WOLF — Industry without the part count

Coming Soon:

• WOLF From Scratch: A Walkthrough
  • The Plan (what the walkthrough will cover)
  • WOLF Biomes
  • WOLF Modules
  • KSC Biome: Depot
  • [KSC Biome: Fabrication Module for Material Kits(#ksc-biome-fabrication-module-for-material-kits)
  • WOLF Transport Credits and Transport Routes
  • KSC Biome: Transport Module for Transport Credits
  • Transport Routes and Shipments
• Intermediate WOLF
  • Multiple Biomes: Kerbin Grasslands, Kerbin Orbit, Minmus Orbit, Minmus Greater Flats (I haven't tested any of this yet so I have no idea what I'm doing here)
  • Combining WOLF with MKS
    • WOLF Material Kits + MKS Specialized Parts on Kerbin
    • WOLF, MKS and Stock fuel plant on Minmus
• How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Transport Credits
  • Sample vehicles (PackRat, SSTO spaceplane, NTR interplanetary freighter)
  • Strategies for optimising routes
    • Surface-to-Surface
    • Surface-to-Orbit
    • Orbit-to-Surface
    • Orbit-to-Orbit

The in-game goals for the walkthrough are roughly:

1. Small WOLF depot at KSC to produce Material Kits
2. Build a shipyard in Kerbin Orbit to assemble ships from DIY kits
3. Export (WOLF-stuff) from KSC to Kerbin Orbit
4. Build an industrial base on Minmus, contrasting WOLF infrastructure vs MKS equivalents
5. Export fuel & parts from Minmus to Minmus orbit and Kerbin orbit
6. Build a shipyard in Minmus Orbit (or possibly move the Kerbin shipyard to Minmus)
7. Build a Duna mission in Minmus orbit
8. Establish a new base on Ike & Duna, starting with WOLF infrastructure

I'll be attempting to show how WOLF compares to MKS for certain tasks. The walkthrough will probably take a few hundred hours to write, so watch for a trickle of content over the next few months. I expect to spend up to two hours a day on this.

WOLF From Scratch

WOLF is an industry-focused extension to the industrial activities enabled in the Modular Kolonisation System. In typical mid- to late-game save files using MKS, you will have hundreds of MKS modules scattered about the place, with your planetary maps littered with various mining, refining or manufacturing facilities. All of these facilities and the per-tick or per-second calculations they require place significant load on the KSP simulation, and loading up the models when they get in physics range can produce significant lag in the graphics engine.

The idea with WOLF is to provide the same industrial capability as MKS without the part count, without the lag, and without endless futzing around with manufacturing lines to get everything working the way you expect it to.

WOLF is intended as an enhancement to MKS industry — even if you haven't reached the limits of part count for your save game, WOLF can still be handy for you with resource transfers between biomes on the same planet, between surface and orbit, and between worlds.

The Plan

For the purposes of this guide, our goal is to set up a shipyard in Minmus Orbit and provide it with resources harvested using WOLF, with the minimal possible part count. From that shipyard we'll build and launch a Duna colony ship with which we'll start up WOLF infrastructure on Duna and Ike.

WOLF Biomes

The foundation of industry in WOLF is the "WOLF Biome" and its associated depot. The basic idea is that you dedicate a "WOLF Biome" to certain types of activity, and either transfer resources to other biome depots for further processing, or extract resources through WOLF "Hoppers" for use in the MKS industry that you're familiar with.

You can imagine WOLF Biomes as stuff that happens "behind the scenes" in the KSP world. You build up the industrial machinery to produce the goods that you need, hand that assembled factory to WOLF, then WOLF stops rendering those parts. The entire production line becomes an abstraction, with hundreds of parts abstracted away to a handful of numbers.

Where the world of MKS is concerned with resource concentrations, extractor efficiency, engineer multipliers and storage capacity, the world of WOLF is concerned with resource availability, expressed as one single number. Each WOLF biome has a certain availability for each resource. There are no concentrations to worry about, nor are there survey maps to ponder and prime locations to target for resource extraction. There's just a number for each resource in each biome.

Let's have a look at how this works. First, launch a survey satellite, then build yourself a survey rover. You'll need the Surface Scanning Module from the stock game. Here's my Packrat rover with RTGs providing power, the WOLF Transport Computer which we'll discuss later, and the Bon Voyage Autopilot module which I highly recommend (but more about that later).

You'll see the usual resource details in the Surface Scanning Module's window. For each resource there's a concentration tagged "[Surf]" (because it's a resource on the surface) which is then combined with harvester efficiency to determine how much of that resource you'll be extracting per second. This number is used for stock and MKS mining, WOLF doesn't use it.

You'll also notice the new button in that windows, "Survey WOLF Biome." Click it!

Now switch scenes to the VAB or SPF and open the WOLF dashboard:

This pane lists all your active WOLF Depots. Since you have no depots yet, it's empty.

Click the Harvestable Resources button:

You'll have one Body/Biome option: Kerbin:KSC. There are four columns here which help you understand what resources you have access to:

1. Resource name, which represents the WOLF version of resources (as opposed to the "surface" resources)
2. Abundance, which is the WOLF equivalent to surface resource "concentration" (but not really, it's more like the maximum yield of that resource from this biome)
3. Harvested, which is how much of the abundance you are currently extracting
4. Remaining, which is how much of the abundance is left to extract

WOLF Modules

Now that the KSC WOLF Biome is surveyed and we have the WOLF Dashboard open in the VAB, we'll prepare and deploy a WOLF depot. Let's have a quick look at the modules that make up the WOLF system, then we'll go over the rules of deploying them.

Cick the Planner button in the WOLF Dashboard, and select the "WOLF" parts group in the selection pane on the left, then start planning this depot with a WOLF MHU-500 Bulk Harvester:

There are two groups of values here: the first is the depot summary showing resources processed inside your WOLF Depot, the second is the harvestable resource report which shows the same details from the Harvestable Resources pane, but limited to only those resources that you are actually harvesting from this WOLF Biome. Since the harvester you just added has not been configured it will be harvesting Dirt. In the harvestable resource report you'll see that the harvester is using 5 units of the 630 abundance, leaving 625 available. Note the numbers in the "Harvested" column: "0 (-5)" means that the KSC Biome Depot is currently harvesting 0 Dirt, and the craft that we are building will be harvesting 5 Dirt (thus reducing the availability by 5).

In the depot summary the row for Dirt shows that we have 10 units of Dirt being added to the depot — the MHU-500 uses 5 availability to produce 10 units of that resource.

Note that there are also 5 units of power required to run the MHU-500. Since there's no power supply in the KSC Biome Depot yet, there's a deficit of 5 power. To get that power, add a WOLF Power Module. Each WOLF Power Module will add 50 Power to the depot, but it requires 1 EngineerCrewPoint and 1 Maintenance.

The various WOLF Crew Points are provided by Kerbals with the indicated specialisation. Each Kerbal will provide 10 crew points in their specialisation. So for an Engineer Crew Point we'll have to add an Engineer — at which point the depot will have 10 Engineer Crew Points.

The Maintenance point will be provided by a WOLF Maintenance Module. The WOLF Maintenance Module will have more requirements to be satisfied, and so on and so forth. The first bunch of modules you add to a depot will generally be the largest batch. On Kerbin you'll be able to shortcut the build a little because Kerbin-based Biome Depots get some free power and maintenance to help you out.

Now clear the construction area, since you can't deploy WOLF infrastructure without first deploying the Depot Module to get the Biome Depot established.

KSC Biome: Depot

To establish the KSC Biome Depot, create a new vessel which is just the WOLF Depot Module and the smallest probe core. You don't need much, just the ability to control the vessel once it's launched. We're going to launch this Depot and immediately hand it over to the WOLF system.

Warning: Any other parts attached to the WOLF modules will be consumed along with those modules when you hand them over to the biome depot, including any crew.

Now that you have your two-component vessel (the WOLF Depot Module and a cheap probe core), it's time to commit them to the void! I mean … establish your KSC Biome Depot:

Just select the "Establish Depot" action for the WOLF Depot Module, and the vessel will disappear. It belongs to WOLF now.

Return to the VAB, and let's set up Material Kits production in this new depot.

KSC Biome: Fabrication Module for Material Kits

Check out the Depots pane of the WOLF Dashboard now:

That depot has given us 1 Food, 1 Oxygen, 5 Material Kits, 5 Water, and 10 Power. This will significantly reduce the amount of infrastructure we need to get started — but remember that these bonus resources only apply to WOLF biomes on Kerbin.

To produce Material Kits, you'll need to add a WOLF Fabrication Module. Configure the module to produce Material Kits, then check the planner. You'll see the depot now needs 1 Chemicals, 1 Maintenance, 2 Metals, 2 Polymers, and 1 Technician Crew Point.

At this point, you'll need to add a WOLF MHU-500 Bulk Harvester and WOLF Refinery Module to harvest the Minerals and process those into Chemicals. Then the same modules again configured for Metallic Ores to Metals, and Substrate to Polymers. Note that one MHU-500 can feed two WOLF Refinery Modules.

Add a WOLF Maintenance Module to supply the required Maintenance points, and a WOLF Power Module if you've run out of Power.

At this point you should have something along these lines:

• 3 sets of Harvester + Refinery (chemicals, metal, polymers)
• Fabrication Module
• Maintenance Module
• Power Module

Here's what mine looks like:

There are still requirements to be satisfied in the Planner though, so add a Mk3 Passenger Module, switch to Crew selection and hire brand new crew to populate this Depot equipment (these Kerbals will disappear into the WOLF system and you'll never see them again):

• 1 x Engineer
• 1 x Kolonist
• 1 x Mechanic
• 1 x Miner
• 1 x Technician

Assign those crew to the Mk3 Passenger Module, then check the WOLF Planner again:

Almost done!

Add the required modules (the modules are named after the resource they provide, so you need a WOLF Habitation Module and a WOLF Life Support Module), and remember to add a cheap probe core to finish the construction off:

Now launch this mass of modules and select the connect to depot action:

FIXME: missed a step here, need to show the results of this action in the WOLF Dashboard.

WOLF Transport Credits and Routes

It's all well and good having that production chain set up, but what do we do with those WOLF Material Kit resources? The next step is getting those resources to orbit, where we want to use Material Kits to assemble DIY Kits (the DIY kits will be launched from KSC to start with).

WOLF handles transport of resources from one biome to another by way of Routes which involve an abstract representation of Shipments. You establish a route by travelling between biomes using the WOLF Transport Computer. This will add a Shipment to that Route. Each shipment has a certain capacity, you'll allocate a number of units of resource to a shipment, then that resource will be reduced in the source biome and increased in the target biome.

KSC Biome: Transport Module for Transport Credits

Build yourself an orbital shipyard, and remember to include:

• the WOLF Manufacturing Hopper in either 2.5m or 3.75m variant (the 3.75m variant just has higher output, the conversion rate is the same),
• storage to hold the Material Kits delivered to the shipyard, and
• a WOLF Depot Module with an attached probe core, that can be decoupled from your shipyard once it's in orbit