Building a space ring

[Captain Sierra]

How on earth do you assemble a ring shaped space station? Or at least one using octagonal symmetry. Note, I am not downloading the ring station parts (there already are some). My new Horizon station is going to be built ring structure but I don't know how to get it to work . Can anyone explain it? because I just can't get the stuff to connect when I try.

[NGTOne]

I can help with this one. First off, you can't build a "true" ring in KSP - what you CAN do, though, is approximate it with symmetry and a wee bit of clipping.

The Stanford Torus Project

This is, as far as I'm aware, the biggest attempt at a ring-shaped station on the forum. If you want to build it as one piece on the ground, you're gonna need some extra-strong struts. And a knowledge of suspension bridge construction.

If you want to build it in orbit, you need each ring "segment" to have two docking ports, one at either end, angled slightly (so as to form the ring shape). Keep in mind that assembling it on orbit will result in a wobbly structure, no matter what you do, and might end up tearing itself to pieces no matter what you do because of the structural stresses.

[Captain Sierra]

I was aiming for much smaller. Also, does clipping connect or otherwise fuse parts together?

[NGTOne]

Nope - you need struts for that, and lots of them. And some sort of structure to prevent lateral flexing (even if it's stable as a ring, it might still flex up and down and tear itself apart that way).

[frizzank]

Build small arched sections and put docking ports on the ends. Then piece them togeather in orbit. Holding shift while rotating a part in the VAB will rotate it 5 degrees at a time. Build 8 45 degree sections and you can make a decent ring.

[Mygnol]

HOCGaming has several ring designs you might want to check out on his channel.

He's trying to attain artificial gravity using stock parts, but it should give you a general idea.

[Captain Sierra]

okay, I got something pieced together right now. The plan is to build the entire Horizon station and then use subassembly manager to take the pieces, save them, and launch them separately. The ring(s) WILL be going up as one piece. Also, they need to be functional. This is a refueling station and i need docking ports, lots of them.

EDIT:

Note, I am using the KW rocketry medium struts to hold this thing together. Sheer strength of 42000.

[Captain Sierra]

This is Horizon Station and is what I will be assembling.

It is planned to go up in 4 launches. Some of it needs a little reworking and most of the struts between the two rings will be replaced with Quantum struts (because they are going up separately).

[NGTOne]

Docking that is gonna be rather painful, methinks, just in terms of getting the alignment right.

[Captain Sierra]

Yeah, stuff has to go up perfectly to get the Quantum struts to link the rings together. The main ring is also gonna have a piece on top that will decouple and jettison via escape tower and it will hold it structurally during launch against G forces and Kerbin gravity.

EDIT: That means I need RCS so . . . ****, more parts

[bobcook]

How on earth do you assemble a ring shaped space station? Or at least one using octagonal symmetry.

I found

when I was trying to make mine. It was pretty educational although it didn't work exactly like that for me. I couldn't get the "final link" to connect together in any way that was stable enough to fly. Instead, I built this station with rings, using similar techniques, using all stock parts:

I launched each ring separately then linked them together with other pieces. That particular station took something like eight or ten separate launches. I actually find using multiple launches to build things in LKO an interesting and fun exercise.

[allmhuran]

There are three ways to create ring structures:

1) Not-actually-enclosed rings: This is just something that looks like a ring but is in fact only connected on one end (there is a split in the ring somewhere). This can be structurally sound if you have enough arms supporting the ring, but large accelerations might make the split visible as the unconnected ends wobble independently. The loose ends can be clipped through each other to hide the split if you're willing to risk it.

2) Strut-connected rings: As above, but with struts to hold the split ends together such that they cannot wobble independently. As above, clipping can be used to hide the split.

3) Docking-port-connected rings: This approach will create a structurally complete ring with no splits and no clipping required, but it is very hard to build because you have to get the docking ports facing each other perfectly.

Whether you're building a large ring or a small one, the best approach is to actually build the entire ring in the VAB. Obviously this is required for options 1 and 2, but it is actually also the best way to do option 3.

Then for a small ring you just launch it all at once. The docking ports that are facing each other and very close together at the split faces of the ring will immediately dock together when physics kicks in at launch, closing the structure.

For a large ring that cannot be launched in one piece, save the complete vessel (with the full ring), and then split the ring into pieces by loading up that vessel, removing parts to leave just one section of the ring, and saving each part of the split ring as a separate craft. This will help make sure that, when reassembled, the docking ports are actually correctly aligned.

NOTE: Building a docking-port-connected ring can require a very large amount of patient fiddling in the VAB in order get the docking ports lined up just right because, rememeber, the docking ports can't actually be connected in the vab to form a closed loop... that would violate the tree-structure nature of craft assemblies.

Examples: The first two are closed via docking ports. The third is simply clipped and strutted:

Edited July 31, 2013 by allmhuran

[NGTOne]

There are three ways to create ring structures:

1) Not-actually-enclosed rings: This is just something that looks like a ring but is in fact only connected on one end (there is a split in the ring somewhere). This can be structurally sound if you have enough arms supporting the ring, but large accelerations might make the split visible as the unconnected ends wobble independently. The loose ends can be clipped through each other to hide the split if you're willing to risk it.

2) Strut-connected rings: As above, but with struts to hold the split ends together such that they cannot wobble independently. As above, clipping can be used to hide the split.

3) Docking-port-connected rings: This approach will create a structurally complete ring with no splits and no clipping required, but it is very hard to build because you have to get the docking ports facing each other perfectly.

Whether you're building a large ring or a small one, the best approach is to actually build the entire ring in the VAB. Obviously this is required for options 1 and 2, but it is actually also the best way to do option 3.

Then for a small ring you just launch it all at once. The docking ports that are facing each other and very close together at the split faces of the ring will immediately dock together when physics kicks in at launch, closing the structure.

For a large ring that cannot be launched in one piece, save the complete vessel (with the full ring), and then split the ring into pieces by loading up that vessel, removing parts to leave just one section of the ring, and saving each part of the split ring as a separate craft. This will help make sure that, when reassembled, the docking ports are actually correctly aligned.

NOTE: Building a docking-port-connected ring can require a very large amount of patient fiddling in the VAB in order get the docking ports lined up just right because, rememeber, the docking ports can't actually be connected in the vab to form a closed loop... that would violate the tree-structure nature of craft assemblies.

Examples: The first two are closed via docking ports. The third is simply clipped and strutted:

-IMGSNIP-

Dude, awesome mass relay.

[Captain Sierra]

I'm playing around with the design for the Horizon station. I will be doing it as strut connected and launching the whole ring at once.