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It's been a while I’m designing some VTOL aircraft. I usually use tilting engines with the BG servos, the biggest challenge is attitude control. Using engines gimbal would help a lot here. Gimballing is automatic and works just fine when the engines are pointing backwards on level flight, but when I tilt the engines downwards for VTOL flight the gimballing gets all messy and doesn’t work the way it should. I know it can work pointing down if I set control to point up, like If I click “control from here” in a dorsal docking port, but then I loose situational awareness and it get’s really hard to fly as yaw and roll control switches place. Is there a way to manually edit gimballing to point the way I want?

I thought this might interest a few of the propeller veterans Here's a highlight I exported from last nights stream: Craft file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/dun4pe5g1xu632d/! TR6-SemiCyclicGimbal I - LiftTest.craft?dl=0 This started out as a PM with @Azimech and after some interesting ideas from @luizopiloto regarding using klaws and some TWR calculating wizardry by @SumGuy and a few others who popped up in stream, I've come up with that I might call the most ridiculous advanced full stock propeller to date. There's two main factors being used in each engine: (1)The two klaws tucked inside the cargo bays, and (2)the six klaws holding each fan blade. The klaws in the bay are used to add some extra sway to the engine while still being able to hold 250+ tons. They act as a "gimbal" of sorts letting the engine move left/right and up/down but without rotating. The klaws connected to each fan blade let the blade pivot around freely. This lets each blade change it's pitch depending on where it is in the spin cycle, tilting up when it's at the bottom and down when it's at the top like a swash plate. Since klaws don't rotate the angle of each blade is kept the same.

I have been messing with the Engine config files in my copy of KSP 1.2.2 with Real Solar System, Realism Overhaul, and Realistic Progression Zero mods installed, mostly to create fictional engines or engines that do not exist in currently available mods. However, I have not been able to add gimballing to an engine that previously had none. For example, I attempted to add gimbal to the RS-88 engine for an orbital launch vehicle using that to power its first stage and an AJ10 to power its second stage, but even after ~8 attempts at adding and modifying the ModuleGimbal, it still didn't work. What am I doing wrong? Here's the RS-88 code at the final attempt: RS88_Config.cfg - Google Drive

Hey! I made a shuttle and I was unsatisfied with the way the SRBs had no gimbals... so I introduce to you a way to get SRB gimbals! Here is the link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-wW3RB5gzgkMi00WVdkeWZTRVE Video of the gimbals in action: NOTE: The video above uses my Shuttle and I know that Shuttles fly into space but just for the purpose of time i separated the boosters and Fuel Tank and then began gliding the Shuttle. To install navigate to your KSP install folder then drag and drop the downloaded "GimballedKickback" into the "GameData" folder. You should now have a new kickback SRB listed in the VAB and SPH! Enjoy

So I've built myself my first "space ship". It's a MK3 core fuselage with 2.25m parts attached along the sides to create a wider base, the parts running "along" the main body. I've got the sides of those lined with Thud engines pointed "down" when it is sitting flat/ belly down to the planet surface, and an obscene number of landing struts to support it when it does touch down. The top of the vessel is also lined with parachutes for descent into any kind of atmosphere, though I think that engine braking can be pretty solid on most planets. My current mission is a trip to and from Duna with landings on Minmus and Ike to refuel before making the jump into Solar orbit to set up the transfers. What I'm bumping into is any tricks to manage the landings. My first thought was to simply tell the pilot to align the ship to the the "Radial" vector in the gimbal and hold that position on the way down. The problem is that I set the gimbal to measure relative to the surface, I lose the the Radial option. Usually when I do a "butt first" landing, I just tell my pilot to align the ship Retrograde and go from there, burning as needed to slow to a nice touch down. Last night I managed a landing "by hand" holding the artificial horizon steady and eyeballing the "translation" vectors to be sure I was coming "straight down". Eventually I'd love to master the landing of coming in at an angle, burning the belly engines just before landing to slow significantly, turning it flat, and then dropping down. For now I'm only as good as burning Retrograde until I come to a near stop, dropping straight at the surface, and flipping over to a Belly Flop before impact and burning the belly engines there.

Hey! I've got a problem with engine gimbal (AFAIK someone already noticed this problem). I need to set gimbal angle for each engine on vessel separately (so not with FlightCtrlState via OnAutopilotUpdate callback) via C# code. It works, when engines are shutted down, or activated via right-click or action groups. When I activate engine via stagging (space) or using function ModuleEngines.Activate() gimbal angles are being resseted to 0 and don't want to change. Is there any other way to activate engine via code and have working gimbal? Simmy.