I need help with Launch Controls (WASDQE)

[KillaJake99]

This is my first time ever using a forum to ask a question, and that's saying something. The launch controls are so frustrating that I had to make a forum account just to ask how they are supposed to work.

I know for a fact that it's not my rocket, because it happens with every single thing I try to Launch. I've looked it up, and people are saying things about Center of thrust and center of mass, but my ship's always seem to be within the parameters of what they say is ideal. So then the only issue that I can think of it to be, is me just not knowing how to use the controls to tilt my rocket when doing things such as gravity turns, or trying to do anything in space without spinning out of control. I'll be fine one minute, pressing a button to tilt one way, but when I try to tilt slightly in a perpendicular Direction, I just start spinning in circles or loops.

So, for example, if I'm trying to tilt in the y axis, but then I need to move in the x axis, it causes issues and I start spinning. I have wings, I have  a Reaction wheel, it's just me not knowing how to use the controls. And yes I do have SAS turned on. So could someone please explain how the controls, pitch, yaw, and roll, all work to control a ship inflight, usually in orbit? Because this is really frustrating me.

[bewing]

Welcome to the forums ... all forums.

I hope this is exactly the answer that you need, but you will have to think about it. Look at your navball.

S makes your navball rotate downwards. W makes it rotate up. A makes it rotate right. D makes it rotate left. Q makes it rotate clockwise. E makes it rotate widdershins.

For you to mentally map what the navball is doing into what you are seeing when you look at the ship is part of the point of the game.

If you turn on SAS, and tap a button, you can see which direction that will take you by the way the ship wiggles. I often tap the S button myself -- but then you have to really quickly figure out what that means for all the others, or quickly rotate your ship so that S is "up". But in orbit you almost never know. I often put two little fins on my rockets in the S and W directions, so that I always have a visual cue. But I often guess the wrong button. I'm sure everyone does.

 

Edited July 8, 2016 by bewing

[Zophos]

Welcome to the forums! After reading your question a couple of times, I'm not certain that I fully grasp the problem. So please correct me if I'm misunderstanding the difficulty you're having.

First, a couple of basic points: The game shows you (1) a view of your ship from the outside, in the main part of the screen, and (2) a navball at the bottom.  The effects of the WASDQE keys are best understood relative to the navball (2), rather than the main view.  Put another way, you are not turning your ship around the main screen x-, y-, or z-axes with the controls. Instead, you are controlling the pitch, yaw, and roll of the ship, which are relative to the orientation of your capsule and which correspond to directions on the navball.

For example, using the WS controls will change your pitch (rotating the navball up and down) no matter how the craft is facing.  However, the "pitch" direction very much depends on which way your capsule is facing. And in the main view, the spin will look very different on the main view depending on how the camera is rotated --- W might pull the nose toward the camera (if the capsule is facing up and rotated with its top facing the camera) or to the left (same situation, but rolled 90 degrees counterclockwise) or any other direction.

This could produce the sorts of problems you're experiencing if you don't know about it. Imagine that you press W and E together.  Because the ship is rolling (from E), the direction of the "pitch" control is constantly changing, so you'll get some odd movements from pressing W during the roll.

Nevertheless, the inputs will produce consistent results on the navball.  Pressing D will always roll the navball in the same direction (rotating about the screen's y-axis), regardless of how the ship is pointing.

Happy to go into more detail, if it helps. Or perhaps I'm completely off the mark...in which case a couple of screenshots or a short video might help illustrate the moves you're trying to perform vs. what you're actually getting.

EDITED for typos. Doh!

Edited July 7, 2016 by Zophos
Typo

[Snark]

What the previous posters have said.

To summarize:

Watch the navball, NOT the ship in camera view.

Looking at the ship in camera view is nice eye candy when you're not actually tinkering with the controls.  But when you're actually trying to turn this way and that, just mentally block out what you see in the main window, and just focus on the navball.  If you just watch the navball when you're controlling things, it makes perfect sense.

Also, just to make sure:  we're not talking about spinning/flipping during the atmospheric part of ascent, right?  "My rocket keeps flipping as it takes off" is a different problem-- it's a physics problem with the rocket, not a problem with you or your controls.

[Kurld]

You asked about controls, but I'll start by pointing out that, with a properly designed rocket, you will barely need to touch them.  Without seeing your design, it's hard to tell if there is a real problem there or not.  Maybe you can post some screen shots of your rocket?

The main reason rockets become unstable is because the center of mass is "behind" or "lower" than the center of pressure. The game really doesn't give you a way to see where the center of pressure is located (it is dynamic based on many factors), but center of lift is close enough.  As long as your thrust vector is not "off-center", it doesn't really matter where it is located in the vertical axis.  You mentioned using wings... if you have less than 3 and they are not 100% symmetrical, it will cause stability problems. Try using the Basic Fin before moving on to something else.

Several things can happen during flight that can turn an otherwise "stable" craft into one that becomes impossible to control:

• You burn off fuel as you ascend, which shifts your center of mass "down".  If it gets low enough, it can fall below the center of pressure and your craft can become very unstable very quickly.
• I mentioned that center of pressure is dynamic, based on a lot of things. The only time it really corresponds to the center of lift shown by the game is when the rocket is pointed within about 5 degrees of prograde and moving at less than mach 1.  Any more than that and it can move around quite a bit, depending on your rocket design.

To avoid problem number one, right click on your fuel tank(s) and empty them in the VAB. Check center of mass and center of lift to be sure that the CoM is still at least a rocket diameter or two "above" the center of lift.

To avoid problem two (aside from ensuring your fins are completely symmetrical), make only very slight, very brief control inputs. Keep the reticle in your navball no more that 5 or 10 degrees of prograde. The prograde marker itself is about 5 degrees in diameter.  At launch, turn on SAS and do not touch ANYTHING until you get moving at least 150m/s.  As you get more confident at flying, you can start turning sooner, but you need a good bit of speed before your fins will help much.  Keep your acceleration under control.  If you start seeing aero or heat effects in the lower atmosphere you need to back off the throttle or else be VERY careful to keep things pointed as close to prograde as possible. All this being said if your design is correct and if you don't ham-fist the controls, when you stop giving input, the craft should return to prograde all by itself.

SAS can make things "interesting" sometimes, especially if you have fins or wings with controls surfaces or engines that vector thrust.  Try running without it after you get off the ground and gain some speed.

As far as the controls themselves:

If you tap "W" it will try to point the craft towards the "top" of the navball.  "S" is the opposite.  "A" will try to point you at the left and "D" will try to point you to the right.  "Q" will roll the craft counter-clockwise and "E" is clockwise.

Good luck!

[KillaJake99]

I'd like to thank everyone that has commented so far in response to my question: bewing, Zophos, Snark, and Kurld

The collective information that I have gathered from you will hopefully allow me to better understand how the navigation works in game.

To clarify, my ship, when i was frustrated with this, was very basic. I had the first command pod, with 3 radial parachutes, a heat shield, 3 landing struts, and a stack decoupler underneath, which led to 3 fuel tanks with 3-4 winglets on them, the Reliant liquid thruster, and underneath that was the same, and attached to those fuel tanks were radial decouplers with 3 of the big booster solid fuel engines (the name eludes me)

Basically, my issue usually came after I released the big boosters and was in space, attempting a gravity turn to begin orbit. At which point, attempting to adjust my trajectory just left me spinning in uncontrollable loops which I couldn't recover from, especially since I had no idea which button press had launched me into chaos in the first place. Hopefully, with the information and advice provided by you experienced players, I might have some chance of understanding and navigating the controls in space and low gravity.

Thank you again, I'll get back to you if/when I'm ready to throw my computer out the window in frustration again.

Edited July 8, 2016 by KillaJake99
Spelling and grammar

[pincushionman]

Pictures, man, pictures! You say it's not your rocket, but I don't think that's definitely the case. Craft control behavior can be pretty sensitive to some of the most minor things. For instance, you might think these two rockets are identical:

...but they're not. The left one behaves very nicely, yawing over smoothly during my commanded gravity turn. The right one? Not so much. As I apply yaw for my turn, at a certain speed it causes a distinct roll that throws off my mojo and makes it hard to hit my target orbital plane (usually equatorial). This doesn't happen with any of the other tail fins I've tried, but I'm not sure if it's a bug in that particular part or a quirk of having much area but little control surface. But it's a bear to deal with when my actual rocket needs exactly two Hammer boosters on the side to get to orbit (and can't go above the fins).

Soooo...don't rule out a quirk of your rocket design. Pictures! Do you have more control than just the reaction wheel you mentioned? Do you have steerable fins? Do you have engine gimbal? Is there anything hanging off the side? Which way are you trying to turn? What speed are you going when you have that problem? Is your rocket big or small? Any of these details are important to diagnosing your issue.

[Hodari]

7 hours ago, Zophos said:

 Put another way, you are not turning your ship around the main screen x-, y-, or z-axes with the controls. Instead, you are controlling the pitch, yaw, and roll of the ship, which are relative to the orientation of your capsule

Slightly off topic, but it may be worth pointing out that this is not ALWAYS the case.  You can also switch it to show orientation relative to other parts, most notably docking ports

Back on topic though, it's also important to remember that while you're in the lower atmosphere, you need to be very gentle with your maneuvers.  You're flying a rocket, not a fighter jet.  If you try to turn too far away from your prograde marker, it's very likely to cause you to lose control altogether.  Ideally, you want to do a small turn(10 degrees or so) just after taking off and while you're still going fairly slowly, then turn off SAS and not touch the controls at all.  If you do it just right(the exact timing and amount of this turn will vary for each ship), gravity will slowly pull your ship over into a perfect ascent path.  This is called a gravity turn.  If your ship is somewhat less perfectly balanced, you can also mimic this effect by doing the initial turn and then using the "hold prograde" SAS function.  Either way though, if you have to do any further course corrections, do them very carefully, especially while you're still in the lower atmosphere but starting to build up a lot of speed. Once you're actually in space or even the uppermost part of the atmosphere where aerodynamic forces aren't as significant, you can maneuver much more freely.

[KillaJake99]

My big issue is still when I'm in space. I've tried following everyone's advice but I can't seem to grasp how everything is moving with my input. This is only after I LEAVE the atmosphere and the thing above the navball says Orbit as opposed to surface. 

For example, I have a contract destination on the other side of Kerbin. I use my boosters to get into the air, then Jettison them. Then I use my secondary 4 set of liquid Reliant engines to get me a little higher, while attempting to orient myself (which ends up with me spinning aimlessly with no hope of regaining control, no matter what I do) then i jettison those, opting for my single Reliant in the center at the bottom of the central rocket, which doesnt help me reorient and stop spinning... so basically, in space, i can't  move at all. I've tried 8 different designs at least, so it can't be the designs, as they've all been different. so the only culprit could be me not being able to regain control.

 

[Plusck]

Just a couple of thoughts:

- do you have a non-English OS/keyboard? If so, either you have to remap the keys in Settings (which is a pain), or you must tell the computer that you have an English (US) keyboard before starting the game. You can switch back once the game has loaded.

- do you get the impression that the ship is spinning on its own without any input (joystick connected but unused? phantom forces due to clipping?)?

Seriously, post pics. The easiest way to do that is to create an imgur account* (you only need an e-mail address) and bulk upload screenshots of when things go wrong. A single screenshot can show a wealth of detail that you might miss by trying to describe the problem.

* you can also post pics without an account, but that prevents people browsing through uploads made at different times, which might be useful here

[Zophos]

As others have pointed out, pics/video of your craft (or even the saved craft file) would be most helpful in diagnosing the problem. Pick the most recent, or your favorite, or whatever, and let us take a look.

In the meantime, a couple of follow up questions based on your description of the flight:

9 hours ago, KillaJake99 said:

My big issue is still when I'm in space. I've tried following everyone's advice but I can't seem to grasp how everything is moving with my input. This is only after I LEAVE the atmosphere and the thing above the navball says Orbit as opposed to surface. 

For example, I have a contract destination on the other side of Kerbin. I use my boosters to get into the air, then Jettison them. Then I use my secondary 4 set of liquid Reliant engines to get me a little higher, while attempting to orient myself (which ends up with me spinning aimlessly with no hope of regaining control, no matter what I do) then i jettison those, opting for my single Reliant in the center at the bottom of the central rocket, which doesnt help me reorient and stop spinning... so basically, in space, i can't  move at all. I've tried 8 different designs at least, so it can't be the designs, as they've all been different. so the only culprit could be me not being able to regain control.

It sounds like you're going straight up at least until you ditch the boosters, and turning only after that.  At what altitude do you punch off the boosters and start trying to turn?  Note that you are not "in space" until you reach 70 km altitude, no matter what the speed indicator on the navball reads. However, the atmosphere is thin enough above about 30 km that it won't mess with your orientation very much unless you're going really fast.

Do you use stability control (the SAS light on the navball, usually toggled on with the 'T' key)? You need a pilot-trained Kerbal or a probe core to make the function available. If it's on, it should use your reaction wheels to slow/stop your spin when you aren't touching the keyboard. (Aerodynamic forces could still spin you out of control, but if you're really in space, that shouldn't be an issue.)

[KillaJake99]

In response to Plusck:

My computer is brand new, the only devices I have connected are my Razer Mamba Chroma, and my Logitech K800 on Windows 10 pro. My system is set by default to english, and my controls are all default with WASDQE, I've changed nothing. So I dont think there would be any English issues or ghost input, unless my keyboard is busted, which it shouldn't be, because it doesnt do anything wonky with or without my input... except when I'm pressing buttons above 25000m in KSP.

Zophos:

When I return to a location with WiFi, I'll attempt to provide pics.

I almost always have SAS turned on, especially when taking off and orienting in space (or low gravity)

In the meantime, I usually go up until my booster engines are out of fuel. These are usually the big solid fuel ones, or Reliant liquid ones connected to two liquid fuel tanks (the 180 one I believe). (about 25000m-30000m)

I then usually attempt to turn slightly in the desired direction, or at least rotate and press the S key, and then the A and D keys until I'm oriented in the direction I'd like to go, then I launche my secondary booters at to get me up higher, assuming I havent spun out of control at this point, and these are 4 symmetrical Aerodynamics Nose, 180 liquid fuel, 180 liquid fuel, reliant engine, setups. I ditch those once they run out (about 40000m-70000m depending on my angle) or I start spinning uncontrollably when reorienting.

Why is it so difficult to orient oneself? How come every time I'm above 40km, and I try to rotate my ship and angle it downwards, I always end up spinning out of control? If it's not me controlling it, what about the ship could do that?

Also, I made a spaceplane that I can fly no problem if it gets off the ground (the wheels suck in this game, at least the first landing gear set does), so maybe it's not the controls, maybe it's understanding the orientation of the rocket and how it affects what the controls do to the rocket? In this thread, people said that the orientation of the capsule affects what direction the WASD keys move the rocket in. How can you determiner necessary information, such as the direction of the capsule, when you're looking at the navball? 

I hope I clarified a little, I will have some pictures up by tomorrow hopefully, maybe late tonight, like 9pm EST

[Zophos]

13 minutes ago, KillaJake99 said:

I usually go up until my booster engines are out of fuel. These are usually the big solid fuel ones, or Reliant liquid ones connected to two liquid fuel tanks (the 180 one I believe). (about 25000m-30000m)

I then usually attempt to turn slightly in the desired direction, or at least rotate and press the S key, and then the A and D keys until I'm oriented in the direction I'd like to go, then I launche my secondary booters at to get me up higher, assuming I havent spun out of control at this point, and these are 4 symmetrical Aerodynamics Nose, 180 liquid fuel, 180 liquid fuel, reliant engine, setups. I ditch those once they run out (about 40000m-70000m depending on my angle) or I start spinning uncontrollably when reorienting.

Hmm...at the very least, you're making the turn more complicated than it needs to be (Note: I'm leaving aside that an efficient turn will start much, much lower in the flight).  Assuming that you are trying for the typical eastward equatorial orbit, you should only ever need to press the "D" key (to yaw east).  Rolling 90 degrees, stopping, and then using pitch is somewhat tougher.  Using pitch and yaw while you roll is quite a bit tougher still.

18 minutes ago, KillaJake99 said:

In this thread, people said that the orientation of the capsule affects what direction the WASD keys move the rocket in. How can you determiner necessary information, such as the direction of the capsule, when you're looking at the navball?

Having recommended pics, I'll include a couple myself.  It's a lot easier to see the navball if you view them in full resolution.

 

[Plusck]

45 minutes ago, KillaJake99 said:

... 25000m-30000m ... I then usually attempt to turn slightly in the desired direction, or at least rotate and press the S key, and then the A and D keys until I'm oriented in the direction I'd like to go, then I launche my secondary booters at to get me up higher, assuming I havent spun out of control at this point, and these are 4 symmetrical Aerodynamics Nose, 180 liquid fuel, 180 liquid fuel, reliant engine, setups. I ditch those once they run out (about 40000m-70000m depending on my angle) or I start spinning uncontrollably when reorienting.

 

...In this thread, people said that the orientation of the capsule affects what direction the WASD keys move the rocket in. How can you determiner necessary information, such as the direction of the capsule, when you're looking at the navball? 

I hope I clarified a little, I will have some pictures up by tomorrow hopefully, maybe late tonight, like 9pm EST

This approach to making orbit is not an efficient one, and can in itself cause control problems. There is an atmosphere above 40km - not a very thick one but enough to make it very difficult to angle your craft at right-angles to the airflow. In addition, once you get to this sort of altitude then the navball switches to the "orbital" reference frame, and there is a difference between "orbital" prograde and your path through the atmosphere (which is bound to the "surface" reference frame).

For your last question, about orienting the ship with respect to the NavBall, the simple answer is not to worry about it and simply to use the navball to steer in the direction you want to go (which is east - 90° - on the horizon).

 

However you really should adopt a more efficient way of getting to orbit... or at the very least make progressively better attempts at it.

Going straight up then turning east is very inefficient and forces you to head at an angle to the airflow, which no rocket or aircraft can do except at very low speeds. If you watch an SU-27 or whatever doing its cobra maneuvre you will be impressed because it is effectively retaining control despite doing everything it shouldn't be doing as a plane.  Your rocket is not an SU-27...

Therefore you really must follow prograde as long as you are in the atmosphere. The idea is to make a very very slight turn to the east when you launch, and then follow prograde up from there. Prograde will naturally start to fall towards the horizon, you follow that curve and you end up going at orbital speeds at 70km altitude.

So at the very least, try to make your flight-path closer to this ideal. Turn a tiny amount east to start with (i.e. tap D a few times shortly after launch), keep the craft pointing prograde on the NavBall all the way, and only start trying radical maneuvres once you are completely out of the atmosphere.

If you still have problems with that approach, then we'll know that you are having a different sort of problem.

[KillaJake99]

So about the whole "Turning slightly within the atmosphere" thing... there are two issues.

The first is that my target is closer to the west than the east, not by much, but by enough that it will save me quite a bit of time if i angle west, but I have trouble doing that without rotating 

The second is that, when launching, any movement I do, (slight tilts, rotating, etc. ( sends my rocket launching itself in loops. I've taken a lot of screenshots of my design and in launch, and will be posting them when I return to a WiFi area.

3 more issues I'm having:

1. No electricity for reaction wheel, according to the warning thing in the bottom right corner of the assembly building menu (little button with wrench inside gear icon)

2. Oveheating when reentering atmosphere. I've got a head shield and 4 Radiator panels (small)

3. Because the stupid objective is in the other side of the planet, I can't see the marker on the stupid Navball so I can make sure I'm oriented in the correct direction, so I end up with no fuel and the stupid arc is in the wrong direction

Edited July 8, 2016 by KillaJake99
Additional info

[Gojira1000]

You're flipping in a vaccuum? Are you hitting T to turn on SAS?

[KillaJake99]

6 minutes ago, Gojira1000 said:

You're flipping in a vaccuum? Are you hitting T to turn on SAS?

SAS is always on, I never turn it off. It's flipping in low gravity, I think I've got the hang of directing myself, it's just when the thing spazzes out and I lose control that I get irritated because I'm incapable of recovery.

Also, I have a contract that requires me to be above ~17000m and do a crew report of 4 places on the other side of Kerbin... HOW?

[Gojira1000]

I tend to just not do those high-altitude surveys until I have Whiplashes and time to waste. 

Maybe make sure capslock is on - it slows control a bunch which can make it easier to avoid going into somersaults and so on.

[Zophos]

I see. You're chasing one of the contracts that require you to take a report or measurement while flying high in a particular spot on Kerbin. And your chosen strategy is a suborbital hop in a specific direction that would drop you down on the marker.

Theoretically, that works just fine. In practice, it's very hard to get the suborbital hop right, so that you're in the atmosphere close enough to the marker and high enough to meet the contract.  In my (admittedly limited) experience, it's a lot easier to actually go to orbit first.  Specifically, to (a) insert into a polar orbit, (b) wait until the right spot rotates under your next orbital track, and (c) drop your periapsis just below 70k in the right spot so that you're in the atmosphere as you pass over, to meet the "in flight" criterion.

The other way to tackle the "while flying above 19600 m"-type contracts is to build a plane with a small rocket motor.  You fly to the right spot, pop up to to top end of your jet engines' envelope, stand on your tail, and light the rocket long enough to put your apoapsis above 20k.  This works even with the smallest jet engines --- Junos can get you up above 10k, and a Terrier will do the rest. (EDIT: See, for example, this thread.)

The advantage to this second approach is twofold: you can do this at a very low tech level and it's quite easy to target the right spot on the globe.  The disadvantage, as Gojira suggests, is that it takes a long time.

Of course, none of this discussion helps with the control problem you're experiencing. But it might help with the contract.

Edited July 8, 2016 by Zophos
Added link to relevant thread

[KillaJake99]

Thanks again for the advice. I didn't actually mean to select those contracts, I thought they said below x altitude, and I didn't want to cancel them because of the penalty to my funds.

Also, I kept turning caps off because I didn't know what it did and I just thought I kept accidentally pressing it,  and I could tell it was on because it has an on/off LED on the key. Maybe that will help. Thank you

Edited July 9, 2016 by KillaJake99
Spelling, oops

[bewing]

3 hours ago, KillaJake99 said:

Thanks again for the advice. I didn't actually mean to select those contacts, I thought they said below x altitude, and I didn't want to cancel them because of the penalty to my funds.

Also, I kept turning caps off because I didn't know what it did and I just thought I kept accidentally pressing it,  and I could tell it was on because it has an on/off LED on the key. Maybe that will help. Thank you

Yeah, flying a plane over to take upper atmosphere readings is infinitely easier than trying to do it with an orbital/suborbital rocket. You do not have to do your contracts in a particular order. If you upgrade your Mission Control building, you have 7 (or an infinite number of) slots for unfinished contracts. The contracts are good for a year or more. So I would strongly advise you to wait on this contract -- just leave it sitting in Mission Control and don't decline it -- until you have a panther engine. You often get panther engines to test with other contracts. Or, with some science and an R&D upgrade, you can buy the panther yourself. But a panther engine on a jet can easily get you to the other side of Kerbin, at 20km altitude -- and it can get you there pretty quickly!

Caps Lock is a little funny, actually. What you want is to turn your yaw/pitch/roll controls from orange to blue. You do this by tapping the CapsLock key once, and it only lasts until you switch focus. Your CapsLock keyboard light will still be on, but the next ship you switch to will have orange controls again. And you have to tap CapsLock again -- which will make the controls blue for this ship (until you change focus), but will turn the keyboard light off.

Beyond that, yes, the atmosphere from 20km to 40km is easily thick enough to flip some rockets if you try to maneuver them. Some rocket designs can handle it, some can't. The way I design my rockets, they can only take a small amount of steering below 40km, or mine go out of control just like yours. There are advantages and disadvantages to designing rockets this way -- and I think the advantages are greater. But I came to that decision after a lot of testing, and knowing exactly which choices I was making.

And If you have an electricity problem, you may need to add a couple batteries -- if you have researched them. Batteries are very important.

BTW -- I have to disagree with :

6 hours ago, Plusck said:

Going straight up then turning east is very inefficient and forces you to head at an angle to the airflow

The air does not flow prograde around Kerbin. It is stationary above the surface. The only way to not go at an angle to the airflow is to go straight up. Steering or turning is what puts you at an angle to the airflow. You gain other efficiencies, but your drag increases when you go prograde in orbital mode.

 

Edited July 9, 2016 by bewing

[KillaJake99]

Thank you, especially to bewing on the last post with the number of helpful tips.

For anyone who wanted photos, they are up on my imgur under the album name "KSP Issues"

General Link: http://killajake99.imgur.com/

Direct Album link: http://imgur.com/a/pM8q0

They should work, but please let me know if you encounter any issues when attempting to access them.

[Reactordrone]

Easy fix. Move the steerable fins as low down on the core as you can and add another four low down on the boosters. You had too much drag up near the top of the ship and very little natural stability so it tends to want to turn backwards. The lower the fins are the more the vehicle will want to turn into the airflow giving a natural, hands off stability to prograde.

 

Edited to add- I also don't see any struts for the boosters. It's not much of a problem on this design but as the booster get bigger they can wobble on the radial decouplers and cause the engine thrust to vector around in an uncontrolled manner.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Reactordrone

[KillaJake99]

12 minutes ago, Reactordrone said:

Move the steerable fins as low down on the core as you can and add another four low down on the boosters. You had too much drag up near the top of the ship and very little natural stability so it tends to want to turn backwards. The lower the fins are the more the vehicle will want to turn into the airflow giving a natural, hands off stability to prograde.

I also don't see any struts for the boosters. It's not much of a problem on this design but as the booster get bigger they can wobble on the radial decouplers and cause the engine thrust to vector around in an uncontrolled manner.

1st- thanks for the advice about the fins. i never thought it would be much of an issue and I never put them on to the first stage boosters because they are disposable and it seemed like a waste of funds.

2nd- Struts? as in the metal support things under Structure? I only have 3 things in that tab; Metal thing support thing, Radial decoupler, stack decoupler. Usually, to steady larger boosters, I use multiple decouplers on it.

[Reactordrone]

31 minutes ago, KillaJake99 said:

1st- thanks for the advice about the fins. i never thought it would be much of an issue and I never put them on to the first stage boosters because they are disposable and it seemed like a waste of funds.

2nd- Struts? as in the metal support things under Structure? I only have 3 things in that tab; Metal thing support thing, Radial decoupler, stack decoupler. Usually, to steady larger boosters, I use multiple decouplers on it.

If the fins add control and stability that wasn't previously there then the funds aren't wasted

Struts are the EAS-4 strut connector. If you haven't unlocked them yet it doesn't matter but they're something to keep in mind for later builds. Only 1 set of radial decouplers can attach to a booster due to the tree structure construction in KSP  so there's not much point adding a second set.