Solid boosters fall off prior to launch!

[ashenfang]

Not sure what I am doing wrong here. When using larger "heavy lift SRB's", I can't seem to keep them attached to the body of the ship. I am using radial de-coupler's and heavy struts ,usually a set of two at the top and bottom of the SRB connected to the ship. It looks sturdy enough.

When I click to "take me to launch pad", the boosters will sag for a split second and then fall off. I have even tried adding a ridiculous amount of strut connections and the same problem keeps happening. Any suggestions?

[Geonovast]

Can you get some pictures?

[Rocket In My Pocket]

KSP rockets are structured like a tree.

You can't make closed circles, every part has one parent part and then children. So your boosters are only technically snapped to one set of your decouplers. (Whichever one you placed them on first.)

This is what's causing the sag, as far as them falling off despite being strutted...I couldn't say without a pic. Are you using autostruts as well?

[ashenfang]

I will get some screenshots.

Is "auto struts" a mod or setting?

I am just placing struts manually but would be interested in something that does it for me

[NSEP]

9 minutes ago, ashenfang said:

I will get some screenshots.

Is "auto struts" a mod or setting?

I am just placing struts manually but would be interested in something that does it for me

Autostrut is a setting you can enable in stock KSP. Just go the setting menu and tick 'advanced tweakables'. Once you have enabled that, when you right click any part you should have an autostrut option.

[ashenfang]

Thanks NSEP! Never even knew that setting was there. I was going to post some pics that I took, but, after enabling auto-strut and selecting "strut heaviest", the boosters are as rigid as can be!

 

On a side note, and off topic of this discussion, is there some trick to saving vehicles I have created? Every time I save a new ship, it will show up in my "load list", but as soon as I exit the game, return to the game and enter sandbox mode as a "new game", my ships are no longer in the load list. 

[Atkara]

Why start a new game every time after exiting, if I may ask?

[Geonovast]

Your custom ships are saved inside the gamesave folder for the save they were created in.  If you start a new game, you won't see them, and if you create a new game by the same name, the ships are deleted.

Edited October 13, 2017 by Geonovast
create, not save

[ashenfang]

Ah okay....I guess I always started a new game so I didn't have previous ships floating around in space.....makes sense though. Thanks!

[Atkara]

Well, assuming you play on sandbox, you can make a save at any point (Alt-F5 or ESC-->save game), launch your craft and if you want to try something different but not keep the other (or others) in orbit, revert to that save. All your craft files are saved on a different location in the profile folder anyway so, as long as you don't do either of what Geonovast already mentioned, they'll be there no matter what.

Edited October 13, 2017 by Atkara

[JonathanPerregaux]

I've also had solid rocket boosters fall off. It's always funny.

What I've found is that when physics forces start kicking in, it's possible for a clipped portion of your ship to knock off a booster or two. After reworking the attachment points, I've managed to solve this kind of problem.

[septemberWaves]

Another reason boosters might fall off before you expect them too is that you set up your staging wrong and put the decouplers before the engines.

[dvp]

1 hour ago, eloquentJane said:

Another reason boosters might fall off before you expect them too is that you set up your staging wrong and put the decouplers before the engines.

For super-fun points, put the engines and the decouplers in the SAME stage.

 

Parts flying everywhere!

[DAL59]

Any mods?

[linuxgurugamer]

Be careful about strutting to the heaviest.  If the heaviest is some sort of tank (srbs or fuel tank), as it emptiez or gets used it mau no longer be the heaviest, leading to all sorts of fun stiff as the strutting changes in mid flight

[invision]

i must be lucky ive never used struts before to hold things into place