Achaean Landoverite...go!

[GateCrasherVI]

I've been wracking my brain trying to think of a design that will work and I think I've got designers block. I've been staring at my own creations for so long I've forgotten what else might exist out in the world of other peoples designs.

But first, here is the station I designed and refined down into two parts (not including the fuel tanks which were the most troublesome to get up there with fuel in them), 8 rendezvous launches later we have....The KSS Achaea! Named after an old text based game I used to dump hours and hours into.

On two of the radial docking ports you may notice two rovers. Those are my prototype Kethane rovers Mk1 and Mk2. The Mk1 is using a serious ton of direct port RCS valves on the under side to compensate for its "rear first" landing method which will involve what I expect to be a pretty violent last minute nose down. At any rate! I'm dying for some inspiration on how to improve on these designs, the rovers aren't practical at all.

Here is a better picture of the rover in the VAB

If anyone has any pointers or ideas they'd like to share I would greatly appreciate the input. I'd like to avoid just scavenging other peoples designs. I was hoping to just get a bit of input / reference illustrations about my design if anyone sees something that to their eyes is obviously going to be trouble for me.

Oh! I might add that the launch vehicle + whatever I'm putting up into space has been on average around 375 parts.... I need a much more part efficient launch vehicle. I'm expecting jet engines to be a necessity for future launch vehicles of mine

Minimalist mods:

b9 (most recent version)

Kethane (Majirs awesome 20.2 Kethane resource mod)

[Thank you, which ever moderator added the "Modcraft" tag that I forgot. =) ]

Edited June 9, 2013 by GateCrasherVI

[Startreader]

Have you got a Snack Bar?

[GateCrasherVI]

It was on my key chain, then I lost my keys. So, I've lost my snack bar too. But, when I find my keys, in the words of andrew bird...there will be snacks.