Converter for all the fuels.

[Superfluous J]

You do not ever need to use the Karbonite engines (Note: Kethane also has engines that run on Kethane, but they are also not needed). Using Karbonite you can drop a base on Mun (in a rich area preferably) and start drilling Karbonite, and then use the converter to convert it into LF, O, or LFO (It actually has a button for that third one which is such a small thing but I love it). Then come by later with a tanker, fill it up (I like Kerbal Attachment System for that) and lift it to an orbital refueling station or whatever.

Essentially it does exactly what you want. So does Kethane (I've used both) but as you said, it appears to be on hiatus while Karbonite is in active development.

[hab136]

There's also Interstellar and Interstellar Lite, but they're "fancy and complicated".

Interstellar 0.90 maint thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/104943

Interstellar Lite: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/91867

Karbonite is probably your best choice at the moment.

[cicatrix]

I tried Kethane, Karbonite and Interstellar, finally I stayed with Karbonite. I just wait for KSPI 0.90 adaptation to complete.

All these mods allow converting their resource into LF, O or MP with no problem. Interstellar adds many other resources of its own (reactor fuels: plutonium, uranium; chemical fuels like water, ammonia, methane; and even antimatter).

For Kethane I didn't like the hexagon overlay and poor models/textures. Karbonite has very cool landing legs, landing chassis even, propellers, atmospheric engines (which do not require oxygen), very cool textures and generally it looks much better. While you can mine Kethane only on surface provided there is a deposit there you can mine Karbonite virtually anywhere (in atmosphere, in oceans, etc). Karbonite is based on concentration rather than on deposits so you can safely assume you will find Karbonite everywhere, it's just a matter of extraction speed.

Interstellar is quite another matter. It is compatible with both resources and adds its own. While it's a bit more complicated it opens so many other exciting options that ISRU is just a side bonus. I only wish it had better models and less minor glitches.

I would recommend Karbonite + KSPI or just Karbonite alone. Still you can install all of them. As far as I know they are compatible with each other.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Yeah, Kerbonite allows you to convert to regular fuels, I didn't see that. Information on these mods seems a little "sparse". KSPI also seems interesting for not for now, now I want something simple.

Thanks a lot gents.