How do you handle radial decoupling?

[katateochi]

For me the sepatrons are mounted on the core.

http://i1383.photobucket.com/albums/ah315/Yukon0009/screenshot20864_zpskgpgzy3g.png

I also put sepratrons on the core rather than on what's being jettisoned. That way you don't have to take into account where the COM of detached part will be (also in the past I've had problems with sepratrons on the detached part causing damage to the main craft as they pass it). I also adjust the amount of solid fuel in the sepratrons so they just give a very short burst.

edit

and these days with the gizmos; placing them is much easier, plus you can recess them inside the tank which looks nicer.

Edited February 27, 2015 by katateochi

[cantab]

I use the bug fix mod. I generally don't need sepratrons.

[ColourOfFire]

With sepatrons I find the best setup is the decouplers high up, bottom of the booster just below the core, sepatrons just above the decoupler and burning a bit upward so the boosters slowly fall away from the core instead of being shot all over the place. This setup never gave me any problems.

[Red Iron Crown]

SpaceY has a clever part for this issue, a radial decoupler that has a built in separation SRB (with thrust that doesn't damage other parts).

When I play pure stock I use a sepratron or two.

[RainDreamer]

Spin the rocket! For funsies and it actually throws the radial parts away.

[SRV Ron]

Keep in mind that you can control the forces of the Sepratrons by tweaking their thrust and fuel loads.

[Scotius]

^ That's what i do Spinning the rocket, i mean.

[Laie]

Spin the rocket! For funsies and it actually throws the radial parts away.

That's one solution. The other, don't stage too early. I find that a lot of the torque that makes boosters collide with the main stack is from the sudden release of tension when the boosters burn out. Give it a second or two to settle, that won't ruin your dV.

Third, what maltesh said: see to it that the boosters are mounted at a distance to begin with. TT-70s help a lot, or use some other structural piece. Strutting also becomes easier if you have a sizeable gap to work in.

[Dazpoet]

And here I was thinking I was the only one with this problem

I just installed the stock bug fixes and got the SpaceY decouplers with built in separatrons (this sounds like the best idea in the world, why isn't it standard?) and will try both out tonight

[SelectHalfling0]

Speaking of radial decoupling, did Squad say they were going to fix the problem with radial decouplers power? I wish they had the explosive force to destroy buildings that it says they have in their description.

[magnemoe]

That's one solution. The other, don't stage too early. I find that a lot of the torque that makes boosters collide with the main stack is from the sudden release of tension when the boosters burn out. Give it a second or two to settle, that won't ruin your dV.

Third, what maltesh said: see to it that the boosters are mounted at a distance to begin with. TT-70s help a lot, or use some other structural piece. Strutting also becomes easier if you have a sizeable gap to work in.

Good advice, if you use mechjeb you can always add an fraction of a second as delay. For serial stages you want no delay but for boosters it makes sense.

Bosters will bend some, the push will be bottom out and top inn. After burned out they will be neutral or even push top out a bit if you have a fin on them.

[Madrias]

Sepratrons and chutes. On smaller craft, spin-dumping does the job.

[Randazzo]

Claw's Stock Bugfixes are your friend! Radial decoupling that doesn't come back to bite you in the butt

I've probably downloaded this at some point then, I don't know what else would make them act differently. There are no modded parts on those screens aside from the main stack tank texture.

[Nemrav]

me, I just use structural plates as booster deflectors (usually engine shields) but when the booster smashes the top, I'l also add some to the main fuselage...

[michaelhester07]

I build custom radial decouplers out of surface mount plate and a stack decoupler. This has a benefit of being able to surface attach multiple boosters to the same decoupler and no strong ejection force so it just falls away. I use the girder in early careers to supply this benefit. have to make sure the decoupler is attached correctly or it doesn't decouple.

[Varsi]

Just so everyone knows what this is about, here's a quick video.

I do agree that stock bug fix mod by Claw is excellent in many ways. Even with it I do still use sepratrons since it's just so beautiful.

[Norcalplanner]

Claw's stock bug fixes plus SpaceY radial decouplers equals clean separation of 5m asparagus stages FTW.

[Renegrade]

For small rockets, I rely on the ejection force of the decoupler, plus consideration of the CoM's approximate location (we need better tools for that - like something that can tell you the CoM/DCoM of the currently held group of parts or somesuch), and Claw's fixes. For larger units, I employ seps or snubs.

I also happen to have a simple fix of my own that resolves the decoupler issue that requires sep use~

I use Claw's fix for the decouplers, so they actually work correctly, but I also use seps to push then away for safety's sake. I still find it ridiculous that the decoupler bug has been left in the last 3 version of KSP, even when there is a community made mod that fixes it (which shouldn't even have to exist), and it still hasn't been fixed by the devs. Apparently it's about 20 lines of code to fix it. *facepalm*

It's worse than that - Claw is a moderator, not just any old community member. The forum moderation team is ahead of the development team in terms of squishing bugs >.>

If that bug isn't fixed in stock in 1.0, I will be very angry with Squad, and I will write them a letter telling them how angry I am.

The little ones called Snubrutrons are from Ven's Stock Part Revamp; cute little things

I adore the snub-o-trons. Not only are they cute, but also give you a lot more flexibility in terms of placement.

[nholzric]

Guys, there is a known issue with radial decouplers that's been present for a few versions now. It makes whatever it is attached to them rotate inwards at the top and hit the rocket nose-first. Unsure how Randazzo manages to dodge it, but it's a thing that happens. Separatrons do help, but it's annoying nonetheless, and very much not working as intended.

In fact, not only is it officially acknowledged to be a bug, but there's even a community fix available for download. Look up Claw's Stock Bugfix Modules. Even if you run no other mods at all, those are absolutely worth having precisely because they fix annoyances such as this, and others

AAAaaahh, such a relief!

I recently started a new career mode and my basic little launcher worked the first couple of times but then the solid boosters started taking out my center stage. I tried moving the decouplers up (silly me thinking about physics) but my eventual solution was to hang the solid's all the way off the main stage so there was only a decoupler's height worth of overlap! Ugly as heck but it solved the problem. I'm so glad this is a bug, it was very frustrating! (Stream of consciousness - I haven't seen any "random failure" threads in a while)

Edited February 27, 2015 by nholzric

[Renegrade]

Stock Bug Fix fixes the problem, but it also fixes the "feature", where the decoupler applies no force, if the booster is strutted to the rocket in a certain way. For me, the fix is worse than the bug, because radial decouplers without any ejection force are almost always a better choice.

I fixed your quotation mark placement bug

If you liked that old "feature", you can use my version of the radial decoupler fix (it's below, in my sig), as it just nullifies EjectionForce for those parts entirely. It's a simple MM patch fix with two versions: a blanket one that hits all AnchoredDecoupler decouplers, and a second one that's specific to most of the radial decouplers in stock. The first always catches everything, but it can also break certain parts in mods.

Normally I'd consider my fix inferior to Claw's, but it seems to actually fit your requirements better.

(I'm gonna go and add that missing part to the specific-parts version now....)

[keeper]

That is very interesting putting the SRBs on the main ship, nice

I usually put 4 SRBs per item, on the outside angled slightly inwards so as to thrust it away from the ship without damaging other stages.

Also parachutes deploy I am playing with stage recovery mod.

Im such a cheapskate my 2nd, 3rd etc stages have retro SRBs so as most everything will fall back down.

[SpenSpaceCorp]

With all these apparent issues with radial decouplers, I simply have Jeb, Bill, and Bob each lean out of a window and hold onto a booster. Of course, when it is spent, they simply shove it away! easy as that!

[GreeningGalaxy]

SpaceY's combo sepratron/decouplers are a nice brute-force solution to this problem, as are the big beefy sepratrons that also come with the mod. I've personally never been terribly happy with decoupler forces - I don't have time for boosters that are just going to sort of slide off the edge of my ship, I generally need them gone now when I press the staging button. Stock sepratrons are okay, but I'm a much bigger fan of MRS Flingatrons or all the nifty things SpaceY has to offer.

[MGCJerry]

Edit the parts file and give them an ejection force of 0 so they just fall off and don't do that stupid "hit center stack" crap. Also eliminates the need for additional parts because I run a limited part count.

[PB666]

Specifically, when you have boosters connected on the sides of the rocket, do you ever run into a problem where they crash into the next/middle stage?

If so, how did you deal with this?

I personally put one of those Separatrons at the top and have them fire.

If there are 3 or more boosters I strut connect the bottom of the boosters. This helps a little. You can use the offset radial decouplers (TT70).

I have had mixed success with sepratrons sometimes the middle section explodes the second the sepratrons fire. so . . . . .

Oh and probably the most important, the center of gravity of the booster should not be above the decoupler, if the CoG is above the push out is on the bottom and pushes in at the top.

If the bottom of the boosters extend past the main engines, attach the booster CoG a little bit below the decoupler and when it fires it will push the top a little out.

Also you might want to cut mains down to 50-75% during the booster eject, this decreases the collision velocity.