Your Base and Station purpose?

[goldenpeach]

The purpose of my station?

Well... Don't tell to the administratives as they could be a little mad(something about funds and budget; whatever it mean) but there is none.

apart from having a space station, of course!

[Jon Tash]

Just to show more about why I build space stations, this one that is currently in orbit around Jool has the purpose of refueling anything that dock to it and can build new ships too. Using Karbonite I can make any kind of fuel and even RocketParts to build ships. I used this one on my ship that is making the grand tour of the system.

This station has a fission reactor to power every component, the ship that is docked is the KRSS - Explorer I. I had to retract the radiator panels (which are pretty hot)when the ship was docked.

If there was no Karbonite/Kethane and Extraplanetary Launchpad or other mods like it, I wouldn't be making space stations. Instead I would just launch a bunch of satellites all over the place. I would however assemble temporary stuff in orbit around Kerbin but no real reason to build it anywhere else.

[Mister Spock]

I made my first OKS orbital station just for fun. It was satisfying to set up the various mechanisms necessary for a self-sustaining life-support system. And it was challenging to get all that stuff in orbit while using FAR (and thus no pancake rockets). I'd like to make an MKS ground station, for fun as well, but I'll probably hold off until after .25.

I do wish the stock game made it somehow imperative to set up stations all over the place. Even a gamey mechanism, like experience points per station around or on a new celestial body, would give me some incentive to push forward.

[-Velocity-]

The contracts system and money made me switch back to using space stations for the first time in over a year. I want to save money by making a fully reusable fleet of spacecraft so that to explore any body (except Eve), I only have to pay the costs of fuel to get there and back. (For Eve using stock parts, it is impossible to build a fully reusable lander, at least without exploiting unrealistic ion engines- and I am unwilling to stoop to that level.)

This is the system I have in mind:

Kerbin system-

1) Low orbit fuel station (~200 tons @ max fuel state, to be launched tonight)

2) High orbit fuel station/lander base (~800 tons @ max fuel state, in orbit already)

3) ~120 ton fuel transfer tanker (in orbit already)

4) Fully reusable, VTOL SSTO fuel tanker (delivers around 40 tons of fuel to LKO- uses 24 R.A.P.I.E.R. engines, just completed design and testing last night)

5) Medium space plane (crew complement: 3, it's already been used and refueled and reused three times).

6) Ground support vehicles for refueling space plane and VTOL SSTO tanker.

Interplanetary craft (not including landers):

1) Small interplanetary transfer craft (~40 tons)- it's a left over from my Mun and Minimus exploration missions...

2) Large interplanetary transfer craft (already in orbit; 400 tons fully fueled and carrying no landers)

The way this works is this-

a) Multiple flights of the VTOL SSTO reusable tanker are made to fill up low orbit fuel station;

Fuel is ferried from the low orbit fuel station to the high orbit fuel station using the orbital fuel tanker (which uses more efficient nuclear engines);

c) The reusable interplanetary transfer craft refuel and pick up surface exploration vehicles (landers/rovers/spaceplanes/etc.) at the high orbit fuel station;

d) Kerbal crews are delivered to the interplanetary transfer craft using the space plane (the plane may have to fill up at the low orbit station to make it to the high orbit station though, I donno yet);

e) Kerbal crews and science data are returned from the interplanetary spacecraft to KSC using the space plane;

f) All landers/rovers and spaceplanes I build are fully reusable (except those designed for Eve) and will work on multiple bodies. Landers not needed for a particular mission are docked at the high orbit fuel station.

Anyway, once all this hardware is in orbit or complete (putting it in orbit DOES of course require the expenditure of rocket parts) I should be able to explore the surface of any body except Eve at just the cost of the fuel it takes to get there. I do have a decently cheap Eve sea-level-to-orbit spacecraft already, but it's still probably around 1,000,000 in funds to use it.

There needs to be a contract to deliver Kerbals to the surface of Eve and return them to Kerbin that rewards at least like 2,000,000 in funds...

Edited September 25, 2014 by |Velocity|

[SkyRex94]

If you want to do this with stations you can save the high orbit station , atleast for anything going interplanetary.

You'll save more fuel braking into a LKO and departure from a LKO than from a higher orbit, although energy level is obviously lower.

Reason: Oberth Effect -- yes it is that significant.

[Yakky]

Your Base and Station purpose?

Main screen turn on.

All your base are belong to us.

[Tortoise]

Just to have one. (Around LKO, atleast)

Stations around other bodies may have a purpose in my space program.

I like to kinda roleplay and do occasional launches to deliver and remove kerbals from my station. And a couple refueling and TACLS resupply missions.

Maybe some KAS maintenance missions.

and to test new launch vehicles and capsules to launch cheaper, etc.

EDIT: Soon i'll be setting up some RT2 stations for better signal and lower signal delay.

Edited September 26, 2014 by Tortoise

[davidpsummers]

Well, part of the reason is to have them.

But all my interplanetary missions are assembled and leave from orbit these days. At first it just solved the problem is managing big wobbly rockets and the size limitations on rockets. But now my boosters that push out of Kerbin orbit to the other planets are all reusable (and hence need refueling). With a station everything is in one place and if I have extra fuel from one launch to orbit, I can use that to top off another one.