Attaching surface attachable parts to nodes

[New Horizons]

I Want to attach a part, which can only be attached on surfaces, to a node of a probe body. I find it difficult to symmetrically center Communotron HG-55 on a probe and I don't want to use two of them, which theoretically would help.

[steuben]

The alt key will help with that.

[New Horizons]

Thank ou for you response, but I it doesn't work. When I press ALT the antenna gets shifted and then placed next to my probe, there are no attaching points visible.

[JadeOfMaar]

34 minutes ago, New Horizons said:

I Want to attach a part, which can only be attached on surfaces, to a node of a probe body. I find it difficult to symmetrically center Communotron HG-55 on a probe and I don't want to use two of them, which theoretically would help.

Attach the antenna with angle snap off. Then turn on angle snap and offset it and rotate it as needed. Hold Shift to move and rotate in fine steps. You cannot attach onto a node...without a node.

21 minutes ago, steuben said:

The alt key will help with that.

It will not, actually. Holding Alt disables surface-attachment and forces node attachment, but, as the antenna doesn't have a stack node, it has nowhere to go.

[steuben]

you're right I was thinking of a different antenna/parts

You'll have to use Tool:move to center it.

 

[New Horizons]

Ok, maybe I can figure out how to add a node to this part. With manually shifting such heavy part, it won't be possible to place it exactly centered. Thus RCS driven probes without reaction wheels appear unbalanced and loose lots of fuel this way.

[JadeOfMaar]

@New Horizons You're better off offsetting without angle snap and clipping and hiding a science experiment or tiny structural part for a counterweight.

[Snark]

29 minutes ago, New Horizons said:

With manually shifting such heavy part, it won't be possible to place it exactly centered.

Well, you can place a part perfectly centered even if it's surface-attachable.  (I do this sometimes with a goo canister, if I have a little probe and just want to have one goo on top, rather than a pair of them on the sides.

1. Manually place it as close to the center as you can get.  Doesn't have to be perfect.
2. Make sure that snap is turned on.  If it's not, hit C to toggle it on.
3. Hit "2" to activate the "move part" widget
4. Click on the part you just placed.
5. Touch the move-up-and-down arrow.  Even if you don't actually drag it, this will cause the part to snap to the closest grid location, which will be in the center if you placed it pretty close to that.

Ta da!  Done, nicely perfectly centered.  One easy way to check that (assuming that the part you attached it to is centered on the 0,0 position in the VAB) is to just hold down the left or right arrow key to rotate the camera view around the ship.  If you've got the part perfectly centered, you can see that it stays perfectly in place and just rotates around its axis as the camera orbits around it.

[Zhetaan]

@New Horizons:

If you're on console, this won't help you, but there is a mod for that:

 

I don't think that the radial-mounted antennas have nodes added yet, so I took the liberty of requesting them for you.

[New Horizons]

Hey, this are great news and will make stable probes much more feasible :-)

[Geonovast]

6 minutes ago, New Horizons said:

Hey, this are great news and will make stable probes much more feasible :-)

Are you looking for it to be visually centered, or to get the CoM perfectly aligned with the probe core's CoM?  I have a feeling it can't be both.

A Screenshot of exactly what you want would be helpful, I will work on it this weekend.

[New Horizons]

3 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

Are you looking for it to be visually centered, or to get the CoM perfectly aligned with the probe core's CoM?  I have a feeling it can't be both.

A Screenshot of exactly what you want would be helpful, I will work on it this weekend.

I'd prefer the CoM style, this is what matters to me.

[Geonovast]

7 minutes ago, New Horizons said:

I'd prefer the CoM style, this is what matters to me.

Just to clarify, this is what you want, but node attachable?

[KevinW42]

If you’re using the counterweight method, Kerbal Engineer is really helpful for that. Once you’ve added fuel and an engine it will show a value for thrust torque. Then fine-tune the positions of things until thrust torque is 0.

[New Horizons]

On 4/5/2019 at 9:53 PM, Geonovast said:

Just to clarify, this is what you want, but node attachable?

Correct. I could make this with the tips above. I think every part should be attachable to nodes per default and then as a option, maybe even an uprade being surface attachable.

[Geonovast]

I have more to add to SN, so for now, assuming you have MM installed, just stick the following text into a text editor, and save it somewhere in your GameData folder as whateveryourwant.cfg.  The surface attach coordinates was already centered on the part's CoM, so I just replicated it for a node.

 

@PART[HighGainAntenna]
{
    node_stack_top = 0,0,0,0,-1,0,0
    @attachRules = 1,1,0,0,1
}

Edited April 8, 2019 by Geonovast