As I discover the in's and out's of docking.

[nobbers12345]

I build a 500 part station in 3 hours then realize it has absolutely no purpose.

I'm just going to get KSPI and make it my microwave power transmitter.

[Rus-Evo]

Yes stations in LKO have no purpose other than themselves (if you play stock).

I know a long time ago I wanted to use one as a refueling rig, but then I realized each litre of fuel requires a rendezvous for the tanker to station then a rendevous from ship to station. You can cut that in half by tankering straight to the ship in orbit (or building a ship with disposable tank sections.

I must admit the stations people build look nice!

[Hans Dorn]

Yes stations in LKO have no purpose other than themselves.

Just like the ISS

[regex]

Just like the ISS

Incorrect, the ISS generates science points.

[Hans Dorn]

Right

The multiplier around Jupiter would have been a tad higher, though...

[KerikBalm]

Yes stations in LKO have no purpose other than themselves (if you play stock).

I know a long time ago I wanted to use one as a refueling rig, but then I realized each litre of fuel requires a rendezvous for the tanker to station then a rendevous from ship to station. You can cut that in half by tankering straight to the ship in orbit (or building a ship with disposable tank sections.

I must admit the stations people build look nice!

Yea, I made similar arguments when I started, but then I started building them for "S**ts and Giggles"

And then I started making very large SSTOs to lift large payloads. Its much harder to time a rendevous right with a jet, and their long ascent and acceleration profile.

So I just SSTO'd a station together that was nothing more than a glorified fuel depot, with an LKO "tanker"

I suppose its just something to do instead of time warping when other missions are underway.

I just hauled tons of fuel to orbit, that I can then use it in the future

[Dortmunder]

I liked building fuel stations all over while using the Kethane Mod.

I'd have a station with tanks for each type of fuel, and a medium sized transport vehicle capable of carrying decent amounts of fuel from the surface of whatever moon to the station.

Gave me reason to build space stations around the system

[bsalis]

Incorrect, the ISS generates science points.

... and

too.

[samstarman5]

For now, orbiting stations are handy for fueling and storing science when you just aren't ready to land. There have been hints where more will be done science-wise, and a necessity for communication relay points. Besides satellites, a station would be just as handy for that.

[Landge]

My stations used to just sit in orbit over Kerbin.

Then one day I decided to add a few rockets to my station...

Throw on some extra fuel tanks...

Added a lander for going planetside...

And a rover to do some exploring...

Now my station isn't so stationary anymore...

[FenrirWolf]

That's what I've been doing whenever I think about making a station. I end up attaching rockets to it and calling it a mothership instead.

[O-Doc]

LKO stations are good for organising your ships. I use them as a staging point for transfers to and from Kerbin surface.

[cantab]

They're cool to have and can be useful, but I wonder if using a fuel depot in LKO will ever be more useful than not using one. Let's say you launch your fuel depot with a big load of fuel. It can refuel lots of small craft, but said small craft don't really need in-orbit refuelling, you can just launch them full to begin with, and around Kerbin there's no penalty to tossing the old craft and launching a fresh one. On the other hand if you've got a big craft, big enough that you have to launch it empty, it's probably also big enough to take much of the fuel from your depot, if indeed it doesn't need more fuel than you have there. In that case it's easier to send up the ship then fill it from one or more single-use fuel tankers.

Once money's introduced, though, reusing small and medium sized ships may become more worthwhile.

[LethalDose]

They're cool to have and can be useful, but I wonder if using a fuel depot in LKO will ever be more useful than not using one. Let's say you launch your fuel depot with a big load of fuel. It can refuel lots of small craft, but said small craft don't really need in-orbit refuelling, you can just launch them full to begin with, and around Kerbin there's no penalty to tossing the old craft and launching a fresh one. On the other hand if you've got a big craft, big enough that you have to launch it empty, it's probably also big enough to take much of the fuel from your depot, if indeed it doesn't need more fuel than you have there. In that case it's easier to send up the ship then fill it from one or more single-use fuel tankers.

Once money's introduced, though, reusing small and medium sized ships may become more worthwhile.

I use LKO stations as a tech test bed (super useful to find how some mods work) and as a refueling station for tugs that go to and from Minmus, where I have another station as a stepping off point for interplanetary missions. IP vessel parts go up into LKO, get picked up by the tug, taken to Minmus, then the tug comes back to LKO, docks and refuels. Wash, Rinse, Repeat.

[Starwhip]

Really, all of you who say that it is more cost effective to "toss" the old craft and send up a new one rather than to refuel the same one... are right! There is no point... yet. Not until they add currency. Then it suddenly becomes better to save the old ship rather than continue to waste more and more fuel on the orbital insertion stages.

But it'll all change when .24 comes out, or at least I have heard that currency will be implemented.

[Travisfv]

I needed my station to refuel my Minmus Science Mission.

It launched practically empty, without most of its 13 man crew, with only one fuel tank full and once RCS tank full, and none of it's landers.

It docked with my station where the crew was waiting along with the huge fuel cells that could fully load the ship before it departed for minmus. I know that it took all those rendezvous to prep the station to launch the mission, but the hardest part was getting a 132 ton practically dry mass ship into space, and once it docked, I could load it with the crew, three landers, and the fuel for the full mission.

Just felt nice that when it was entirely ready, I could depart after the hardest part of the mission was over. There was no more daunting tasks beyond, and I could do the mission as soon as I was ready.

[RW-1]

I only toss out that if you build an insanely sized landing craft/mission craft, and have a station, you can reduce that launch weight by launching it nearly empty to get it out of Kerbin's Gravity well, then dock it and load up on gas.

With the last mod this is reduced somewhat ... of course you can also launch tankers to it in orbit as well, but then where's the fun?

[Travisfv]

I only toss out that if you build an insanely sized landing craft/mission craft, and have a station, you can reduce that launch weight by launching it nearly empty to get it out of Kerbin's Gravity well, then dock it and load up on gas.

With the last mod this is reduced somewhat ... of course you can also launch tankers to it in orbit as well, but then where's the fun?

Tankers are okay, but very specific and are most of the time a one use ship and then they are de-orbited. My station maintained two of the largest fuel tanks, and when a ship arrived back to Kerbin and would be preparing to de-orbit, it dumped as much fuel as possible back into the station, thereby saving me the need to launch another tanker for my reuseable ships. And the ship the station was designed to service was a large, twin nacelled, 13 manned, 5,000 D/V research ship built to hit all the biomes on Mun and Minmus.

And stations look cool.