Mining - truck / building / ship ~ What would you use?

[AoD_lexandro]

So to cut to the chase, I am a bit stumped on some good quality mining designs. I cannot make my mind up between a truck, base section or a just making a whole ship for it.

I always fall down when making trucks, as I can never get them small enough to fit cargo bays and be good enough to do the job. Base sections end up in me making it over-elaborate and sucking up frame rates with loads of parts. As for ships, Im not that good in large design yet to get a viable vessel to do the job and not crash a lot.

So because I can't decide, I can't get a good concept design. With me in need of some inspiration I turn to you fellow KSP players. Got a good mining design you want to share? Got any specific advice on part requirements (ie rads to drill ratio)?

Essentially im looking for something simple and easy to manage in any config you like, and a way to get it to mun / minmus or beyond.

[RoofCat]

Mun and Minmus OR beyond?
Always ships. The rest is waste of time and resources. Mining equipment adds just around 6t. Which is nothing compared to many other payloads. It also lets you save on return fuel. So basically it is free payload most of the time. Do you drop ISRU and drill before return - that's another question. Whatever makes your delta v happy.

[AoD_lexandro]

What I mean is something I can just plonk down on my site of choice and leave it mining to refuel other ships. I have some nice SSTO, but I just cant get the range out of them for long haul flights (ie laythe & back) without refueling.

As I said, tried trucks but small wheels and tight cargo bays make them lackluster for mining. Base sections I just dont get right and the ship I tried making ended up in bits after a bad landing.

[andylaugel]

Here is a pretty reliable mining base design I've used over and over again.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=799940404
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=777663846
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=784349116
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=844223821
It's got a full array of science instruments, a lab, large ISRU, 4 drills, 4 fuel cell arrays, 4 XL solar panels, 8 RTGs, 4 Poodle or Aerospike engines, etc. They have enough dV (1,700+ w/ full ore tanks, not counting ore as fuel) to take off, dock, and land on most worlds. Duna is about as large as you want to get though--Laythe, Tylo, Eve, and Kerbin are too big for this design. It can dock with other vessels, either by ramming them on the ground with the Klaw or with the docking ports in orbit. And with 6,000 units of ore capacity, it can complete a lot of those "move ore to" contracts.

I do generally pair it with a tugboat though to push it efficiently on interplanetary hops. But the nice thing is that this can refuel said tugboat easily enough.

P.S. Here is how it looked before launch.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1304610747

[maculator]

A while back I built this:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=921295706

The truck I used can haul all the individual modules:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=921054492

You can even skip the core and just attach module to module:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=921202553

The truck also has a grabber (needs a second one higher up for bigger ships!) to enable it to just grab the fuel module and refuel a landed ship:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=921183595

I really do love this design and I plan to rebuild it this evening or tomorrow.

[andylaugel]

Oh, and here is a smaller mining rover I made in a more recent career mode--when all of the tech tree wasn't as unlocked. This vessel tends to stay on the surface of the Mun or Minmus, and waits for other spacecraft to land near it. Once there, it can drive over and refuel it in place.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1156199427

[maculator]

To deliver the modules I just used this:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=921054824

It has waaay more TWR then you'll ever need and is extremly maneuverable.
Lands on its tail, smoothly puts the module to the ground, detaches and crashes itself in a crater/canyon of your choice.

[AoD_lexandro]

Some nice ideas in there, keep them coming. Im sure once I see a few more variations it will start to click. Thats how the rest of my stuff is :p

[RoofCat]

this is what I've created while I was still young and dreaming
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=723165198
didn't even had senior docking ports or large reaction wheels yet. I was tinkering with the modular idea back then. Until I realized no matter how hard I try, the best solution will be with all in one. No double tanks, no docking, less batteries and panels due to shared service, etc. And a lot of money saved.

The idea was tugship, science quarters, small atmospheric lander... etc. made like a sandwich in rather compact size class and put together depending on each mission requirements. On ground or rearranged in space. Until you realize you lose thousands of delta v. Some other parts are long deleted from my screenshot collection because of that.

Andy has finished, used for months and basically polished kind of similar idea with his design line. Looks can be different - your creativity isn't bound by anything. Even less so in vacuum.

[andylaugel]

Here is one of my more specialty mining rovers--M-191 Genie. It handles my Tylo and Laythe landings, Jool's heaviest moons. It's a beast though. The Vector engines give it the thrust required for take-off and landing on those heavy worlds, but they are gas-guzzlers. The mission profiles for those involve completely refueling around Vall, getting towed into 100 to 200 km orbit around the target world, and landing with not much fuel to spare. It then refuels before struggling to achieve orbit once more, where the tug collects it and brings it back to Vall. It is one of the few ships though I put into Kerbin low orbit without dropping any stages.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=795924042
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=868913519
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=865234604
Oh, it does use an asymmetric design. But all the fuel and ore tanks are nicely balanced over the center of thrust, which is essential for any mining ship that you intend to return to orbit.

Going back, here is my very first mining operation I ever dropped on the Mun. It produced fuel just fine, but had issues. The drilling truck was just about useless. The fuel tanker was tiny, transporting just 2 tons of fuel at a time--8 trips for an orange-tank worth, at a time when my landing skills were only getting me within 1 kilometer or so of my target.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=548372994

My second major mining base had a much larger fuel truck, able to carry 88 tons of fuel. It worked in conjunction with a stationary base, whose drills were placed over a spot with good ore concentration. Still, at the time I had an orbital fuel depot that could carry 288 tons of fuel--or up to 4 deliveries of fuel from this tanker truck.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=613861851

After that... I tend to stick with mining ships that can dock directly with the fuel customer--preferably both in space and on the ground. You only need to drive your mining rover over to your massive fuel depot once, then start mining operations. It'll top off without requiring your precious real-life attention and time.

Anyways, here are a couple more mining ships of mine.

A-032 Laythe Air Shuttle is intended to be my replacement for getting kerbals on and off Laythe's surface. I've flown it around Kerbin once on a test flight, and now it's on route. I'll admit the ISRU used is small and wasteful, but it fit within the spaceplane profile I'm comfortable with. It's a bit slow to refuel, but getting to Jool and moving between its moons takes a lot of time too.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1117937712
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1124959905
You might have noticed that little mining rover in the previous screenshot. It's... not really that great to be honest. The drills are tiny, requiring a certain ore percentage to be present to work, and the small ISRU wastes 90% of its ore. It needs a good engineer to refuel itself in a reasonable period of time. But it does fulfill a 5-man base contract, and can sometimes get landed space debris into orbit.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=756517678

[andylaugel]

Mining Tips

Here are some tips, in no particular order.

• Balance tanks over/under your center of thrust. If you don’t, your ship will spin-out when you take-off.
  
• Remember cooling. Drills and an ISRU require cooling to function well. Thermal control systems can be placed anywhere. Radiators need to be closer to the heat-generating parts.
  
• Remember power. Mining requires a lot of power. Compute your power needs and pack the means to generate it. Fuel cell arrays are very handy, able to function though the night. Batteries also help, although don’t expect them to last through the night.
  
• Remember an ore tank. In order to produce fuel, you must have an ore tank. It doesn’t have to be big, but it has to be there. No tank, no fuel production.
  
• Go big. The larger drill can work anywhere, unlike the smaller drill. The larger ISRU converts ore into fuel at a 1:1 rate, vs 10:1. A larger fuel tank means fewer trips if performing orbital refueling.
  
• Bring a trained engineer. How much ore your drills draw depends greatly on your engineer’s training. No engineer—5%, untrained engineer—25%, 3-star engineer 85%, etc. You can get 3-stars by landing your engineer on Mun, Minmus, and briefly leaving kerbin’s sphere of influence. (As soon as you’re orbiting the sun, you can turn around and burn towards Kerbin until you get an encounter in 10 minutes or less.)
  
• Ground-based docking is good. This means your landed ships aren’t stranded if they lack fuel. It just requires your rig to be on wheels, and either have a Advanced Grabbing Unit (“Klaw”) or docking port mounted front or back. The klaw is much easier to use than a proper docking port. Besides, your heavy drills, ISRU, and so on don’t have to waste your fuel by returning to orbit.
  
• Orbital-docking is good. This means your orbiting landers aren’t stranded if low on fuel. Just pack a docking port or klaw. RCS is good too, but you only need it on one of your docking vessels.
  
• If you can land, why not be able to take-off again? You have to land your mining rig somehow. Why not keep the fuel tanks and engines so you can return to orbit, off-load some fuel or ore, and then return to the surface for more mining?
  
• Struts are handy to keep larger rigs sturdy. My larger vessels use struts to keep the parallel rockets from flexing all over the place. Some of them also use struts to keep neighboring “towers” from flexing too.
  
• A wide base and low center of gravity is good. This keeps your rig from tipping over if you land on a hillside. I’ve seen very steep hills on other worlds—60+ degrees.
  
• Wheels are good. If you can drive, you can find a flat spot to set up operations and turn your solar panels into the ideal orientation to catch the sun’s rays. It can also let you move closer to higher ore concentrations too.
  
• Action groups are good. I use a set of standardized action groups. You can use whatever groups you like, but here are the ones I use most often: 2--gather science, 3--deploy all (drills, radiators, & solar panels), 4--retract all (drills, radiators, solar panels), 5--start drilling (can also turn fuel cells on and start Liq/Ox ISRU production), 6--stop drilling (can also stop fuel cells and ISRU), 7--toggle fuel cells, 8--toggle solar panels, 0--enable/disable engines. So once I touch down and want to start mining, I just tap 0, 3, (wait a beat), 5, and maybe 7 too. Each of these performs actions on 4+ parts on my big rigs.
  
• You don't have to run all your drills. If you're using up more power than you're generating, you can shut down excess drills.
  
• You can run more than 1 ISRU operation at once. You can have an ISRU making Liq/Ox, Liq, and Ox simultaneously. It takes a lot of power, but you can.
  
• The wiki contains formulas. If you read the wiki page for the big drill[wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com], you can compute exactly how much ore you'll produce. Other pages include similarly useful information.