self assembling station

[Nuke]

so heres the deal. i want to build a big centrifuge station. ive built many but this time im doing it a bit differently. rather than making one big launch (which i find would be somewhat impractical irl) the station comes in 6 identical segments and a 7th hub segment each on their own rocket. the segments fit just fine in the largest payload fairing. but the hub was problematic in that packaging the individual spokes would require a docking drone of some sort. but with the robotics parts available i thought i do that differently too. so i tried to make a self assembling hub. using one of the engine bulkheads in a 6x1 config, i placed a robotic arm in the center and 6 identical spoke segments. the arm connects to one of the spokes with small docking ports, it then undocks the spoke from the bulkhead and installs it at one of the docking ports on the hub (a tweakscaled hex probe core with 6 docking ports around it).

so the way it works is ive used a kal-1k to set the target rotations of the arm to dock with any one of the spokes at 3 different positions. the first is the default storage position. the second aligns the small docking port with the side port on the spoke, and the 3rd moves the whole spoke to align the the medium docking port to its position on the hub. the cool thing is i can use this same sequence on all 6 spokes. i have a second kal-1k that manages the rotation of the arm at 60 degree intervals, and also handles the undock commands. the first port undocks just fine. but once the spoke is undocked you can no longer have any command over it even though you have at least one docking port on it at any given time. so you cant order the small port to automatically undock from the spoke side once it is placed. you can undock from the arm side, however you need to manually click the "make primary docking node" button at the correct point in the sequence (this seems to take the place of the undock button when you have more than one docking port connected simultaneously). i kind of want to automate that as well, but that command is not available in the action groups system at all. 

its somewhat inconvenient to have to click that button at the right point during the sequence, failure to do so tens to permanently bend the parts or rip the ports off. ive put an idle period in the sequence to give me time to hit the button.  it works and i still get the benefit of having a bunch of perfectly aligned spokes without a docking maneuver. but i have ideas for other self assembling structures. anyone got any ideas?