Rockomax Large has a fuel capacity of 1440 units of fuel (ignore the other unit for now)
That is one of the largest fuel tanks possible, but with some clever engineering we can pack a lot more fuel by using the smaller fuel tanks, but only if you have access to fuel ducts.
if you take the Rockomax Medium (720 units of fuel) and combine that with the 8 thin medium tanks (180 units of fuel), you end up with a design that is 50% shorter, 50% wider, and houses 50% more fuel than the Rockomax Large. Now considering that the Rockomax Large length is much larger than its width, this is a vast improvement in getting more fuel.
If you stick two of those "condensed" fuel tanks together, you end up with a fuel source that has 3x the capacity of the Rockomax Large with the same length and only 50% wider.
Now the important piece of information about these fuel pods are that the fuel ducting must be done correctly or the center of mass will shift as the fuel is being used. Look at the picture below that I drew up really quickly in powerpoint (yes I know). The fuel tanks are being looked at with a top down view and the fuel ducts, with direction, are drawn in.
What you will actually do in game is you will use 2x symmetry to place all 2 smaller fuel tanks around the center fuel tank, and then do that 4 times. Why 2x symmetry? Because you will want 2x symmetry on the fuel ducts as well (yea that time I was thinking ahead). Something I forgot to put in the above image was struts that secure all fuel tanks to their neighbors to minimize part wobble.
Why pump fuel like this? Simple. The center of mass is preserved because fuel is being drawn out equally on both sides of the center of mass until only the center fuel tank has fuel. Since the docking port will, most likely, be placed at the center of mass, this makes the fuel pod a very well designed module for any ship pulling this along.
Recommendation: This fuel pod is quite heavy. Docking it at the top of your rocket will not provide a stable ship, even if the center of mass is preserved. Any thrust vectoring could end up with some wobble at the docking port connecting this module to your ship, which can tear apart and destroy your ship (not fun when that happens)
Additional Recommendation:
Use the fuel burner design to test out the fuel ducting on the Launchpad before attempting to send this module into space. Having the fuel pumped out incorrectly is not something you want to find out after the ship has been assembled in space.
Tip:
If a fuel pod is being sent into orbit in order to be docked to a modular ship design, make sure to put drones on this pod so that it will have SAS and RCS. DO NOT put SAS and RCS as permanent modules on the fuel pod. Those will only add more weight and, in worst case, could make the modular ship more unstable.
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