Attaching fuselages together

[Charlie the Kerbal]

I am trying to send three of these at once.

http://imgur.com/lsszEb4

For some reason, when I replicate them docking ports on the sides does not attach each other (it is not due to the radius of the top part, they don't even attach when I use few structural fuselages and few clap-o-tron jrs. Any ideas to attach three of these together in such a way that I can cleanly separate and use all three once in orbit ?

Ideally I am trying to understand why this sort of attachment fails but happy to hear other creative ideas.

Thanks

[Ketatrypt]

are any major parts clipping? the docking port looks like it isn't sticking out far enough for it to clear the top part...

 

And as for attaching them, the easiest way I think would be to make sure the entire ship is rooted to teh docking port, then save the rooted ship & port as a sub-assembly, then re-root the original back the way you want it, and load the sub-assembly, and attach the sub-assembly to the docking port. It /should/ work but, if things clip, they might not, so try to clear any clippage before hand just to eliminate that possibility.

But yea - ships will only attach via the rooted part. So unles you rooted the docking port, they won't attach. (the entire rooting process isn't explained that well.. I had trouble understanding it myself, until I saw a vid about it.. I wish I remember what that vid is, because it explained it very well.

Hope this helps

Edited February 17, 2016 by Ketatrypt

[Chaos_Klaus]

It's not really about the root part.

If you grab a bunch of parts, you can only reconnect them using the node that you dettached them by.

You'd need to place any placeholder part to the dockingport. Then make this part the root. Then grab everything but this part and save it as a subassembly. This way you can use the node of the dockingport.

To find the subassembly menu, click the arrow in the upper left corner of the screen to make more categories pop up.

Edited February 18, 2016 by Chaos_Klaus

[Charlie the Kerbal]

7 hours ago, Chaos_Klaus said:

It's not really about the root part.

If you grab a bunch of parts, you can only reconnect them using the node that you dettached them by.

You'd need to place any placeholder part to the dockingport. Then make this part the root. Then grab everything but this part and save it as a subassembly. This way you can use the node of the dockingport.

To find the subassembly menu, click the arrow in the upper left corner of the screen to make more categories pop up.

Sorry but I don't get it, or cannot do it. Tried several root combinations and sub assemblies. What I am trying to do is simply two Structural Fuselage parts connected to each other via two docking port jrs in the middle length-wise. All works fine if I connect them using each end but I cannot connect them from middles. If I am missing something obvious, can you please explain root part requirement in a bit more detail ?

Edited February 18, 2016 by Charlie the Kerbal
Typos

[StormKat]

Try it like this:

1. Start with a Structural Fuselage
2. Add docking port in the center (2 x radial if you desire)
3. Attach a beam (the M Beam 200 pocket edition works well) to one of the docking ports
4. Use the Root Tool to set the M Beam as the root part (4 is the hotkey)
5. Detach the docking port from the beam and save that whole unit as a sub-assembly.
6. ???
7. Profit.

Edited February 18, 2016 by StormKat

[Charlie the Kerbal]

Magical ! Got it finally. Thank you all