Place-Anywhere 7 Linear RCS Port

[Lucky Spacer]

Does anyone use this part?  For some reason I thought it was omni-directional and I could use it to replace my handy dandy   RV-105 RCS Thruster Block .  I was completely wrong and I really screwed up my build using it. (Of course I did not figure this out until I had several rockets ready for refuel and realized I could not control my docking at all.) It really is just a one direction RCS port. So my question is when is this ever useful?

[SteveD80]

If they are well positioned I believe that they are supposed to work better on aircraft. I use them facing forward and reverse to augment those directions.

[Starhawk]

They have much lower drag than the RV-105's making them a better choice for smallish spaceplanes where drag matters a lot.

Happy landings!

[cantab]

Sometimes it just looks better.

It can be paired with a 4-way block to make a 5-way thruster, which is useful if you can only place RCS in twofold symmetry.

You can use them for primary propulsion, although you'll have to use RCS translation controls instead of standard throttle.

[Red Iron Crown]

There's a few benefits to using them:

- They have twice the thrust of the quad blocks, and weigh less

- They're less than half the cost of the quad blocks

- They make it easier to balance RCS translation, as they only thrust in one axis

- Their heat tolerance is way, way higher, so they can survive reentry on spaceplanes

They're not the best in every situation (for orbital stuff I prefer the quad blocks), but they are useful in many scenarios.

[Plusck]

1 hour ago, cantab said:

Sometimes it just looks better.

It can be paired with a 4-way block to make a 5-way thruster, which is useful if you can only place RCS in twofold symmetry.

You can use them for primary propulsion, although you'll have to use RCS translation controls instead of standard throttle.

Absolutely, yes. 2x symmetry with a block and a place-anywhere is a far more efficient use of space, money, mass and drag, is just as powerful as 4x thruster blocks (except for roll, but that tends to be the least useful use of RCS) and avoids lots of problems in part placement.

[moogoob]

Placement! Where might I place quad blocks on this thing?

I use them all the time.

[FancyMouse]

What's even better, 2x symmetry of {4-way + place-anywhere} gives a uniform 2kN to all 6 translation directions. Feels great for docking. Plus it looks really nice when you use offset gizmo to pull the place-anywhere a little bit outside.

[Geschosskopf]

11 hours ago, Lucky Spacer said:

Does anyone use this part?  ..... So my question is when is this ever useful?

The place-anywhere is about twice as powerful as the 4-way, but is only 1-way.  It's very useful in many situations, such as:

• Balancing RCS translational thrust when you're out of places to put 4-ways.  Then you can use the thrust limiter on the 1-way port to tweak thrust in a specific direction.
• Facing upwards on the top of a Gilly lander so you get down in a reasonable time without having to rotate nose-down and thrust at the ground.
• To stick all over a spaceplane (like on the angled leading edges of wings) when using a 4-way there would clip an exhaust into the wing and you don't want that for aesthetic / realism reasons even though it makes no difference to functionality.
• To give some extra vertical thrust to totally RCS-powered flitters on low-gravity planets.
• As substitutes for Vernor engines (not really done much any more now that we actually have Vernor engines).
• To make random steam jets coming from machinery in cinematographic videos.

 

[Blaarkies]

On 5/17/2016 at 11:44 PM, cantab said:

Sometimes it just looks better.

It can be paired with a 4-way block to make a 5-way thruster, which is useful if you can only place RCS in twofold symmetry.

You can use them for primary propulsion, although you'll have to use RCS translation controls instead of standard throttle.

Right-click the RCS port
Click "Show Actuation controls"
Set "Fore by throttle" to "On"

...now as long as the ship's RCS mode is toggled ON, those ports will thrust equivalent to your current throttle.

* The above text may or may not contain many or none naming errors. The poster is not responsible for any losses or damage caused by the bogus wording of this post.

Edited May 19, 2016 by Blaarkies

[Lucky Spacer]

Wow thank you all for these very useful answers.