Why Stationary Orbits?

[TaterShovel]

Why do people care so much about stationary orbits in KSP? I can understand their usefulness in the real world, but what purpose do they serve in-game?

[eightiesboi]

Part of the answer to your question depends on whether a player is using mods. Some mods may use or benefit from vessels in stationary orbits. I tend to place communication satellites in stationary orbit because I play with mods that affect the communication systems for probes and being out of contact would be, um, bad.

For others, it may be just a roleplaying element. KSP is at its heart a way of telling your own space story. It can have as much or as little realism as you choose for it to have. This is the same reason why some play with TAC LS, some use USI, and some don't use a life support mod at all. The game doesn't care how much immersion and science (or hand-waving) you have in your game; only you, the player, does.

[andylaugel]

For me, it was a convenience factor. I had a single base on Eve, and had sent a single relay satellite. Placing it in a geo-stationary orbit over my base ensured coverage whenever I wanted to transmit science back home. It was a very active save, to the point most of my time was spent transmitting science from all my bases—even using Kerbal Alarm Clock (KAC) so I wasn’t checking on them until they were 95% full of science.

[Jupiter3927]

I do it mostly because it's cool.
You can timewarp from the satellite and watch everything move except the planet.
You can put a base in geostationary orbit over KSC and never have to worry about waiting for it to be in the right spot to launch there.

Synchronous orbits let you do things only a kerbal would do like trying to mine the flats of minmus from orbit.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1110217749
Since it's synchronous, the probe or base is going to pass over the same point every time it orbits.
Ike is in a synchronous orbit around Duna.

[Manwith Noname]

Originally posted by Azraelle:

...what purpose do they serve in-game?

It depends how you set your game up if it's "worth doing" or not. Once upon a time, Kerbin wasn't littered with comms towers, even now, you can disable them. In this instance, when you play with settings that require unmanned craft to have a comms link with KSC, a geostationary relay network can help with that. Though it doesn't need to be geostationary, people tend to use one because it's kind of a cool thing to do.