Refuel a vessel from space station

[domendemo]

Let's say i have a space station got ore and the converter

The space station also got a engine and fuel tank

And let say i have a vessel parking at the dock of the space station. If i start the converter, how do i control which tank it is filling up? How do i direct the fuel converted to the vessel's tank instead of the tank of the space station itself?

[bewing]

There are two ways. The first is to "lock" all the fuel tanks on the space station. If you open the context menu for a tank, next to each resource that the tank holds is a "lock" button. If you lock a tank, no fuel can flow in or out. So, if you lock all the tanks in the station and then refine the ore, all the resulting fuel will end up on the vessel.

Alternately, if your R&D is upgraded to level 2, you can transfer fuel from one tank to another. If you open up the menus of two fuel tanks, each will have a button that says "In" or "Out". So you refine the ore, and then transfer fuel from the station tanks to the vessel tanks.

 

[king of nowhere]

8 hours ago, bewing said:

Alternately, if your R&D is upgraded to level 2,

unlocking the drills and converters already requires a level 3 r&d, so it's not a question.

[domendemo]

17 hours ago, bewing said:

There are two ways. The first is to "lock" all the fuel tanks on the space station. If you open the context menu for a tank, next to each resource that the tank holds is a "lock" button. If you lock a tank, no fuel can flow in or out. So, if you lock all the tanks in the station and then refine the ore, all the resulting fuel will end up on the vessel.

Alternately, if your R&D is upgraded to level 2, you can transfer fuel from one tank to another. If you open up the menus of two fuel tanks, each will have a button that says "In" or "Out". So you refine the ore, and then transfer fuel from the station tanks to the vessel tanks.

 

Thanks for the very detail explanations

[domendemo]

OK

Here is another fuel transfer questions

What does Drain Valve do?

Edited October 11, 2020 by domendemo

[bewing]

24 minutes ago, domendemo said:

What does Drain Valve do?

It dumps all your fuel into space.

[domendemo]

5 minutes ago, bewing said:

It dumps all your fuel into space.

It has 2 modes thru

What's the difference?

And in what situation we would give up the fuel?

[VoidSquid]

45 minutes ago, domendemo said:

And in what situation we would give up the fuel?

For example if you're about to land, don't need the excessive fuel, and want to reduce the mass of your craft to break speed more easily.

Edited October 11, 2020 by VoidSquid

[jimmymcgoochie]

Why would you dump fuel?

• To lose mass- either for a rocket or a plane, extra mass makes for harder landings which could break stuff.
• Visual effect- a few small tanks with valves could produce an effect like the vapour trails coming from real rockets on the launch pad as their cryo systems keep the liquid oxygen (and sometimes methane/hydrogen too, as well as helium) liquids. Not particularly practical if you’re not making a cinematic video, though.
• To lose mass- too heavy? Dump extra mass and you might be able to take off/make orbit/make that transfer burn back to Kerbin. Excess oxidiser on a nuclear rocket would be one example.

[king of nowhere]

3 hours ago, domendemo said:

And in what situation we would give up the fuel?

I have a mothership with nuclear engines, that use only liquid fuel. It drops a lander that uses normal rocket fuel. Right now, I have more oxidizer than the lander needs, and I can't burn it with the nuclear fuel, and it adds weight. I am regretting not putting in a fuel valve, or I would dump some oxidizer into space to increase my mothership deltaV.

[Spricigo]

6 hours ago, domendemo said:

It has 2 modes thru

What's the difference?

Pretty straightforward.

part: drain fuel from the part it is attached to.

vessel: drain fuel from any part in the vessel.

3 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

Why would you dump fuel?

• To lose mass- either for a rocket or a plane, extra mass makes for harder landings which could break stuff.
• Visual effect- a few small tanks with valves could produce an effect like the vapour trails coming from real rockets on the launch pad as their cryo systems keep the liquid oxygen (and sometimes methane/hydrogen too, as well as helium) liquids. Not particularly practical if you’re not making a cinematic video, though.
• To lose mass- too heavy? Dump extra mass and you might be able to take off/make orbit/make that transfer burn back to Kerbin. Excess oxidiser on a nuclear rocket would be one example.

• To surface in a submarine that uses fuel as ballast
• To  use non-trival thrust the valve has. (effectively the lightest engine in the game)

 

[jimmymcgoochie]

34 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

To use non-trival thrust the valve has. (effectively the lightest engine in the game)

 

True,  it also the worst ISP engine in the game- I think someone calculated it as 5 seconds. Five.

[Spricigo]

 

8 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

True,  it also the worst ISP engine in the game- I think someone calculated it as 5 seconds. Five.

I said it can be used that way, not that is a practical use. 

[VoidSquid]

20 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

I am regretting not putting in a fuel valve

For managing fuel, I can recommend this mod, allows dumping fuel too: