How to redirect an E class asteroid without causing Kraken attack?

[n0xiety]

I just redirected an E class asteroid after much fraustration since my ship was moving like a snake because of the reason i only had 1 grabbing unit at the tip of the ship. After all that time spent and fraustration i finally reached orbit of Kerbin where i encountered the KRAKEN... Now the asteroid and the ship is gaining speed from somewhere so the apoapsis and periapsis is constantly changing. Even new ships i send to space started encountring this infinite thrust after getting out of the atmosphere so i am going to return to an older save. Now i don't want to go trough this again so would it be stable to use lets say like 4 claws at the side of the ship and then decouple the engine from the back and couple it to the side thus creating a stable platform that can push the E class asteroid without causing KRAKEN problems?

Edited May 26, 2015 by n0xiety

[Snark]

I feel your pain... the claw is such kraken-bait, and has been for a really long time. I'm sorry I don't have more concrete advice for you-- my own solution is "don't use the claw, ever, and just ignore asteroids completely." Which I realize doesn't help you.

My experience is that "more claws" doesn't mean "less kraken," but quite the reverse.

Aside from kraken problems, though, one thing that can help with the "wobbling back and forth" problem is to keep your torque and your thrust entirely separate. For example:

1. Your main ship has engine thrust and a single claw on the front.

2. Put docking ports on the sides and give it a couple (or 3, or 4) little robot "daughter ships" that are just a claw, command probe, some monopropellant & RCS thrusters, and big heavy reaction wheels.

3. When you dock your main ship to the asteroid, detach the daughter ships and have them move to a different part of the asteroid and latch on.

4. Then you go and carefully disable ALL sources of torque on the mother ship: turn off all reaction wheels, disable any torque on the command pod, make sure that its engine is gimbal-locked.

5. Now you're good to go: your main thrust won't waggle (since it has no torque authority), and your little daughter ships can handle torquing the 'roid to the orientation you want (since they're not thrusting, it doesn't matter if they waggle).

Another approach I've done is to pull the asteroid instead of pushing: the claw is on the back of the craft, and it has engines that stick way out to the sides on booms so that their exhaust goes past the asteroid. This works like a charm... except it's limited to smaller asteroids (wouldn't want to try anything bigger than a C), and I haven't tried launching such a contraption in 1.0+, I imagine it would be an aerodynamic nightmare.

[n0xiety]

I feel your pain... the claw is such kraken-bait,

Yeah just tried multiple claws before you posted that and it even got worse... The frikin prograde and retrograde location was moving as the asteroid moves... It was even moving the ap and pe up down into kerbin then outside of kerbin on top of that sometimes it was even showing me kerbin escape... How can this be so broken its like you have to create trial and error style crafts and hope that it doesn't cause KRAKEN attacks.. It is not something that rarely causes bugs but its like something that causes a bug %90 of the time when you try moving an E class asteroid. I have moved smaller asteroids before and there was no problem but when the asteroid is an E class the claw itself isn't strong enough to keep the ship straight and it bents under the movement causing all sorts of problems.

I am considering to pull the asteroid as you stated since that might actually work yet that is going to come at a high price. Since the asteroid is so big i have to put the thrusters with atleast 30 to 45 degrees which will create cosine losses.

Edited May 26, 2015 by n0xiety

[Snark]

Are you a KAS user? Maybe you could tow the asteroid with a long winch cable, would allow your engines not to have to point sideways so much, fewer cosine losses.

[n0xiety]

Are you a KAS user?

Nah im not a KAS user tho i tried pulling the asteroid now. Either my game is broken or my save i don't know which but this asteroid just keeps on causing the ap and pe change all the time as it turns so i honestly don't know what to do? Maybe the asteroid im trying to bring back is bugged? Or is this a normal behaviour and it should just be left alone? I haven't towed a 3500t asteroid before so i honestly don't know what to do.. Kraken attacks every time without question then the whole game breaks... I can't even leave it like that since even new crafts that i launch gets cought into kraken infinite thrust after they get off the atmosphere for some reason. This only happens if i fiddle with the asteroid tho so if i leave it alone there doesn't seem to be any problem.

[moronwrocket]

Dang, I just took a contract to push a class E out of the solar system. I was hoping to use an assembly of nukes with a separate ISRU clawed to the surface to refuel. I like the idea of separating the RCS/reaction wheels into separate ships @Snark, were you successful with that strategy?