Heavy (Cheap) Lifters

[MightyRockets]

So, I'm trying to construct a space station (career). I have pretty okay science. Nothing beyond 550. (Frigging Research and Dev. costs like 1,690,000. GG) I'll just get straight into the point, does anyone know of good lifters that I can use to get to a nice orbit of 150K. My payload is 50 tons.

Im new to the forum, so please redirect me if needed!

Thank you all.

Edited April 30, 2018 by MightyRockets

[Gordon Fecyk]

At nodes up to Tier 6 you have access to the Mainsail engine and Kickback SRBs. I've taken those to build a Kerbal-X clone that can take just over 40 tonnes up. Granted that isn't cheap; the lifter was about 75k Funds.

Consider sending your station up in pieces and using docking ports to construct it in orbit. 

[Treveli]

I usually look through KerbalX when I need ideas. Usually end up with something like Raptor9 puts together. At the very least they're good examples to learn with.

[PredawnElk1]

Use reusable rockets. What I do is slap some fins, airbrakes, and landing legs on an SSTO rocket, and spam parachutes. I like to have at least 4000 m/s of delta v on the rocket and payload. Don't forget a probe core and some battery capacity on the rocket itself or it will run out of power. Once reaching orbit, I decouple the payload and de-orbit the booster as close to KSC as possible (the closer you land, the more money you get from recovery). Survive re-entry by activating airbrakes and spinning the rocket, then deploy parachutes and landing legs. As soon as you touch the ground (or water), spam the recover button so the rocket doesn't fall over and blow up some expensive parts. As long as the rocket is recoverable, you can make it as large or as powerful as you want, as you will be able to recover the majority of the booster's cost.

[Ultimate Steve]

1 hour ago, PredawnElk1 said:

Use reusable rockets. What I do is slap some fins, airbrakes, and landing legs on an SSTO rocket, and spam parachutes. I like to have at least 4000 m/s of delta v on the rocket and payload. Don't forget a probe core and some battery capacity on the rocket itself or it will run out of power. Once reaching orbit, I decouple the payload and de-orbit the booster as close to KSC as possible (the closer you land, the more money you get from recovery). Survive re-entry by activating airbrakes and spinning the rocket, then deploy parachutes and landing legs. As soon as you touch the ground (or water), spam the recover button so the rocket doesn't fall over and blow up some expensive parts. As long as the rocket is recoverable, you can make it as large or as powerful as you want, as you will be able to recover the majority of the booster's cost.

This can be tricky, however. In my experience, unless I land it right next to the launch pad, or use an SSTO (which is a valid concept), the distance penalty plus the extra cost of the chutes and airbrakes (they are really expensive) often outweighs the benefit of recovering parts, and adds playing time.

A set of four airbrakes, a 1.25m probe core, 4 large landing legs, a 1.25m battery, a service bay, 4 vernor engines, and 4 radial parachutes costs 15390 funds. A mainsail with 2 rockomax tanks costs 24,500, so the recovery parts really jack up the cost. It will be worth it if you can get it close enough, though. The problem is getting it close enough.

[Alpha 360]

37 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

A set of four airbrakes, a 1.25m probe core, 4 large landing legs, a 1.25m battery, a service bay, 4 vernor engines, and 4 radial parachutes costs 15390 funds.

Well.....You don't need all of that. What I do for reusable rockets is a two stage rocket where the first stage goes to space and the second stage to orbit. I just slap on 8 radial parachutes, a 1.25 probe core and a pair of radial batteries. I can recover the first stage for roughly 75% of the cash I spent on it 75% of the time. It only takes an extra 2 minutes per launch anyway. 

The other way I did it was an SSTO rocket like you said. I don't like SSTOs very much due to their lack of payload capacity. And its rather difficult to land anything tall on land. So I often just do the two stage, first recoverable stage rocket because its time efficient, I get my money back, and its easy to design. Simple as that. Run the maths if you want, but I'll stick to that as a beginner. 

[KerbolExplorer]

try this one i made https://kerbalx.com/Kerbolexplorer/Aurora-Launch-vehicle

and if you dont have the DLC try this onehttps://kerbalx.com/Kerbolexplorer/Kencher-1

if this crafts doesnt suite you il come with something that can help you!