ArmoredLipid

I guess my issue is that I generally put stations in stationary orbits, to provide a known launch window at certain times. I just don't want to use RCS to accidentally modify it.

I'm pretty sure that KEO is 2,863,334 +/- 0.6 meters. I'm not sure whose information is more recent, though.

I believe there is a 2-stage lander stock craft roughly similar in function, if not structure, to the Apollo landers. It is called the 2-Stage Lander, of course.

You want a submarine/ship? Try holding tanks, I hear they work well.

I have had this problem before. It can be completely solved by switching every reaction wheel on both the docked ship and the station, including built-in command module ones, to "pilot-only" mode. This is because stability-assist mode will accidentally increase minute wobbles while trying to correct them.

Switch your SAS to stability assist only; pilot will attempt to orient your entire rover in whatever direction you selected.

Stick it on a cargo fairing. Turn said fairing upside down and use structural bits to attach it to some 2x2 structural panels, which are attached to the rest of your rocket. Add an upside-down landing mechanism on the top of the fairing, sort of like a skycrane minus the "crane" bit. Touch the ground, deploy the fairing and the decoupler attaching the rover to it. Profit.

Try using an SRB for this; maybe the Kickback booster. Stick an RCS tank and probe core on the front, aim it at your ship, and switch the booster on. If there's no more ship, use a smaller booster.

Switch SAS to "pilot only" mode. It will only orient your station, not attempt to keep it facing in a certain direction.

Add a relay antenna, preferably the biggest one you have so far. RA-100 is best.

Question: what mode is this in? Career, science, or sandbox? If it's the first one, are you able to place maneuver nodes yet? If it's the first or second one, what docking port are you using for this, and do you have RCS?

Space stations in KSP serve many functions. They generally fall into the following categories: science stations, refueling stops, parts testing locations, and vehicle assembly locations. This guide is intended for beginners looking to assemble their first space stations. Science stations are one of the most common types of space station in KSP. They typically consist of a Mobile Processing Lab MPL-LG-2 with solar panels, habitation modules, and command modules attached. Their purpose is to convert science points to data points, level up Kerbals without needing to land on Kerbin, and store duplicate experiments. Tips: - Make it small. The bare minimum for a science lab is a docking port, Mobile Processing Lab MPL-LG-2, command module (often a probe core), substantial battery buffer (for science experiments), powerful antenna (for transmitting data to Kerbin) and quarters for any Kerbals who may be leveling up at the station. - Include large battery banks. Science in the Mobile Processing Lab MPL-LG-2 consumes a good of electricity per second (5); Z-4K Rechargable Battery Banks can last you a good while. Alternatively, find a power source that can match the requirements of the lab continually; Gigantor XL Solar Arrays are best for this. - Attach parts such as batteries radially; try not to use their stack-size counterparts. Ideally, your station could be launched with a single heavy rocket. - Attach a relay antenna. The Mobile Processing Lab is big; it can easily take the RA-100 Relay Antenna on top. Refueling stops are the other common type of space station in KSP. 1 type is typically found in low-Kerbin or keostationary orbit, they act as a jumping-off point for large vessels that spent most of their fuel leaving Kerbin's atmosphere. They are often found near a vehicle assembly station, due to the need for the newly-assembled vehicle to take on fuel before moving off. The other type is usually only found in Career mode, often in a stationary orbit or semi-stationary orbit above an atmosphere-less moon (i.e. one that is not Laythe). They act as a warehouse for fuel being shipped up from a surface refinery. Tips: - Make it BIG. The Kerbodyne S3-14400 fuel tank can carry 6,480 units of liquid fuel and 7,920 units of oxidizer. If you somehow manage to put this thing into orbit (best to do it empty), it can act as a medium-sized fuel dump on its own. Otherwise, Rockomax Jumbo-64/Orange tanks can suffice if you use two to three of them. - Add tanks for everything. Include liquid fuel and oxidizer, and also include specialized liquid-fuel dumps for LV-N "Nerv" Atomic Rocket Motors and jet engines, as well as xenon gas and big battery banks for the IX-6315 "Dawn" Electric Propulsion System. Include monopropellant for RCS thrusters and the O-10 "Puff" Monopropellant Engine (if you actually use that thing). - Stick with big reaction wheels. The Advanced Reaction Wheel Module, Large is your best bet, with 30 kn of thrust. Don't forget to set them to "pilot only", lest they tear your station apart when a ship docks; also, balance them out so that 1 side of the station receives roughly as much force as the other.Add big battery banks for those big reaction wheels as well; you don't really want to run out of power as you're swinging towards a fragile fuel tanker. - Use Clamp-O-Tron Sr. docking ports. They provide much more rigid structural connections then the other types. - Attach yourself to an asteroid with Da Klaw, strap on a Convert-O-Tron 250, some Drill-O-Matic Mining Excavators of any kind, some radiators, holding tanks, and Gigantor XL Solar Arrays, and get yourself a temporary free fuel source. - Make it modular. Use the HubMax connector to branch out in 6 directions, and stick more HubMax pieces on the end of those. As more fuel tanks go up, attach them to your orbital tank farm. - Add a relay to turn it into a free comms satellite. Vehicle assembly locations are essentially orbital shipyards and launchpads, minus the titular mod. They allow for the assembly of ships that would not fit in the KSC and drastically reduce delta-v requirements for interplanetary missions. The primary restriction is that they cannot build reentry-capable spaceplanes in the Mark 2 or 3 sizes, due to the lack of couplers in those sizes; a mod could solve this. They can build huge (Kerbodyne-sized) rockets using Kerbodyne ADPT-4 adapters, Senior-sized docking ports, and autostruts. Their primary function is to assemble massive Rockomax-sized spaceships for interplanetary travel. They are often found combined with or near orbital fuel stations, due to the above-mentioned reasons. Tips: - Make most of it structural parts. A Cupola module and habitation quarters are needed for control and rocket crews; the rest can be empty fuel tanks or simple structural parts coupled to assorted sizes of Clamp-O-Tron docking port to hold ship segments. - Build tugboats out of lightweight probe cores or Mark 1 Lander Cans, ion engines, RCS thrusters, reaction wheels, and xenon/monoprop tanks. These can easily move enormous segments of shipping given enough time. - Add a relay to turn it into a free comms satellite. - Build part "cages". These are structures made of construction girders and I-beams strutted together and used to hold massive parts when said parts are not clamped to anything. - If need be, hold parts in place with Klaws; they're surprisingly good at it. - Put this station in as low an orbit as safely possible. This way, it rotates its host body quickly, and ships being launched from it are provided easier access to other planets. Parts testing locations are relatively rare, and only found in career mode. These stations serve as a semi-mobile (able to change orbital altitude) testbeds designed to fulfill part-testing contracts. Tips: - Add a "mass relay". Find the thrust of an engine you've been assigned to test, and arrange an equal amount of thrust against it. - Add a detachable satellite for testing RCS thrusters and low-powered radial engines. - Add docking ports for attaching ships containing your parts. - Use a probe core, rather than a Kerbal pilot, in case *something* happens. - Add a relay to turn it into a free comms satellite, of course. - Add altitude correction thrusters. These are pairs of engines facing one another; one is always shut off while the other is always on. Alternate this as needed, and use these thrusters to change your altitude to test at different altitudes. Use low-power, high-efficiency engines such as "Spark" liquid-fuel engines, Nerv atomic rocket motors, or xenon propulsion.

SAS is faster unless you're using the built-in command pod reaction wheels to do so. I personally take the Advanced Reaction Wheel Module, Large, stick 6 on a Rockomax HubMax Multi-Point Connector (the big one, not the industrial espionage-produced Dinkelstein knockoff), set them to Pilot Only, and then stick another one on the end of each module I attach. That's 60 kilonewtons of force a second on each module, which is enough to rotate most stations rather quickly.

I'm envisioning a robotic probe landing with Mark 55 "Thud" radial engines on some body and using this drill to mine with. Come to think of it, this is rather impractical for asteroids, because the location where it normally is mounted (i.e. bottom of ship) is generally filled with Da Klaw. Suggestion for a new mod of yours: 2.5-meter wide AGU.

Turning SAS off completely is generally a bad idea. It leaves your station unable to orient in a required direction (i.e. docking alignment) without using bulky monoprop. Additionally, since monoprop is mass leaving the ship, it will destroy precise orbits over time. My advice is to only use monoprop for altitude control thrusters (the Place-Anywhere 7 Linear RCS Port is your best bet here). SAS does not expel mass and can have the (also massless, although batteries are a bit heavy) resource used to activate it (electricity) supplied by a number of means other than shipping it to the station, such as solar panels, radisotope thermoelectric generators, your altitude correction thrusters firing, and fuel cells (listed in order of practicality). In mass terms, electricity is a one-time cost (if an expensive one), while everything else is lighter, but the gift that keeps on ungiving.

If you're new to space stations, there is one incredibly important thing to remember (wow, that sounded like clickbait). If you have a docking port on your station, that you intend to dock other ships to, you must select EVERY reaction wheel system on BOTH the docking ship AND the station, and set them to "pilot only". On the downside, this will make your station rather slow to maneuver and change attitude. The upside is that you do not trigger an infernal feedback loop/kraken attack that will result in your ship being rammed through your station at a 180-degree angle at a sizable fraction of c. The reason this feedback loop happens is something along the lines of the following: 1. Docked ship wobbles - just a tiny bit. 2. Reaction wheel notes wobble, attempts to correct it with counterbalancing force. 3. Reaction wheel inevitably goes a millinewton or so of torque too far and pushes the ship in the other direction. 4. Reaction wheel attempts to correct this new wobble, and goes too far. 5. Repeat until the docked ship has been turned into a relativistic projectile and/or battering ram.

I can use the ramjets to get it far up, then keep it level with Junos, but it would be hard to lift a Mk3 up with those - individual parts for Mk3 fuselages weigh as much as light armored vehicles light tanks normal-sized tanks. Even an averaged-size Mk3 liquidfuel fuselage weighs 28.57 tons fully fueled.

Nope, I'm talking about the (presumably irradiated) Kraken sample. The goo appears more self-interested - i.e. it "feels at home" high in space over the Mun, or is "bored" at the KSC. If there was Goo in the SC, Mystery Goo tanks wouldn't be needed, although the material in SC units might just be Mystery Goo in its original/biological sample incarnation. Mystery Goo as normally seen is Goo that achieved sentience or at least sapience and was thrown out in a dumpster in a biohazard containment unit, then scavenged by some junior researcher - hence "found lying by the side of the road".

Can this plane be deployed from another craft? I'm thinking of taking a Mk.3 or 2 spaceplane up to where the Juno engines flame out, then airdropping the Juno-equipped craft out of it with all engines ignited.

New theory: Kerbal stem cells that were removed as a biological sample, grew into a blob, and gained a degree of intelligence. It would explain how it's "bored" when sitting at the KSC. When your ship is on the launchpad or anywhere in the KSC: "The samples show no sign of change, but one of them appears to be judging you silently."

A slightly simpler method might be to find the speed at which your craft "hovers" above the Mun; that is, the throttle amount at which its velocity relative to the surface does not change. Come in close as possible, and slowly "hop" your way over to the depot by increasing your throttle slightly and manually tilting your navball in its direction.

Aerospikes are efficient atmospheric engines, but not exactly the strongest, so you might want to try a different approach. The S3 KS-25 "Vector" LFO engine has (a) better thrust at 1 Kerbin. atmosphere - 782.98 kilonewtons, in fact - (b) 5 more ISP at 1 Kerbin atmosphere - and (c) a gimbal, and one of the best in the game at that. It does weigh 4 times as much, however, so consider putting only 1 on your craft. Either way, one KS-25 is worth 4 Aerospikes weightwise and worth a little over 6 thrust-wise, so add (d): better TWR.

Good point, considering that the description implies that it was found in a dumpster. Come to think of it, semi-intelligent green jello mystery objects and Kerbals are roughly similar (green, disproportionate, not the smartest), so there's that.

Glass ain't nothing. Solar panels in this game are made of single-atom thickness gold leaf. One time, I broke them off by driving too fast on Kerbin - they got "snapped off by aero forces". The trick is to offset them into a structure piece - preferably a modular girder, or a box made out of structural panels - those can take an 80 meter-per-second impact. I personally use a "cage" made of modular girders.

Personally, I think it's a type of biological sample intended to test if Kerbals can survive in the environment it's exposed to. Many think it's green, and the in-game text for the experiments focus unduly on whether the goo freezes, becomes brittle, remains "bored", etc. Specifically, I think it's something along the lines of liquified Kerbal.