SM-25 service module can't be used for fuel (won't feed)

[Dunbaratu]

How are you meant to use the SM-25 service module part?  It claims to be good for putting fuel inside it.  No it isn't.  Because if you attach fuel tanks to the interior attachment nodes inside it , then attach an engine to the bottom of the service module, that engine does not have access to that fuel and is shown as being out of fuel.  The system doesn't seem to see that fuel as counting as being in the same stack as the engine and it won't feed to it.  There are no rightclick options for "enable crossfeed" or anything like that either.

[klesh]

8 hours ago, Steven Mading said:

How are you meant to use the SM-25 service module part?  It claims to be good for putting fuel inside it.  No it isn't.  Because if you attach fuel tanks to the interior attachment nodes inside it , then attach an engine to the bottom of the service module, that engine does not have access to that fuel and is shown as being out of fuel. 

 

 

I'm not experiencing that at all:

 

 

Can we see a screenshot of what your setup looks like?

[Dunbaratu]

My screenshot looked identical to yours and it had no fuel feed.

Then I detached and re-attached the engine in the same spot and it worked.

Then I noticed - there's two green attachment nodes at the bottom of the service module in exactly the same location, one is a bigger green ball and the other a smaller one - but they are in exactly the same location so I have no idea how to tell which one I'm connecting to.

As far as I can tell, one of those two has the fuel feed and the other does not - even though there's nothing the player can do to tell it to pick one over the other.  That's really bad design.

 

[klesh]

Interesting.  I cant remember whether my pic has the central tanks attached to the top or the bottom of SM-25.

I’ll have a closer look this morning... okay, I just had a look and I sort of see what you were seeing, but I'm still seeing fuel flow with all the nodes.

 

There are 5 small nodes on the inside of the SM-25.  These all have fuel flow to the engine for me.  They are easiest to see with something attached to the top and bottom of the SM-25 itself:

 

 

If you remove the parts attached to the top and bottom of the part on the exterior, you get the larger 2.5m nodes that will show up.  They're so big and so close to the interior storage area, that they bleed through:

 

The thing is, those larger nodes (which do result in covering the smaller internal central lower node), cannot be attached to through the body of the SM-25. The can only be attached to on the exterior top and bottom.  In the above picture, I cannot attach a tank to the inside central top node, because there is no interior node there (see first picture).  I can put a tank on the internal central lower node, but it is actually the smaller node seen in pic 1 and not the larger, bleed-through node.  Since all of the nodes in pic 1 have fuel flow for me, I can't figure out how you managed to have no fuel flow.

 

Edited April 29, 2018 by klesh

[schwank]

Hi everyone, I also am having this problem.  Very difficult to solve, I can't figure it out.  I made an album of the problem step by step.

SM-25 Fuel Problems

Edited May 2, 2018 by schwank

[Mortimer Kerman]

Use a pipe

[Bej Kerman]

On 1/29/2020 at 2:19 PM, Mortimer Kerman said:

Use a pipe

Yep. Commenting to bring more attention to this as no-one who doesn't asparagus uses the fuel lines.

[basic.syntax]

Another workaround: Surface attach.

The "Acapello" stock craft SM-25 is packed with FL100 tanks, with the first using surface attach, the rest stacked on the first one's attachment node. 

It was a frustrating experience working with the attachment nodes, b/c the VAB editor can show fuel flow, but then you take it to the pad and... no fuel.