Fuel drop

[perikee]

Beginner here. What options exist for a rescue mission for a craft landed with just too little delta-V to get home? I could land a better-planned rescue capsule to recover the crew, but ideally want to top it off and return it.

I just unlocked basic rover tech, so I suppose I could try to drop a wheeled fuel tank near my stranded lander... but wait, the lander is an old model, and I never put a docking port on it. Besides, I've heard talk that if you don't line up the height just so, explosions happen. KAS looks like the reasonable way to do it, but I'm looking for something vanilla. (Maybe this is one of the "can't do without" mods, though, and I'll end up installing it anyway.)

I also have the huge claw available, but that sounds way overpowered -- and massive! No idea what effect it'll have on a lander planted in the ground, either.

Is there something just down in the tech tree I should wait for?

Edited December 29, 2014 by perikee

[RexKramer]

In stock, if you don't have a docking port then the claw is the only other way to transfer fuel.

[Anquietas314]

In stock, if you don't have a docking port then the claw is the only other way to transfer fuel.

Who said anything about transferring fuel? Pick up the lander with the claw, fly it home!

As for whether that's safe... if you pick it up gently you should be okay

If you have enough deltaV to get to orbit, but not to get back to Kerbin, then it would be easier to do that first, then rendezvous in orbit.

[RexKramer]

Who said anything about transferring fuel?

The original poster. "...want to top it off and return it."

[Anquietas314]

The original poster. "...want to top it off and return it."

Well okay, I did miss that, but from the context it seemed like they thought that was the only alternative to landing a second ship to collect the crew

[RexKramer]

He also stated he is a beginner, so while picking up his ship with a claw may technically be possible, I'm not sure how useful that would be to a beginner.

[Anquietas314]

He also stated he is a beginner, so while picking up his ship with a claw may technically be possible, I'm not sure how useful that would be to a beginner.

To be fair, picking it up is not really much harder than managing to dock the claw to it on the ground in the first place. It's really just one more step (assuming an appropriately designed ship): hit the gas.

[Sirrobert]

You can indeed put the claw on your fuel rover.

If you connect to something else with the claw, it will count as docked, and you can transfer fuel.

Offcourse, always quicksave before trying, but it should be fine. Just gatta make sure you don't somehow push over your lander and get stranded even more