What do you guys do with your spent interplanetary mother-ships?

[Soda Popinski]

Assuming you don't land them back on Kerbin. I've been doing (probably unnecessary, but fun) orbital assembly of my interplanetary ships. Obviously, non-atmospheric.

Just curious what folks do with them? De-crew, then de-orbit? Refuel, restock, re-use? Break apart for parts (modular builds)? Orbital museums? Target practice? Send it to the sun, ala Battlestar Galactica?

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I once had a Mothership while doing my Kethane-Missions but after I visited almost anything I wanted to see, I de-orbited it on Kerbin after the Crew was transfered.

[Universe]

Something along the lines of this:

Permanently retired to sit and look pretty on minmus.

[allmhuran]

By the time I have a few of them up and to their destinations (and/or back) a new version is out, at which point I invariably start a new game.

I suppose if the game ever evolves to the state where you are maintaining an ongoing solar empire they would make excellent cargo transports.

[Libra00]

I build anything bigger than an interplanetary lander via orbital construction, modular and docked together. As such they return to LKO and can be either gassed up for a new mission, or if necessary, the fuel tanks and engine cluster can be swapped out for special-purpose stuff. For example, my Jool probe-carrier was retrofitted into a kethane refinery and orbital fuel depot which currently (in my 0.21 save) sits in orbit of Minmus where its' numerous docking ports can host a heavy tanker, several light mining landers, RCS tugs, and the other machinery necessary to be the primary fuel depot for anything headed out of Kerbin's gravity well. Once I'm done with the science tree in 0.23 I plan to rebuild it with even more docking ports where, thanks to tweakables, it's really easy to haul up tons of 'disposable' empty orange tanks to keep outbound ships from having to wait around for refining.

I build anything bigger than a one-target IP lander via orbital construction, modular and docked together. As such I return them to LKO, swap tank and engine clusters as needed, add new probes and landers, and send them back out on new missions. For example, in my 0.21 save I had a heavy carrier that came back from its trip to Jool I refitted virtually everything but the docking frame to act as the primary kethane refinery inside of Kerbin's SoI. New (much smaller) engine cluster, different tanks, huge on-demand refinery stack, tanker, mining landers, etc.

[Decho]

I build everything to get destroyed or lost to the depths of deep space on missions (except the crew return module), so as not to clutter things up.

[-RanZ-]

Mine is modular and re-usable, just bring it back to Kerbin and add more droppable fuel tanks and the payload and it is ready to go.

[1D-1()T]

I seem to send most of my craft to Duna and Ike, and I'm always happy to get a new tug, for ferrying Kethane, or bringing Kerbals back home, or just rearranging space stations there.

[GDJ]

Either park them in high orbit or do seismic measurements on Kerbin or Mun. (i.e. she's coming down!!)

[Liowen]

Right now I am putting a station in orbit around Kerbin that will not only be for refueling the tug and lander set, but also crew transfer as well. My goal in this is to have it setup so that I can go to a planet, or its moon(s), refuel, and put in a new pilot to head off on the next mission. In addition to the space station being a refueling and crew hub, it will also hold a rescue tug in case a mission goes terribly wrong. This also reminds me I need to do the video on my station start tonight as well. I am sure as I start my missions to Jool I may need to change up some of my pieces, but for now I feel this will be enough of a starting point.

[Cupojoepro]

I usually launch my mothership with my landers because I suck as docking. So they are most of the time left in orbit around the planet or moon I brought them to.

[annallia]

I usually do one of three things with them.

1) Send them to Minmus to experiment in landing large ships that were never meant to land...

2) Send them into the sun to be destroyed.

3) Stick a troublesome kerbal in them, gas em up, and send them as far away as possible.

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

Once all Kerbals have abandoned the ship or station, I initiate the self destruct sequence.

[astropapi1]

I usually take the crew out, use most of their fuel to refuel other ships, and then I THROW THEM ON THE GROUND!

I'M AN ADULT!

[Liowen]

I usually do one of three things with them.

1) Send them to Minmus to experiment in landing large ships that were never meant to land...

2) Send them into the sun to be destroyed.

3) Stick a troublesome kerbal in them, gas em up, and send them as far away as possible.

Could combine 2 and 3 and kill 2 birds with one stone...just sayin

[Boris_T_Roach]

I Just bring them back to to a 140km LKO (where they were built) , drop off the crew lander , and start bringing up a new lander, drop tanks, rovers, RoVs , and fuel it up ready to go out again

If the ship is only carrying RoVs then its generally left in orbit around the target body, no point bringing home an empty ship, but generally that only happens to the interplanetary stage of the

various commsats that are sent to the planets ahead of any manned mission.

Boris

[Eric S]

Assuming you don't land them back on Kerbin. I've been doing (probably unnecessary, but fun) orbital assembly of my interplanetary ships. Obviously, non-atmospheric.

Just curious what folks do with them? De-crew, then de-orbit? Refuel, restock, re-use? Break apart for parts (modular builds)? Orbital museums? Target practice? Send it to the sun, ala Battlestar Galactica?

That really depends on just how overboard I went with the mothership design. I tend to use reusable drive sections, so I definitely keep those around. I've been known to dump sections I won't need for the trip home into Jool if I'm there. Anything that was designed to be used to reenter does so. Everything remaining tends to burn up on reeentry just so that I don't clutter up LKO.

[DerekL1963]

What's a spent mothership? My system is built around re-useable tugs.

[ZedNova]

My mothership is semi-modular. Only the engines+fuel tanks and Shuttles get replaced.

[SargeRho]

Depends. Usually I just dump them into interplanetary space, or onto a planet/moon. Most of my missions are staged, with barely anything being reused. Most of the time I leave a nuclear stage in orbit and use it later for the return trip. If there isn't one, the nuke stage crashes.

[Van Disaster]

Use them as stations. I also have trouble getting to that point before a new version appears & I have to restart, but I've at least managed it once.

[alacrity]

I build my mother ships to act as SpaceStations once transport is done. I figure if I am going to spend that much time and that many launches to get it in space, better design for more than one purpose.

LULIAN MISSION OVERLORD SHIP TURNED SPACE STATION

Once the minion probes were deployed I had a fully operational space station in orbit of Tylo. Made a good base of operations, set up Kethane on the moon for refueling and an extraplanetary launchpad. Basically had a fully functioning secondary Launch site in the outter system.

Alacrity

Edited December 25, 2013 by alacrity

[Thomas988]

Something along the lines of this:

http://i.imgur.com/dvr5aHP.png

Permanently retired to sit and look pretty on minmus.

Ok, that almost brought a tear to my eye. XD

[Luckless]

I haven't done many mothership missions (well, not many that worked) but I generally tried to do them more along the lines of stations, holders, and tugs. Core station would then carry docking array which everything gets attached to for the long haul. A heavy tanker-tug would pull the station out to where it was going, and all the extra parts and bits that don't fit well 'in place' get mounted on the docking array.

Stuff gets peeled off the docking array as needed along the way, and when the station reaches its final orbit the rest of the stuff is taken off the array and locked in place with the station. Then the tug hauls the docking array onto an impact orbit before returning to LKO for another future mission.

[Vanamonde]

Refuel them and send them out again.