MisterKerman

Holy bumz. What a great craft @Yakuzi

Here's my last space station before restarting my career. Of course I made sure it was as dark as possible before taking the screenshot. You know... like every unplanned screenshot anyone's taken for KSP ever.

Seems pretty clear to me that 1.25m isn't being utilized for stations by practically anybody, but I'll still consider it as long as I can manage to figure out a way to both make it look nice as well as functional in regards to rigidity, but chances are the part count will be really ugly and I'll opt for the obvious/easier/practical choice instead.

Basically my formula is make a small "train" of 2.5m components. Core, Habitation with lots of ports, Power Plant and utilities with some refueling ports, and the caboose is a big fuel tank. I was just thinking aside from the hitchhiker cans and fuel tank, 1.25m should be fine for all my "needs". I just want to try to make something lightweight and industrial looking this time around. This was the latest iteration of my fuel depot/tourism terminal:

Bought some plane parts and made a surprisingly balanced plane first attempt with no edits. It just flies rock steady aside from a lack of lift. I might fiddle with it but it's incapable of breaking 6000m as it is so it's not exactly something I want to spend too much time on. It's original purpose was to collect on 7 very close proximity observation contracts surrounding KSC, but they're 20km up soooo... maybe next time.

I will this playthrough. I plan on launching probes all over the god dang place. I'm more scared than incapable.

I just restarted my game. I want to try smaller more efficient builds if I can manage, including space stations maybe? Is there a benefit to building small for a space station? Less torque and less fuel, but either of those issues can be solved with a well placed component engineered to accomodate that. I want to try, but I'd like to hear from you guys what size you normally use seeing as 2.5 is most common due to useful parts for space stations often being that size. I can imagine 1.25m getting pretty wobbly.

I haven't gone interplanetary yet. I really should have but I always get to building space stations and doing Moon Tourism trips and end up restarting after a patch or something. I feel like @Geschosskopf nailed it with his 4 reason summary though. Stations are more of a buffer zone for convenience than a necessity. I would place one at every celestial body I plan to visit lots. Laythe and Duna for sure, but even then it's mostly for RP purposes essentially, aside from being a good base of operations if you plan to use it as a fuel depot with multiple landings on the surface.

I use it for boosters or as the main stage lifting engine of smaller budget rockets, usually. It's a disposable engine for me that is punchy and cheap and useful.

cheepr

Yea, I was just being dramatic. I did however start a new career that night shortly after that post and I'm attached to the charm of working my way up the tech tree again. About to unlock some plane parts and build a small observation plane, but due to my old career I don't think I'll be wasting time observing Kerbin in atmosphere or in a polar orbit unless it's extremely convenient for me. Tourism and part testing seems to be where the most reliable and less time consuming funding seems to be.

o poo On a now moot point, I've delivered the... space station components... to my space station I won't be needing anymore... . *Starts new campaign.*

Played KSP finally. Haven't played since Breaking Ground was released so I downloaded that and decided instead of scrapping my career I would carry on. I was in the process of redesigning my station anyways due to a possible bug. Ditching old Power Plant and Hab Module. Station Core docked to cargo shuttle awaiting delivery of replacement space station components.

Ah okay, well thanks for the information you guys. It looks like there were a few members other than myself that got a little bit of clarity out of this too so I'll probably leave this topic to wither and die rather than closing it in case someone else has anything to add. I'll continue to part clip as conservatively as possible, but it's good knowing that I was worrying a little too much about it for what that stress was worth.

@The Doodling Astronaut I think I might do something similar for my first Duna mission. Those are really really clean craft designs though. Had to say something!

That's super good advice. I'd never considered that to be honest but I try not to make clipping a habit outside of cosmetic purposes and always as little as I can manage for the effect. (No fuel tanks inside of fuel tanks or any other sketchy nonsense.) I've definitely had fixed parts explode and I suspected clipping to be the issue, but it sounds like it must have been some other sort of bug. Parts within the same craft really can't collide? What about the stock landing gear contraptions (such as cargo bays that would torque themselves open with landing legs before cargo bays were were implemented.) or Kraken drives? I always felt like my paranoia was warranted because of stuff like that.

I've always wondered if there were risks associated with clipping parts into eachother. I've never had parts explode on me often enough to determine if clipping was the issue, but generally avoid it when designing craft. The thing is I can't stand having objects floating in place not attached to the craft so I often inset them into the craft the way I feel looks most natural, and it's generally fine. But... I don't look at the debug menu or fiddle around with code etc; I have my hands full simply playing the game. I'd like to hear from experienced members what their views in regards to part clipping are, and why/how they do it

@Frank_G I'll probably stick with senior ports for space station component connections. The arm structures look really great though. I never thought to panel over 45° tilted modular girder segments. It looks so good.

Those were my thoughts too. Electric prop craft for atmospheres. Not only for escaping Eve, but simply taking fuel out of the equation is a significant feature I plan to eventually experiment with. With that said I'm starting a new career so that right from the start moving parts will be taken into consideration when deciding how my program will organize it's efforts most effectively for multi-part missions and infrastructure.

@Frank_G I really like what you did to the arms of your space station. I'm stealing that. Yours looks really legit. Thanks.

The biggest factor spurring my interest in disposable satellite missions was indeed not only that they aren't required to return, but that at a fairly easily reached point in the game science becomes meaningless aside from Administrative Strategy value in converting it instead to funds or reputation points.

I'm familiar with experiments. I'm actually quite thorough. (OCD) I'm trying to get past manned missions recovering experiments for full value because the tech tree doesn't take very long to unlock everything for to begin with; just a couple moon missions. I was just wondering more or less if chucking one-way-trip satellites all over the place (and ideally getting a stable orbit somewhere juicy) when I have enough experiments unlocked is an effective way to play. I've always envied other people's satellite flybys transmitting free science from far away back to Kerbin as it passes by. If I'm better off just doing moon missions within Kerbin's SOI then I'll probably just continue to do that, but I feel like I'm missing out on a very respectable aspect of running a space program by just going for gold every time the same way, just because I know it's there. If it's possible to shoot off some easy encounters with cheap low-tech-part satellites fairly early on, that's my ideal plan of attack. Is that a common strategy or is this one of those things Scott Manley would do leaving us scratching our heads about how he even managed?

How viable are satellites for gathering science over manned missions in regards to unlocking tech early on in career mode? I've always been OCD and figured if you want it done right (not waste science points by transmitting it rather than recovering for full value) you do it yourself with a manned mission. But I feel like I'm past that phase and would love to focus on satellites next run once "Breaking Ground" drops for collecting enough science to go interplanetary comfortably with manned missions. I've never gone interplanetary before. A proper Mun/Minmus mission seems like the most effective way to gather science. So after I've gathered enough tech/experiments to make satellites worthwhile, I would love to just start flinging satellites everywhere and I'm not particularly knowledgeable about that and would take any tips you'd like to divulge. Nothing specific I'd just like some opinions on whether this is a good idea for someone in my shoes and maybe a few things I might not be thinking of in regards to achieving success this way. I imagine this being very profitable and not so risky, but probably still very difficult for someone who's never gone interplanetary before. I feel aside from wasted value for science data, it's an efficient strategy as the values for bodies further away from the center are more valuable and not necessarily "harder" to get to if you're prepared. (Which I'm not at all.) Thoughts?

I use 2 outward facing separatrons located at the dry CoM of the spent booster and stage once spent.

I deorbited most of my space station due to a bug. Even if there's a fix I'm trying to change how my stuff looks and works so I figure now is as good a time as any to make the change and not have it feel like a frivolous expense. Has anyone ever had craft die on them? (Just become space debris essentially after undocking. Can't even switch to the vessel when it happens.) EDIT: On a positive note I designed a lander that I hope still looks good to me by time I plan to use it.