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I have finally managed to set up a mining/refinery on minmus, with capability to dock to Clamp-o-tron Sr. and all is going well there (took me forever to actually land it because of part counts and a dogwater cpu though lol). And am looking to set up a "gas station" of sorts in low to mid kerbin orbit where most of my craft tend to be parked. This poses a question. How would I go about making a tanker capable of taking large amounts of fuel from minmus, to LKO? Recovery and funds are not an issue as this is a sandbox run. Thus far my best idea is to just haul a bunch of empty tanks into space, with seperate stages/sections with full tanks for actually moving the vessel. But at what point does the TWR/DV just become unacceptable for something like this? Or is there a better way? Additionally, any input regarding the "Gas station" would also be appreciated!

Happy New Year, everyone. I am overhauling my fleet and I'm in the market for ideas about orbital fuel dumps (OFD). Let's define an OFD as an orbital vehicle (Kerbin or elsewhere) that serves the sole two purposes of: refueling visiting vessels; (possibly) keeping mission components docked together awaiting final (low orbit) assembly; (not looking beautiful [in Space, nobody can see how Ugly you are]) I gave up on space stations as anything more than a fuel dump long ago. I've recently upgraded to 1.2 and then 1.3 and find auto-strutting -- which is just a way to defeat the ugly side of the Unity physics engine (as best I can gather) -- does actually help. But I still can't risk docking very much to the OFD (pictured). And have to remain very observant with the Warp key lest tragedy befall. What have people found is the best way to put a pile of fuel into orbit and keep it stocked?? Pictured below, (BEWARE THE UGLINESS), I assemble the following from bits left over from two super-tanker launches. Each super-tanker lofts 165 kilotons of LF up to the OFD. You can see this OFD has two weak links, at the hubs. I find that just maneuvering a ship near it can cause it to get the shakes. Even auto-strutted. And I'm not terribly sure which kind of strutting (Root, Parent, Grandparent, Heaviest) ought to work best... Please post screenshots of your Orange Fuel Dumps...!!

I have seen some spacestations in other threads but noticed that not many actually produce fuel, rather only serve as transit hubs. Therefore, let me show you mine! Refueling Station "Veragon" This station both produces and stockpiles rocket fuel (LfOx) and Monopropellant for outgoing ships. And by that I mean a LOT of it. Total reservoir is 51840 gallons of liquid fuel, 20250 gallons of monopropellant. And that entire reservoir gets refilled to full capacity within about and only 8 days. Since I am using KSTS mod (for automated delivery into low orbit) and Konstruction (for weldable ports), this station can be split into about 15 sections/deliveries. Tug then moves these sections into proper order, and weldable ports join them permanently. As for orbial delivery, I have recorded 37 tons delivery mission profile, so this would be maximum mass for each segment. But that does not particularly matter, because all deliveries are finished near each other with KSTS. If you split it into 30 sections, those will be within a hundred meters anyway. What you cut down on is docking procedures. Also tug is unmanned, so entire assembly is remotely controlled. Entire station cost is about 3M credits but that is mostly due to me just overbuilding it. Might make a smaller station with just one million. Pillars are on both ends of the station. Most outter docking ports are far from the refinery so even largest ships can dock. Engines on both ends allow changing orbit (of the entire station!) with prograde/retrograde. And since it refuels itself, well. Wind panels gather dust, Dysons turn dust into ore, Convert-O-Trons turn ore into rocket fuel and propellant. Nuclear powerplant can produce 2000 ec/sek but station only consumes about 170. Powerplant runs only at 10% which extends its lifetime to about 50 years. However with full uranium it does cost 1.5M credits. About half the cost of entire station. Note that since Dysons produce more ore than refineries consume (only during day, wind panels require sunshine), and there is a large ore tank, refineries operate without stop during entire night cycle (about 20 minutes). This means refineries require considerable electricity for 20 minutes windows. Solar panels would be able to produce this amount, but batteries would be huge. Therefore a need for nuclear reactors. Both the reactor and all eight refineries require cooling, thats what Tripoles are for.

Hello. This mod includes one part - Suit Refuel - for refueling your EVA-suit with monopropellant. The propellant is taken from the ship's supplies. If you play with mods that add some resources to EVA, you can enter right click menu pumping settings and customize behavior for resouces: do nothing, pump in, pump out. Watch this detail as a fashion accessory. Now your station will not cool enough, if Jeb should return to the capsule for refueling to continue extravehicular activity. Download for Windows: https://github.com/HuXTUS/KSP-SuitRefuelPlugin/releases License MIT https://github.com/HuXTUS/KSP-SuitRefuelPlugin/blob/master/LICENSE Good luck.

I'm going to send a MAV on Mars almost empty (with just the right amount of Hydrolox fuel to land) and then refuel it trough RealISRU (sadly still not completed, but it works).I need help with methods to extract the fuel from the surface/atmosphere , chemical conversions and some math with it. Landing config: Mars takeoff config: I have 15 months to produce all that fuel.(around 85 tons)

Hello. Please look at my first part-addon. Work in progress. This part is for refueling your jetpack in EVA. The propellant is taken from the ship's supplies. Download beta version: https://github.com/HuXTUS/KSP-SuitRefuelPlugin/releases License: MIT https://github.com/HuXTUS/KSP-SuitRefuelPlugin/blob/master/LICENSE I'm really bad at drawing, and Blender and Unity I downloaded a week ago. If someone wants to participate and make a model of this "closet" for me, I will be happy.

Kerbalkind has always been ambitious. But now let us take it to the next level. I propose a craft that can take off from the KSC, Orbit once around Kerbol with a maximum altitude of 1000 Kilometers, refuel, and then land by the KSC to be recovered. One of each type of crewmember is required. Also, you are required to land every piece of your ship(except for the booster stages). You can refuel on an asteroid or a planet. It doesn't matter. But here comes the kicker. You have to do it in maximum gravity and show that you are not using any other cheats.

Even though I have 15,000 excess science.. it's not enough. I found I had not yet landed on any of the Jool moons. Bad Kerbals! So, i decided I would take a lab with me, and make a single lander that can hit all the moons except Laythe (requires a specialized design). Tylo being the biggest challenge, because of its very high gravity/size, it's like landing on Kerbin without an atmosphere. So I designed a lander with some jettisonable fuel, with the idea I would go to Tylo FIRST, and then wouldn't need those tanks for Vall, Pol, or Bop. I would bring my lab with me as an undockable section, with its own fuel, RCS, etc. Unfortunately, I forgot to put a probe controller on it, but that's OK, I'll just have the lander always dock to it. The small docking ports are for refueling (note that I can't refuel the lander without the lab until I jettison the tanks, but might have been nice to put one on an external tank just in case.). The lab acts as the big com relay back to Kerbin, if needed. And, of course, I need to refuel constantly, so I made a one-piece driller/ISRU/fuel transport, with a small docking port for refueling the lander/lab sections. Small engine to just handle interplanetary and landing on Pol. Checking out the dV for the lander, the DV maps *say* I need about 2280 to land and take off at Tylo, with 4750, I *should* have enough, right? (more on this later). It may take a low starting orbit, but on paper, it should work. So, first we get up into Kerbin orbit, and head to Minmus to refuel everybody for the long drive to Jool. Note that I was able to keep the lower booster from Kerbin, so it took two refueling runs, but the landing section would come into Jool with plenty of fuel, while the driller would come into Jool orbit with maybe only 800 dV, probably enough to get to Pol on its own, but this added extra insurance. Turns out I had plenty, transfer, orbit and landing is maybe 500-700. We refuel everyone at Pol, and head to Tylo. Now, I begin to worry- if I start my landing low (say 17km), and get back to a low orbit, can my fuel ship dip down that low to refuel (before landing and after re-orbit), and climb back out the gravity well and get back to Pol and land? The answer, it turns out, is yes. I leave about 1000 dV for each run back to Pol. So, we try our first descent from 17km. We learn two things. (1) You can't start from 17km because you can't slow down fast enough before gravity sucks you into a mountain. If you thrust downward enough, you use too much fuel. So we raise the descent to about 30km. That works well, but we land with only about 2100 dV left, not nearly enough to get back into orbit. It turns out it takes about 2500 dV to get to a roughly 10km orbit. Yep, this looks bad. So, after failed attempts, I realize I need help. So I built another fuel/engine "top" component to provide more fuel (and the thrust to counter its extra weight). Note that I added a decoupler to the docking ring, because those BIG docking rings have enough magnetic attraction they don't come loose easily. I am still granted the proper dV, but I didn't want to have something that might crash on top of me and explode after landing. With this component and some careful piloting, I'm able to land with about 2561 dV left. Note that I hit hard when I landed and broke a strut, but I should still be fine for Vall. 2561 was enough to put us back into a 9kmx20km orbit, with enough dV left to re-dock with the science section. Then the refueler only had to make one stop! So, the major lesson learned is- don't trust the dV maps. It took about 2600-2800 dV to land and 2300-2400 to reach stable orbit, and that's with optimal piloting. But other than that, the "two ships, single lander for four moons" project is so far a success, and has passed the toughest test.... Tylo, with only one landing strut as a casualty.

Is it possible to refuel a vessel while landed near a ground base? Is there a "fuel hose" mod for that, perhaps? Besides some fancy flying maneuvers to dock to a ground station, of course, I'm not capable of that Thanks!