Space Stations in Career

[Iforgotthis]

Maybe like the ISS you should have to bring a science module up to the station, it takes a few weeks to run the experiments, then you retrieve the module and bring it back to Kerbin. It encourages "resupply" type missions to keep getting science from the station.

Again, this is also a really good idea. I like the idea of experiment retrieval. I think it's better than the whole transmission idea, but perhaps that's just because I don't like losing ~60% of the science value...

[MrZayas1]

I figure that slowly but surely, if you have a space station in orbit for long periods of time, you get science, maybe as just a placeholder for parts that accumilate science. Not like overpowered like, but maybe one where you get one science point per 8 days, something like that so you get about 45 science per year, that seems pretty reasonable to me, maybe a little bit less. Seeing that you can just time accelerate days past. But I would hope that you could conduct experiments every year, such as radiation levels when earth is at summer solstice, winter, spring, or autumn. Or at different orbits, over time. In order to do these experiments it would take a whole year of waiting to collect all the data for science. So you could orbit each and every astronomical body in the game to collect data over long periods of time, this might be a good idea for different stations I guess.

Hope that they do add more stuff to the game for stations though!

[TheSuperintendnt]

Though I wrote it around the time of the .22 release this bit from my The future of KSP: My thoughts blog post seems relevent:

TechTree progression- TL - Tech Level

Orbit: TL0-3 - allow you to: get to orbit, build a station, new science tools(1, 2 and if added 3m tanks, engines)

Moon: TL4-6 - new techs to get to the Mun/Minmus, more station tech, resource mining tech

Interplanetary: TL7-10 - technologies for interplanetary travel and research

Planetary Operations: TL11-12 - tech for enhanced planetary research, exploration, exploitation and construction

After this point is for Mods and future DLC.

Edited April 21, 2014 by TheSuperintendnt

[Hotblack Desiato]

honestly, do you need a reward for having a space station?

I know, I go with mods and use an orbital dockyard so I can launch ships from space (the station just needs to be supplied with metal and fuel).

I think, if the stock game gets additional biomes on other planets, station could be more valueable because they can be equipped with one science lab and reset the various canisters again and again (think about one station in an orbit around bop or pol, and the small ships travel to various jool-moons and do science. there would be up to 40 biomes for the crew to explore).

[cantab]

You can't perform an Apollo mission without docking ports. That's a pretty clear indication that you're wrong.

You can do as good as, by linking your CSM and LM with a decoupler, and rendezvousing but not docking the ascent stage to the CSM after the landing. You need to transfer the crew by EVA anyway at the moment.

[NecroBones]

You can't perform an Apollo mission without docking ports. That's a pretty clear indication that you're wrong.

That's true but....

It's simpler, faster, and more efficient to land on Mun and return back to Kerbin in the same ship, instead of doing a complex Apollo-style mission. Separate landers are rather pointless (except for the additional challenge), unless the planet is big enough or far enough from Kerbin that it's infeasible to carry the fuel for the return trip to the surface and back.

... regrettably, this is also quite true.

For Mun and Minmus, it's surprisingly easy to make your lander robust enough to simply make the return trip back to Kerbin. The fuel expenditure to get back into orbit around the moon, isn't that much bigger to turn it into a return trajectory.

For interplanetary missions however, there are MANY cases where it's just not practical to take your entire spacecraft down to the surface and back up, so that's where the Apollo-style missions truly pay off in this game.

But having said all of that, I would love for space stations to become viable earlier in the career, for those who would prefer to to set up a local lab for landings in multiple biomes. It may never be as efficient as just flying your landers back to Kerbin, but if it's more viable, it at least promotes a little more choice in the gameplay.

[KSK]

I think I define the phases of the career mode in the following way:

Early career mode: You build rockets from the 1.25-meter parts, and your only capsule is the Mk1 Command Pod. A single mission equals a single launch, as you explore the Kerbin system. If you have played KSP before, this part of the game only lasts for a couple of hours.

Middle career mode: By the time you have unlocked Skippers, X200-32s, docking ports, big command pods, and hitchhikers, the nature of the game changes. You can now launch tens of tonnes into orbit, use separate landers, go interplanetary, and fly complex missions. A single mission may now last for hours of real time.

Late career mode: When you unlock nuclear engines, things change again. Efficiency is no longer that important, as you can haul large payloads and lots of spare fuel anywhere. You can now do essentially whatever you want.

Basically, docking ports are one of those parts that transform early game into middle game. But as you can get them quickly after flying a few simple missions, you can easily get them in early career mode, if you want to do that.

Actually, thinking about it I can't really argue with that. In my current game, kerbin orbit missions, orbital missions to the Mun and Minmus for EVA reports and a single Mun landing were enough to get me docking ports. They look fugly on the Mk1 Command Pod mind but that's another issue altogether. I'm running a Minmus orbital lab at the moment which should unlock most of the tech tree once I've picked up surface samples, seismic scans, temperature readings, materials data and Goo observations (oh yeah and more EVA reports) from all the Minmus biomes.

Necrobones said it better than me though - it would be nice if stations and docking ports were viable earlier on to give some more variety to the early game.

Anyhow - we can agree to disagree. As I said, I can't argue with your basic points - this is all just 'nice to have' stuff.

[regex]

In general I don't build stations around Kerbin anymore, mainly because part counts make them fairly useless. It's easier for me to send up a refueling mission or a crew shuttle for a transfer tug than to try and dock it with a huge station, especially since my tugs rarely bring along RCS. Sure, they're great art installations, but stations aren't really useful. I don't think stations should generate science over time, or whatever. Just seems too much like getting something for nothing.

As far as career progression and stations, generally my second or third flight is a multiple-hop Minmus lander that I put into a polar orbit before landing. This allows me to suck up as much early science as possible and basically skip what Jouni calls the "Middle career mode". If that's not enough, a Mun polar orbit and landing catapults me into nukes, and that's where the fun begins. Stations are generally ignored until the late game when I'm thinking about putting them into orbit around distant planets, and even then they're just art installations.

[Pecan]

You can do as good as, by linking your CSM and LM with a decoupler, and rendezvousing but not docking the ascent stage to the CSM after the landing. You need to transfer the crew by EVA anyway at the moment.

You may like to look at the Crew Manifest or, newer, Ship Manifest mods for this. Incidentally; Ship Manifest now supports Connected Living Spaces which means there has to be a path for the crew to pass through (command pods, hitchhiker, lab, docking ports [open hatches by right-clicking them] but not 'through' things like engines, batteries, fuel tanks, etc.).

[LvL]

When public appreciation or whatever comes in, when there are different points in the game, you should get about 90% of your science from transmitting because you should get public appreciation from bringing your kerbonauts back which would make more sense. Also, I'd expect you can sell science for money, another reason why you should be able to get science over time, from labs. Basically, you get science from space stations, ships, probes, ecetera. but you get more science from bringing it back. And you need more money to get it back. so you start off by transmitting your science, which doesn't give you as much. But when you have more money and braincells you can get science more efficiently by taking it back to kerbin. This is what the ISS is realistically like. Well, not exactly, but you get the point.

[Karyn451]

You could make Science Space Stations worth while by moding the current science lab to be additive. The more labs on a station, the more science you get from a sample, up to say 80% so there's still an incentive to return the sample (and Kerbals) back to Kerbin. This would encourage station building and Kerbal launching (each module would still require it's crew).

An alternative, or maybe additionally, you could make certain samples only release (extra) science points once they've been processed in an orbiting lab. eg: a surface sample from Kerbin's grasslands next to KSP may give 5 SP, but carried up to an orbiting science lab and processed for a few hours/days and then returned it may give 10, 20, 50 SP depending on what science instruments have been included (unlocked) on the space station.

You could also use it for pre-processing multiple samples to gain extra SP. A single temp reading from a minmus biome doesn't give much SP, but multiple readings from many/all biomes could give a greatly enhanced SP return if collected together in a Science Station Lab.

Which brings up the question of specialist lab modules. You could start by separating out pure data processing (temp, pressure and gravity readings) from materials processing. Then maybe split the material processing into 2 or more stages. You soon end up with a space station with many different modules that require servicing and stocks replenishing etc.

[Pecan]

And another mod that may be of interest is, of course, Station Science.

[Sufficient Anonymity]

They always end up being vanity projects, even in KSPI (though I haven't started playing with beamed power yet) - aside from the good haul I got from the instruments on board my Munar station, it only generates about 0.3 science per day. It still looks cool though.

Edited April 25, 2014 by SufficientAnonymity

[Zeroignite]

Space Stations are also a not-bad place to retire Kerbonauts who you don't want to risk on missions.

[Franklin]

They have two functions:

- Science Dropbox (which is iffy given the mobile lab is debatably awful and no far planets have biomes yet)

- Gas Station

And that's it right now. Which is a real shame.

[zerotwo]

Well, I will have to disagree that space stations have so little value.

I use the early science to collect enough engine, fuel, and scientific limbs of the tree to allow me to get access to the Science lab. I will then launch a lab, load it with kerbins and then strap an engine too it. I then fly this lab to the Mun (which I should only have had to visit once or twice to get to this point) and then settle it in orbit. I can now send reusable landers to land, collect science, dock to the station, process and transmit that science, then scrub the experiments for reuse.

Clearing the Mun and Minmas this way is remarkably time saving, guarantees access to all biomes (you can miss, take off, reattempt, and refuel your lander at the science station), maximizes science collection, and provides a huge boost forward in your campaign rocket program.

[Zylark]

Around Kerbin, the use of space-stations is a bit dubious. But I like having an orbital gas station. I also use mine for crew exchanges and return to surface. Basically I send up a simple rocket with a three-man pod carrying crew, and leave the pod for later re-entry when crews get back home.

From the station, crews get to and from it using a simple shuttle. This to prevent having large ships with a ton of various modules attached for interplanetary missions getting anywhere near the station and the resulting loss of frame-rate. same with fuel really, I got an orbital refueler that pick up fuel from either Kerbin or Mun stations, and carry it to whatever large outbound ship that needs it - with the occasional refueling directly from KSC.

My current career station around Kerbin. Still got one one-man pod attached from when that module got into orbit, and three three-man pods that's gotten there since then. Also plenty of fuel obviously.

Around other planets, stations are quite useful though, especially if doing the entire kethane thing. Like this one orbiting Duna which got a very good kethane refining ability and also doubles up as a science station. Not quite finished yet as I have some plans for it, besides bolting on two more jumbo-tanks. (The big ship on the side is not part of the station - it's just refueling for the return trip to kerbin)

I don't do too much out of my stations, they are there to serve a purpose. So my basic design is aimed at keeping parts down and make them easy to assemble and change or add to as needed. A functioning station of this design requires two modules (read: launches), and use less than 40 parts. Leaving plenty of CPU headroom to add to as needed for whatever additional purpose the station shall serve apart from the usual gas-station and temporary crew storage.

Edited April 25, 2014 by Zylark