Do I need docking port(s) in my hangar ?

[Mapoko]

Hello,

I am working on my big rig design before I chop it and sent it to space.

I will include 2 mk3 docks and 1 custom 5m one.

My question is : Do I need docking ports inside, so I can dock my smaller vessels inside, close and then head to next location or I can simply park them, close and "drag" them with me without them disassembling inside or breaking my dock ?

Because if they are not docked the are not counted as the same ship, right ?

I am using KAS/KIS, so I can put a strut or 2 to stabilize them, but won't that make them a part of the ship as well ?

For example I am not using RCS, but a system of winches (KAS) to drag my parts dock to dock on assembly, including some space walk for my kerbals (50m range).

It will not be so narrow, so the doors will not touch each other it is just fused that way for my base design.

Also, if I do not dock them, but simply wrap them inside will that help or hinder the part count FPS drop issue ?

Edited April 4, 2015 by Mapoko
Answered

[pincushionman]

If they aren't physically connected, they'll collide with the ship during normal flight and pass through during warp/when out of physics range.

[TheXRuler]

I agree, it is basically unfeasible to "drag" ships around. There is a very high probability of spontaneous disassembly and also, as pincushionman has said, whenever you timewarp the ships inside the bay will drift through the cargo bays because the game puts all vessels on rails (this makes it possible for the game to speed up time by 100000x but also means that there will be no physics any vessel at that time. Also, not only will your ships drift apart, but because physics is reactivated when you go off-rails parts that are clipping inside each other will violently push against each other, tear apart and crash into other parts resulting in sudden splodification.

I'm afraid KAS Struts will not work, as they can only be attached to the same ship. The only KAS part I know of that can be used to connect seperate ships is the pipe (or rather two connected pipe end points). However I have on multiple occasions had pipe connections produce spontaneous dissasembly or phantom forces that will tear literally anything apart (I had docked a 300t Spaceplane to a 600t Station and it ripped it to shreds) so I try to keep refueling time to a minimum as I always feel that pipe connections are pretty much kraken bait.

As far as I know the only thing that really impacts FPS is the amount of parts loaded in the physics engine. Ie 40 700part vessels in kerbin orbit will increase your loading time since they will massively increase the size of your persistent.sfs, they will however not impact your FPS. If you now load one of these 700 part vessels into the physics engine it will tank your FPS (unless your have an absolute monster of a rig). Keeping part count to a minimum is I think most important, and I have made it something of a permanent challenge to myself to only ever use the absolute minimum number of parts on any vessel which is to remain in orbit. I see you are already using quite a few mods so I might not be showing you anything new but you migh want to check out [thread=59005]Active Texture Management[/thread] it might not help very much with FPS but it will massively reduce the RAM usage, meaning you can use more mods alltogether.

[Mapoko]

Speaking of KAS, I am planning to attach 4 cables with winches and use it to dock without RCS, just using the 4 winch engines. I see 50m limitation, but no idea of cable strength.

Anyway maybe instead of struts it may work with winches ?

Or simply use winches AND a docking port. The problem is that I want to store different ships in the cargo bays, but they will have different sizes of ports. I can put Dock sr (2.5) and normal dock (1.25) on the 2 sides, but ...

Also I have not explored KAS's options, but I highly doubt I can rearrange ports.

[TheXRuler]

Mhhh, thats a really interesting idea. I have never tried anything like that, however Scott Manley did something similar in his

. Just skip to 8:30, thought that might give you an idea how well it works to connect ships via winches. I would say it works in principal, however I assume it lacks the precision necessarry for interplanetary transfers.

[Pecan]

If ships are within 2.5km their parts count in the, er, part count so you'll get the same lag. As you'll understand from all the above it's also not practical to just drag them with another.

Have a look at the Hanger mod which seems to provide exactly the functionality you are after. You can store vehicles "inside" the hanger but they are really removed from the game, so their parts no longer exist and aren't counted. Later, when you want them back, they are recreated from the .craft file, so everything is back as it should be.

[Mapoko]

Not sure how Hangar will be reuseable and realistic. I am planning to work on my stuff in the hangar using EVA and KAS/KIS, like real mechanics.

And my winch system is actually plain cables and I will just EVA, attach hook points, then fly around, connecting the 4 cables and once it is done just use all my winches at once.

It is much more complicated than RCS, but hey, I need some life in the game. Also I hope on good alignment.

10-X-01

I have this setup on both vessels.

1=winch 0 =hook point. X is the docking port.

[moronwrocket]

RoverDude added a new Scrap ability to engineers in MKS/OKS, that allows them to destroy child nodes on vessels. You could use this on a station to remove parts you don't need any more like RCS or wheels.

[Mapoko]

afaik I can remove RCS with KAS as well, but not large parts.

P.S. Excuse me for my lack of knowledge for some stuff, but I went from vanilla to several mods, so I am still learning stuff.

On the Mk3 I am thinking about normal 1.5m on both front and end sides and 2x 0.675 on the floor for vertical docking of small crafts.

--------------------------------

[n1]e m p t y s p a c e [n2]

------[s1]----------[s2]-------

So if I have large, but not long enough to fill all the mk3 dock I can use s2 for a small craft

Maybe I should add another 1 or 2 small one between s1 and s2, so there may be the option to dock :

4 small ones,

1 medium + 2 small ones,

2 mediums (n1 and n2),

1 large + 1 small

1 Huge

Or any other variation.

The mk3 is 4 sections long.

But having so many docking ports adds up lots of parts. I am testing if I can move around winches with EVA or they are static. I can move the attachment node, so those will be moved around to spare my CPU/GPU.

It is almost 200 parts with only the basic design, but when I add small crafts with science and other stuff it may blow up to 500+

Also on the "bottom" there is 5M docking port that in the future may help me fuse 2 rigs like this if my CPU/GPU allows. I will use the texture compression mod, ofc.

Basically I am trying to keep the large ports out in the open, but small ones inside docks.

[Mapoko]

Seems like I can not put (well, I can, but they are not visible) dp-jr on the floor of cargo bay mk3. Any way to do it and be sure to be dockable ?

[Kerba Fett]

Using winches to pull a ship to the docking port sounds like a dangerous idea. You have pretty much no directional control and no way to slow down when you get close.

If you're using multiple winches and it starts to drift to one side your only option would be to pull faster with the winch on the other side. Of course that just means your docking ports are going to hit that much harder.

[Mapoko]

Actually, the KAS tether have 2 states : docked and undocked. I did the foolish mistake to use the docked one and it linked the 2 ships, so when I accelerated they started dancing and rolling around themselves and when I disconnected 1 of them it did slingshot pretty far, but later I had no problem with the (undocked) option.

I pulled it close (slowly!) then attached the 2nd tether and pulled it in (just for the experiment. I could just dock anyway).

But the experience with the (docked) option may work if I manage to pull the stuff inside, then attach 1 tether and set it to "docked" or use a strut. Not as elegant as docking, but still.

[Wanderfound]

It's going to be much, much simpler to just do this conventionally with docking ports and RCS.