How will resources change your game?

[Aragosnat]

Yeah. It certainly will make it a bit easier to refuel around planets outside of Kerbin's SOI. Might even make it cost effective for around Kerbin too as you don't need to lose any lower stages if you are not good at making SSTO craft. Plus they can be larger then SSTO craft as well. Just depends on how we go about it and how easy it is to get.

[metl]

I recently added Karbonite just to get a feel for how it will be set up. I actually don't care for it. Mine it, convert it is really as complicated as it needs to be. I don't care for all of the Karbonite powered engines or the crazy amounts of various collectors. I really hope Squad makes it much more simple than that. With that being said, I used Kethane for several updates and finally stopped installing it as I realized I never actually used it. So unless Squad really hits this out of the park, I don't see it making a big difference in my gameplay.

[Srpadget]

My first thought was that it would have minimal impact, because I have a lot of already-designed 'standard' vehicles intended specifically for ongoing orbital-refueling ops. But then I recalled the aero changes that are also coming, and I note that most of my economical and efficient refueling infrastructure will probably be unusable with new aero, re-entry heating, etc.

So, I'm guessing that generically speaking, my basic approach of "build up a bunch of permanent, reusable vehicles at and around the worlds of interest, with permanent, reusable infrastructure to keep everything supplied" won't change. But I'll probably spend a bunch of time figuring out what I need to redesign, and how, and whether it makes more sense to keep refueling from Kerbin or set up mining operations somewhere else.

My expectation, made in supreme ignorance of what the final system is actually going to be like, is that the ISRU system will make very little difference in Kerbin's SOI, but will be a game-changer (literally!) for the Jool system.

[stupid_chris]

Mostly means I'll have one more thing to deactivate before I get to playing.

[tater]

I'd play with realistic ISRU, but I think that that would be well outside the scope of current KSP.

"Realistic" (even in a lower grade KSP realism sense) would, even if it concentrated on water ice in polar craters as the only resource, require mining perhaps a few 1000s of kg per day to generate useful amounts vs bringing incremental amounts of extra fuel from earth/kerbin. That's a substantial mining effort.

Extracting from plain old regolith requires mining vast amounts of material, and then introducing rather large amounts of heat. Ideas for doing this talk about temps of 1000-1500 degrees, and then you have to somehow move the material through this while keeping it clear and not gunked up… non-trivial.

I think it likely has a more realistic use ("it" being local resources) for construction, not propellant. Again, outside the scope of KSP I think. Assuming an atmospheric processor might work (mars/duna), it needs to take a long time to fill a tank on a single vehicle if it is not to be magic. Think many months or a few years.

Regardless, no such equipment should be small or light.

Edited February 1, 2015 by tater

[KerikBalm]

My thoughts are that if done right, sending the equipment for ISRU should generall be harder than simply sending extra fuel - and would only pay off with frequent trips.

Although some locations should be "easier" (require less exquipment to extract) than others.

For example... it should be pretty easy to produce oxidizer on Laythe.

[FlamedSteak]

So, wait a minute, are resources back on the books?

i used the kethane mod for a while, the positives (extra fuel) was always negligible to the negatives (weight)

[Scotius]

I did some rough calculations way back, when first huge dispute about stock resources (or lack thereof) swept through the forum. Apparently, dV wise its cheaper to haul a load of fuel from Mun or Minmus, than to lift the same load from Kerbin. It takes longer of course. It will be a matter of personal preferences i guess. Anyway, there is not much point in speculating right now - we don't know enough about stock resources to decide one way or another yet.

[Superfluous J]

So, wait a minute, are resources back on the books?

i used the kethane mod for a while, the positives (extra fuel) was always negligible to the negatives (weight)

You may want to follow some of the news threads. One in particular: A Sneak Peek at Resources.

[Wanderfound]

Depends on where they put them. If there are resources on Eve, return trips to and from there are about to get a whole lot easier...

ISRU also makes Grand Tour style exploration a lot simpler; one moderate-sized ship can explore the whole system if it can refuel each time it lands.

But I'm more keen on science/strategy/funds rebalancing, to be honest. I've pretty much given up on career mode until they get it sorted out. As is, it's too easy on moderate difficulty and too tedious on hard.

[magnemoe]

So, wait a minute, are resources back on the books?

i used the kethane mod for a while, the positives (extra fuel) was always negligible to the negatives (weight)

This depend on the scale of your mission. If you just send a kerbal in pod to plant a flag it would not be economical.

If you send an large ship with multiple kerbals, rovers, plan on doing multiple landings and so on its very smart.

It also help to be able for follow up missions to arrive dry, this include LKO. Eve landings with takeoff and the Jool system where the cost of reaching and landing on any of the bodies outside Laythe is as large or larger than the cost of going to Jool.

[Superfluous J]

Depends on where they put them. If there are resources on Eve, return trips to and from there are about to get a whole lot easier.

Not really, becasue you still need 13k dV (or whatever you'll need when the new aerodynamics system is enacted) in your tanks when you lift off. The only benefit is you can land the ship empty so don't need as many parachutes, but I've always tossed the parachutes after landing anyway to save on weight.

Unless you can scoop and refine it from the atmosphere, I suppose. But I think they're not going that way.

[Liowen]

It depends on if asteroids will have resources on them or not, my hope is that they will and the bigger ones mean higher amounts. This would then setup refueling platforms for interplanetary missions, much like NASA has talked about trying to do as well. Maybe move a few A-class to Jool as outposts for long term missions.

[Wanderfound]

Not really, becasue you still need 13k dV (or whatever you'll need when the new aerodynamics system is enacted) in your tanks when you lift off. The only benefit is you can land the ship empty so don't need as many parachutes, but I've always tossed the parachutes after landing anyway to save on weight.

Unless you can scoop and refine it from the atmosphere, I suppose. But I think they're not going that way.

Yeah, I realised that shortly after posting. In mitigation, I was thinking of a single-stage horizontal spaceplane landing rather than dropping a fully-fuelled ship on chutes...

[pxi]

It's not going to be much of a game-changer for me, seeing as I've pretty much always played with either Kethane or Karbonite installed.

I am somewhat hopeful that having it in stock will be more memory-efficient than getting the functionality from a mod however.

[Frank_G]

Well it will change a lot for those players, who like to build planetary bases, as you can refuel shuttles that do orbit-surface-orbit-runs as long, as resources keep coming. No need for expensive refuel missions. Also, grand tour missions will be able to refuel during the mission, if you equip the ship with a resource collecting lander/refinery. I welcome this decision to put in resources a lot.