I've got a problem and questions. 3 in 1 satellites to orbit?

[Trenchfoot]

I've seen it done on Youtube and such. I'm trying to put 3 Remote Tech Satellites in Geo Synchronous orbit of Kerbin in one launch. I've got one of the three way adapters upside down like this, When attaching to the decouplers the satellites just won't clip to the green dots.

All it gives me is this.

What gives? Can someone please explain how to build a triple launcher? Do they need to be inline? Maybe it's the adapter thing? Also each satellite needs an octo right? Thanks for any help in advance.

[satnet]

You can use your "Mod" key to force it into node attach mode. This means it will attach to the green attachment nodes and nothing else. That should address the attachment problem.

Each satellite will need a probe core and power generation/storage.

Looking at your satellites I think you'll have a problem when you decouple them. They are going to clip into one another, which will be tolerated as long as they are one vessel, but once you decouple they will either explode when they collide or end up intertwined and unusable. Inline would probably be better or you can use the BZ-52 Radial Attachment Point to build them on the side of a tank. Inline has the advantage that your center-of-mass will stay lined up with your thrust vector. Radial gives you more flexibility in putting things on top of your satellite.

[Superfluous J]

Instead of taking the satellites you have off to the side, re-build one of them on the decoupler. Then use symmetry to duplicate it.

If that ghost satellite off to the side was a sub-assembly, delete it and copy your new - and working - satellites into a new subassembly for later use.

What I think is hapening is that your satellites' root parts aren't the part you want to attach to the base. That's critical with subassemblies. When you build a vessel from scratch, the first part you place is the root part. When you detach a subassembly from a vessel, the part you detached is that subassembly's root part. When you try to attach a subassembly, you can only attach it by the root part, which on your original satellites would likely be the probe core, which is not what you wanted.

Note: You can change what the root part is in a vessel, but you can't change the root part of a disconnected subassembly like your satellites are.

[SAI Peregrinus]

You have surface attachment enabled. Hold alt (mod on Linux) to disable it, or install Editor Extensions and use that to disable it.

[Chaia]

1. If you use sub-assemblys, make sure that the root part has a bottom node, so you can attach it to your decouplers on the main vessel

2. Every satellite needs to be controll-able on its own, so yes. Every Satellite needs a probe core (any will be fine)

3. Are all these dishes neccessary? You could run into power troubles, if you run all at once (but afaik power isn't calculated for vessels out of physics range)

4. You will be able to attach the satellites to your main vessel, but the dishes will clip into each other. Launching the main vessel is no problem, but as soon as you decouple a satellite, the clipping parts will violently detach, deconstructing themselfs into fine space ashes as they do.

5. Are you using xenon engines? As long as you don't use any fuel switching mods, you can't use octos for them. You need a xenon tank then

edit: damn those ninjas

[Zephram Kerman]

5. Are you using xenon engines? As long as you don't use any fuel switching mods, you can't use octos for them. You need a xenon tank then

Good advice all around. But I'm confused about this last thing. Do xenon engines have something against octos? or did you mean Oscars?

[mrclucks]

Rotate your craft so the connecting mode is on the bottom and then hold alt when attaching so the nodes connect. If you have trouble with that then build your satellite with decoupler/seperator included, but not on a trip connector so you can use symmetry to make your sat. Once it's built, take off your decoupler/separator which should have your satellite with it, put a trip coupler in place and add your sat to the decoupler.

Xeon engines need Xeon tanks to run, that is what chaia was saying

[Sharpy]

I think Chaia confused Octo and Oscar-B. That's the small LF+Ox tank. Ion engines use xenon instead.

(or you can give them all Ant engines instead.)

As you press Alt, the satellite will more likely than not turn around, and probably to an orientation that is not suitable for attachment. So, while holding Alt, rotate the satellite (using Q E W S A D) so that its attachment node points at the decoupler attachment node.

For your self-collision woes (which are definitely an issue) instead of using 3x symmetry on the tricoupler, attach some dummy parts (empty Oscar-B tanks?) that will place your satellites at different heights. Alternatively, in the 3x symmetry mode you can pick the Offset tool, pick the decouplers and move them farther apart. But that makes your payload even wider and the fairing will produce some serious drag.

My personal preference for sats this squat is to make them stackable on top of each other (using separators instead of decouplers). That makes a fairly lean payload and if it's wobbly, use the "strut to fairing" trick. (put some long parts, like the longest SRBs at an angle along the fairing, then draw struts from the top-most probe to these SRBs through the fairing, and instead of attaching to the SRBs the struts will attach to the fairing,)

[Alshain]

I suggest building one satellite without mirroring and duplicating the whole thing using mirroring.

[FancyMouse]

Brining up one of my old pictures. 7 satellites one shot.