Captain_Brian

I've always generally just put 1 of everything on a Science Jr. along with a ladder and saved it as a sub assembly to use on all my craft. (Usually with 3 to 4 of these subassemblies on my ships.) Recently, I figured out that only the Science Jr. and Goo Canister actually need to be scrubbed before reusing them, whereas everything else can be reused indefinitely. So should I just have multiple Science Jr's and Goo Canisters and only 1 set of the other instruments on my command pod, or is there a reason to have multiple ones of them too? I generally bring all my science back instead of transmitting, in case that's relevant.

Cool, I'll try that! Thanks again!

Cool! I haven't really messed with it much so I didn't realize that. Though I might still put some low power engines on the tops of my refineries so I can get that "Blade Runner" look with flames shooting out the tops.

NecroBones is the winner! The problem was with the Separatrons causing the fuel tank to be destroyed! Here's a screenshot of the rocket, and the .ship file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/u8f0292yo1nsg0x/LUNAR%20Mk1%28Broken%29.craft Thanks everyone! Great advice all around and good things to keep in mind when designing a rocket! BTW, anyone know how I change this to "Answered"? Thanks again!

@NecroBones: I used 2 per booster, with 8 boosters that would be 16 hitting directly at the same tank so that could very well be the issue too. I'll have to try skipping activating them and seeing what happens. @Laie: I'll be sure to post the file later! Though it seems like Diazo might be on the right track as to the cause. I really am surprised that a fuel tank can't withstand the force of an engine it was designed to connect to. :/ While I tried reinforcing the main fuel stack with girders and struts, I didn't try reinforcing the engine to it as well. Ah, this is a good test to try! I'll let you know how it goes. I did have struts on those two tanks to the SRBs, I actually had struts on all the tanks to the SRBs to be on the safe side.

I'll have to try to check the F3 window when I get home later. I forgot what the hotkey was for that. I did run it about 5 or 6 times and looked closely from every angle and looked like a completely clean separation before the gravity turn. The thing is that the mainsail is actually positioned at the 2/3rds point of the boosters, not even with them. When the boosters separate the Separatrons cause them to "flower" open and away very nicely. What is really odd is that the fuel tanks don't explode, they just get destroyed. I've had tons of collisions in the past, and they're almost always accompanied by a bunch of explosions. I checked for recursive symmetry as that has caused problems with a few designs in the past, but I couldn't find anything.

Alternatively, I wonder if this method could be used to power a kethane production plant on a dark side of a moon/planet? You could have engine flames firing straight up in the air as part of the mining facility. If it isn't efficient enough, I think I might mod in a low thrust/high power generation engine just for this purpose. It's just a cool concept.

I don't have a screenshot, but it is a pretty simple rocket so here is the layout: [Lander] [struts] [With 4x thruster blocks] [FAILURE] [DESTROYED] [DESTROYED] x8 [Attached to Above Large x200-32 Tank, Separation For Boosters at 10km] x8 [s1SRB-KD23k Large SFB, Attached to Radial Decouplers above, with proper Seperatron 1's for clean separation and struts for stability] [iNTACT?] For some reason as soon as I separate the boosters, the 2 fuel tanks right above the mainsail fall apart (they don't explode) and then the mainsail floats away from the rest of my vehicle. I've tried taking the entire rocket apart and putting it back together, but it still does the same thing. At one point, instead of the fuel tanks falling apart, the mainsail "stretched" and then detached from the main body upon booster separation. I've also tried reinforcing the fuel tanks and engine with girders and struts, but it didn't make a difference. Any ideas?