Hello from Canada

[Ron Devu]

 Hi it's my second day in the game. I'm trying for a Munar flyby. I'm using a stack 'o' fuel with a Swivel engine and 2 large SRBs. After having no problems for some time, suddenly I can't attach SRBs to the main rocket. They either miss the separating devices and attach themselves permanently, or they attach with one booster much close to the main rocket than the other, or they will attach with both boosters almost completely INSIDE the main rocket body. I just spent an hour trying to do this without success. The frustration is unbelievable, because it's something I have done in about 2 seconds many times before.

 

Am I missing something simple here?

Edited March 28, 2019 by Ron Devu

[James Kerman]

Welcome to the forum, @Ron Devu.

SRB's (specially the longer ones) tend to have a small area that will connect to radial decouplers.  The trick to get them where you want them is to move them up and down along the decoupler until it looks like they jump out a bit and place them there (even if they do not connect where you want them).  Once you have them connected you can either click the radial decoupler and move the booster/decoupler assembly where you want it or use the offset tool:

You can use it to either move the decoupler or the SRB to where you want it.  Pro tip: if you hold down shift while you offset a component you get a much greater field of movement.

[Ron Devu]

That should do it. Thanks for the help! I was getting ready to write the game off for a while there.

 

edit yay it worked first try! woohooo!

 

Edited March 28, 2019 by Ron Devu

[Vanamonde]

You're not missing anything. It's an annoying little glitch that comes up from time to time. Just removed the separators and attach them again. 

[Starhawk]

Hello Ron Devu and welcome to the KSP Forum!  (This welcome is also from Canada)

I hope you find your time on the forum enjoyable and informative.

Happy landings!

 

[Ron Devu]

            Ok thanks to good advice here I am now doing the docking tutorial. I have a good rendezvous but have run into a problem with the RCS. Instead of translating the ship, it just rotates it. I inspected the ship and found a set of four RCS units evenly spaced around the bottom of the fuel tank, but the are no RCS units on the front end of the ship. This would nicely explain the rotation problem, someone just FORGOT to put the critical forward RCS units on the ship. Is this correct?

[Starhawk]

 

3 hours ago, Ron Devu said:

This would nicely explain the rotation problem, someone just FORGOT to put the critical forward RCS units on the ship. Is this correct?

Yup.  Pretty much.

There is a different set of controls to control translation when using RCS.  The IJKL keys activate translation up/down/left/right and the H and N keys are for forward and backward translation.

Balanced placement of RCS thrusters is a very important part of the design process.  This is actually very tricky because as the craft consumes fuel, generally the CoM will shift in one direction or another.  So a craft that is perfectly balanced when full of fuel may be very poorly balanced when the tanks are almost empty.

The difficulties moving around which are caused be unbalanced placement of RCS thrusters can be overcome somewhat.
If you press the caps lock key, this activates a low-sensitivity, low-power maneuvering mode.  This also attempts to compensate for unbalanced RCS thruster placement as much as possible.

Finally, there is a mod for KSP which makes correct placement of RCS thrusters much easier.  RCS Build Aid is one mod that I use all the time because it simplifies this process so much.

Happy landings!

[Ron Devu]

 So Starhawk, are those little RCS units 4-axis or 5? It makes a big difference in placement. Maybe the game models them as x amount of thrust in any desired direction?

[Starhawk]

They thrust in four directions rather than five.

I have seen players add a single place-anywhere RCS thruster on to a four-way  thruster to give five-directional thrust.

The game models the thrusters  in a realistic enough way that if the thruster placement isn't balanced, undesired rotation will occur when translating.  And it definitely tracks how much thrust is available in a given direction based on the orientation of the thrusters.

Happy landings!

 

[Ron Devu]

I was reading an old thread about people installing clampotrons  the wrong way round, so I started playing with them.... and got confused cause it seems like the mating ball is on the wrong side.

 

So, when a clampotron is correctly installed, do you see a cross and a yellow triangle inside the port, or just a dark rectangle?

[Starhawk]

The cross and triangle side is the one you should not see.

Happy landings!