Fuel Transfer

[pippaf1]

Hi, my Mun Return vehicles refuel tanker has landed on Mun 35.2 km from the return vehicle. Is there a way to transfer the fuel at that distance?

[hawkinator]

not without mods. I know of a few good mods for that, though, but you will probably need to land a third vehicle to make them work. First off, there is the "quantum resource transfer" and "Merlin's magic resource transfer" (names are not exact). both work by placing a part on your ship and then allowing you to transfer resources to other nearby ships. I think that both only require one ship to have the special part. Personally, I like the quantum one better because it seems to feel more realistic. Then, there is also the buran manipulator mod, which has a roboot arm that creates a dockin connection to non-docking ports. I think you can transfer resources through it, but I'm not sure. With stock parts, you need to dock things together before you can transfer resources, which is very difficult to do on the surface of the moon.

[Jason Patterson]

Not within the confines of the game. If either vehicle is mobile, then you could drive one to the other; 35km isn't terribly far. This assumes that both have docking ports that are at compatible positions on the vehicles, of course.

The only option for direct transfer is persistence file editing. Back up your persistence file, open it in a text editor, then find the relevant missions and the relevant fuel tanks in those missions and do the swap manually.

That said, if you're going to finagle the fuel from one to the other in a way that defies physics, you might as well just assume that the fuel transfer was done and was sufficient for the return mission and turn on infinite fuel in the debug menu (press alt-F12.)

[mcbmaestro]

Just wanted to show how I set up my refueling system at my Laythe outpost. It's all based on standardizing the height of the small docking ports so that they all line up with the refueling vehicle. Im using mechjeb and fusion rockets but you get the idea.

This is the Exoflier. It separates in Laythes atmosphere and the remaining ship flies down and lands.

The Exofueler. A big flying gas tank with about 80kish (tons) of fuel. Carries and deploys two fuel vehicles.

The fuel car mated with the Exofueler. They are remotely driven. The back wheel is so that they land upright and since been replaced with a more reliable I-beam. The middle wheel prevents the rover wheels from popping due to the stress that can be caused when it docks with something.

Lastly the fuel car mated with the Exoflier basically to show how standardizing your fueling system can be very useful and serves as a example for ya.

Edited April 24, 2013 by mcbmaestro