Last gas station for 9E99 km! (orbiting fuel station)

[THX1138]

Sometimes I overestimate the fuel needed for a mission and come back with excess. I was thinking it would be smart to have some kind of space station where that fuel can be transferred before returning to Kerbin (obviously I'll need to keep enough to get from the station to Kerbin). Where would be the smartest place to put that station if the intention is to supply ships headed outside of Kerbin's sphere of influence? Minmus, right? Or Kerbin?

I'm guessing many of you already did this. I know that you can set fuel tanks to be empty in the VAB. Does anyone have any other advice? I will be sure to include all three dock sizes and include RCS tanks. Should it have Xenon gas as well? What about premium unleaded? Should it be self-service or attended?

Edited December 23, 2014 by THX1138

[Alshain]

It's really up to you. Minmus is a logical choice because it doesn't take much to leave it's SOI and when you do your already close to leaving Kerbin's SOI. On the other hand, it's inclination is annoying, so point in favor of the Mun. But then you still have to set up for the encounter and then rendezvous too.

All that said. Kerbin is your best bet. Leave it at ~100k orbit around Kerbin. That's less you have to lift later and it's easy to get to.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Alshain

[Janos1986]

I find refueling stations pretty useless without mods such as Kethane, since the refueling of the stations themselves is usually very expensive.

On the other hand, strap on a Kethane tank, a converter, and a dockable lander beside your LFO tank and it should be shiny enough.

With this in mind, Minmus and Gilly are the first choices as homes to these kind of starions thanks to the ease of landing for mining due to the low gravity.

Edited December 23, 2014 by Janos1986

[Rusty6899]

LKO is the only place that makes much sense. You will be able to get there fairly easily by using Kerbin to aerobrake when returning from an interplanetary mission. Anywhere else and you are throwing away fuel. On top of that, LKO is an efficient place to transfer to a lot of planets so refuelling there is preferable to Minmus or Mun.

[cicatrix]

LKO is the best choice. I seldom use refuelling in orbit since I tend to plan the total dV budged of the mission, but I have a couple of tankers in LKO just in case I need them (they're upper stages of heavy lifters usually). They cannot maneuver and are considered as debris, but they do have docking ports and fuel. I always place docking ports on the upper stages of my rockets. They don't cost too much but provide a wonderful opportunity in case I need moar fuel.

[psyper]

LKO is the best choice. I seldom use refuelling in orbit since I tend to plan the total dV budged of the mission, but I have a couple of tankers in LKO just in case I need them (they're upper stages of heavy lifters usually). They cannot maneuver and are considered as debris, but they do have docking ports and fuel. I always place docking ports on the upper stages of my rockets. They don't cost too much but provide a wonderful opportunity in case I need moar fuel.

I do pretty much the same but I have a probebody on the upper stage so that I can lift equipment and parts without needing an extra command module. At one point I was creating a LKO station and had the upper stages docked with it if they had any fuel in them. At one point I had 4 of them all full with fuel and thought that I should put a load of empty tanks on the station so I can store the fuel for when I start exploring. Now when I start a new save the first thing I do is create a refuelling station that is used when I construct new ships - it keeps a reserve of fuel that I've had spare from the launches for when I do duna transfers etc.

[Sirrobert]

Definitly LKO.

Refeuling stations are very usefull. For example, you can send up your interplanetery rockets empty. And thus way lighter. This means it's much easier to send up, and thus your rockets can be much bigger. You can than fill up the rocket at the station.

It's also a good idea to set up a fuel mining station (with Karbonite or Kethane) on the Mun or Minmus, and ferry fuel from there to the refeuling station. Once everything is set up, that's MUCH easier than trying to launch a crapton of fuel into orbit.

Refeuling station can also serve as a base to dock ships in conctruction to. So you can send up your interplanetery crafts in modules.

Combined with sending up the rockets empty, and there is no limit to how big you can make your rockets

O and it should be attended. With a snack bar

Edited December 23, 2014 by Sirrobert

[Pecan]

Chapter 7 of the tutorial in my signature discusses orbital stations, for refuelling and crew-transit :-)

[SpeedDaemon]

As others have mentioned, LKO is the best place for your particular use case. You'll probably be returning by aerobraking into LKO in preparation for landing, and LKO is also the first place all of your newly launched craft end up (and the best place to depart from after refueling).

For fuel MINING, on the other hand, mining on Minmus, and sending the fuel back to a fueling station in LKO is the best option (least dV for landing/re-orbiting, and your empty, light tanker is going up, and the full, heavy one is coming down and can aerobrake).