SAS and battery

[Joe Kerbal]

I'm in career mode, pretty newbie.

Till now I had no battery (not yet researched any component into the electricity stuff). Then I added a battery to opearte an antenna. I just realized when I run out of charge the ship rotation stop working. (No matter actually if I'm using a SAS or manually). I wonder why is that way. I mean... before adding the batteries I have no charge problem... sounds weird to me. I added a component and then I have limited possibilities? I'm a bit confused about it.

[Zhetaan]

22 minutes ago, Joe Kerbal said:

I'm in career mode, pretty newbie.

Till now I had no battery (not yet researched any component into the electricity stuff). Then I added a battery to opearte an antenna. I just realized when I run out of charge the ship rotation stop working. (No matter actually if I'm using a SAS or manually). I wonder why is that way. I mean... before adding the batteries I have no charge problem... sounds weird to me. I added a component and then I have limited possibilities? I'm a bit confused about it.

You can accomplish rotation in a couple of ways when in free fall in space.  The first is to use RCS and monopropellant.  The second is to use reaction wheels.  Reaction wheels require electric charge, but your command pod normally has a small battery (it usually has reaction wheels, too; the dedicated parts are for larger rockets).

The reason that you're seeing what you did was possibly because the battery is massive enough to require more power than you were producing to turn the rocket, but before you added it, the demand was less than the supply.  Try adding another power generator, such as a solar panel.

[Joe Kerbal]

10 minutes ago, Zhetaan said:

The reason that you're seeing what you did was possibly because the battery is massive enough to require more power than you were producing to turn the rocket, but before you added it, the demand was less than the supply.  Try adding another power generator, such as a solar panel.

I didn't add any solar panel actually assuming I would have used the battery only for communication. The whole thing now makes much more sense. Thankyou

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Welcome to the fun of KSP 

 

Learning by failure! 

[UncleManuel]

On 5/28/2020 at 4:45 PM, Joe Kerbal said:

I didn't add any solar panel actually assuming I would have used the battery only for communication. The whole thing now makes much more sense. Thankyou

If you want to learn more just fire up the sandbox mode and fiddle around with parts. Sometimes you learn by trying out stuff (that's Kerbal for: blow stuff up  ).

One thing about electricity: cockpits, lights, reaction wheels and control surfaces are consuming power. Rocket engines and jet engines are producing power while running. Another source of electrical power are solar collectors, fuel cells or the RTB (nuclear battery for satellites). 

[Toucan]

I always turn the power off on the pod. Save it for emergency power.

Plan to have enough power with the batteries you add, but if something goes wrong you will have the pod power for backup.
 

[king of nowhere]

On 5/28/2020 at 4:45 PM, Joe Kerbal said:

I didn't add any solar panel actually assuming I would have used the battery only for communication. The whole thing now makes much more sense. Thankyou

communications actually takes up a lot of battery power if you transmit science data. normal communication to keep track of the ship instead is free as far as i can tell. I also had your same problem when i unlocked stuff that consumes power faster than i unlocked stuff that restores it.

right now, assuming you're stuck in orbit without control, your best bet is to use your rocket at a low burn to generate power and turn the ship. if you still have enough propellant left, you should still be able to salvage the mission and land safely.