Does docking count as a new ship

[Duckytrask]

So I got this contract to visit and I'm not sure land on both the Mun and Minmus using only one ship. To cut down on costs I was wondering if I were to dock a fuel ship it could refuel and go on. Would this docking ship make it so it resets?

[HoloYolo]

To be honest, I think it all becomes 1 ship when they dock together, like the ISS isn't 22 modules, it's 1 space station.

[Duckytrask]

I'm wondering more if when I in dock the fuel ship, will it no longer count as using one ship

[HoloYolo]

I'm wondering more if when I in dock the fuel ship, will it no longer count as using one ship

You will be using two ships then. One ship needs to refuel, and the other one gives the fuel needed.

[Reddeyfish]

AFAIK, the only time that being a 'new' ship matters is for sat and station/base contracts. If you're just doing the 'land on mun'/'land on minimus' contracts, it doesn't matter (so yes, you can use the refueling ship).

Also, even if it is for a station/base/sat contract, if both ships are launched after the contract is accepted it will still work.

[SkyRender]

You can do a lander/refueler setup and have it work just fine for contracts. It's also a really good idea if you want to harvest a celestial body of all its potential science. The only time the game really checks for "new vessel" is when a vessel is launched; after that, any vessel you have is flagged as already existing even if it's the child of an older vessel.

[magnemoe]

Be a bit careful, I docked my Mun base with an old science station in orbit, this removed the "new ship" flag from my base.

[Pthigrivi]

^Interesting... It's also made me wonder what exploit wiggle room there might be for launching a small probe, attaching it to an existing station, and moving that station to fulfill another contract.

[Vanamonde]

This question about how to play the game has been moved to the Gameplay Questions sub-forum.