Service Bays need a serious rework

[tater]

The service bay parts, aside from not looking too good, need to have the door system changed. Right now, the doors take ups a HUGE amount of the surface area, and only allow attachments on the 2, small "hinge" sides. This means you cannot use they as a lower section of a lander, or near the CM if you want RCS.

My suggestion would be to make the 4 doors smaller, and spread out so that there are attachment points available in the cardinal directions for RCS or landing legs. They need work anyway, as they break parts off, wobble, etc.

[Rath]

all my yes.

- - - Updated - - -

let us remove the top/bottom too

[basic.syntax]

I agree collision geometry could use some adjusting, especially inside the 2.5m version. But I have no problem with the design and art style. They have a low-key look that says "stock part" to me. I don't have a problem with not being able to use them as bottom part on crafts, with x4 symmetry. But the idea of an alternate part with 4 smaller doors allowing stuff to be placed outside in x4 symmetry, does sound interesting.

In the past week I spent some time fitting parts into a 2.5m service bay, going back and forth to the Launchpad, to test object positions, until the doors would open/close absolutely smoothly. Once I figured out how close to the edges I could get without a door problem, I had no more problem

1. If an object is attached to the side/outside, and it intrudes too much "inside" - it's considered stowed.

2. Objects mounted inside to the top or bottom, which extend too far outside the service bay's exterior and into other attached parts, may lead to problems.

3. Objects placed too close to the inside side walls may interfere with the doors, at any time, doors open or closed. Potentially leading to craft break-up, as noted in other threads and reports.

Work-around: For best object placement results, draw a mental box, with each door hinge at its corner, and don't let objects go outside the lines. Example pix linked below; I don't have any problem with this layout.

Top-down view showing areas to avoid.

Normal view of same service bay.

[Unfawkable]

They could have a small tweak to be less imposing, but overall it's not difficult to build around them. What I'd like to see is a 3.75m Service Bay.

[Kegereneku]

Myself I don't have a problem with them, aside that I find them a little ugly.

I mostly use them to make aerodynamic probes before getting the fairing, and store experiment of course.

So only room of improvement for me would be to make them not-ugly and have another part as a spaceplane-like 1.25 cargo-bay.