Hinges and docking ports

[iwinFTW]

Hello,

I don't know if this has been asked and answered. I couldn't find anything when searching but any way, does hinge a structure to meet with a docking port work? I have tried different ports and way to hinge the structures to meet and it seem the port never engages. Is this even possible or does the mechanics of the hinges and ports not work? I will work up a few pictures of what i mean if this isn't clear.

Thanks,

 

-Win

[Vanamonde]

Some images would help me, anyway.  

[ControlledPairs]

Hey there. I've never docked with a port attached tirectly to a hinge and only a hinge, but I have used robotic arms to dock. Specifically, one of my space station uses a hinge and piston to extend and point a docking port at incoming spacecraft. One of those crafts, an SSTO, also uses a robotic arm of its own configured similarly to reach out and dock with the space station. With that in mind I'm pretty sure it's possible, if only a bit janky.

[KerikBalm]

Yes, it works:

[iwinFTW]

So that is kind of what i was thinking but more for a fixed piece like a folding KSS arm. I have tried some test on the ground but I'm not sure if it is working. Didn't know if anyone has had any luck with it.

 

[purpleivan]

I don't know about docking ports attached to hinges, but attached to pistons they can be a bit on the floppy side.

I used that set up on an aircraft that carried a rover in it's belly, that was deployed by extending the piston.

When in flight the rover would wobble around a fair bit, not so much that it interferred with the flight, but the wheels would poke through the fuselage from time to time.

Switching to the view from the rover inflight was a bit more dramatic.

Those wheels are the those on the bottom of the rover that the view is from, so some kind of dimensional distortion was in play obviously

[iwinFTW]

That is an awesome idea, I have just been building crazy space stations in sandbox. I'm going to switch back to career soon.

[Gargamel]

Moved to Breaking Ground Discussion. 

[Bobbert]

I've configured various iterations of docking ports connected to robotic pieces, such as pistons, hinges, and servos.

There is a clear limitation to using docking ports on the robotic pieces, as testing on Kerbin constantly results in docked vehicles continuously jostling, shifting, and moving. This occurs regardless of whether robotic parts are locked, toggled on, or wheels of vechicles are powered, or brakes applied.

Before I spent any time exploring the Breaking Ground expansion capabilities on other Kealestial bodies, I did what any engineer would do: test first. As this feature has been broken since the expansion, I have not played KSP and have been waiting for this critical defect to be resolved.

After checking today, it appears that this behavior is yet to be resolved in game. In addtition, the Bugtracker actually marked it as a new low-priority defect, and burried it in the backlog. As these Breaking Ground robotic configurations are one of the major highlights of this expansion, marking a game-breaking defect as low-priority is a bit dumbfounding. I apologize for not including pictures, but anyone who configures two vehicles to dock on Kerbin with ports attached to robotic parts should be able to replicate, as seen in other posts above. 

I've had much love of this project over the course of its development and maturation process. I hope that this latest expansion is not indicative of production quality going forward. 

[ScrapIron]

On 12/8/2019 at 5:34 PM, Bobbert said:

I've configured various iterations of docking ports connected to robotic pieces, such as pistons, hinges, and servos.

There is a clear limitation to using docking ports on the robotic pieces, as testing on Kerbin constantly results in docked vehicles continuously jostling, shifting, and moving. This occurs regardless of whether robotic parts are locked, toggled on, or wheels of vechicles are powered, or brakes applied.

Before I spent any time exploring the Breaking Ground expansion capabilities on other Kealestial bodies, I did what any engineer would do: test first. As this feature has been broken since the expansion, I have not played KSP and have been waiting for this critical defect to be resolved.

After checking today, it appears that this behavior is yet to be resolved in game. In addtition, the Bugtracker actually marked it as a new low-priority defect, and burried it in the backlog. As these Breaking Ground robotic configurations are one of the major highlights of this expansion, marking a game-breaking defect as low-priority is a bit dumbfounding. I apologize for not including pictures, but anyone who configures two vehicles to dock on Kerbin with ports attached to robotic parts should be able to replicate, as seen in other posts above. 

I've had much love of this project over the course of its development and maturation process. I hope that this latest expansion is not indicative of production quality going forward. 

I've experienced the same difficulty with the robotic parts. I've tried making movable docking ports so rovers could more easily attach to mining craft on the mun, etc. I also run tests on Kerbin, and when I do, the rover, once docked, using a hinge or hydraulic actuator, violently bounces out of control. I've also tried to make extensions for rover wheels. The thought being, a compact design for transport, and then extend the actuators with the attached wheels for a stable, wide wheel base once a location is reached, i.e. the mun. But the wheels attached to the actuators bounce violently out of control. I've tried using the larger actuators, and I've used steel plates to stiffen the connections. It doesn't seem to matter. It's so bad sometimes, it rips the Rover apart. 

This should definitely be a high priority bug, as these usages for robotics would seem to be extremely common. I've already wasted days trying to get different designs to work, and now I'm so discouraged, not only am I abandoning using these parts, I'm even discouraged from playing altogether. 

[AHHans]

In my experience the ability of the robotic parts to take up mechanical load is rather limited while they are allowed to move. But they get much stronger when the parts are locked, even more so when combined with autostruts. In the locked state autostruts are able to traverse the robotic parts, so you can autostrut a part on one side of the robotic part to another part on the other side of said robotic part. Constructs like folding wings that are folded inside a fairing during launch, folded in behind the heatshield during aerobraking on Eve, and then unlock-unfold-relock while hanging off parachutes, or rover wheels that are folded in during launch and unlock-unfold-relock in orbit work quite well for me.
(Don't activate autostruts on the robotic part itself, that's bugged in a way that may prevent the part from moving. See: Bug #23492 [Edit: Hmmm... might be that this bug is now fixed.] The usual disclaimers when using autostruts also apply.)

The one time I used a docking port on an robotic extension also worked reasonably well. See my comments here:

 

Edited December 12, 2019 by AHHans

[Ruedii]

Docking ports have very week bonding and tend to wobble.

To fix this you can enable auto-strut to grandparent part on the far docking port after connecting.

Since docking ports simply don't rigid attach, you can't use that.