The flying Gas Pumps!

[GreatBeast666]

tried KSP a while ago. got HOOKED.

Needless to say, I find my space program expanding rapidly. Missions requirements becoming ever more complex, I've come to notice the need for a fuel-station in space.

And the problems with getting it there. Fully loaded, she's a bit heavy. And there was a tendency for the symmetric fuel pods to break off during liftoff.

But after several failed attempts to get into orbit, I finally just glued on enough SRB's (and 6 Matriarch's doesn't hurt) to get her up.

So, flying gas pumps. I'd love to see how others have solved the problem. How much can you get up?

[Spatzimaus]

Fuel depots are extremely useful. Here's my own 450-ton fuel depot, the Bunker (although this picture is a bit outdated):

The front end is a detachable 50-ton lander with an onboard Kethane refinery for refilling the main 400-ton vessel (33000 liquid fuel, 41k oxidizer, plus some Xenon and monoprop). I've found that this size is about the maximum you can do and still be maneuverable enough to be useful; to make docking easy for larger vessels I reorient the tanker as needed, and that limits your size. In case you're wondering why I have so many solar panels, the engines I used are hybrid ions from a mod, and they require a huge amount of electricity to function.

It's launched with my 4000-ton SSTO "Bucket" lifter:

I've since put three of these around Mun and three at Minmus (mostly as proof-of-concept tests, I don't actually need them there), two at Jool (currently one near Pol and one near Laythe, but I'm sending a third to Vall soon), one at Duna, and one at Eve. I can get a Bunker to Mun or Minmus with nearly all of the onboard fuel still intact, and Duna or Eve takes a bit less than half. A trip to Jool almost empties the tanks (maybe 1/4th left), but that can be fixed with a few round trips to Pol by the Kethane lander.

[GreatBeast666]

nice, i'll have to try that. When you put multiple copied of the same ship up, do you need to save each one as a separate craft? (like I said, somewhat new to KSP)

[AlexanderB]

Brings up 3 full orange tanks, and 3 small space tugs into 100x100 kerbin orbit, with fuel to spare to deorbit the boosters. (stock parts)

Installed Kethane yesterday, so I'll have to see how that works out, but my first impression: the drilling for fuel takes a lot of time...

[Spatzimaus]

my first impression: the drilling for fuel takes a lot of time...

It does, but a vessel parked on the surface of a planet has the full set of time acceleration options; you're not limited to the 2x/3x/4x physics warps for low-altitude flights. All you have to do is start the drills and then switch to 1000x, and you'll be full in no time. (Or, you know, add more drills to your design. They're a bit heavy, but I put four of them on each of my fuel depot landers.)

The primary complaint about Kethane, IMO, isn't about its speed; it's that as a single resource that converts to fuel, there's little reason to store raw Kethane. You're better off just refining on the spot, as you drill, and hauling processed fuel directly. This is one of the things that'll change in the new resource system, since it's unlikely that any one location will have all of the necessary materials to create fuel. Instead, you'll haul raw materials to some central processing facility, like a space station, and convert to fuel there.

On the other hand, this means that Kethane allows for an easy "Grand Tour" setup; all you have to do on each planet or moon is land your vessel on a Kethane deposit, and you can refill your fuel tanks before taking off again, so that you can have a single design that does the entire journey with minimal outside help. That won't be possible once the new resources go in.

[magnemoe]

Done one of them.

The boosters are 5 meters with matriarchs. the core is larger.

Gets plenty of fuel to orbit.

Has only launched one, this is an prototype for an ultra heavy lifter. I would replace the top tank for the cargo and should be able to lift around 300 ton. However the heaviest things I have lifted has been spare parts and motherships, they use their own engines and drop-able mainsails to reach orbit. Also mine a lot.

[Levelord]

I'm a cheapskate so I try to SSTO my fuel tankers into space.

The ascent stage comes back down to be re-used....

[bsalis]

I just use lots of everything. It's all stock except MJ...

Can get at least something to Eelloo

(the central tanks are still full, with the outer tanks at about half)

Edited May 1, 2013 by bsalis

[Flixxbeatz]

Powerful computer users, powerful computer users everywhere...

[Brofessional]

In LKO I find it easier to just send fuel straight to the ship rather than dock the ship with a fuel station.

I have a station around Minmus that I refuel with a kethane harvester though. It's fairly small at the moment, but has ports for more tanks.

Currently in the process of improving the efficiency of the harvester lander and putting more of them around other moons/planets.

[nyrath]

Every day I find something new and astonishing about KSP!

In this case, it is how the original poster intuitively stumbled over the need for orbital fuel depots.

You can try teaching people about such things, but it sort of bounces off their brains. But here, playing KSP, it soon becomes obvious as a natural extension of playing the game. Such "self discovered" knowledge sticks with the player.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/infrastructure.php

[nyrath]

Powerful computer users, powerful computer users everywhere...]

I feel for you. I could not play KSP at all until recently. My antiquated computer was not even up to the task of assembling a spacecraft in the first tutorial (the parts would drag very slowely). But my new computer has the power.