Triangular

Not docked yet, but I have managed to make a very reliable and efficient lifter - gets 3.5 Jumbo tanks into a nice 100km orbit, and doesn't fall apart! I had read about asparagus staging before but was surprised by the difference it makes in terms of efficiency!

Thanks for the heads up scotius. I'm still watching tutorials before I give it a try. I'm running an AMD Phenom X4 at 3.40 GHz, 8GB RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 with 4GB onboard memory. Not exactly top spec but it's handled the game pretty good so far. We'll see what happens when I try to dock...!

This is really helpful, thanks! I'll have a go at using this, but really just wanted to look at it to see how to stop stuff falling apart all the time. Most of the fun of this game so far is in designing my own stuff - but it can be frustrating when you get the same crash report again and again... "structural linkage" etc... So far experience tells me to rely on strut connectors rather that the seemingly pretty useless beams. I just managed to double the amount of fuel I could get up in the air since yesterday so, getting better. One more question: sometimes its really hard to place strut connectors - they seem to disappear immediately on placement - does this happen to everyone and is there a workaround? Thanks again for all your help, amazing response. I'm now going to try to teach myself how to dock, wish me luck. I hear using this newfangled mechjeb device is frowned upon...

What a beast! I've been working on similar looking things but only using the jumbo tanks, I see you separated yours with smaller tanks- does that stop the structural linkage problem from happening so much? Also those struts at the top: i presume they are connected via decouplers? Craft file would be handy if you could post. TY

OOf. Sounds like quite the party... Finally got the station up. In the end I separated the 2 jumbo fuel tanks with the "Structural Fuselage" part because it is described as "more solid due to reinforcements" and although it looked like it shouldn't it seemed to work: I got 1 x Jumbo tank's worth of fuel up, was hoping for more but kept dropping the size of the payload to try and get it in the air. Would appreciate some tips on how to get more fuel into orbit if anyone has any?

Thanks for the info guys. Seems you can even refuel through girders then..! Now I'm trying to launch the first part of my refuelling station, the rocket keeps falling apart - usually a structural failure on linkage between Rockomax Jumbo-64 Fuel tank and the neighbouring part (either another identical fuel tank or the Rockomax adaptor). Is this a common problem? Any solutions? I've tried strengthening the joins with beams and stuff but can't seem to get it into orbit. Any thoughts?

Hi all, I'm new here, have been playing this amazing game for a couple of days and can't seem to stop! So far my greatest achievement is that I have made my own Mun lander, landed it, and got the crew safely back to Kerbin. I'm thinking about other stuff I can do next. A mission to Minmus beckons, as does the construction of a refuelling port in orbit around Kerbin. This leads me to my question - I'm aware that a refuelling port basically needs a couple of big fuel tanks, a pod, some solar power, a small engine of its own and at least one docking port, but I was wondering: does the docking port have to be attached to the end of the fuel tanks? or what could go between fuel tanks and a docking port so that refuelling could still take place? Presumably you can't separate them with just anything - eg struts/girders won't convey the fuel? So what can you use here? Thanks in advance for any help.