Why is there no mining tutorial?

[What Zitt Tooya]

I watched some videos online and read some forums but I would understand mining better if there was an in-game tutorial.

[GeneralVeers]

That's because the tutorial is right here. :)

(yeah, I know, cheesy joke)

Here's the Cliff Notes version for ya.

First (this is not absolutely necessary but it's a good idea) you'll want to find the ore. You need the M700 Survey Scanner to do this. You put the scanner in a polar orbit (the scanner will tell you what the required altitude is, this varies from planet to planet), run the scan, and then you can click the Resources button (the one that looks like a planet with a chunk out of it) in the map screen or Tracking Station to see ore concentrations.

To get ore out of the ground, you need a drill. The drill needs to be DIRECTLY attached to an ore storage tank to work. The drill will eat a lot of electricity and produce a lot of heat, so your mining ship needs lots of solar panels (or a lot of RTG's) and some radiator panels. If you don't have enough of either, your mining will take a lot longer. Keep in mind, some of the cooling panels only cool nearby parts. TEST THE SHIP before flying it off to Jool. :)

You land the mining ship, extend the drills, and turn them on to mine ore. If you're using the big drill, you can then head back to KSP or fly other ships--the smaller Junior drill apparently won't mine anything if you switch to flying another ship.

[What Zitt Tooya]

awesome thanks! can you actually mine anything at Kerbin? For a contract, I must have 1,000units of ore on my Mun space station.

[andylaugel]

You can mine Kerbin, sure. It can be used for a bit of an easy money cheat. The cheat in this case is building a functional ISRU and a pre-filled ore tank, which you then turn into monopropellant. Recover on the runway or launchpad for 100% recovery fee, and you get back more than you paid for.

The real beauty of mining though is that you can make fuel on other moons and planets, which can then keep a fleet of reusable craft running indefinately.

Originally posted by GeneralVeers:

To get ore out of the ground, you need a drill. The drill needs to be DIRECTLY attached to an ore storage tank to work.

This isn't true. My mining rig pictured below works just fine, and the ore tanks aren't connected directly to the drills.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=680595627

[andylaugel]

Here are a few tips from me about building a mining operation:

• Go big. The larger drill can operate anywhere--the smaller drill only works in certain areas. The larger ISRU is more efficient than the smaller one.
  
• Don't forget the ore tank. (Yeah, I've had that opps moment. Drills, radiators, ISRU, solar panels--but without an ore tank, you won't make any fuel.)
  
• Have radiators. Drills and ISRUs get hot. Be careful, as some radiators only cool nearby parts.
  
• Have enough power. A Gigantor XL produces 25/sec in Kerbin orbit, and a good drill uses 15/sec. An ISRU (both sizes) uses 30/sec. 4 Gigantors produce 100/sec, 4 drills & 1 ISRU uses 90/sec.

Oh, and it helps to understand that the three scanning instruments are designed to be used together.

• The Surface Scanning Module is used on the surface, and reports the immediate ore concentration (0-10%). It also lets you do a resource analysis for a given biome--which makes the other two scanners more accurate within those biomes.
  
• The M700 Survey Scanner needs to be put into a polar orbit and activated. But it lets you see an overlay showing the general ore concentrations on the planet or moon.
  
• The M4435 Narrow-Band Scanner can be used in orbit or on the surface. It provides much the same data as the surface scanning module, but doesn't allow for resource analysis. It does provide a minimap of an area, showing ore concentrations and biomes. Good for mining rovers.

[AlexMBrennan]

The larger ISRU is more efficient than the smaller one.

Just to be absolutely clear, this means that the large ISRU turns 1000 units of ore into 2000 units of fuel whilst the small ISRU turns 1000 units of ore into 200 units of fuel.

. An ISRU (both sizes) uses 30/sec

An ISRU also consumes 0.5 ore/sec so are unlikely to hit peak load if you refine ore as it is being mined.

[Azunai]

regarding the contract to get ore to the mun: if you don't want to actually mine the mun and rather transport ore from kerbin to fulfill the contract, you don't have to *mine* it on kerbin - you can just right click the ore tanks in the VAB editor and fill them up (basically the same as filling/emptying fuel tanks in the editor), so you can directly launch a rocket with full ore tanks to the mun station instead of first mining ore at KSC to fill up empty tanks

[What Zitt Tooya]

Originally posted by mkunz2:

regarding the contract to get ore to the mun: if you don't want to actually mine the mun and rather transport ore from kerbin to fulfill the contract, you don't have to *mine* it on kerbin - you can just right click the ore tanks in the VAB editor and fill them up (basically the same as filling/emptying fuel tanks in the editor), so you can directly launch a rocket with full ore tanks to the mun station instead of first mining ore at KSC to fill up empty tanks

ahhh interesting, cheating kind of but whatever lol. thanks

[What Zitt Tooya]

Originally posted by andylaugel:

Here are a few tips from me about building a mining operation:

• Go big. The larger drill can operate anywhere--the smaller drill only works in certain areas. The larger ISRU is more efficient than the smaller one.
  
• Don't forget the ore tank. (Yeah, I've had that opps moment. Drills, radiators, ISRU, solar panels--but without an ore tank, you won't make any fuel.)
  
• Have radiators. Drills and ISRUs get hot. Be careful, as some radiators only cool nearby parts.
  
• Have enough power. A Gigantor XL produces 25/sec in Kerbin orbit, and a good drill uses 15/sec. An ISRU (both sizes) uses 30/sec. 4 Gigantors produce 100/sec, 4 drills & 1 ISRU uses 90/sec.

Oh, and it helps to understand that the three scanning instruments are designed to be used together.

• The Surface Scanning Module is used on the surface, and reports the immediate ore concentration (0-10%). It also lets you do a resource analysis for a given biome--which makes the other two scanners more accurate within those biomes.
  
• The M700 Survey Scanner needs to be put into a polar orbit and activated. But it lets you see an overlay showing the general ore concentrations on the planet or moon.
  
• The M4435 Narrow-Band Scanner can be used in orbit or on the surface. It provides much the same data as the surface scanning module, but doesn't allow for resource analysis. It does provide a minimap of an area, showing ore concentrations and biomes. Good for mining rovers.

Awesome, thanks andy. This, along with everyone else, helped clear this up for me

[Manwith Noname]

The only thing I would say about sending ore into orbit is it's much "harder" (needs more dV) to do that from Kerbin than from the Mun. Of course though, as stated, you don't need to mine it if you launch it from Kerbin so that negates any mining operation costs, like getting the drills and everything to the Mun....plus time.

What I'm getting at...for a one off, launching the required amount of ore from Kerbin may be beneficial. Long term though, if you think you might do this more than once, for contracts or as a fuel supply for...whatever, it may be better to set up the mining on the Mun.

[What Zitt Tooya]

@Manwith. Ah true. I have currently two contracts related to mining, one is to expand a station around the Mun (must contain at least 1,000 ore) and then have a ship with at least 900 ore orbiting Kerbin. I guess I can get a two for one!

[Manwith Noname]

Heh, yeah, sounds like a go for launch it from Kerbin to me.

...though it could also be a mining craft which then heads to the mun once the contracts are complete.

[Redstone]

I have found the mod ScanSat to be very useful for mapping ore concentration (it also maps a variety of other resources). It also maps terrain altitude and slope, and biomes. A very useful feature is "ToolTips" in which hovering your cursor over a map point gives a readout (floating by the cursor) of terrain altitude and slope (or ore concentration if you toggle a resource setting). You need orbital mapping probes at 250 and 750 km,in polar orbits, each carring all of the ScanSat scanners (see mod for details); I also include all of the stock scanners (mentioned above). One ScanSat mapping setting uses the stock narrow band scanner. I have been getting what appear to be complete scans, and these have been very useful for choosing landing sites, but I'm not saying that I completely understand the mod. That's why I have every scanner (stock and Scansat) on board each probe. I have been using two probes per celestial body (both piggybacked on a single delivery ship); maybe you could get by with one and changing orbits; I haven't tried it. I also place a stock Surface Scanning Module on each surface rover or mining ship so that I can see exact ore concentration where I am standing; you don't have to use this to generate the maps.