Is it possible to use large engines for attitude control or translative vectoring?

[unphased]

Suppose I have a LARGE space station in a cubic configuration, where each end has thrusters in the usual configuration. This would mean that there are six sets of large engines pointing in every axial direction.

Consider also that large engines such as the 24-77 or LV909 or Mark 55 can be mounted at angles appropriate for attitude control use. (How practical this would be is another, separate, question)

Obviously there are significant hurdles to overcome in terms of spacecraft wobble, but is there a plugin or anything that can allow us to have some reasonable way to control such a craft using decent controls? It's simply not practical to be switching across the different command modules and stuff. Especially as that seems to clear out the target focus.

It would make it less time consuming to spin and dock massive craft. RCS thrusters are too weak!

[megaprime13]

I suggest modifying the RCS port config file to have more thrust. That would be a lot simpler.

[SmallChange]

That's a totally do-able project. There are some limitations/problems associated though, like you were saying.

Not sure if there are any mods available for this... I tend to play mostly stock. You can easily put 4 24-77s on the end of a large orange tank'd craft and test it out. One thing be be aware of, though, is that you will need to place the engines individually. This is because, if I recall correctly, there isn't a way to select a single item in the action groups if it was placed there using symmetry. Also, when setting up your action groups, opt for toggle instead of having on/off switching.

Also, if you want to try to make it even easier to control, you could even try remapping your action group keys onto the WASD, though I haven't tried that.

[Pyotor Gagarin]

Some people use the small "Rockomax 24-77" engines as large RCS thrusters. To do this you'll need to map them to control groups (and remember the numbers). You'll need six control groups for translation only. You would need four more for pitch and yaw, (and I guess roll control would have to be left out.)

Clearly, this will take some practice to be a preferable alternative to the regular RCS system. Good luck!

[DisarmingBaton5]

That's a totally do-able project. There are some limitations/problems associated though, like you were saying.

Not sure if there are any mods available for this... I tend to play mostly stock. You can easily put 4 24-77s on the end of a large orange tank'd craft and test it out. One thing be be aware of, though, is that you will need to place the engines individually. This is because, if I recall correctly, there isn't a way to select a single item in the action groups if it was placed there using symmetry. Also, when setting up your action groups, opt for toggle instead of having on/off switching.

Also, if you want to try to make it even easier to control, you could even try remapping your action group keys onto the WASD, though I haven't tried that.

You COULD just right-click the engines. Manual toggling (in real time, no action groups) ignores symmetry. It would be really annoying and difficult, though, and probably slower than just using rcs.

[Wait- Was That Important?]

If you hold ALT and use >, you can force physical timewarp.

If RCS is too slow even at 4x physical timewarp, I'm surprised your PC is still running with such a monster.

You could feasibly use the engines to change attitude, but it'd be dirty and quite wasteful.

[wbcundiff]

there is a throttle steering mod which will you can add to an engine cfg which will cause it to behave like rcs. I had some success with it in .19 but I haven't used it in .20.

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/18-2-throttle-steering/

[magnemoe]

Most interesting here is probably braking engines, have some forward facing 24-77 on action groups and you don't have to rotate to brake, having some 24-77 back in addition to the mainsail is an good idea to get more accuracy during orbital operations.

[Procyon]

I used to have a tug that had forward and reverse to make rendezvous easier, used action groups to set forward, reverse, and all stop. if the engines and action groups were configured correctly, I could see it being done

[unphased]

I used to know this, but must have forgotten. The action groups are clearly the way to go. It's not gonna be super straightforward (there will be a need to right click all the engine groups to verify youve got the right ones activated) but it should definitely help at least for doing something like braking for quick rendezvous (if I ever get that good).

Great tip on the physical time acceleration also. Forgot about that too for some reason, was using that last time too.