Building an orbital refueling station around Kerbin?

[strider3]

I would like to build an orbital refueling station around Kerbin...but I have no idea how to accomplish this (and by that I mean the very basics of in space construction). I get that it's modular and you start with a "core". After that, I haven't a clue. I think I can get the girders and other things up there (although I have an impossible time with the aero "protective shells"). Do the girders need to have all necessary parts attached before launching (IE, electrical panels, docking ports or radial attachment points for the various additions)? Does a radial attachment point allow the transfer of fuel and what else is required to get the fuel from the station's holding tanks to a docking ship? Will attaching solar panels be enough or do I need some way of transferring the generated power to the batteries, wherever they may be? The list goes on and on.... Moving the pieces around to attach them, once in orbit with the station, also seems like a difficult proposition...using RCS thrusters on the "lifting" ship seems like it would be difficult as they will not be "centered" on the girders you are trying to attach...maneuvering this way would seem very difficult?

Anywho, what I really need, if it exists, is a tutorial..."Building an orbiting station for Newbals", if such a thing exists, rather than have people try to answer all these questions here.

Hopefully there is something along those lines.

Vic the Newbal

[Tex_NL]

Based on the number and especially the type of questions you're asking I get the feeling you have very little experience playing the game.
I will not be directly answering your questions here because it will be like trying to teach quantum mechanics to a preschooler. (No offence!) What I am going to advice you is to forget about assembling a (refuelling) station at this point. First just play the game. You do not need a refuelling station to go anywhere. But you do need a certain level of experience to build a station.

Just play the game. Explore. Learn to land, mine, rendezvous and dock. And by the time you've learn all the necessary skills all your questions you have now will have answered themself.

And most of all; do not be afraid to fail. Sooner or later EVERYBODY cocks-up big time! Failure is not an option, it's part of the process.

[bewing]

The basic answer is that you either use klaws or docking ports as your attachment point for each new "module" (read: ship). I like klaws much better than docking ports.

At the beginning of the game I leave a lot of big nearly-empty liquid fuel boosters in orbit. As soon as I want to build a station with them, I launch a "klaw hub" -- and attach the bigS liquid fuel boosters to it one-by-one. I arrange it so they all have a little fuel left in them, so they can cooperate in docking, and they provide some fuel right from the beginning. Then you have to bring fuel to the station. I prefer to mine the Mun and send tankers back. Mining Minmus takes longer, but works better in some ways. You usually also need to have a space tug around to help with docking and fuel transfers to ships that can't dock themselves.

And every time a ship comes up from Kerbin, you suck out any drops of extra fuel that they have and store them in the tanks. And in fact, you redesign your ships to make sure that they will all end up in orbit with some extra.

So it goes something like this:

Edited June 30, 2016 by bewing

[Snark]

An orbital refueling station doesn't have to be fancy.  All you need is a big fuel tank with some docking ports around it.  You don't necessarily have to use girders and things.

That said:  to use it, you'll need to develop the skill to do orbital rendezvous and docking.  If you're relatively new to KSP, I suspect that "figure out how to dock" will be your main challenge, more than "design a fuel station".

Where fancy design starts to come into it is when you want to build a big station that has lots of features on it-- but I'd suggest that you leave that for later.  Start out simple, just try lobbing something with a lot of fuel capacity and some docking ports into a circular orbit, then practice learning how to dock with it.

[FancyMouse]

Looks like you don't really understand what modular means.

>Do the girders need to have all necessary parts attached before launching (IE, electrical panels, docking ports or radial attachment points for the various additions)?

Nothing except initial docking ports. Everything can be docked later, including more docking ports. btw I sometimes shoot some fuel tank with 6 docking ports directly attached to it as my early career station core. Girders are not a must.

>The list goes on and on...

In the spirit of modular, every single item on the list is a dedicated vessel to dock. (yes this is a little exaggerating to convey the point)

>Does a radial attachment point allow the transfer of fuel and what else is required to get the fuel from the station's holding tanks to a docking ship?

Resource transfer can be done across any two parts on a ship, unless you have some weird mods.

>or do I need some way of transferring the generated power to the batteries, wherever they may be?

No you don't, unless they're not docked.

[strider3]

Thanks guys. I am getting better at rendezvous and docking. I am not trying to build a huge station...just a place to get some fuel after getting off Kerbin. I have this in orbit, currently:

It has 1 docking port (not Sr. or Jr.) and some electrical generation / storage. I was planning to expand on it slightly by adding some structural girders to hold, say, 4 Rockomax Jumbo 64 tanks and a docking port or 2 for refueling other craft. I guess nothing beats trial and error...with lifting and attaching the girders being the part of this I'm not sure of. But, what the heck...might as well try.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

This is my current station, it's a hot mess, hodge-podge construction of mismatched parts but I love it!

Just keep sending stuff up and docking it, you'll learn so much through trial and error and start to think of an even better station you can design and send up later. My main piece of advice is that you can never have enough docking ports, that way if you goof up and forget something you can always add it later!

Spoiler

 

Edited July 1, 2016 by Rocket In My Pocket

[strider3]

I LOVE your "Hot Mess", Rocket! That's "learnin'" right there, brother!