Multiple Hinges/Multiple conenections to parent part

[Mieszko]

In KSP you cannot link multiple parts to a parent part via a former part. The best example of this is hinges.

If you are trying to create an aircraft/spacecraft/anything that moves about a hinge (0-360 degrees) you are forced to use one hinge that actuates about the center of mass for best results. The issue here is that once your mass you are rotating becomes large enough, one hinge cannot handle the job. The aircraft/spacecraft will translate longitudinally about it's center out of control making a VTOL aircraft or X-Wing spacecraft unusable. If we could connect multiple hinges to a parent part it would solve this issue.

In the example of an X-Wing aircraft that folds we could attach one hinge to the aft of the wing-mount and one at the forward allowing the spacecraft to have solid joints at both it's extreme extensions of mass.

Thanks for the amazing game Squad! I really cannot wait for what you guys do next and I really hope you implement this fix!

Edited September 19, 2019 by Mieszko

[AHHans]

If I understand you correctly, then you want to use several hinges in parallel to share the (mechanical) load. You can do that by first placing the required (or wanted) number of hinges, then connecting the moving part to one of the hinges, and finally connecting the the free end of the other hinges to the moving part with regular struts. You'll have to make sure that all the hinges move synchronously, I'd suggest using a KAL-1000 to do that.

if you don't need to deal with large mechanical forces while the part is moving but have large forces while the moving joint is not supposed to move(*), then you can also engage the servo lock on the hinge (or whichever robotic part you use) and set appropriate autostruts on the non-robotic parts behind that. A locked robotic part allows autostruts to traverse the part, making for fairly sturdy and rigid structures.
(*) E.g. you have folding wings, that you only (un)fold in microgravity in orbit or in low-load flying situations. I've made several folding-wing aircraft that can fold their wings to fit into a fairing and behind a heat-shield, but can unfold them and then do e.g. aerobatics in Eve's atmosphere.

I believe that KSP is programmed in a way that allowing parts to have multiple parent parts would require a fairly major re-programming of the underlying code. So I don't expect that to happen to KSP 1.

[KerikBalm]

I believe you can get around this with struts.

If I understand what you are saying, I had similar problems trying to make a deployable crane.

One piston was too weak and wobbly:

So I made 3, all linked by struts:

and various variation to try to get it to work

It sort of did, but then I determined that I'd need multiple telescoping pistons strutted to each other to get rigidity for the horizontal section too, part count went up, and I had to part clip a lot to get ti to fit in a mk3 bay, so I just abandoned the mobile crane idea, at least for higher gravity worlds with atmospheres.

 

[Geonovast]

@Mieszko There's a mod that helps take care of this you might be interested in.  It's not perfect, but it would be helpful in conjunction with some additional strutting as mentioned above.

 

[AHHans]

@Geonovast: As it says in the ReCoupler description:

Quote

Not a bug, necessarily, but it only works for stack attach nodes.

That makes it a bit tricky to use with wings that don't have stack attach nodes. (Not impossible though.)

[Geonovast]

7 minutes ago, AHHans said:

@Geonovast: As it says in the ReCoupler description:

That makes it a bit tricky to use with wings that don't have stack attach nodes. (Not impossible though.)

They do if you install Superfluous Nodes.  Hinges too.

(Shameless plug)

[AHHans]

1 minute ago, Geonovast said:

They do if you install Superfluous Nodes.  Hinges too.

Is "Superfluous Nodes" another mod? Hinges already have attachment nodes, so that side should be fine.
(I would try attaching a Cubic Octagonal Strut to the wing part and move it so that one of its nodes faces the free node of the hinge. But for the time being I'm quite happy with autostruts and locking.)

[Geonovast]

6 minutes ago, AHHans said:

Is "Superfluous Nodes" another mod?

Mine, yeah.  Adds tons of nodes, including additional ones to the hinges.

I've been using it for almost a year, so I tend to forget what nodes are stock!

 

[AHHans]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

Mine, yeah.  Adds tons of nodes, including additional ones to the hinges.

Ah, thanks. (So the search function of the forums is not too user friendly, the one important option is at the bottom of the list.)

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

I've been using it for almost a year, so I tend to forget what nodes are stock!