Hi everyone
I'm relatively new to the game and currently struggling with building any kind of simple rocket containing side boosters. I'm not trying to do anything extravagant now, just trying to get a good launch into equatorial orbit. I seem to have two problems that I can't completely solve.
Problem 1: After turning east after liftoff and turning on SAS-prograde the rocket deviates from its heading and heads off-course quickly resulting in a predicted orbit not 0 degree inclination. This issue doesn't occur if I remove the boosters completely, showing that the side boosters are the problem. I'm 99% sure I don't have any asymmetry in the design.
Problem 2: Sometimes the boosters wobble after launch causing all sorts of problems, sometimes catastrophic.
Here's what I've already tried:
- Playing around with exact position of radial decouplers on the main stage, and the position of the boosters on the decouplers. I can sometimes mitigate the issue of wobbling but it's counter-intuitive since in the picture below I have everything seemingly "centred" so it should be ok??? Yet there's still wobbling.
- Moving booster orientation from N/S to E/W (that shouldn't make any difference right??)
- Removing fins from main stage (doesn't help)
- Changing solid boosters to liquid ones (same issue with course deviation)
- Adding struts to connect the booster pairs together with 2x symmetry (no matter how many struts I add there's still a significant problem, should I connect struts to the main stage or just between the boosters)
- Adding launch stability enhancers (doesn't help at all)
Any advice appreciated. Really getting frustrating since this issue never seems to come up in videos of other people using them.
Here's a picture:
