VAB Editing symmetry Question

[davee]

Hi,

I am creating a central liquid fueled booster as the first stage and trying to add several attached dropoff boosters to the central booster. I've tried using symmetry to save labor when I add the outer boosters. The problem is that the outer motors are all arranged so that steering results in the rotated booster motors cancelling each other's steering out during ascent, making steering uncontrollable. How do people get past this issue? Is there a mode switch that will allow me to use symmetry and keep the motors all in alignment too?

I'm pretty new at using the editor and haven't found a way around this yet. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Edited December 19, 2015 by davee
trying to get img to show up

[davee]

Also I'm having trouble posting my first screenshot here from imgur.com,

[Red Iron Crown]

I have not observed this behavior, radially attached boosters with symmetry gimbal correctly for me. Which engines are you using? Can you share a pic of your rocket?

[Plusck]

Is this the pic? It's pretty and I have no idea why the game isn't configuring directions correctly.

http://imgur.com/tEpiN6M

[Snark]

I'm having trouble understanding the comment "that the outer motors are all arranged so that steering results in the rotated booster motors cancelling each other's steering out during ascent, making steering uncontrollable"; can you be more specific?

Is it that the engine gimbal directions are screwed up?

If that's the case:  I've never observed anything like that.  However, I note that you're using some sort of modded engine, which makes me wonder whether there might be some chance that something's screwed up in the engine model (i.e. a bug in the mod).  Do you get the same problem if you replace your modded engines with stock ones, like Mainsails?

(I'm not saying "try to launch with Mainsails," just "try them out to see if the same problem happens there."  Will help to narrow down whether the problem might be with the specific engines you're using, in which case you should go post in the thread for that mod.)

[davee]

Oh no. I assuming this has already happened to everybody else. :-(

I'm using Real Fuels but I'm not sure what mod these engines come from. When I input the steering commands all the engines gimbal in a symmetrical pattern just like they're oriented. And if I use the rotation tool in the editor, the booster that I turn gets rotated around the center of the rocket, not on its own axis. So rotation screws up the entire stage. I'll try to find out what mod they're in. I haven't tried the mainsail but I like these engines a lot. It's hard to believe how powerful they are. I have to throttle then down at takeoff to avoid burning everything up in the first 50% of the atmosphere.

3 hours ago, Plusck said:

Is this the pic? It's pretty and I have no idea why the game isn't configuring directions correctly.

 

Those are real pretty engines!! The artist/mod author did a nice job!

I think the problem might be from the fuel tank because they're oriented the same as the engines. I'm going to start the sim and go verify it to make sure it's how I stated it....just to be sure.

Oops I forgot to say it's procedural fuel tanks.

Edited December 19, 2015 by davee

[davee]

http://imgur.com/tEpiN6M

 

[davee]

I just looked at it in the editor and found out that the rotation tool rotates all of the boosters at the same time around their decouplers..

[Red Iron Crown]

3 minutes ago, davee said:

I just looked at it in the editor and found out that the rotation tool rotates all of the boosters at the same time around their decouplers..

Can you rotate just the engines?

[davee]

Problem solved. It does steer correctly. Recently I had the crisscrossing plumes and now it's steering correctly. I was still editing and hadn't tested the liftoff of this one yet so I thought the image being that the motors are all rotated around the center was an indicator that it was going to happen again.That turns out to be just the way it looks. I does steer correctly. I just launched it. Please forgive me for not actually testing it. I wasn't ready to launch it yet but I didn't want to edit any more in vain thinking that it was already on the road to problems.

But a few days ago I saw the crisscrossed plumes during takeoff and wasn't able to steer a different rocket. Now it's working okay. It must be that I had something different then. Okay I'm good now. I hope I didn't waste too much of your time. I really sorry!!

Here's some more photos of the work in progress for your enjoyment:

http://i.imgur.com/xQHz0yK.png
http://i.imgur.com/wwtkg8u.png

I know how to insert the images now FWIW.