KalleWirsch

Borg ships in LKO? well... no - just started my first space station dedicated for a Solar Orbit. It will reside on an asteroid. Only thing I need to find out is how to rendevous with an asteroid. Craziest ship I ever built and three times more expensive than all other ships i ever built. So far it's just the 242 tons engine/drilling/refinery part with 48 forward Ion engines and 6 backward Nervs to pull the asteroid. I will attach some crew quarters and a science lab to fullfill some contracts. My first project that will likely never break even financially.

Just started my first ever interplanetary mission, consisting of 6 craft on the way to Eve/Gilly. Hope everything will work as planned, since my only interplanet experience so far is a failed Moho orbit (i.e. it was only a flyby). At least I planned for plenty of spare dV and alternate scenarios this time.

I am playing KSP since 10 weeks. Here are some of my stations of my first career game. I ordered them in build order generation 0 (X0) to generation 6 (X6). All bases are currently still operated and staffed.All bases are stock except of mechjeb and scansat. I although want to share some thoughts about the design targets, maybe somebody gets some inspirations. I watched tons of ship/station ideas in the past 6 weeks to get some inspirations. Some i loved, some i neglected and some I just didn't understand. So far i did build stations for the following purpuses: - Science stations - Most important kind of station - Orbital Base for landing missions - Important for lander mission with small crafts that need refueling and/or can not return to Kerbin on their own - Refueling base - A fuel depot here and there eases planning and allows often to accept simple to achieve missions - Orbital Base for rescue missions - i tend to bring packs of 3 small escape pods to mun/minus/kerbin orbital bases and use them when needed. Generation 0 (X0) Actually I started building stations, when I observed labs will be handy to get science. First I tried to drop a Lab out of a plane over mountain territory. Achieved this goal, but didn't get any notable science. So I build a plane that can fly around and collect data, I later did build a refueling and refitting rover (refueling from the front, refitting additional science modules to the back). And of course a general science rover, that eases getting all the science from KSC to the vessel, when it is landed. This creation was a big success. (The version that is now operated is actually mk2 and mk3 of generation 0) Note: Analyzing the data from flight directly in flight gives you much more data, than analyzing the later on the ground. Generation 1 (X1) This station was build almost in paralell with the flying science vessel. Not the biggest success regarding science data, I needed to add batteries and solar panels by docking more vessels to it. It was mainly operated as a low orbit fuel cache. But still not worth it, if I compare the amount of fuel I can now lift into orbit with just one vessel. At least it was fun and I learnt much about docking, a major step to the next generations. Generation 2 (X2) Basically just the final design of Generation 1 Science Lab. I positioned it around Mun. It was the first vessel to be filled up with a full 500 Data. It operated as base for the first Mun mission. It also has always docked some escape pods to it, to rescue stranded Kerbals from Mun low Orbit. A big leap for Kerbalkind both mission-wise and science-wise. Generation 3 (X3) Kerbin High Orbit Orbital Lab. This design is actually the great leap from the mun misison. The first modular vessel. It consists of the 2nd stage (1st stage was all solid boosters), a third interplanetary stage and the modular X3 Lab. Kerbin High Orbital Lab was later fitted with additional experiments by a docked science probe. Currenttly it hase docked an additional grabber/rescue drone. With all the science from Mun I created a set of modules, X3 Modular Lab, X3 Crew Module, X3 interplanetary stage, X3 Return Vessel, X3 Lander, X3 Rover and of course X3 Crane/Connector. Lab and Crew Module could theoretically be landed on Mun/Minmus and joined together via the Connector-Rover. However i couldn't afford to max out the VAB at that time. And with a 250 part limit I just couldn't launch the Connector Module. A note on X3 docking. i completely abandoned the idea of RCS thrusters. i could not build a single ship, where it worked. I used a RCS thrusted placing Mod but still, it might work moderately for a single ship, but as soon as i join modules or break them apart it isn't ballanced at all. I basically dock the following way. 1 Homan transfer, 2 fine tune Homan transfer, 3 match velocities, 4 align the docking ports of both ships. 5 speed up the smaller and done. In some cases I repeat step 3-5 a second time. You can control a ship from every docking port to align this port in the direction of the other ship. All it needs to support this docking style are highly agile ships, i.e. enough inline stabilizers. X4 often has 2 or 3. X5/X6 has up to 15. But be aware: If you put several stabilizers directly under a docking port it will bend up to 10 degrees or more just by trying to steer it. This way it gets completely out of control. So try to attach the stabilizers to the bigger parts that do not bend or wobble. You can use radial attachment points to attach them almost everywhere. A 2nd option is to fix the parts below and above the stabilizers with additional struts. Generation 4 (X4) X4 is basically a slightly improved version of X3. As soon as you operate them you get lots of ideas to improve them. Picture 5 shows Minus Orbital Base station consisting of 2 interplanetary stages, an X4 Lander, An X4 fuel depot (big tank + small drop tank) and a grabber/escape pod. One of my improvements from X3 to x4 is the invention of lander drop tanks. The lander can land and return to the OBASE both on Mun and Minmus. On minus it also can carry a 3 tons X3 science rover to the ground and return, but on Mun it cannot, So I simply dock the rover on top of the lander and the drop tank on top of the rover. In flight or on ground I transfer the fuel to the lander and drop the tank as soon as it is empty. This way I get the additional delta-V to land the rover and return. Picture 6 shows Minmus Polar Orbital Lab It consists of X4 components. 2 interplanetary stages, a Lab, a fuel station and 3 escape pods. I have the same thing (including a crew module in Mun polar orbit). Both were able to get vast amounts of science and data. I collect all possible experiments multible times (2x transfered to Kerbin, 1x stored in the Lab component, 1x in a escape pod to be returned to Kerbin). This way you can almost max out science from the Minmus and Mun missions. Even the experiments from a polar orbit (crew report and gravimetric report from both high and low orbit) result in a abundance of science. Generation 5 (X5) All the science, the new parts and maxed out buildings leaded to the idea to build an Minmus Orbital refinery, a miner that can land on Mun/Minmus. This should be the base to explore Duna and the other planets. So far i only did send out some probes, that not yet arrived so I planned big rockets, big stations. Picture 7 shows the X5 Minus OREF (Orbital refinery), with X5 Minmus Miner, and X5 Lander including 2 X5 Science Rovers. On top a X5 return vessel and on the side 2 X5 Escape Pods. A new invention of X5 is the combined interplanetary stage/lander i.e. the lander is both a interplanetary stage and a lander. Same for the Orbital refinery, it can acts as a interplanetary stage. Another new concept of X5 is that the payload is also used as fuel source for the launcher system. i.e. the launcher was much smaller than you would think for a monster-payload like the OREF. this makes perfectly sence if you later refuel it with ore from mun. As a first resume X5 got much to big in terms of part count. My computer lags as hell when i dock 3 or more of this big ships together and docking gets harder. Additionally these big ships need quite some inline stabilizers to support my docking style (without any RCS). X6 will focus on reducing the part count. It will also focus to place inline stabilizers a way that they do not bend the ship like chewing gum and fix the parts around the inline stabilizers with struts to minimize bending. X6 will furthermore include a set of new out of the box launchers. Generation 6 (X6) My first X6 station just launched from KSC. The improved OREF. Less batteries and solar panels, 4 instead of 12 NERV-engines. It includes 2 poodles as auxilliary engines. First Mission will be to grab a class d asteroid to Kerbin orbit. Tried to max out the delta-v of the interplanetary stage with a new (partly aspargus/drop-tank) staging and improving launch stability. X5 had about 2600 DV in 800km orbit. X6 has now 5300 DV in 200km orbit. <blockquote class="imgur-embed-pub" lang="en" data-id="a/HONyS"><a href="//imgur.com/a/HONyS">Space Stations</a></blockquote><script async src="//s.imgur.com/min/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>