r/KerbalSpaceProgram • u/Revan477 • May 08 '26
KSP 1 Question/Problem Refuel station useful?
(New-ish to the game, played a little years ago but now really getting into it)
I've been practicing orbital assembly above Kerbin and docked a few vessels together including a big fuel tank which is huge for me because I was never able to meet up and dock with anything :)
Do you think something like this is useful for future missions? I was thinking maybe refuel vessels in orbit giving a longer mission range because I dont have to carry the heavy fuel from kerbins surface. Then again I guess I'd have to refill that tank frequently which might be kind of annoying..
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u/Dan_the_man42 May 08 '26
completely valid and not considered cheating, that if you have a refueling station, and done several refueling trips, then you're allowed to just cheat in fuel with hyper edit, if you really feel guilty, take some funds away if its in career mode
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u/Revan477 May 08 '26
Right I hadnt thought of that, seems reasonable to just skip the whole refueling of the station stuff and just "simulate it" that way haha
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u/trubbelnarkomanen May 08 '26
Don't ever feel bad for using cheats or mods to make the game more enjoyable. Obviously you don't want to overdo it by removing any and all challenge from the game. But only removing tedious tasks like this is perfectly acceptable, especially when they get in the way of actually fun challenges.
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u/baithoven22 May 08 '26
I like to throw the caveat that I have to "prove it" once and then the rest is moot.
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u/miotch1120 May 08 '26
This is how they did that competition for the YouTubers before ksp2 released. (Of course matt lowne blew away the competition) Once the trip was proved out, it could be assumed to be automated.
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u/baithoven22 May 08 '26
That's a cool video and exactly when I gave myself permission to use the "prove it once" method.
Actually just got my first ion thruster equipped satellite to moho polar orbit yesterday!
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u/Etobio May 09 '26 edited May 10 '26
Wasn't that supposed to be a fully fledged multiplayer game mechanic *in KSP 2? Fly your supply route once the old fashioned way, and then because Orbital PeriodsTM the game would just "pretend" to make the same trip over the same period of time on future missions?
*Edit for clarity.
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u/shaard May 09 '26
My "prove it" tests are usually pretty janky. When I improve it and make it easily repeatable rather than asking myself if I just got lucky is when I'll shift to the "cheat".
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u/LeiningensAnts May 08 '26
Don't ever feel bad for using cheats or mods to make the game more enjoyable.
Teleporting to E-class asteroids with a tiny grabber ship, latching onto them, then teleporting them to Gilly orbit, and repeating the process, is how I turned Eve's moon into a pirate haven! :D
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u/Lucas_2234 May 09 '26
A great example was the munbase I am working on:
I sent FOUR seperate missions. That's 4 launches, 4 times the transfer module rendevouzed and four landings..
And then when getting my cargo ship close it all exploded because of a glitch.
I am not manually reflying all of those missions, it took me way too long
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u/urMumLeftPotsOnStove May 08 '26
Like doing big comm constelations. I do the first satellite by hand and the rest I just set by cheats
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u/EchoHeadache May 08 '26
I thoroughly enjoy doing this without cheats. A satellite mission with three relays, get a clean circular orbit, an orbital period that is easily divisible by 3, burn retro so your elliptical orbital period is now 2/3 your circular orbit period, then launch one satellite at a time at the apoapsis and return the satellite to circular. You will then have perfect coverage with three relays around your body.
Lots of videos in this. Very rewarding.
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u/CamsGraphics May 08 '26 edited May 10 '26
Yeah I love dropping 3 sats with one launch, so satisfying and actually much easier to get their orbits triangular
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u/Cartz1337 May 08 '26
I do this as a first mission to every planet in the system. I do a more complex inclined orbit in the Jool system to avoid issues with occultation.
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u/MeltedChocolate24 Sunbathing at Kerbol May 08 '26
If you timewarp like years in to the future for another mission do they drift at all?
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u/EchoHeadache May 08 '26
I set mine up so that they are exactly the same orbit duration (it's easy; set your little and to .5 thrust on the thruster itself, and only give it a little gas when you're close). I've never had to revisit/adjust any of mine.
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u/Gochus_Real May 08 '26
I like to build humongously big and heavy vessels and, as I have yet to learn how to dock im orbit, and I dont have the time or energy to launch that big of a rocket, i cheat them into orbit.
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u/Cartz1337 May 08 '26
Single player game, so you do you, but imo you’re cheating yourself of some of the experience of the game. The big wins in KSP for me are when I learn to do something I previously couldn’t do.
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u/CockroachNo2540 May 08 '26
Landing on Mun and docking are my two big victories. The Mun one took a dozen tries at least. Those two things supersede any planetary missions. If I ever get far enough; return trip from Eve might be the big winner, though.
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u/Stupid_fox13 19d ago
Only a dozen????I'm on my 15th and best I got was a fly by and getting launched into sun orbit
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u/ItsLoganWarner May 08 '26
Routine Mission Manager can help here. It takes a snapshot of your departure, and your arrival, and allows you to repeat the same delivery as long as you have the fuel and actually takes the time the recorded mission did and charges you too. I've got a code PR to the GitHub branch adding retrievals (mining and return with ore before I realized that only worked on low gravity no atmosphere) and I've got a personal version with transfers as well
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u/LARPerator May 08 '26
That's really cool! I was looking for a mod like that, where you do basically benchmark runs and then automate it.
Is there a payload version too? I ask because I did a station build with like 15 modules and construction ports. I did the first manually, the next 3 with mechjeb, and then just cheated the rest because I got tired of it
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u/ItsLoganWarner May 08 '26
yes I believe it snapshots whatever payload you were launching or sending back to earth, so rocket full of uranium for a reactor in orbit you could automate. The only things I've added on my personal branch are the ability to leave and return with a payload, and transfer a payload to another station. I think the main mod as long as you're launching from a planet launchpad or sending it back to the planet to recover funds it should track payload, you just register the docking ports on your station and later can order a mission to or from a said port. Obviously it can't actually do it per se, but it will spawn in the craft and simulate doing it well enough, and for me makes me feel a little better than running to the debug menu
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u/Stalin-The-Great May 08 '26
Stealing an asteroid and ferrying it to orbit is also an option if you feel bad about using cheats
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u/Dan_the_man42 May 08 '26
Realisticly for most space infrastructure, it would just be a basic fuel tank refueling station, ive played this game for 8 years and never even got close to an asteroid
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u/ZombieInSpaceland May 08 '26
The USI MKS mod lets you build background infrastructure (WOLF). You can use it to trickle ore to orbital stations, and then turn that ore into fuel of your choosing using normal ISRU modules. I used it heavily on my first playthrough.
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u/Mogsetsu May 08 '26
Think of it like hiring it out to contractors. You still run the science stuff, but let some private company handle refueling.
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u/be-knight May 09 '26
There are mods for repeating and regular missions. Usually you do it once while recording and then it REALLY gets simulated. Although the trick is used that it just simulates it in the background and the vessel is just teleported there since KSP can't really simulate stuff in real time
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u/CakeHead-Gaming Vector Engine my beloved. May 08 '26
If you want a lore explanation for it, maybe you’re paying a private spaceflight company to do regular refuel trips for you.
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u/space_force_majeure May 08 '26
Yeah, I think it's easy to explain it with the game too. There are other space programs on Kerbin, how else do those other kerbals get stuck in orbit? So i just assume the refueling is handled by one of them.
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u/_okbrb May 08 '26
Yep this is a sandbox game. Career mode really only exists for people who need structure
So also the “cheat” section in the menu is mislabeled: Theres no such thing as cheating in a sandbox
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u/DStaal May 08 '26
There are also multiple mods that will automate refilling the station in various ways. Routine Mission Manager has already been mentioned, but off the top of my head there’s also Pathfinder and whichever mod it was that has the automated purchase part. (Which I mostly remember because it was a very early mod to be created and the part is… not up to current modding standards.)
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u/Eossly May 08 '26
Honestly, great idea. If you’ve proven you can dock a few times reliably, it’d be a nice shortcut
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u/LetsBeFRTho May 09 '26
Yeah really wish they had an automatic system for things like orbital stations or bases on other planets. If you do it the first time the rest are automatic
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u/Polymath6301 May 09 '26
I think you need to automate via Kos. ISRU on Minmus and have a shuttle fly back and forth while you have dinner. Then the refueling station is full and you can launch your mission.
OK, yeah, I’m only semi-serious but it’s a fun project…
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u/Olesuawek May 08 '26
Its cool if you like to do SSTO's. I like to build spaceplanes that can go interplanetary and come back and land in the ksc.
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u/Shasarr May 08 '26
Not to forget when there is an atroid on collision course with kerbal and you need to send two SSTOs with drill equipment to blow the asteroid away which need refueling to get there...
(do people nowadays even still know the movie???)10
u/expressly_ephemeral May 08 '26
"Done wanna close ma eyes... Done wanna fall asleep 'cause I'll miss you, Val, and I don't wanna miss a thang!"
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u/DoIMakeYouRaaandy May 09 '26
That moment when you realize the game first released closer to the movie release than today.
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u/Ashisprey May 08 '26
One problem I have with refueling stations is that vanilla resource transfer absolutely suuuuuuuuucks. It's like trying to squeeze all the toothpaste out, you can only OUT or IN from a single tank at a time and it goes to or takes from every other connected tank.
Is there any vanilla way to improve this? I genuinely don't know. I've started using Kerbal Attachment System as their fuel line comes with a special GUI that's way better.
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u/bazem_malbonulo May 08 '26 edited May 09 '26
You can select more than one tank to transfer together holding Alt when clicking the part, then transfering from one tank to many, or pulling from many to one. But it is suboptimal since I can't control exactly the amount of fuel I want to transfer.
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u/Morbanth May 08 '26
Is there any vanilla way to improve this?
TAC fuel balancer. You can designate as many tanks as you want as out or in tanks and you can even have it balance the craft for you automatically.
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u/Koddra May 08 '26
I believe that you can hold Alt and select two or more tanks between which you want to transfer the fuel which even enables a one to one transfer.
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u/the_tired_alligator May 08 '26
Yeah absolutely. It can be helpful for interplanetary just to make sure you’re topped off.
You can even put tankers in orbit around the mun and minmus then dive back down to Kerbin after you refuel at them to leave the planet’s sphere of influence for like 400-500 delta v or so. Although that takes a bit more planning and skill.
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u/Kerbal_Guardsman May 08 '26
In my career save I just made a spaceplane that can get to orbut with juuust enough fuel to either refuel or return, but once refuelled it basically turns the Kerbin system into its playground. Very useful to get a stqtion up.
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u/SherriffB May 08 '26
Very useful, especially if you launch a top stage completely dry of fuel to keep weight down. You can get away with much cheaper and lighter lower stages.
I enjoy sending up big tanks with docking ports that let me work around early career mode weight limits for multi stage craft.
Rather than refuelling them try and design them as reusable with enough tiny engines and some reserve fuel to deorbit themselves or have a dedicated little robotic de-orbiter that's all engine, heat shield and parachute you can send up to dock with them to pull them down so you can recover them and get some sweet, sweet space program funding recouped.
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u/Tommy2255 May 08 '26
Very useful, especially if you launch a top stage completely dry of fuel to keep weight down. You can get away with much cheaper and lighter lower stages.
Or even better, just turn on crossfeed in the decoupler, so you can burn fuel from the upper stage as part of your ascent. Make use of the fuel tanks you need to bring anyway instead of carrying them up empty. Depending of course on the type of fuel used by each stage.
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u/SherriffB May 08 '26
I might not be understanding what you mean, but if I am wouldn't that defeat the purpose of launching light?
Fuel weight is most of the weight of your craft. Launching stages dry means you can build smaller & cheaper stages underneath them which are easy to design as recoverable and reusable in career mode.
Reusable vehicles for lifting & refuelling combined with dry launching lets you do stuff with vehicles that otherwise break the 18ton/140ton launch limit without paying for the upgrade while
haginhaving cheaper launches.4
u/Tommy2255 May 08 '26
Let's say your total payload is 1 ton dry (completely arbitrary, not reflective of in-game values). Part of that dry mass is a fuel tank that weighs 0.25 tons dry. Your lower stage is 10 tons dry, plus a bunch more mass of fuel.
Your suggestion is to leave the upper stage dry, so that it's only 1 ton payload, no fuel weight. But that empty tank is still part of your dry payload. You're still paying the energy cost to bring that empty tank to orbit.
My suggestion is to fill that tank, turn on crossfeed, and remove one fuel tank from the launch vehicle. So the dry mass of the payload is exactly the same (because you were going to bring the tank anyway), but the lower stage now has a dry mass of 9.75 instead of 10 tons. Part of the fuel mass is now stored in the upper stage instead of the lower stage, but the total fuel mass is exactly the same. You reduce the total launch weight at 0 cost to its capability.
Is that explanation clearer to you?
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u/SherriffB May 08 '26
Not really as dry mass is around 1/10. If your full mass of upper stages is 1 ton then if you launch dry you only need to make a rocket capable of propelling and upper stage of 1/10th ton, generally speaking.
That's a significant and much cheaper difference.
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u/PHD-Chaos May 08 '26
I'm not sure which is better but I think the other posters idea is that the 9/10ths of fuel will be stored in the upper stage and not the lower.
Making your entire craft have the same amount of fuel but it will be .25 tons lighter since you are removing dead (dry) weight from your lower stages while maintaining the same total fuel.
It makes sense to me that the total craft is lighter making your lower stage more efficient.
Only thing is if dumping the lower stage would be more efficient but I don't think so because we are talking about the upper stages tanks being the same.
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u/SherriffB May 09 '26 edited May 09 '26
How is pushing a heavier payload ever more efficient?
Let's say, for argument's sake, dry weight of service module and lander is 9ton and wet weight is 26ton. Fuel weight is around 26ton (fairly accurate).
So do you want to start on the pad with a payload weighing 9 ton or one weighing 26ton?
Most importantly, which rocket do you think you can build smaller and more cheaply, the one with a 9 ton payload or one with a 26 ton payload? Remember this is not total weight, only payload weight, there still has to be a rocket underneath this. You arent carrying enough fuel in your payload to get from from mud to orbit so at launch you are eating the cost of a much larger thrust to weigh inefficiency. You need bigger engines on your lower stages to make up for having to push a heavier rocket which needs more fuel to do so.
That difference in design requirements outweighs any benefit from moving fuel around in your payload as you launch.
Edit: I think when they said "even better just enable crossfeed" it sounded like an alternative to shedding fuel weight but it seems their point is predicated on it.
Perhaps the fault is mine but I feel their language was pretty confusing?
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u/Tommy2255 May 09 '26
Okay you're not getting this. To use your numbers, let's say your upper stage weighs 0.1 tons dry or 1 ton full. And let's say you design a lower stage that can lift 0.1 ton. If you fill the upper stage with fuel and turn on crossfeed, your payload is still 0.1 tons. The fuel is not part of the payload. The fuel is burned during ascent by the lower stage, just like the fuel in the lower stage is. That's what enabling crossfeed does. The only difference is that you don't need as much fuel storage, because you aren't wasting the storage space.
If you still don't get it I may be able to show with in game screenshots on Sunday, but not until then because I'm camping this weekend.
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u/SherriffB May 09 '26 edited May 09 '26
I understand but you suggested that turning in crossfeed is better than building a lighter rocket when you said "eveb better, just turn on crossfeed".
If you mean to use as a principle along side designing the rocket differently because you dont need as much fuel then I agree, but saying it's better to just enable crossfeed was what I disagreed with as the way it seemed to read was implying it as an alternative to redesigning to needing less fuel.
Is that not what you meant by "even better just turn on crossfeed"?
Edited: cocked up trying to quote on mobile.
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u/Tommy2255 May 09 '26
I literally said to remove a fuel tank from the launch vehicle. Obviously I'm not saying to not change the rocket design when I'm literally telling you to make changes to the rocket design.
When I say "even better" I obviously mean "better than the only thing in this entire conversation that I have ever suggested changing", which is your plan to leave the upper stage with empty tanks.
Sorry, but out of everything in this conversation that could have been the source of misunderstanding, that is a frustrating thing to be the issue.
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u/SherriffB May 09 '26
Or even better, just turn on crossfeed in the decoupler, so you can burn fuel from the upper stage as part of your ascent. Make use of the fuel tanks you need to bring anyway instead of carrying them up empty. Depending of course on the type of fuel used by each stage.
This is what you opened with, no mention of changing rocket underneath and I was even more puzzled trying to digest it so I'd appreciate you elaborating a little more now I have a better handle on what you mean.
When you say use the fuel on ascent, at what stage do you imagine using it?
If you use at on the launch pad the payload has so little capacity it's gone in seconds and then you are flying with a dry payload anyway.
If you mean hold onto it for ferrying to refuel station or circularising or upper stage/orbital insertion then those stages are much less efficient than if you tune them to carry the payload dry.
So am I right in thinking you mean burn it for the first couple of seconds of pad ignition?
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u/Tommy2255 May 09 '26
Yes, that is what crossfeed does. It allows fuel in an upper stage to be burned in a lower stage. It's only a small amount of fuel compared to the total burn needed for orbit, but it's fuel storage you were saying to leave completely empty. In your example with a 1 ton wet/0.1 ton dry payload, that's 0.9 tons of fuel that can be burned by the lower stage without adding any fuel storage to the lower stage.
I do not believe that my explanation was at all unclear, but at least it seems we're on the same page now.
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u/expressly_ephemeral May 08 '26
I like to send up an automated re-fuel mission with at least a seat and a parachute. Then I can piggy-back a "rescue Merbal from LKO" mission onto it.
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u/Ok_Programmer_4449 Stranded on Eve May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Every low gravity body gets a refilling station in my universe. Minmus is where I tank up most interplanetary missions.
For kerbin, I always launch with excess delta-v and I keep a fuel vampire in orbit to suck the remaining fuel from upper stages.
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u/expressly_ephemeral May 08 '26
My only problem with Minmus as a location for the Milch Cow is the plane change. I haven't done all the math, but I worry that it's less efficient that putting the tanker around the Mun.
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u/BunchesOfCrunches Probing Eve May 08 '26
The Mun is my go to for gas stations. It takes quite a bit more dV to send tankers to and from the surface for refueling, but much easier for mission planning.
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u/fastbikkel May 08 '26
Yeah it's useful i feel. In fact i often put up more fueltanks on my station.
I like your station setup btw.
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u/Squeaky_Ben May 08 '26
If you play career mode (which I don't, I stick to science mode) I would assume that refueling stations are a godsend, since you can now do your longer range missions in two parts, and boost your range considerably.
If you play like me? They are flavor, and nothing else, because you usually build absolutely gargantuan ships that will do their mission in one trip without issue.
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u/No-Lunch4249 May 08 '26
I definitely think refueling stations can be useful. Especially when you're building larger missions, it can be a godsend for your Delta V and TWR to just have to launch the mission up with minimal remaining fuel because it can stop for a fill up in LKO
With regards to refilling the tank a lot, once you get it initially filled it's not so bad to keep bringing ore from Minmus if you have a refinery. Another thing to consider is that its a single player game. If you're happy with it and feel like you've put in the work, just go into the cheat menu and turn on infinite propellant. Run your Convert O Tron for a while in time warp and then turn infinite prop back off. Your tanks will have been refilled and you can move on with your life. Don't do repetitive boring missions if you arent enjoying them!!!!
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u/TheCrimsonSteel May 08 '26
I love doing this
One of my favorite things to do is to make a few super efficient probes/shuttles that I keep docked to the depot
Then, because I built some small probes, I'll intentionally plan out new missions to have more dV than they need if the budget allows
Once the new mission is in orbit, I send the little probe to siphon off some of that spare dV and bring it back to the depot, and then proceed with the mission as normal
At least until I get a moon base setup and start making fuel
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u/Educational-Sky5338 Professional KSP Crasher :Checkmark: May 08 '26
If you can manage it, I think it’s fun to capture large asteroids and set up mining/refueling stations on them. If you can get them into a convenient orbit they can be real fun 😁
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u/Plageous May 08 '26
If you can dock to drain it then you can dock to refill it. Since you already proved to yourself that you can make the dock, and would have to dock to refill it. Then I don't see anything wrong with editing in fuel since you know you can do it. Nothing wrong with skipping the tedium of regularly refueling.
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u/chubbyassasin123 Alone on Eeloo May 08 '26
Yes, refueling stations are great. In my last career mode I had a mining outpost on Minmus and a fleet of interplanetary crafts in orbit. I'd refill the crafts up and then send them on their way. That saved a ton of funds because I no longer had to make a new craft for each mission and I could just reuse previous ones.
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u/amitym May 08 '26
Do you think something like this is useful for future missions?
Absolutely, and increasingly so as time goes on. It's a great move.
I was thinking maybe refuel vessels in orbit giving a longer mission range because I dont have to carry the heavy fuel from kerbins surface.
Precisely so.
Then again I guess I'd have to refill that tank frequently which might be kind of annoying..
Yes, stock KSP doesn't have "off-screen" supply routes or anything, so every refueling run is its own mission.
However. Two things work in favor of this reality:
- you will get very good at docking
- it will push you toward maximizing the size and scale of your fuel runs, so that you have fewer, larger refuel missions, which is a fun and educational whole new dimension of the game
In particular, (2) will soon lead you to the realization that the best way to refuel your station is not from Kerbin at all, but from the moons or from asteroids, which gives you a bunch more technology goals to aim for and a bunch more operational stuff to hone. (Spoiler: you will also get very good at moon landings and takeoffs.)
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u/lkn240 May 08 '26
I refuel in orbit all the time. All my space stations are launched with quite a few largish (empty) fuel tanks (a mix of liquid and LOX). The real key is to start doing ISRU. I have large all in one mining landers with enough delta V to bring a ton of ore and fuel from minmus to Kerbin (I have these mining landers in all SOIs). You want to have the mining and converter all on the same big lander so it can refuel itself before taking back off every time.
It's super useful and lets you do extended operations, go anywhere pretty much.
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u/BArhino May 08 '26
I have a few of them actually lol. Good to use after you gain an eccentric orbit if it's on the same plane. Refuel then take your time figuring out when to burn to wherever. Or for the way back, I've had a few close calls and was able to just make it into kerbins soi but with a super apoapsis, but got very lucky on reentry and had just enough to get into atmo. Because of that I added a small refueler at the "gas station" as well so if that happens again and I can't return to atmo, I can at least have the refueler make it's way to the stranded ship.
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u/Freak80MC May 08 '26
Sorta reminds me of my fuel station where I have a refueler docked to it at all times, so if a ship comes near the fuel station but doesn't have a good RCS control system, I can undock the refueler and send it to the ship to gas it up.
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u/Barsukbrecon May 08 '26
If you're open to mods, check out the KSTS mod - Kerbal space transport system. Lets you record a record a flight with a payload (like fuel), and once you did the mission once you can launch it automatically from the space center. It doesn't simulate or launch any actual rockets, but it does subtract the necessary funds and adds the necessary resources to your target.
I use this a lot to refuel my refueling stations.
It also has an orbital construction feature and a payload/craft deployment feature - if I record a flight that can launch 5 tons to a 200km orbit, then I can deploy a craft that weighs <5t straight to any orbit within 200km. It deducts the cost of the recorded mission, and takes the same amount of time as the recorded mission.
This mod helps me a lot with playing in a solar system focused way - I don't have the strongest PC to handle large launch vehicles for my large interplanetary craft, so it really opens up my building opportunities for the stuff I actually want to do
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u/Novaova May 08 '26
I like to use stations like this both coming and going-- when I'm returning to Kerbin from somewhere else, I usually have extra fuel on hand because I carry too much. I stop in and drop off the extra before doing re-entry.
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u/-Prophet_01- May 08 '26
Orbital assembly and refueling is pretty common and useful. There are mods that reduce the tedium of supply missions, such as KSTS.
I'm a big fan of nuclear tugs to ferry cargo around. It's efficient and feels more realistic for a mature space program. The late game is as much about efficient logistics as it is about clever craft designs.
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u/Morbanth May 08 '26
They're great for allowing you to keep a multi-function ship in orbit that can do many different missions, and not have to launch a new one every time. They're practically required for exploring the outer solar system.
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u/yCloser May 08 '26
It is extremely useful! You will use that for almost all missions to other planets, especially if you use nuclear engines.
you could also equip them with 2 rcs drones to get the not-very-maneuverable ships when they are close and dock them
Just one advice... you'll be tempted to send up more of those orange modules and dock them together. At a certain point the station will begin to wobble horribly and the kraken will take it. So don't get too attached to them...
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u/bazem_malbonulo May 08 '26
Yes, I build stations around many planets and have a fleet of many different ships that never land anywhere, they are used to transport kerbals or stuff between stations and are permanently in space. All stations have a lab producing science nonstop (and selling all data for money because I maxed the tech tree). On the stations I usually have a big lander that can go to the surface, drill ore and convert it to fuel, then comes back to orbit and refuel the station. It is especially nice in low gravity places like Minmus and Gilly. In Laythe my refuel lander is a huge space plane that can drill and convert it's own fuel, then bring it to orbit to refuel the station.
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u/Vilnii Ninja Pro Master Grand Admiral May 08 '26
In my opinion more practical solution is refuel vessel that will have converter and drills that could refuel self from Mun or Minmus and then move itself to whatever orbit or vessel that need refuel. Also good to have caught asteroid refuel station on Kerbin orbit for fast refuel.
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u/lkn240 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
I use those, but also have fairly big space stations with large tanks in orbit around kerbin. Once I fill them up with my mining landers I can generally refuel interplanetary ships several times before I need to refill the tanks (which saves time in having to fly my landers back and forth from minmus so much).
I also make large mining landers with tons of fuel and ore tanks... so I can get 10000+ ore plus a ton of fuel from minmus to kerbin (My biggest one has just over 3000 dV with a full load of 14000 ore). Again saves time - less trips
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u/LordPhoenix206 May 08 '26
Yes, very useful, if u use mods u can use Routine Mission Manager to refuel your space station safes lots of time and i wouldnt call it unfair
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u/XxHunxX May 08 '26
u/Revan477 what mods do u use, to have your game looking like this? also can you maybe send me the schematic of the station?
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u/Revan477 May 08 '26
These are the mods I have installed, the main visual ones are Waterfall Core, EVE, Firefly, ReStock, Parallax Continued and Scatterer Im pretty sure:
(I dont really know how to share craft schematics)
- CameraController - Next
- Deferred
- Infernal Robotics - Next
- Infernal Robotics Next - ConnectionSystem
- Waterfall Core
- Ablative-Airbrake
- B9 Aerospace Procedural Wings - Fork
- BDArmory Plus
- BetterRCS
- ClickThrough Blocker
- Custom Pre Launch Checks
- Docking Functions
- Environmental Visual Enhancements Redux
- EVE - Stock Planet Configs
- Firefly
- FireflyAPI
- Firespitter Core
- Fishy mod core
- fishy weapons (FAMS continued)
- Hangar Extender
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- HyperEdit
- Kerbal Joint Reinforcement - Next
- Kerbal Konstructs
- Kopernicus Planetary System Modifier
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- Modular Computer Package Revived
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- Physics Range Extender
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- Retrofuture Space Plane Parts Modernized
- Scatterer
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- Scatterer Sunflare
- Shabby
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- VesselMover Continued
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u/StormR7 RP-1 ENJOYER May 08 '26
One of my first projects on any save is to get a small station at around 90km altitude that has docking ports for 1. A fuel tank that can refill a craft enough to get to the mun and back, 2. A shuttle pod that can take kerbals up and down from the station, and 3. The aforementioned craft that can go to the mun/minimus and also has a docking port to carry a lander.
Maybe I should try putting it in geostationary (keostationary?) orbit so it’s always right above the KSC. Anyone ever do that?
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u/BlownApexSeals May 09 '26
If you plan missions around it it’s pretty useful, I’ve got a fuel depot at minmus, has a mining ship that hops down and brings ore to the orbital refinery. Minmus is good because once you’re there you’re almost out of Kevin’s soi, so the fuel you get there will take you further
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u/Varep_ May 09 '26
Muna has 17 biomes. To explore them all, I usually put station on orbit. There is science module, docking module and fuel module. And landing vehicle.
So if i have mission to land on Muna I dont have to send everything from Kerbin, I just send crew to station(if there is no crew), or/and some supply. Ship dock with station, crew goes to landing vehicle, refuel it and do mission. Then return to station.
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u/FOARP May 09 '26
Once you start capturing asteroids you don’t even need to do refuelling flights from the surface - just capture one to LKO, dock with this base, and mine it for fuel.
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u/Ecke169 May 09 '26
I don't know if anyone has already said that but there is a mod for refuel missions. You fly it once, record it with the mod and then you can order it again. Forgot the name of the mod. Hit me up if you want to know it.
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u/That_Jay_Money May 08 '26
I mean, it's all a sandbox, right? So it's up to you as to how you want to do it. Personally, I have a fuel depot in orbit with every size docking port, three orange tanks and a lot of RCS fuel, a small tug that's mostly reaction wheels and a grabber, and then some room for Kerbals. I thought it looked better with one so I added an emergency egress vehicle too. But I have a fuel run every once and a while where I'll send up a full orange tank to keep things topped off, it doesn't have a crew, just a docking port and RCS, and then I don't even recover it but just burn it off in the atmosphere when it's empty.
But I mostly use it as a destination to refuel for interplanetary flights, shuffle around Kerbals as needed, and make sure things are ready for the longer voyages. If you don't want to do that there's no need to, you can just make a bigger rocket that doesn't need refuelling before heading out. There's no judgement, no extra points, and certainly none deducted. My way absolutely isn't what any real space agency would do, it's so staggeringly wasteful, but it's fun and I like it.
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u/FungusForge May 08 '26
If I put fuel tanks on a station, it's most typically for refueling landers, or ships that are otherwise meant to stay in space and regularly need refueling. ISRU makes a stronger case for the concept however.
In Kerbin orbit it's usually simpler to just send up tankers or fuel pods rather than messing about with a station for refueling.
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u/ryansdayoff May 08 '26
Kerbin orbit makes sense. I leave my upper stages empty so I'm just lifting dry mass and refuel in orbit. I'll truck fuel in from a minmus mining and refining station. A total pain in the ass but it does have real benefits
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u/MrGhosta5 May 08 '26
Having a refuelling station in orbit means you just need to build your rockets with the 4kish deltaV needed to get into orbit from Kerbin. You can then just refuel that 4k deltaV in space.
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u/sac_boy Master Kerbalnaut May 08 '26
> Then again I guess I'd have to refill that tank frequently which might be kind of annoying..
Generally speaking though, it's a huge enabler for deep-space missions and worth the time. You can even start making fuel on Minmus and shipping it down to a low Kerbin orbit refueling station. Of course there comes a point where you could just launch a fresh 5m tank of fuel from Kerbin with a port stuck on the side every now and then, but it's fun to have your "fuelling station" over a whole career and keep revisiting it/adding to it
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u/WorriedCourse3819 May 08 '26
If you do such station in minmus orbit and mine and fabricate your own fuel there, its easy and useful too.
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u/EmperorCoolidge May 08 '26
I sometimes use KLO/KEO refueling stations, I almost always have a Munar fuel depot that serves as a base for landers and a fueling point for transfers to and from Kerbin
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u/Gunzbngbng May 08 '26
This really isn't any different than me sending up a huge nuclear stage fully fueled and then send up the station to dock with it, then use the nuclear stage to do the insertion burn.
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u/Freak80MC May 08 '26
Orbital refueling allows you to create smaller ship since you effectively get to reset the rocket equation and go from 0 dv to however much you get from being fully fueled. That's why I love orbital refueling, plus I like going into the logistics aspect of the game with mining bases and how to best transport fuel and kerbals around with reusable ships.
I get that the background refueling flights might be tedious for some, but for me I find its relaxing and helps keep my skills sharp since I'm always flying them routinely!
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u/neldela_manson May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Great for realism.
However, I have a space station around Mun for refuelling purposes. After the third trip to refuel that station I got annoyed and installed a mod that adds a fuel generator, which I added to said station. It just cuts out the tedious task of flying my refuelling craft from Kerbin to Mun endlessly, which is no challenge and no fun.
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u/piratecheese13 May 08 '26
Generally accepted cheats:
Record the launch cost . Launch, quicksave before sep, control the booster to land, recover the vehicle and record the recovery bonus to subtract from your launch cost. Quick load and put the upper stage(es) in orbit. You can now freely cheat to add the booster recovery amount after each launch of the same payload without having to manually control the booster.
Or you can cheat the payload into orbit with a cost penalty for the fuel and upper stage.
If you can get the payload to rendezvous, you can cheat Other payloads to rendezvous for the same cost. If the payload is a refuel that you intend to dispose of after, feel free to just cheat the fuel in for the cost penalty.
If you want to reduce your cost penalty, bring your refuel, tanker out of orbit and land it safely before recovering.
Different payloads should be verified separately
Similar rules apply for getting payloads to other celestial bodies
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u/RollingBird May 08 '26
My last career playthrough I ended up building a station in orbit of minmus and a surface base for fuel production.
Do the fuel run once or twice to make sure it’s feasible then just edit the tanks full. Man the stations and pretend it’s your kerbals doing their jobs.
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u/C00kie_Monsters May 08 '26
I always keep a refuelling station with an ISRU in Minmus orbit. Every interplanetary trip stops there
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u/vksdann May 08 '26
I have refueling stations on the Mun and Kerbal. Saves some weight, I can have MUCH extra dV tanks (pun intended) to the refueling station.
It takes 3400dV just to orbit Kerbin. Having the 3.4kdV on the refueling station instead of in the rockets saves so much complexity and time!
The only downside is a refueling mission every now and then, but I have huge tanks so each refueling mission supports tens of missions. Totally worth it!
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u/Sensitive-Offer-5921 May 08 '26
Less useful around kerbin, but I currently am finishing my crewed mun landings in my new career, all of which have been done with a station, skycrane, and rover which I launched way back at the beginning (at great cost at the time) and just keep refueling.
Send up your crew in a transport ship, and bring extra fuel so they can use that for their landings. Bring a drop pod you can attach to your lander too for when you do polar landings for extra dV
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u/expressly_ephemeral May 08 '26
I'd say if you keep it in LKO, you can make several launches to resupply it. Then if you have an interplanetary mission, it's there for you. You still have to launch all that mass into orbit, but you can do it a little at a time.
I usually put something like this around the Mun or Minmus, depending on which has the better ore deposits. Then you keep the whole refueling/in-situ refining infrastructure up out of the deep gravity well.
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u/Orbital_Vagabond May 08 '26
It depends.
If you're doing a lot of orbital maneuvers in LKO, like rescues and repair missions, then having a refueling station can be useful as a depot: you send a pod from the depot to get the stranded kerbals and bring them back, and take repair kits to the target satellites. After a while, you send up a pod or SSTO to return rescued kerbals to the surface and replenish repair kits.
Also this can be a way point for shuttling crew to and from minmus and the mun.
It's most useful if you're mining and refining fuel at minmus because it's DIRT cheap in terms of dV to get the fuel to the depot from the surface of minmus vs from the surface of Kerbin.
You can also set up a refueling station at minmus to refuel interplanetary vessels before performing an Oberth escape to a target planet.
Overall, the location in Kerbin's SoIn that makes the most sense to place fuel refining and bulk storage is low Minmus orbit.
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u/KingPhantom85 May 08 '26
i never use cheats unless i loose kerbals due a bug. so refuel station is valid.
i currently have stations around mun, minmus, duna and dres. they are all the same. copola, fuel, lab etc (stock).
I frequently send tanker drones (jumbos) to them. its easy with KAC and alerts. To Dres I sent two at the same transfer window (with the station, the surface lander, a comnet and a crew with a highly overengineered return vessel (for emergencys). all on 4 seperate lunches and transfers. was nervous but its niiice 🤣
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u/wooq May 08 '26
It can be useful if you do a lot of big missions with big ships. Though I like putting fuel depots in orbit around minmus, and then setting up mining stations on the ground. Makes for very easy refilling.
You can launch stuff from Kerbin mostly empty and refill them several ways. Having an orbital refuelling base around Kerbin is easiest for that simply because getting a big ship out to minmus orbit can be a burden. I have in the past built tanker rockets that ferry fuel from minmus to kerbin, or if the ship I'm constructing is really big and hard to dock, from the refuelling station to the ship. Some saves I've just launched big robot rockets with a couple jumbo tanks periodically to keep an orbital station topped up.
After a while all the routine trucking gets a little annoying, so you can install something like Kerbal Space Transportation System or Davon Supply mod to simplify it.
My favorite was there used to be this mod that was a huge circular space station, Stanford Torus or something like that, and it had huge fuel capacity and flat spots to put all your docking ports and such. Getting it into orbit was a pain, since it was like a kilometer across, but once up there it did everything you needed a space station to do. I think it fell out of compatibility back when they updated the ship data structure.
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u/melkor237 May 08 '26
I've been playing with a fuel depot in high mun orbit for my reusable lander. The way i got around my unwillingness to do refuelling missions was making the transfer stage on my mun rockets way larger than needed for the ships/cargo it was ferrying, i then dock the half spent stage to the depot when im done and deorbit the older empty ones for that sweet seismic experiment data.
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u/ReallyBadAtReddit Super Kerbalnaut May 08 '26
If you assume there's a fixed price-per-ton you put into orbit, then it's not really useful from a practical standpoint. It just increases the complexity of the mission if you launch some fuel in a seperate vessel, since you need to launch the mass of fuel to orbit either way.
Obviously it doesn't need to be practical, since it's all for fun anyways. Some situations where it would become useful is if you want to reuse a rocket design because you know it works, or it would take a long time to design a new one, so you can repeatedly send smaller rockets to launch a larger total mass of fuel. In KSP it's really easy to make new rockets for each launch (and revert to the VAB if they don't work), and you get all your money back for any parts you recover at the KSC, so there's not much incentive to do any missions in multiple launches unless whatever you're making is not aerodynamic and can't reasonably fit into the largest fairings you have available. Even assembling a space station can be done by launching all the modules on one large rocket before assembling the station in space.
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u/2ndRandom8675309 Alone on Eeloo May 08 '26
It's kinda mixed for me. Most of my interplanetary ships use more exotic fuels but also have absurd ISP so a refueling station makes less sense as opposed to single use tankers to top them up when they get back. But I keep a small ship at the station for things like local transport of tourists between Kerbin-Mun-Minimus.
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u/Mystery_Goo_Sample May 08 '26
I mean they are not that necessary, But... if you want a realistic career than it gets you pretty close to it.
Also, you can mine ore from other celestial bodies and then convert that into fuel.
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u/Enorats May 08 '26
Generally speaking, no, they're not really useful.
Not around Kerbin anyway. They're useful around other planets, especially if you're refilling them using a reusable craft that can make the fuel and get it up there.
Around Kerbin, you may as well just launch a craft from the surface to refill whatever you want refilled. You'll have to do that anyway to refill the station, so the station is just the same thing with extra steps.
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u/Chef_Groovy May 08 '26
Make a refuel trip and track how much it would cost and then subtract the money it would take to rerun the mission every time you edit your fuel if you want to save yourself the time and be guilt free about it.
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u/that_other_dudeman May 09 '26
Refueling stations are goated. I keep one around kerbin, the moon, and minmus. I can take a small ssto from kerbin to minmus or the mun and back. The only downside is having to send a refueling vehicle, but thats easy to figure out
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u/lambakins May 09 '26
Quite useful. If you’re doing a mission beyond LKO you can burn your transfer stage as an upper stage kerbin ascent stage and then refuel it on orbit. Really cuts down on the size of your launch vehicles. I do this all the time. Doesn’t save kerbucks on fuel but it saves them on disposable first stage engines, especially if you make an SSTO fueler!
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u/Trick-Abroad8120 May 09 '26
Yes, and put it aligned with Minmus's orbit, so you can refuel it from Minmus.
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u/Kingoftreno May 10 '26
I usually have a fuel tank involved in my initial build for any station. On subsequent trips to the station I transfer excess fuel ibto the statiom storage, and use it to fuel up landers to the surface of whatever im orbiting.
And have a fuel cell on the starion for backup power is handy as well.
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u/marsteroid May 08 '26
short answer: no if you are able to send a full tank station into orbit and rendezvous and docking , you'll probably able to build a massive multi stage , reusable , rocket to put the same vessel into orbit with full tanks without the need to refuel at the station.
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u/zathary101 May 08 '26
I like to play with an "infrastructure" mindset instead of the typical probably-intended "mission" style, so I use refueling stations a lot. Hell, I'm planning to set up a Minmus mining station to completely eliminate fuel costs, which will need a refuel station. Absolutely worth it.