Space stations.... What's the point other than contracts?

[Jhawk1099]

I recently made a space station at  ≈ 80km orbit for a contract. I lost a lot of money on this contract due to the fact that I'm garbage and didn't read the part about needing 11 kerbals and 5k liquid fuel to complete the contract. But that's not the reason I'm making this thread (even though there's probably one like it out there) the reason I am making this thread is now a have a bunch of fuel and 5 kerbals (I returned a few of them) in orbit and nothing more to do with the station. I was thinking about launching another module for it but I am playing career mode and money is tight because I am planning on launching a Duna mission as soon as I get the phase angle. So anyone smarter than me have ideas that could help me and anyone else that reads this thread?

[Evanitis]

I'd say expand it only when another conract asks you to do so. And read the fine print too.

Refueling ships (especially recoverable SSTO rockets and planes) in Orbit is a good way to save funds and expand your capacity. You can also store modules that you plan to use later for expeditions on your station. A set of science equipment, a lab, some nukes on a docking port, etc. Of course you could store those on a random orbit too, but it's nice and cozy next to the fuel.

You can get to a point where you don't really need to -launch- a mission you want to do, just assembe something on orbit from the parked modules, refuel it, add a Kerbal or two and burn for intercept.

 

[Jhawk1099]

I thought of refueling but I never thought of using it as a way-point to assemble craft before leaving the kerbin system. Thanks for the insight and yeah ill read the fine print from now on

[Tex_NL]

A contract that says you need room for 11 Kerbals does not mean there actually have to be 11 Kerbals on board. You just need the space to house the required amount.
Unless  of course the contract clearly states you need for example 2 scientists or an engineer.

My station around Kerbin is pretty much all of the above.
It's for roll play.
It's a staging point for Mun and Minmus missions.
It's the home port for my crew ferries there between missions.
It's a science station as it processes all scientific data that comes back from Mun and Minmus.
It's holds enough fuel for several Mun/Minmus missions.
It holds rescued Kerbals in 'quarantine' until a shuttle can be launched to retrieve them.

My smaller stations at Mun and Minmus serve basically the same purpose. But instead of harbouring crew ferries they hold landers.

[TopHeavy11]

DUH! Mobile labs in orbit! For SCIENCE!

Edited January 21, 2016 by TopHeavy11

[Jett_Quasar]

Contracts, science and refueling - what more reason do you need?

Actually you could also use them as a staging post to construct large interplanetary spacecraft come to think of it.

JR

[Wjolcz]

I always design my space stations keeping in mind I might modify and repurpose them as mobile spaceships and extend their life time by doing so. If the science/contracts are done and completed I join a new module with engines to it and go Mun or Minmus to gain more science.

It's way, way cheaper than building a new one, though you won't complete "Build a new station around X" with such strategy.

Edited January 21, 2016 by Veeltch

[Guest]

Space stations are a convenient, localized gas station and parking lot.  My requirements are enough crew space to handle an interplanetary tug or two plus the station's crew and any visitors, enough fuel to handle the regular visitors from the planet below, and enough docking ports to handle a few tugs and return craft.  Tugs are generally refueled from dedicated slugs rather than from the station's reserves (which are usually comprised of the same slugs so I have a unified system).

[justidutch]

I'll usually use my first station as a convenient place to house a rescue craft.  Once the station is in place I'll send up and dock a rescue ship that includes 4-8 pods that simply return a Kerbal to the planet, basically a life raft.  Then whenever there's a rescue contract I'll go get the poor soul, return them to the station and send them on their way to the surface in one of the pods.  Easy money!

[steuben]

- fuel storage and processing
- interplanetary mission staging
- rescue mission staging
- for the challenge... multiple launches, intercepts, fine maneuvering, and docking of mid to large to very large objects
- for the cool... a well built station always looks nice
- for the awesome... a slow flyby of a large station watching from inside a cupola
- for the epic fail... screw up the orbit rendezvous and watch the fireworks

[AbacusWizard]

My main use for a station in low Kerbin orbit is to house crew (and science) returning from long journeys while they wait for a spaceplane or rocket to pick them up and return them to the space center. It's also a nice place to put a lab so my scientists can keep squeezing more science points out of their findings.

 

Orbital fuel depots are extremely convenient, but don't really need crew--just slap some docking ports on a giant fuel tank, bolt a huge rocket to the underside, and put it in orbit.

 

My main use for space stations, though, is to act as a "home away from home" for crews that are exploring another world--usually Mun or Minmus. The crew go down to the surface in a small lander, collect science (and experience), return to the space station, drop off science in the lab, refuel, and are ready to go again.

[Snarfster]

I turned a class E into my main transfer station. The tourists I get seem to have very wide interests (for example land on Gilly and orbit Dres) So they make one trip up to the transfer station and do their tours from there. My kerbal astronauts also ride the same shuttle there. It's basically a staging point. (It has a lab, but the tech tree is complete now, so that's more for show now.)

Additionally it's a great parking spot for my interplanetary ships.

To me the only disadvantage is that after a while it gets laggy with all the ships docked to it.

[KerbMav]

Good for:

making repeated missions to Mun and Minmus easier by parking a taxi vehicle on the station for refueling

only having to launch a new crew for the next mission instead of another transfer vehicle and lander

loading experiments into a lab, to use them maybe a second time if you already loaded them into another one

storing copies of every experiment ever in orbit (I always bring two back home if possible, gives crews something to do in their ship's lab while flying to another planet)

labwork for experiments done around the KSC (labbing on Kerbin's surface has a data penalty)

[rcp27]

I find space stations are quite handy for tourists.  If you have a couple of tourist contracts at the same time each with 4 or 5 tourists wanting to visit a range of destinations, you can put them all on your LKO station and then bus them from there to the destinations they want to visit, only bringing them home to Kerbin once they've been everywhere they want to go.  Once you have stations, shuttles and landers hanging around where the tourists want to go, the only cost of sending them there is fuel.

[GoSlash27]

as regex said above, a station is a good parking lot and gas station. It's also a good "shipyard" for assembling modular mission packages in orbit.

Best,

-Slashy

[cantab]

Science! with the Mobile Processing Lab.

But I prefer the lab round Mun or Minmus orbit. Your station has fuel; add engines and/or the lab itself if required then fly it out to whichever one of the Mun or Minmus you've explored less. Hopefully you get there with plenty of fuel left in the tanks. Then send out a re-usable Mun/Minmus lander that can make trips down to different biomes, back to the station, refuel, and repeat. Use either the same or a different craft to take Kerbals from Kerbin to the station and back. If you're good at orbital rendezvous then putting the station in a 30-45 degree inclined orbit helps you land on more biomes without being inconvenient for the trips too and from Kerbin.

My Mun station in the current save got a good few thousand bonus science with the lab, as well as what the experiments gave normally, and that was only hitting about three or four biomes.

[fourfa]

"Space stations.... What's the point other than contracts?"

Funny enough, the same thing is more or less true in real life too

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

I think it'd be cool if there were space-station specific scientific experiments. Like, with a mobile lab, you could run experiments about how certain engines or materials behave in orbit, if that makes sense.

[KerbMav]

9 hours ago, fourfa said:

the same thing is more or less true in real life too

Rather less true ...

[juanml82]

The problem I have with stations and smaller ships as ferries is that you need a new ship to fulfill an outpost/station contract. So you can't cheat your way around them by shuttling crew and tourists to the station/ferry in an SSTO.

And while it's a cheap way to do tourist contracts within the Kerbin SOI and train crew, you can get more money by sending new ships from Kerbin as station/base contracts and returning them to Kerbin once it's done.

 

But yes, you could totally have a space station, probably built around an asteroid, where you can dock a HOTOL SSTL and transfer crew to a ferry not designed for reentry for training and tourist contracts.

[Der Anfang]

Orbital Stations are particularly useful for missions beyond the Kerbin system. So far, it's been extremely useful to stage a mission in orbit of Eve. I play career as well, and even though I haven't landed any kerbals on Eve (yet), it's a great way to set things up for future missions, utilize a ship to go mine on Gilly and refuel things just to prepare for the future. Obviously, a science lab is a must! It's easier to have an orbital station instead of a base on the ground since you don't need to spend extra fuel just for landing and ascent.

[Francois424]

Well for me stations and Interplanetary ships are usually the same, as I like to build them big.  

A pure station will often act as a refueling/crew transfer docking platform.  If you use Interstellar, it can produce Antimatter... or stock uranium to refuel a lander's Nuclear Reactor.
Stocking Xenon/Fuel is another good go.  Especially for a base around Jool.  You definitely do not want a 1.1 - 2.5 year ressuply run every time a Kerbal loses his/her glasses or run out of snacks.
If you use Life Support, it's incredibly useful if well maintained.

Waiting for 1.1 before building a new station or three (Kerbin, "Halley's Komet", and Jool).  Then comes OPM, you DEFINITELY want stations with everything you need there before your Kerbal arrive to build a base or explore around.
What...  How will I build a station at Urlum ?  Load everything up in a huge cargo ship and build once there !
Gotta love the challenges that comes with that !

[StarStreak2109]

Well, lemme see.

Factually, beyond being a convenient gas stop, as was being pointed out above, for me, space stations mostly serve role playing purposes. Beyond stashing science data in a MPL, there is no point in building giant stations, In fact, they could be pretty small actually.

But then I like to pretend, that there are several modules each serving a specific purpose as one the ISS. Then there's of course life support issues to take care of etc, warranting resupply missions, crew transfers etc. This of course get's much more complicated once we look at Jool or even planets from OPM.

So yeah, really, for me it's mostly role play - but fun!

[Skorpychan]

Actual gameplay reasons are mostly storage. Storage of fuel, of modules, of fuel tanks, and of interplanetary drives. Storage of crew (and science) return vehicles, and of kerbals.

My interplanetary missions usually consist of just sending a small station out to the planet for a long-term operation, mostly because I keep failing to bring enough fuel to return with, and expanding the station with return missions.

[RizzoTheRat]

I like to build reusable stuff, so tend to put a station in orbit and have landers that operate from there, and then launch and re-entry vehicles to transfer crew around.  They tend to start out as motherships but with extra docking ports for future vehicles which leaves them a bit too unstable to travel later in their life. 

As others have said stations are useful for rescue missions too, a small orbital vehicle to collect them and take them back to the station, and then recover them to Kerbin when you have a full load.

I've recently started using USI Life support and it now has a Habitation criteria, where Kerbals start getting unhappy if they're cooped up in a small ship for too long, so a nice spacious station should be a lot better than leaving them floating around in small pods.