Part Swapping

[ShootNoChutes]

So I've been working on a pretty basic f-22 lookalike, but I used a large fuel tank in the center of the fuselage at first, now I want to simply switch it out for the cargo bay of the exact same dimensions (mk2 liquid fuel fuselage -> mk2 cargo bay crg-08). Is there any way to do that using the save files? any help would be appreciated, if you need craft files I can post them later.

thanks in advance

[Geschosskopf]

Well, it should be fairly simple.  If the offending fuel tank is not the root part, just detach everything aft of it and set it aside.  Then junk the fuel tank, attach the desired cargo bay,and reattach the previously removed parts from there aft.

If the offending fuel tank is the root part, just re-root the ship to some part in front of the fuel tank then follow the above procedure.

If  you have wing and such attached radially to the offending fuel tank but not to anything else, then you'll have to rebuild that part of the ship to attach them to the sides of the cargo bay.  But such is life.

[FancyMouse]

It's pretty delicate to operate on sfs for this matter, but not that hard. The basic principle is that every part's ID is of form part name followed by _ and then a unique integer. So if you want to change part, you can just swap the two names defined in two PART/part (but you need to swap ALL occurrences in sfs). Then also swap all the MODULEs for the two parts (so that you don't end up with LF in your cargo bay). That should do it.

I do have similar scenario for me - I have a mk3 SSTO delivering fuel to my station, and payload could be LF tank or LFO tank, which of course has many stuff surface attached including wings - when I'm done with the initial version I just change the part definition similarly and I got my other flavor. Works pretty well if the dimensions are the same where I don't need to worry about coordinates, just substituting part names and adjust MODULEs.

Edited October 26, 2017 by FancyMouse

[ShootNoChutes]

1 hour ago, FancyMouse said:

It's pretty delicate to operate on sfs for this matter, but not that hard. The basic principle is that every part's ID is of form part name followed by _ and then a unique integer. So if you want to change part, you can just swap the two names defined in two PART/part (but you need to swap ALL occurrences in sfs). Then also swap all the MODULEs for the two parts (so that you don't end up with LF in your cargo bay). That should do it.

I do have similar scenario for me - I have a mk3 SSTO delivering fuel to my station, and payload could be LF tank or LFO tank, which of course has many stuff surface attached including wings - when I'm done with the initial version I just change the part definition similarly and I got my other flavor. Works pretty well if the dimensions are the same where I don't need to worry about coordinates, just substituting part names and adjust MODULEs.

I don't have too many things surface attached, but basically that's what I'm dealing with. thanks, I'll be sure to remember this when I get to the point of having a crap ton of things surface attached.