KerbalX

Description

The companion of the Science!Mobile science base, the Fuel-mobile was designed to supply the science base’s limited fuel supply and lack of ISRU capabilities. It follows the same general design, substituding a full ISRU suite for the science equipment. The extra weight neccesitated a redesign of the landing gear (which required the deletion of one of the rear ladders), the removal of the multiple KerbNet acces nodes, and a reduction of the crew to 2: an engineer and a pilot. A deliberate decision was made to keep the resource survey scanner (accesible manually) for redundant safety. A refueling arm (equiped with a multipurpose Klaw) was mounted in place of the scanning arm, and provision was made to build a ground anchoring point for semi-permanent deployment in the difficult terrain of Tekto.

This mobile refueling base is designed to be simply dropped into Tekto’s atmosphere from orbit. To survive the orbit drop, no parachute is included, counting instead on the ridiculosly low terminal speed in Tekto’s air plus a powerful VTOL array with about 15 seconds of fuel (testing showed that triple engines at 33% thrust limiter gave 1 second more of fuel and more gimbal range than a single rocket at full thrust).

TEKTO LANDING PROCEDURE
Set the control point upwards with AG4. Select surface reference. Activate SAS, radial out. WARNING: This craft doesn’t include RCS (RCS switch is patched into ore/fuel tanks purgue instead). If the landing zone is correct, continue with descent; otherwise, fine-tune it with horizontal flight (switch to frontal control point with AG3 as needed). Be sure to set the altimeter to ground insteaad of sea level, as terrain in Tekto can be quite elevated. Terminal speed on Tekto is in the low 40s. At about 500 meters, deploy the four landing legs to shield the craft (mainly the wheels) from impact. On final aproach, activate the VTOL thrusters. You have 15 seconds of fuel at full thrust with a TWR of 1.7 on full fuel / empty ore tanks, which should be enough to choose a good landing spot at an adequate speed. Be advised that empty ore tanks cause a slight nose-down atitude which translates into a slight forward vector in hands-off SAS VTOL flight.

ATMOSPHERIC FLIGHT
If the orbital drop was imprecise and the landing zone needs fine-tuning with horizontal flight (or just if Jeb wants to show off), the craft has double delta wings and two experimental jet engines, designed to be used in Tekto’s atmosphere, mixing its vaporised ethane with stored oxygen (instead of mixing atmospheric oxygen with stored fuel). The craft has about five minutes worth of oxygen, which should be enough for quite the distance flying at 20Km height.Each wing include a rear pushing and a front pulling engine. Activating the front (pulling) engine for emergency thrust should be used just as an extreme measure because of the extra fuel consumption and the risk of flat spin in case of asimetric flameout (such spins are unrecoverable without shutting of the jets and switching to the VTOL rockets).
(NOTE: that is once again just flavor text for a neat trick, inspired by James Glaze: the closed intakes store a wee bit of air, which can be used with regular fuel by a jet engine in an atmosphere with no oxygen; to simulate a tekto engine, a drain valve hack is used to continuosly fill it with air.)

ONCE LANDED
For movement after the drop the base includes an all-terrain drivetrain (including two deployable anti-tumble sidewheels). The drivetrain has FAR more braking power than the landing legs, should a stop on a hard slope be desired.
The base carries a full ISRU set but moderate spare tanks -it’s intended to provide unlimited fuel for fuel cells, not to refuel first stage rockets. It carries in storage an anchor point, a drone core, a RTG, a small battery, a telescoping piston and a docking port junior that matches that on the base’s bottom, to firmly anchor the base near the science station. To refuel, deploy the klaw arm with AG5 (it deploys straight to the front) and manually adjust its articulations and pistons until the klaw makes solid contact.

NOTES
-The craft needs drain valves taking intake air to work. If you aren’t using the one version of KSP that had them, you need a mod like Air Intake Drain for the jets to work.
-The craft includes disabled infinifuel valves for testing and whatnot. For infinite fuel and oxydizer, select one or both of the valves attached to the dougnuts clipped inside either Mk3 plate and activate them draining resources.
ACTION GROUPS AND OTHER INFO

AG1: toggle whesley jets.
AG2: toggle cub rocket engines.
AG3: control forward.
AG4: control upwards.
AG5: Claw deploy.
AG6: Claw stow.
AG7: External ladders.
AG8: Side wheels.
AG9: Toggle mining.
AG10: Toggle jets independent throttle.
Translate F/B: jets independent throttle.
Abort: Jets reverse thrust.
RCS: Purgue tanks.
Gear: specifically does NOT control wheels.

Jet fuel time:
300 seconds with reverse thrusters at 0% thrust limit;
380 seconds with reverse thrusters shut off;
230 seconds with reverse thrusters at full power;

Rocket fuel time:
15 seconds with all thrusters at 33% thrust limit (full gimbal range);
10 seconds with all thrusters at full power;
14 seconds with 4 thrusters at full power, 8 thrusters shut down (reduced gimbal).

A stock aircraft called Fuel-mobile. Built with 175 of the finest parts, its root part is mk3CargoBayM.

Built in the SPH in KSP version 1.12.2.

Details

• Type: SPH
• Class: base
• Part Count: 175
• Pure Stock
• KSP: 1.12.2

AIR INTAKE MOD

You will need this mod for the craft to work correctly. Simply save the text below this paragraph is as a text file, name it Air Intake Drain.cfg and place it in your gamedata folder.

@RESOURCE_DEFINITION[IntakeAir]
{
@RESOURCE_DRAIN_DEFINITION
{
@isDrainable = true
@showDrainFX = true
drainFXPriority = 7
drainForceISP = 5
drainFXDefinition = gasDraining
}
}