Can I re-root vessel out of VAB, or set default 'control from' part?

[Sharpy]

I tend to deliver rovers in pairs - redundancy, better mass balance, cooperation, that kind of stuff.

The problem with it is that the rovers are usually added as subassemblies, and as result, their root part is whatever the decoupler happens to be attached to. Meaning every time I activate the rover, I have the navball pointing skywards, backwards, and so on.

Worse if similar thing happens to a ship in orbit. When I orient myself at node, and start the burn, and see I've been burning Normal instead of Prograde because my navball has the heading of a docking port instead of the cockpit.

 

Can I somehow force vessels that are already deployed to default to one part of my choice for "control from"? Some mod or save edit?

[Laie]

21 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

Can I somehow force vessels that are already deployed to default to one part of my choice for "control from"? Some mod or save edit?

The last time I paid attention, undocking re-rooted parts to a probe core or other command module. Or maybe not strictly re-root, but point of control was a command module, not the docking port that just detached. Noticed this due to parallax problems while docking.

On vessels with several docking ports and command modules I could end up with different points of control, depending on which docking port detached, but it was always a proper command module. Maybe the first one it came a cross when it parsed the tree, starting with the docking port? But that's conjecture, you'd need to do your own experiments.

That may have been as long ago as KSP 0.25, certainly not later than 0.90 -- a lot may have changed in the mean time. Still, I have to ask: Are you sure that it roots you to the docking port? IIRC the rovemate faces up by default...

[Sharpy]

37 minutes ago, Laie said:

The last time I paid attention, undocking re-rooted parts to a probe core or other command module. Or maybe not strictly re-root, but point of control was a command module, not the docking port that just detached. Noticed this due to parallax problems while docking.

On vessels with several docking ports and command modules I could end up with different points of control, depending on which docking port detached, but it was always a proper command module. Maybe the first one it came a cross when it parsed the tree, starting with the docking port? But that's conjecture, you'd need to do your own experiments.

That may have been as long ago as KSP 0.25, certainly not later than 0.90 -- a lot may have changed in the mean time. Still, I have to ask: Are you sure that it roots you to the docking port? IIRC the rovemate faces up by default...

I have some crafts that have only one probe core, no docking ports, no cockpits, no other elements that can be used for control, and definitely are not controlled from the probe core. It really seems like the control authority comes from a fuel tank in some cases...

No, it doesn't root me to docking port because I don't undock - I decouple. Specifically, I use the structural pylon as it decouples cleanly, leaving no stubs behind. And I decouple more than one craft from a single launcher. It just orients the navball in a direction that is completely different from the probe core orientation (as apparent when I choose the probe core's 'control from here', the navball jumps!) and there are no other control authority devices.

[Sharpy]