Resources
The primary propellant combinations offered and encouraged by Rational Resources are Hydrolox, Methalox, ArgonGas, XenonGas.
The rocket propellants (Hydrogen, Oxygen, Methane) may or may not be readily available in their liquid form. When they are not, they must be converted from their gas forms. To achieve this requires the ❄️ RR Boxed Compressor part or equivalent converter modules. These include compatible WBI Omniconverter devices and the KSPI-E Interstellar Refridgerator.
LqdHydrogen + Oxidizer are produced either through the ❄️ RR Boxed Compressor part, from their respective gas inputs (Hydrogen, Oxygen) or through a Convert-O-Tron from the input resource Water, which can (when not readily available) be acquired from the Hydrates resource via the Hydrates Splitter module. The Convert-O-Tron does not produce these in gas form from water in order to spare players the truly needless step of refrigerating these resources (again), and precludes the need for converter modules to allow these resources to boil and become their gas forms in order to be used.
LqdMethane + Oxidizer are produced through a Convert-O-Tron from the input resources: LqdHydrogen and LqdCO2. These are in turn, produced from their gas forms Hydrogen and CarbonDioxide through the ❄️ RR Boxed Compressor.
Although not actively treated as a propellant, and having potential uses in life support systems, Ammonia is worth mentioning in detail. It is present in 2 ISRU chains, virtually 3.
- It is produced from LqdNitrogen and LqdHydrogen through a Convert-O-Tron 🔸 (see Orange paths).
- It can be separated to recover LqdNitrogen and LqdHydrogen through a Convert-O-Tron 🔸 (see Orange paths).
- It can be converted to create MonoPropellant with a side of LqdHydrogen 🔺 (see Red paths).
- Its components LqdNitrogen and LqdHydrogen can be sent through a Convert-O-Tron to produce MonoPropellant 💛 (see Yellow paths).
Ammonia complex full-view
Hydrates, in itself, is not a propellant but is an abstract and an umbrella resource named for being a structure of Water molecules enclosing particles of other resources. The Convert-O-Tron gains a Hydrates Splitter converter which frees these resources and produces Water, MetalOre/MetallicOre, ArgonGas, XenonGas and Oxygen. It is not required to have a tank for each of these resources on a vessel which farms Hydrates. All of these outputs have the setting DumpExcess = True which means that whether their tanks are full, locked or absent, the converter will run until any resources without this setting do fill up.
Hydrates and Water have been found to be incredibly common in the solar system, from even being located in shadowed craters on Mercury, to the sub-surface oceans of the ice moons, to trace amounts within Jupiter, in mountains on Pluto, and the comets themselves which descend from the vast Kuiper Belt and just maybe even the Oort Cloud.
A significant portion of the reason why Ore is nerfed by this mod is the fact that with so much of this kind of material everywhere, and the intense restraints on the presence and potential of Carbon, there is more reason to disallow the basic, stock gameplay convenience of LFO production and push players towards developing and using mods that do not rely on Ore and stock LiquidFuel.
CarbonDioxide is plentiful within reason. It is in Duna's crust, ice caps and atmosphere, in Eve's atmosphere, in the exosphere or trace atmosphere of air-less inner rocky worlds (see ExoRock template), and in trace amounts in the oceans of IceMethane class worlds.
The following Carbon-based ISRU chains are provided:
- Carbon Extractor: Ore --> Carbon.
- Carbon Monoxide A generator: Carbon Dioxide --> Carbon Monoxide, Oxygen.
- Carbon Monoxide B generator: Carbon, Water--> Carbon Monoxide, Hydrogen.
- Carbon Dioxide generator: Carbon, Oxygen --> Carbon Dioxide.
- Carbon Dioxide fuser: Carbon, Oxygen --> Carbon Dioxide.
- Carbon Dioxide splitter: Carbon Dioxide --> Carbon, Oxygen.
Oxygen is plentiful within reason. It can be found on any world with the AtmTerra atmosphere template (therefore, any Kerbin-alike world), in trace amounts in the exosphere of air-less rocky worlds (see ExoRock template), in Kerbin's moons, in the crusts of RockIce class planets, and in trace amounts in the oceans of IceNitrogen class worlds. It may exist in Duna's atmosphere as well, after being confirmed to just barely exist in Mars' atmosphere.
Nitrogen is an immensely available and fairly valuable gaseous resource. It is plentiful in the crusts of the coldest of ice worlds, in the crust of Minmus, in every atmosphere except of gas giants, and may be the most likely substance to be found in the oceans of ice worlds if not water. Nitrogen is required by some life support mods and for producing Ammonia and MonoPropellant.
Resources in this section are not particularly important to what this mod encourages, nonetheless, they are important...mostly, and it's helpful to know them in the event that someone invents a use case and finds themselves looking for these resources or trying to invent a substitute. The mods that these resources are primarily useful to will be noted.
Umbrella term for (the forms of) Aluminium Oxide. Like on the IRL moon, this resource is ensured to occur in large quantity on The Mun in KSP. It is desirable for the use case of splitting it for Aluminium and LqdOxygen which can be recombined via ignition in hybrid solid rockets. With Aluminium being an alkali metal, the potential exists for higher Isp vs standard solid fuel formulae. Used by: KSPI-E.
Rational Resources provides an Alumina Splitter chain whose outputs are: Aluminium, Oxygen.
An abstract of popular but very high-priced minerals (non-metals) (vs the regular/common Minerals abstract resource). As the name suggests, these are harder to find but can occur on any world and secondarily, are very rewarding to mine and ship home in bulk to sell for Funds. Primarily, their purpose is for consumption in production chains for rare and costly components for machinery. Used by: MKS.
Without MKS, this is resource is very welcome for its secondary role.
Gypsum, a Sulfate mineral with formula: CaSO4+2(H2O). Its only known use is as processing for Fertilizer but it is made prominent on planets and moons with Vulcan templates. Used by: MKS.
An abstract resource which serves as the Ore of the most comomon metals used in everyday metalwork. It particularly represents Iron (but could also cover Aluminium, Lead and Copper in particular) and its value rests fully in refinement for Metals resource, used by any of the off-world construction mods. MetallicOre and Metals have a non-CRP version, MetalOre and Metal which are exclusive to the mod Extraplanetary Launchpads (EL). Used by: EL and any accesory mods to EL, Global Construction.
Rational Resources ensures the presence of both MetallicOre and MetalOre but cannot force the two to share the same abundace value wherever they are found.
Monazite, a phosphate mineral which contains any of the wide array of rare-earth elements. These elements, largely metals, are valuable to industrial processes of electrical and electronic components, lasers, glass, and magnetic materials. Used by: KSPI-E.
Rational Resources provides a Monazite Splitter chain whose outputs are: RareMetals, Phospohorus, Oxygen. Phospohorus does not exist in the CRP and is defined by this mod.
An abstract of popular but very high-priced metals (vs the regular/common MetallicOre abstract resource). As the name suggests, these are harder to find but can occur on worlds that have metal cores and secondarily, are very rewarding to mine and ship home in bulk to sell for Funds. Primarily, their purpose is for consumption in production chains for rare and costly components for machinery. Used by: MKS.
Without MKS, this is resource is very welcome for its secondary role.
Rational Resources defines this resource and replaces USI's Dirt with it. Rock and Dirt are both reated as a low-grade version of Ore. It is mostly Oxygen and is mostly guaranteed to contain traces of nearly everything useful to a given person's ISRU game. But it's very weird to read, in any context, that every planet in KSP has its crust consist of 15 ~ 35% Dirt.
Any compound of Silion but primarily any oxide of Silicon. It goes without saying that sandy planets in particular, and any planet that isn't a frosty water world is bound to have a generous portion of Silicates. Silicates can be split for pure Silicon for making electronics, and Oxygen for life support and rocket propellant. Used by: MKS.
Rational Resources provides a Silicates Splitter chain whose outputs are: Silicon, Oxygen.
Spodumene is a mineral with forumla LiAl(SiO3)2. Its use in KSPI-E is unknown to me but it entirely consists of elements that are defined and used in KSP mods, not just KSPI-E. Used by: KSPI-E.
Rational Resources provides a SpodumeneSplitter chain whose outputs are: Lithium, Metals, Silicates, Aluminium. Lithium is used by Near Future Propulsion ion engines, Metals is used by off-world construction, Aluminium is used by KSPI-E and Silicon is used by MKS.
This is a very abstract resource and has no relation to any particular substances or crafted items so a Wikipedia link is not helpful. A substrate is anything that can be used as a medium on which, or in which, something else is built or grown. Rational Resources has no use for this but it leads into the production of USI's Polymers and Organics. Used by: MKS.
Uraninite is a mineral and is the Ore of Uranium. Uraninite by itself is radioactive and needs to be handled with great care, though not as much care as refined, pure Uranium. Uraninite harvesting and processing are provided by Rational Resources Blacksmith, KSPI-E and MKS. Other mods may provide for processing but not for harvesting.