Landing gear and other parts

[Morgan927]

I have noticed that some parts have an option for rigid attachment.  What exactly is that?

[bewing]

33 minutes ago, Morgan927 said:

I have noticed that some parts have an option for rigid attachment.  What exactly is that?

Parts have joints between them. Those joints generally can flex -- often more than you want, in fact. Those flexing joints absorb physical shocks to your craft and keep it from falling apart.

But sometimes rigidity is more important than brittleness. So you can turn off the flexibility of the joints between the current part and its parent. And then it won't flex anymore -- but if you hit it, it may fracture and fall off. Extra stiffness is sometimes useful for  wings, for example.

[Morgan927]

Ok, just what is sounds like, though I can't imagine not wanting that on by default.  I will make a listing of some of the others that I am not sure of how to use.

 

[DrLicor]

@Morgan927, I turn it off often in situations I want something to be stable A robotic arm for instance, I don't want something like that to wobble. Just the cases where the momentum gets big but has to stay stable, I turn it off. 
think of things that hold very heavy parts on an arm. 

[bewing]

4 hours ago, Morgan927 said:

Ok, just what is sounds like, though I can't imagine not wanting that on by default.

 

Just to be clear, it makes your craft a lot more brittle.

[Snark]

Myself, I've tried playing with it some.  I find it's useful for making tall, skinny rockets that don't flex as much during the high-G phase of takeoff.  (I only turn it on for portions of the stack where it's most needed.)  That's a case where flopping matters a lot, and since the rocket is basically just thrusting straight prograde the whole time, there's not a lot of bending force on the rocket (as long as it stays straight), so the brittleness doesn't matter as much.

5 hours ago, bewing said:

Just to be clear, it makes your craft a lot more brittle.

^ This.  Having it off by default is totally the right call, IMO.

On the other hand, I do wish that it were a bit more nuanced.  Wishes relegated to spoiler section because this isn't the "Suggestions" subforum. 

Spoiler

For example, I wish instead of just being "on" or "off", there were a third setting, "parent" (meaning "use whatever setting value the parent part has").  Then, have the initial root part default to "off", and every subsequent part default to "parent".

Or, alternatively, if having 3 states is unworkable... leave it as "on" or "off", but when placing a new part, default to the parent part's setting.

Reason I want this:  I rarely ever turn this setting on for just one part.  If I use it at all, it's likely to be for a stack of parts.  It's pretty tedious manually changing it around for every part.

I recognize that this may be an idiosyncrasy of my own building habits, and is potentially not for everyone... but it certainly would save me some tedium.  Am tempted to write a mod to do it for me. 

Note that if you want to stiffen up your ships, you also have some creative autostrut options if you've got advanced tweakables turned on.  Depending on ship geometry and part placement, it can be more effective (and less brittle) than using the "rigid attachment" option-- but it's different, not simply "better", so if you're considering using these features, it's best to play around with them some and get a feel for how they work.