Getting fuel to orbit on the cheap

[fat4eyes]

I've bought Kerbal Space Program a few days ago and I'm having a blast. I'm now playing career mode on normal and have a space station/fuel depot set up in orbit around Kerbin. And now I've come up against the problem of getting fuel up to the depot and doing it cheap. I've searched the forums and the internet a bit for a solution but the results I've found are way too expensive (one in the Stock spacecraft exchange costs more than 1M credits for 20000 units of fuel!). I've finally built one which I'm happy with and I'm posting it here so that other people can use it.

Fuel Tanker (stock version) - Takes an orange tank's worth of fuel up to 115km, and then returns to Kerbin for (partial) recovery. All parts (except for Mechjeb) should be stock.

Cost: 119987 Kredits (K-bills? K-dollars?)

Recoved cost: around 48000-49000 Kredits

Fuel delivered: 2880 fuel 3520 oxidizer (1 orange tank)

Cost per fuel unit: around 25 Kredits per fuel unit

Mechjeb 2 launch parameters: Turn height 10 KM, turn shape 45%. I got it up to 115 km with enough fuel left for a landing at the KSP launchpad.

I learned a lot from

on how to design more efficient rockets. Other new guys may find it useful.

You can fine tune it to your needs by adding/subtracting fuel tanks from the final stage. Be sure to keep the thrust/weight ratio of the other stages around 1.3 though.

If you have your own cheap fuel tanker please post them as well, I wouldn't mind shaving a few more Kredits from the fuel lift cost. Now I'm off to figure out if I can do the same with a fully recoverable spaceplane.

Here be pictures:

On the VAB:

On the launch pad (with Mechjeb parameters):

Final stage heading for the space station:

Autodocking in the dark (shows full orange tank):

Autolanding in the light:

Recovery: