Space Station Questions (new to the game)

[Firedtm]

ok i am new to this game, i love it.

i have never seen anything like it before just like eve. now that the ass kissing is done, i got a few questions

1) what can i use a station for?

2) if its for refueling how do i refuel it, does it never run out of fuel?

[deadshot462]

1) You can use it for roleplaying, crew transfers, refueling, docking practice, reentry effect shows

2) You will run out of fuel eventually, so you'll have to dock new tanks to it and transfer fuel again to the station

[Swifty]

Otherthan roleplaying without mods Stations are used as a rendezvous points to do:

1) refuelling - you do this by alt click on two tanks then click the out/in buttons

2) transferring crews

3) storage of multipart ship modules before assembly

For example a sky crane, a base habitation module and a transfer stage. The premise is rather than trying to launch everything at once you send the ship up in more manageable chunks.

[Splode]

It's always handy to have a station to dock with when you realise you forgot parachutes. You can transfer there crew over and send a rescue ship to retrieve them. It's also useful for refuelling interplanetary craft, although only if you remember to refuel the station as well

[ComradeGoat]

The bad news is that until 0.20 and resource mining is implemented, you'll need to bring all your fuel from the surface of Kerbin. Stations are useful for exploration because they act as huge fuel stores, but they are just storage: you still have to bring your fuel from Kerbin.

I have a small (2 orange tank) station I can launch in one go from Kerbin. Each time there's a launch window to the other planets, I send one to replace/refuel the orbital presence I have there.

[Nibb31]

Just like everything in the game, as long as there is no campaign, it's just for show. KSP is a sandbox game, so the main point of space stations (or moon bases, or rovers, or spaceplanes) is to enjoy building and flying them.

[icemasterpt]

To transfer fuel you just ALT+click on both fuels then u press the small green arrow that appears there =)

[Firedtm]

thanks for the replies, since i read this i been able to put my first station up, whats a good KM from the planet

100km?

150km?

200km?

250km?

[Rockhem]

thanks for the replies, since i read this i been able to put my first station up, whats a good KM from the planet

100km?

150km?

200km?

250km?

100 km because it would be a bit easier to get to.

[CalculusWarrior]

Depends on your preference. 100 km orbit is a popular choice because it's a nice round number and easy to get to. Though if you feel like that orbit is getting too crowded, you can always boost up to a 150 or 200 km orbit, it's all up to you. Hell, why not make a Mun station? It's a lot harder to get to, however.

But it's all up to you, the possibilities are literally endless!

[Firedtm]

next question is what is some good mods to have if any ?

[That guy who builds stuff]

It's a bit of a tradeoff

Lower orbits are easier to get to but intercepts are more tricky.

Higher orbits have easy intercepts but you need more delta-v to get to them.

[Firedtm]

ok now next question what is Delta-V ? and why will my posts not post right away

[MC3craze]

Delta-V is a change in velocity. Basically it means more fuel is needed to get an intercept with a given space station. Your posts are probably not going through right away due to moderator approval or something like that.

[Netris]

next question is what is some good mods to have if any ?

Kosmos is a good one. Even if it's a bit buggy sometimes. Soviet pack has a full Mir. That's if you like historical spacecraft. Kosmos is a bit more modular thought. Other than that, there's not really a space station pack I'm aware of. There was B.A.C.E. and ExPi back then, but they're unfortunatly discontinued.

[Spatzimaus]

ok now next question what is Delta-V ?

When we discuss the capabilities of a rocket, engine, etc., we need to use a metric that doesn't depend heavily on other pieces of information. If I tell you that a rocket has a thrust of one megaNewton, that number's meaningless to you unless you also know that rocket's total weight, because that might not even be enough to get off the launchpad if the rocket's heavy enough. If I tell you that the engine has enough fuel to burn for 10 minutes, that doesn't tell you much unless you also know the thrust, mass, etc. to know whether you'll be able to get anywhere If I tell you the design has a thrust-to-weight ratio of 2.3, then that sounds fine, but it doesn't tell you if the ship will run out of fuel halfway to orbit. If I say that my specific impulse is 800, it tells you that I'll burn very little fuel, but again, I might not have enough thrust to take off. And so on; most of the usual numbers only make sense if you know all of the other numbers as well.

So, we need a measurement that doesn't require that sort of information, and Delta-V is the most universally useful as it's a measurement of raw capability in a vacuum. If your design doesn't have the ability to add more than 2000 m/s to your velocity, then it won't matter how perfectly you plan your ascent, you just won't be going to space today. A design with 6000m/s will do just fine taking off from Kerbin, but won't be able to take off from Eve. And so on; it means that if you've got a good software tool that tells you the delta-V of your design, you'll be able to tell whether it's capable of doing X before you even take off.

[MC3craze]

next question is what is some good mods to have if any ?

KSPX and KW rocketry. Both of which are well balanced and have general use parts.

[katateochi]

to answer your what mods question; others have suggested some good parts mods, as your looking for mods for a station I recommend the remote tech mod. It basically allows you to set up a network of communication satellites. You can then control unmanned craft via the network, the further away the craft is the greater the delay in the signal reaching it. You can have satellites set up to relay commands from the main command centre at the launch site, or (and this is where having a station comes into it) you can set up a station as another command centre.

[Unistrut]

If you park your station higher than 120km you get access to one step faster of time acceleration. Wish I'd thought of that before I parked mine at 100km and added a bunch of modules to it...

Basically I use mine as a place to dump leftover fuel from refueling missions and a place to store kerbalnauts between missions. When I was using a lazor equipped ship for debris clearance it would park there and refuel between missions.

EDIT - wow were there a lot of answers while I was typing this. As for mods, I use the ISA Mapsat mod and the DEMV rovers.

Edited April 30, 2013 by Unistrut
got hella ninja'ed

[Frostiken]

The only real annoyance is the necessity to constantly refuel your station with gas from Kerbin. Once you have a ship that can get to orbit easily enough as a gas tanker, it kind of becomes a mundane chore to have to fly it every single time.

I'm hoping in the future we get a system of flight automation to make scheduled refueling without having to just perform the tedious 0km -> 100km -> 0km dance. The Capability Auditor mod is a close approximation for that though, it at least saves you the minutes just watching your rocket burning through atmosphere.

[AceGamer]

I recommned 125km orbit so you can do time warp x100 will make the docking process a lot faster also it is not too high

[M5000]

I put my stations in an 80Km orbit. It's low enough that the delta-V requirements are minimal, but high enough to allow things to orbit lower than it, therefore catching up to it. Most of my stuff in Kerbin orbit is somewhere between 70Km and 100Km, but I like 80 for stations.

[soranno]

Similarly to AceGamer, I prefer an orbit just above the 120km cut off for 100x time warp, but any serious warping to be done and I just do it from the ground

[Unistrut]

Similarly to AceGamer, I prefer an orbit just above the 120km cut off for 100x time warp, but any serious warping to be done and I just do it from the ground

You underestimate how many times I can launch a refueling rocket and then go "Did I check to make sure the target vessel wasn't completely on the other side of the planet? ... oh good. It is."

That is usually followed by hitting super time warp and then realizing I forgot to deploy the solar panels just after running out of battery power. It's a miracle I made it to the Mun, much less Jool.

[Tristavius]

I favor a nice round 150km orbit for my station - it's high enough to use 100x warp and as many of my assets which are coming to it are not fresh launches, I often have to 'chase' it for a long time... at 150km I can set the chasing craft to a 150km/80km Apoapsis/Periapsis orbit which allows it to gain ground quite fast. Just about any load I've ever launched into orbit has been capable of a 150km rendezvous, but I wouldn't go much higher.

I am actually considering pushing it higher as the vast majority of things I send to it arrive with an excessive amount of left over resources, then waste their re-fuel pushing out from Kerbin to wherever their destination is. Mind you, when I get home from work in a few months time and back on a better computer I want to just haul the whole thing to Minmus stage interplanetary stuff from there.

I tend to leave temporarily parked things just a little lower at 125k.