Multiple SAS for orientation ?

[PrimoDev]

Hello !

I've recently put a few satellite into orbit with 2 robot control units :

The 1st one is supposed to be facing Normal and the 2nd one Radial In.

But I'm encountering a problem : Once SAS activated I choose "Control From Here" for the 1st one and choose "Normal" after that I switch to the second control unit and it immediately turn up to Normal...

My question is : Is there a way to choose 2 different orientations for the control units on the same craft ?

[Laie]

1 hour ago, PrimoDev said:

My question is : Is there a way to choose 2 different orientations for the control units on the same craft?

If I understand you correctly, you want roll control:. Pointing the vessel in a direction takes care of pitch and yaw, but you want the third axis (roll) to be oriented in a certain direction as well. I'm not aware of a stock solution.

Mechjeb's Smart ASS is my preferred solution, but presumably some of the airplane autopilots might also serve.

[PrimoDev]

Okay thanks for tips it solved what I wanted !

[Spricigo]

Out of curiosity: why is that imoortant for you?

 

There is a mod called Persistent Rotation but unfortunately seems to not be up to date

[PrimoDev]

3 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Out of curiosity: why is that imoortant for you?

It's actually important for my ISS it is because I got the cupola facing the ground and the solar panels parallel to the equator but for my satellites not really..

I mean in KSP the antenna's direction aren't a problem (yet?) but I try my best to make it realistic and play KSP not as a "game" but a simulator.

[Snark]

6 hours ago, PrimoDev said:

It's actually important for my ISS it is because I got the cupola facing the ground and the solar panels parallel to the equator

Unfortunately, there's no way to do that in stock KSP.

What you were trying to do was to use two different probe cores and wanting two different SAS settings for them so you could have them automatically control the orientation of the ship on multiple axes at once, but it doesn't work that way.  In KSP, SAS is a single, global control source for the entire vessel, with only one setting.  You can't have probe A core set to and probe core B set to , or anything like that.  There's only one setting.  The only thing you accomplish by picking one probe core or another as the "control from here" point is, "which direction relative to the ship counts as or or whatever"-- and, again, there can be only one "control from here" point at a time.

If you really want to have a space station that keeps some part (such as the cupola) always pointing down towards Kerbin, that's easy to do:  set the cupola as the "control from here" point, and then set SAS to .  However, that means that SAS only cares about orienting the ship along the radial axis-- it doesn't care at all about its rotation around the radial axis (which, in your case, you care about because of your solar panels).  You can't have it both ways.

Also, note that even if you do set your cupola as "control from here" and then set SAS to ... that will only work for as long as you're flying the station.  As soon as you go back to KSC or go to fly some other vessel, then when you come back later to your space station, it won't be oriented that way anymore (because ships in KSC don't rotate while they're on rails), nor will SAS be set to anymore (because the game doesn't remember that state)-- SAS will still be turned on, but it'll be set to the default "hold position" setting.  Which means that every time you go back to the station, you'll have to reset SAS back to again, and then wait for the reaction wheels to restore the desired orientation.  (And you'd still have the issue with the orientation of your solar panels).

6 hours ago, PrimoDev said:

I mean in KSP the antenna's direction aren't a problem (yet?)

Correct.  Doesn't matter now, and I strongly suspect that it never will.

6 hours ago, PrimoDev said:

I try my best to make it realistic and play KSP not as a "game" but a simulator.

Sure, and I can totally understand your wanting to do that.    Unfortunately, you're bumping up against several of the game's limitations.  You may want to play it as a simulator, but they designed it as a game, and there a lot of ways where they needed to cut some corners (either for hardware/efficiency/speed reasons, or else for game playability) such that the game can't actually do certain "realistic" behaviors that you might want.

 

[Spricigo]

5 minutes ago, Snark said:

6 hours ago, PrimoDev said:

I mean in KSP the antenna's direction aren't a problem (yet?)

Correct.  Doesn't matter now, and I strongly suspect that it never will.

 

I think at most it could, at some point, become a case where you care about signal orientation (like for the dishes in Remote Tech mod). But you still don't need to care about antenna orientation (mostly because the unneeded complication that brings, both on gameplay and computing performance).

 

Of course, aside the question of how much you want something to be realistic.

[Snark]

42 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

But you still don't need to care about antenna orientation

^ Exactly.  Even RemoteTech doesn't care about antenna orientation.

[Kryxal]

Solar panels are at least easy enough regarding orientation ... get a pair facing normal/antinormal to an equatorial orbit and switch on SAS.