Remove faring metal structure from ship in orbit?

[Biggen]

I guess I screwed up when building my tug today  I put twin orange tanks and a tug in orbit today in one long stack.  I then used the tug to attach both tanks separately to my refueling depot.  However, when I tried to decouple the tug from the last tank, the faring metal structure stays attached to the tug and the base/ring clips inside the orange tank causing the entire station to go into a tailspin.  I've attached two pictures to show what I'm talking about as it's hard to explain.

The first image shows the tug attached to the tank and the tank attached to the station:

This image shows what happens when I decouple the docking rings. The tug is still "hung up" on the tank.  The round metal base of the fairing stays stuck in the tank and the metal structure is still attached to the tug.  

Here is the .craft file for the rocket I used to put it in orbit.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xuwgcsrvnweq8tk/Tug Lifter.craft?dl=0

Fairings confuse me.  I guess I placed the fairing in the wrong spot but I'm unsure how I could have done it differently.  Is there no way to remove the fairing from orbit via EVA?

Edited January 23, 2017 by Biggen

[bewing]

Hmmmmmm. I'll try to reproduce that error and file a bug report for it. It would be a silly workaround, but if you had a decoupler between the two docking ports, I bet it would work right.

I also doubt that the fairing is accomplishing a lot, so if you were to remove it completely, and replace it with a couple struts or an autostrut -- I bet your rocket would fly just about the same as before.

Edited January 23, 2017 by bewing

[bewing]

I tested out your launcher (after tweaking it a bit) -- and all you need to do to make it work the way you want is to turn off the truss structure. You don't need the truss for what you have built. The truss structure is for hanging complex stuff off the inside of the fairing (an advanced technique) -- and your tug is built very simply and properly right on top of your stack the way it should be.
In the VAB, if you look at your fairing's context menu, the button that says "Truss Structure" should say Off.

(This doesn't affect the bug report though -- but I'm still trying to figure out what the heck your truss is connecting to ...)

[Biggen]

Is there no way to disconnect that metal structure left over from the fairing? I cant disconnect from the station now without some wierd physics kraken spinning me out of control.

[bewing]

5 minutes ago, Biggen said:

Is there no way to disconnect that metal structure left over from the fairing? I cant disconnect from the station now without some wierd physics kraken spinning me out of control.

Not after it's in orbit. Not with the truss button turned on and nothing connected to it. You're going to have to revert back to before your launch. This is something that can only be fixed inside the VAB editor.

[Biggen]

Helpful as always Bewing. I dont think i saved right before launch. Ill have to see when the last save was before launch and hope its not too far back.

It was a wobbly rocket when i launched it which i assume was because the stacks were connected with those docking ports to make assembly easier once in orbit. Any tips to make that lifter better? Ill have to look up autostruts.

Edited January 24, 2017 by Biggen

[bewing]

No, it was wobbly because the thrust on the Mainsail was turned down too low. Otherwise it was a quite nice booster.

You want maybe 50% thrust on your mainsail just off the pad, I think, while you do your gravity turn adjustment. Then a short time at 100% thrust to get up to a decent speed. Then back down to maybe 25% thrust while the kickbacks do their work. Then back to 100% just before you get rid of the kickbacks. And I changed the staging all around from the way you posted it. You don't want to carry the kickbacks all the way to orbit! Also, it's a good idea to move the connection point on the kickback decouplers up a ways, so they push the top of the booster away from the stack. And a fin or two at the bottom of the booster also helps to do the same thing.

If you want me to repost the thing with the mods I made, just say so.

 

 

[Biggen]

4 minutes ago, bewing said:

No, it was wobbly because the thrust on the Mainsail was turned down too low. Otherwise it was a quite nice booster.

You want maybe 50% thrust on your mainsail just off the pad, I think, while you do your gravity turn adjustment. Then a short time at 100% thrust to get up to a decent speed. Then back down to maybe 25% thrust while the kickbacks do their work. Then back to 100% just before you get rid of the kickbacks. And I changed the staging all around from the way you posted it. You don't want to carry the kickbacks all the way to orbit! Also, it's a good idea to move the connection point on the kickback decouplers up a ways, so they push the top of the booster away from the stack. And a fin or two at the bottom of the booster also helps to do the same thing.

If you want me to repost the thing with the mods I made, just say so.

 

 

Thats great feedback! Yes, id like to see the adjustments you made if you dont mind.

Yeah, I must not have saved the correct staging. Sometimes, I fix it in the launch pad and forget to go back into VAB to save it.

[bewing]

ok: <bad "fixed" rocket link>

 

PS. I think I understand how you built your rocket. And now I think my "fixed" rocket may not be completely fixed. I think you may need to take the fairing off, take the docking port off, and then reattach them in the other order.

Edited January 24, 2017 by bewing

[Spricigo]

This may not be possible in your case or even in the general case,  but maybe detaching the problematic part with KAS would save you from loading a old save. 

KAS don't allow to detach parts with other parts attached so it depends on what the game think it's attached to what. 

[Biggen]

11 hours ago, bewing said:

ok: <bad "fixed" rocket link>

 

PS. I think I understand how you built your rocket. And now I think my "fixed" rocket may not be completely fixed. I think you may need to take the fairing off, take the docking port off, and then reattach them in the other order.

Ah I see. Yeah, I was looking at it last night thinking the order in which they were attached may have been incorrect. I didnt test it as I began working on another lifter to get twin empty long MK3 LF fuel tanks up and docked with my fuel depot.

I was able to get the tug "unhooked" from the depot without spinning everything out of orbit. The tug still has the fairing truss attached to its "front", but I just flipped it around and used the other end for docking maneuvers now. Fortunately, I put docking ports on each end of the tug!

11 hours ago, Spricigo said:

This may not be possible in your case or even in the general case,  but maybe detaching the problematic part with KAS would save you from loading a old save. 

KAS don't allow to detach parts with other parts attached so it depends on what the game think it's attached to what. 

I ended up getting the tug unhooked from the depot. The fairing is still attached but thats ok. I will probably fix the tug and lifter in VAB and send another one up soon. My OCD wont allow me to use a tug with a useless truss hanging off one end.

I do need to download KAS soon. I need to use it for hooking my planned Minimus drilling rig to my fuel rover eventually.

[Superfluous J]

Launch something with no truss structure, just leave it on the pad. Then edit your persistent.sfs file (back it up first!) and look at that ship in it, and see what the settings are on the fairing that activate the truss. It may be really obvious for all I know ("Truss = True" or something like that). Then find your orbiting ship and the fairing on it, and edit its fairing's truss variable to look the same as the one on the pad.

You can also fix solar panels this way

[Biggen]

56 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Launch something with no truss structure, just leave it on the pad. Then edit your persistent.sfs file (back it up first!) and look at that ship in it, and see what the settings are on the fairing that activate the truss. It may be really obvious for all I know ("Truss = True" or something like that). Then find your orbiting ship and the fairing on it, and edit its fairing's truss variable to look the same as the one on the pad.

You can also fix solar panels this way

I'll try this now!

[bewing]

It also turns out that I was talking about the wrong button. It's the "interstage nodes" button that needs to be off. 

Edited January 24, 2017 by bewing

[Biggen]

3 hours ago, bewing said:

It also turns out that I was talking about the wrong button. It's the "interstage nodes" button that needs to be off. 

Ahh ok.  I'll make sure I deselect that from here on out.  I don't even know what it means either so I'll do some research.