WOLF — Industry without the part count

• WOLF For The Adventurous
  • WOLF Resource Conversions
• WOLF From Scratch: A Walkthrough
  • Correctly installing the USI mods
  • The Plan (what the walkthrough will cover)
  • WOLF Biomes
  • WOLF Modules
  • KSC Biome: Depot
  • KSC Biome: Fabrication Module for Material Kits
  • WOLF Transport Routes and Shipments
    • WOLF Infrastructure Expansion
    • WOLF Transport Routes
    • WOLF Shipments
  • KSC Biome: Transport Module for Transport Credits
• Transport Routes and Transport Credit Costs
  • Quick and Dirty Transport Credit Example Flights
  • KSC Biome: Transport Module for Transport Credits
  • WOLF Hopper for Resource Delivery
• Intermediate WOLF
  • 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 for the Adventurous

RoverDude wrote up this introduction to WOLF which outlines most of what you need to know to get started. There's also RoverDude's [explanation of transport routes and transport credits] which will be expanded upon in this walkthrough. This walkthrough really only restates what is written there with a few step by step examples and an end goal of manufacturing spaceships at an orbital shipyard.

WOLF Resource Conversions

RoverDude's resource conversion diagram.

WOLF From Scratch: A Walkthrough

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 (including, for example, having to visit each industry site every few days to "catch up" with production that was supposed to happen in the meantime).

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.

Surveying Harvestable Biome Resources

Let's have a look at how this works. Create a new sandbox game. First thing to do when you start the new sandbox game is 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).

FIXME: this screen shot, but circle the button and highlight the WOLF biome. Describe what science experiment needs to be on the survey satellite.

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.

Below that list is one line specifying the "WOLF biome". You'll also see the "Survey WOLF Biome" action. Click it!

Now to use those resources. 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 it works completely differently)
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, one of which is already used, the remaining 9 points are still available.

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 single 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. In addition the WOLF Depot can not have any other WOLF components attached, not even the Survey Scanner.

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 Routes and Shipments

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 are path established for Shipments. You establish a route by travelling between biomes using the WOLF Transport Computer. This will add Route between the source biome and the destination biome. You can then add resources to Shipments on 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.

Shortly we'll look at setting up routes and configuring shipments. First, expand the infrastructure a bit.

WOLF Infrastructure Expansion

To introduce you to transport routes and shipments, let's expand the biome depots on Kerbin a little. To do that, we'll build ourselves a Frankenstein's monster of a rover. Why? Because sometimes the best way to get stuff to where you need it is to stick wheels or rockets on it.

I highly recommend you get the Bon Voyage add-on, it makes the process of deploying biome depots much, much easier

The ingredients are:

• Main Rover Body — provides a small kickstart to a depot infrastructure and demonstrates one technique for delivering WOLF components to a biome
  • WOLF Habitation Module
  • WOLF Maintenance Module
  • WOLF Life Support Module
  • WOLF Power Module
  • Mk1-3 Command Pod
  • 2 x Clamp-O-Tron Sr
  • 2 x Rovermax Model XL 3 wheels
  • Probe core
• Depot chassis
  • WOLF Depot
  • Probe core
  • Clamp-O-Tron Sr to connect to main rover body
• Power and Navigation
  • MKS 'Duna' Power Distribution Unit
  • 4 x Radiator Panel (Large)
  • MKS 'Duna' Logistics Center
  • Surface Scanning Module
  • WOLF Transport Computer
  • Bon Voyage Autopilot
  • Container Tank - Flat (2.5m) for Material Kits from disassembling wheels from WOLF components
  • Any probe core (I use M-315 Probe Core from one of the USI constellation of mods)
  • I have a PPD-10 Hitchhiker Storage Container and a ladder to get my engineer to the ground

Why build a contraption with so many complications? Because simple is boring!

The game plan is to drive this Frankenstein's Monster of a rover out to a new biome, scan the biome, deploy the depot, connect the modules we're delivering, then build the transport route back to KSC biome.

Drive that rover into the new biome, in this example I've taken a new depot up to the mountains. If you use Bon Voyage, be careful about setting a destination in the mountains because it will spawn your vehicle above the ground, from where it will fall and tumble to its doom — set the destination to be somewhere relatively flat and drive the rover into the Mountains biome manually. Similarly be careful about using Bon Voyage to travel back to KSC — set the destination to be southwest of KSC in the "shores" biome so you don't end up spawning the rover under the KSC terrain where it will explode the moment you try moving it.

Once you get the rover to the new biome, detach the WOLF Depot component and select the "Establish depot" action:

Then detach the command rover and connect the WOLF modules to the depot:

WOLF Transport Routes

With the depot established, it's time to connect it to the KSC biome. Select the "connect to source depot" action on the WOLF Transport Computer, then move the rover back to the KSC biome. Once the rover is back at KSC, select the "connect to destination depot" action on the WOLF Transport Computer. You'll get a notification about your infrastructure being upgraded, and you'll be able to see the new route listed in the Routes pane of the WOLF Dashboard.

Now go ahead and repeat the process of deploying biome depots, populating them with equipment to produce Material Kits, and connecting those biomes to KSC with multiple routes. Each time you run a route you'll improve the logistics capacity between the source and destination biome. If you improve a biome that already has a WOLF Depot, you won't need to ship out a new one.

If you build your own Frankenstein's monsters, keep them three components wide, two layers high and nine modules long (three sets of 2 x refinery + 1 x harvester) with extra wheels for every module of length or so. Any larger than that and the brakes will not hold, which can lead to rapid unscheduled disassembly or accidentally adding the components to the wrong biome.

FIXME: describe the infrastructure required to expand by one WOLF Fabrication Module, including possible new crew requirements.

Build out those biomes and establish multiple routes. Here's an example of routes between multiple biomes that I prepared earlier:

Now to actually use those routes!

WOLF Shipments

In this walkthrough the main purpose of setting up these biomes is to get Material Kits to orbit to start building spaceships. There are no doubt untapped opportunities in your biomes (eg: the ability to send one resource from a biome with excess to another biome with a deficit), but for now we have heaps of WOLF Material Kit output to get to orbit.

By now you should have at least two biomes (eg: KSC plus Shores) established with infrastructure to fabricate Material Kits.

Open the WOLF dashboard to the Routes pane and open the Manage Routes dialog:

This dialog is use to set up resource shipments over a route. The numbers visible in this dialog show:

• The resources and their availability at the source biome depot
• The selected resource
• The availability of that resource in the source biome depot
• The current available/incoming values of the resource in the destination
• The list of resources that you have already selected for shipment on this route
• How much capacity is left for the shipment payload
• How much payload capacity has already been used

How much of a resource you can add to shipments on this route is limited to the smaller number of the availability of the resource or the available payload. In the example above there are 20 Material Kit points available, and the payload has space for all of them with room to spare.

If you have more Material Kit availability than will fit in the payload, you can simply add the route more times (or with bigger vehicles) to increase the payload size.

Set the Transfer Amount to 1, then click Transfer. You should notice:

• The "Origin" availability will drop by 1
• The "Destination" availability will increase by 1/1

You'll see a new row in the bottom table displaying the transfer you've just organised. Add another transfer of 5 Material Kits, and you'll see the details in the Resource/Origin/Destination values and the row in the bottom table updated to show the new payload contents.

If you have set up other biomes, go ahead and set up their shipments to include the Material Kits they're set up to fabricate. The next stage of the walkthrough is getting those Material Kits to orbit.

Transport Routes and Transport Credits Costs

Up till now we've kept the transport routes simple by only connecting biomes that can be reached without expending mass. It's time to kick it up a notch and learn about Transport Credits, which is an abstraction of the process of building launch vehicles, fuelling them and launching payloads to orbit (or deorbiting paylongs to bring them to the surface).

The first thing we'll do here is a few test flights to understand how many Transport Credits we'll need for sending supplies to orbit (or roughly, how Transport Credits correlate to delta-v and ship size). Let's start with a "small" rocket, a medium sized rocket, then a 50t payload SSTO spaceplane. Note that with enough Transport Credits each flight will add a certain payload capacity to the available routes from KSC to Kerbin Orbit, with the payload capacity being proportional to the payload capacity of each launch vehicle. We'll get to that shortly!

Quick and Dirty Transport Credit Example Flights

Slap together a rocket that can reach orbit using 2.5m parts. For example:

• Probodobodyne OKTO 2
• Mk1-3 Command Pod
• Rockomax Jumbo-64 Fuel Tank
• RE-I5 "Skipper" Liquid Fuel Engine
• WOLF Transport Computer

Send that to the launch pad, select the "connect to origin depot" action on the WOLF Transport Computer, and launch the rocket to a 80km orbit. Once in orbit, check the "Route cost" reported by the WOLF Transport Computer.

If you try to use the "connect to destination biome" action, you should get an error message about needing more Transport Credits to complete that operation. Revert to launch, and run it a few times just to see that the "Route cost" is predictable. My flights came up with a route cost of 27.

Now do the same thing with a 3.75m rocket, for example:

• Command module & attachments from the 2.5m rocket
  • Probodobodyne OKTO 2
  • Mk1-3 Command Pod
  • WOLF Transport Computer
• Kerbodyne ADTP-2-3 fuelled adaptor
• Kerbodyne S3-14400 Tank
• S3 KS-24x4 "Mammoth" Liquid Fuel Engine

Send that to the launch pad, select the "connect to origin depot" on the WOLF Transport Computer, and launch the rocket to an 80km orbit. As before, check the "route cost", revert to launch and run the process again to show that the "route cost" is predictable. My flights came up with a route cost of 73.

Now do the same thing with an SSTO. The example I use is the ES-96 Python by Juggernoob which I find to be an aesthetically pleasing and easy-to-fly SSTO spaceplane. My flights with this spaceplane ended up producing routes with a cost in the order of 100 Credits.

KSC Biome: Transport Module for Transport Credits

How do we produce Transport Credits? The short version is that Transport Credits are produced by the WOLF Transport Module. By now you should be familiar with the drill: start assembling a new WOLF infrastructure component with the WOLF Dashboard open to the Planning pane, beginning with the WOLF Transport Module. Fuel is produced by the Fuel(Ore) or Fuel(H2O) recipes in the WOLF Refinery Module — each recipe will take 5 points of input availability and provide 2 points of Fuel availability. As usual one harvester will provide sufficient Ore or Water for two refineries.

The "atomic" component of a Transport Credit production line is 1 Transport Module, 2 MHU-500 harvesters, 4 Refinery Modules.

Have a go at producing 2 Frankenstein rovers each capable of producing 50 transport credits. Between them they will give you the 100 needed to establish a transport route with the Juggernoob ES-96 Python.

FIXME: post the craft file somewhere

With 100 transport credits under our belt, time to catch a SSTO space plane to orbit!

FIXME: get a screenshot of the ES-96 Python achieving orbit with the route cost showing.

The nice thing about SSTOs is an extremely low route cost for the deorbiting of payloads.

FIXME: don't crash the plane on landing. Show the route cost for the deorbit trip Kerbin Orbit Biome -> KSC Biome.

WOLF Hopper for Resource Delivery

WIP: Provide a Stock + USI Constellation orbital ship yard capable of assembling DIY kits and then constructing ships from those kits. Point out the use of WOLF hoppers to deliver resources into MKS Kontainers.

So now we have a decent amount of payload to Kerbin Orbit, time to set up shipment of those WOLF Material Kit resources. Open the WOLF Dashboard, and select Manage Transfers from the Routes pane. In my example there are 82 Material Kits points at KSC, and 165 payload available to get to Kerbin Orbit.

Let's send all of those to orbit:

Then we can go to the orbital shipyard and take delivery of all those units at this one facility. To do that, activate the Material Kits Hopper. That hopper will now "produce" Material Kits as an MKS resource at the rate of 2000/day (for the 2.5m hopper) or 5000/day (for the 5m hopper) while consuming 2 units of availability from the biome depot.