The Grabber Concept [Now with pictures!!]

[LazerEagle1]

Hello, Lazer here, with a new concept straight from the recesses of my brain.

Well, we all have guys who get stuck right? I have a pod floating in the middle of the ocean, and a ship orbiting endlessly around Kerbin.

I was thinking, how could I get those back? I looked at the Landing Gear, and didn\'t see a landing strut, I saw a claw. That\'s right. You see, you can rotate parts now, if you didn\'t know. When you\'re placing a part, use WASDQE to rotate it, hold Shift for finer adjustments. I used this to create a 3 armed claw that could hopefully pick up a command module. Well, how should I test it if I\'m such a horrible pilot? I put a body with 3 fuel tanks on the sides, I put the claw on the bottom. Then I attached a decoupler to the bottom. After the decoupler is the command module. I set the staging so the rockets launch, then the command module detaches, and falls into the claw. I used this to check if it could successfully hold a CM. It worked, well, mostly. I had no control over the rockets because the CM wasn\'t attached, but it stayed in the claw! If you wanna try it out, here\'s the file.

EDIT: SCREENSHOTS!

In this one, the decoupler\'s actually split, so the CM is resting in the claw.

[LazerEagle1]

Now with screenshots!

[RedDwarfIV]

Socially Awkward Penguin moment...

This has been done many times before...

[sal_vager]

It may have been done, but it\'s still nice to see people try these things, the new ability to tilt parts makes it far too easy though, it\'s to late now to show off my nail biting flight to rescue a crew on the surface of the Mun as the tricks I had to do with the cart exploit will just be seen as old hat now.

[RedDwarfIV]

It may have been done, but it\'s still nice to see people try these things, the new ability to tilt parts makes it far too easy though, it\'s to late now to show off my nail biting flight to rescue a crew on the surface of the Mun as the tricks I had to do with the cart exploit will just be seen as old hat now.

Though to be honest, is it really better to have to use exploits to do that sort of thing rather than an actual game feature?

[sal_vager]

It was harder, and the new feature is great, I wouldn\'t be without it now, but may of us get more pleasure from the difficulty it used to present, but that was just with the build.

The actual flight with something like this will still be hard, unless the game is better at checking node_colliders now you\'ll have lots of scary moments whenever you reload with a capsule in the claw

[LazerEagle1]

It was harder, and the new feature is great, I wouldn\'t be without it now, but may of us get more pleasure from the difficulty it used to present, but that was just with the build.

The actual flight with something like this will still be hard, unless the game is better at checking node_colliders now you\'ll have lots of scary moments whenever you reload with a capsule in the claw

Yeah, I\'m gonna make a prototype ship with this concept, this was really just to demonstrate how it worked.

[DeadlyPear]

I think I made a good design for ships stranded on the surface, I will post results once I complete the mission.

Edit: Mission failed.

There should really be a 'Are you sure you want to end this flight' thing :\'(

[sal_vager]

I better sort my pics out and post mine as well, there are so many though, I was spamming the F1 key.

[DeadlyPear]

Well, since that mission failed. I decided to do some testing at home.

Pod is clawed:

Liftoff:

Pod seems snug:

Release system works:

The only part I can see going wrong is if the pod being recovered is not with a parachute. So you might just have to put it into orbit with a craft that can de-orbit with the pod in it\'s grasp.

[LazerEagle1]

Well, since that mission failed. I decided to do some testing at home.

Pod is clawed:

Liftoff:

Pod seems snug:

Release system works:

The only part I can see going wrong is if the pod being recovered is not with a parachute. So you might just have to put it into orbit with a craft that can de-orbit with the pod in it\'s grasp.

Wait did you make up the claw design or did you use mine? Just wondering.

[sal_vager]

The claw is pretty basic, I\'ll see if I can dig out one of my pics.

Here we are, the Fieldsman in orbit around Kerbin, this mission was a success but as you say, a capsule needs a chute or it will break free when the rescue craft deploys it\'s own parachute, I tried to transfer a chute by editing the persistence file but it didn\'t work, one craft exploded and the other froze in space.

[LazerEagle1]

The claw is pretty basic, I\'ll see if I can dig out one of my pics.

Here we are, the Fieldsman in orbit around Kerbin, this mission was a success but as you say, a capsule needs a chute or it will break free when the rescue craft deploys it\'s own parachute, I tried to transfer a chute by editing the persistence file but it didn\'t work, one craft exploded and the other froze in space.

Yeah, although the idea is more for rescuing thingies on Mun or Minmus, where you can pretty much take off with RCS modules. And why would the CM fall out when the ship deploys it\'s chute?

[sal_vager]

My craft did actually pick up a stranded capsule from the Munar surface, and can grab them in space too

The problem with the chutes is that the sudden deceleration throws the capsule against the claw legs with enough force to smash them off and send your poor Kerbals to their doom, you need another craft design that can hold the capsule on top rather than below, but there\'s no reason why you can\'t use this kind of craft to get the capsule into a safe orbit, then grab it later with a descent capable ship.

[LazerEagle1]

My craft did actually pick up a stranded capsule from the Munar surface, and can grab them in space too

The problem with the chutes is that the sudden deceleration throws the capsule against the claw legs with enough force to smash them off and send your poor Kerbals to their doom, you need another craft design that can hold the capsule on top rather than below, but there\'s no reason why you can\'t use this kind of craft to get the capsule into a safe orbit, then grab it later with a descent capable ship.

Then we pull the chut at the beginning so it stays at a constant speed! Jk, maybe one that decellerates using rockets, and drops it at a height that the CM could fall from and not explode, then flies over a little and pulls its chute. And, what\'s the difference between one in orbit and one not in orbit? Like, why would the claw be more effective de-orbiting a CM than just bringing it back to Kerbin?

[sal_vager]

Even opening the chute at high altitude was enough to throw the pod out of the claw quite violently, so I doubt you could land on rocket thrust, you wouldn\'t be able to risk enough thrust to actually slow down.

Difference between orbit and not orbit? Well if you leave a capsule in a safe orbit it\'s easy to get back to, and won\'t fall out of the sky, if it\'s just dropped at random you might have real trouble catching it again.

If you have a ship with the claw on top then the capsule has nowhere to go when you decelerate, so you can bring it down safe, but a top mounted claw can\'t scoop capsules from moons

[DeadlyPear]

Then we pull the chut at the beginning so it stays at a constant speed! Jk, maybe one that decellerates using rockets, and drops it at a height that the CM could fall from and not explode, then flies over a little and pulls its chute. And, what\'s the difference between one in orbit and one not in orbit? Like, why would the claw be more effective de-orbiting a CM than just bringing it back to Kerbin?

I was thinking more a craft that can soft land with thrusters on the surface.

Like my design, but with bigger engines.

[LazerEagle1]

Even opening the chute at high altitude was enough to throw the pod out of the claw quite violently, so I doubt you could land on rocket thrust, you wouldn\'t be able to risk enough thrust to actually slow down.

Difference between orbit and not orbit? Well if you leave a capsule in a safe orbit it\'s easy to get back to, and won\'t fall out of the sky, if it\'s just dropped at random you might have real trouble catching it again.

If you have a ship with the claw on top then the capsule has nowhere to go when you decelerate, so you can bring it down safe, but a top mounted claw can\'t scoop capsules from moons

Well first of all, would you use a ship with the claw on top to grab it from orbit? That might work, and a ship with the claw on top *MIGHT* be able to get a CM off of the Munar surface, because of the rotating parts feature, we simply need a pair of upside-down engines with just enough fuel to grab the little bugger! Then the ship flips right side up and continues its journey to Kerbin.

[sal_vager]

Can do, I have seen it done with RCS but it looks hard work, and the claw can break easily, so you want to be landed so you can save the game really.

[RedDwarfIV]

I\'m trying to figure out if it would be a good idea to have the command pod upside down at the bottom of the orbiter section, and then have the claw on top.

[sal_vager]

I didn\'t think you could invert the command pod, you could just stick an RCS tank or decoupler on top, stick a chute on top of that and mount the legs to the tank/coupler.

Then mount engines facing both ways and disable the ones you don\'t want to use.

[LazerEagle1]

I didn\'t think you could invert the command pod, you could just stick an RCS tank or decoupler on top, stick a chute on top of that and mount the legs to the tank/coupler.

Then mount engines facing both ways and disable the ones you don\'t want to use.

No you can invert the Command Pod, I\'ve done it before.

[sal_vager]

Wow, I just tried it, well I never

[LazerEagle1]

Wow, I just tried it, well I never

Hahaha, anyways guys, hows about we all try to build the perfect ship for search-and-rescue missions? I can make ships, but not fly them, I\'m not talented enough to park a ship on top of a CM and pick it up.

[sal_vager]

Ahh well that\'s where you learn from my experience, you don\'t have to park your ship on a pod, pods can roll!