Autostrutting a large, modular ship

[king of nowhere]

When making a large ship, autostruts are your friends. They are practically required to avoid the ship tearing itself apart. But I'm having some troubles making them work now

I am building  a large ship in caveman. This forces the use of small docking ports, hence the ship is full of weak points. I'm trying to autostrut it in place, but the autostrutting options are not helpful here.

Normally, I use autostrut to heaviest part. Most of those huge ships have some huge fuel tanks at their center of mass that are very convenient places to strut things to. Here, however, there are no such tanks, because it's caveman and i have nothing bigger than the FL-T400. Of which I have about 10, scattered around the ship, and most of them in periphereal positions. Then I have the other two options of grandmother part, but the ship is already comprised of over 20 separate modules, what's the root part?

The core of the ship are 5 hitchhicker containers, they are also at the center of mass, and I would like to strut stuff there. but I don't know if it's even possible.

I put some random autostruts here and there, and it improved wobbling somewhat, but I'm trying to find a better way.

 

P.S. the better way would be to use eva construction to place some manual struts, but for challenge reasons I would like to not use eva construction if at all possible

[Kerbal Productions]

Root part is the first part you add. It might be a command module whatsoever. The first part is the root part.

EVA Construction might not be worth it. Autostrut is really the best way.
So, what's a better way than autostrutting everything to the heaviest part? Doing it, but automated!

This mod can help you. It'll solve all wobbly problems. And instead of adding autostruts to random places, the mod can add autostruts at all parts, therefore stabilizing your craft to the max. And there's no need for visible struts. 

Tell me if you have anymore problems. But if this solved your question, you can mark it as the answer for more people to see!

Spoiler

And also, I know wobbly stuff are the worst. 

 

[steuben]

Root can/will change sometimes when building stuff out of modules. So relying on first part can be problematic.

Alt F12 to go to the Debug Menu/Physics Tab/Visualize Autostruts, that will let you the see auto-strut map. With the rules of caveman  however... I think it might be allowed. But that is something for the jurists there to decide.

But short of running EVA struts, if you strut to grandparent across both sides of the join, should tackle most of it. Then when built you run a couple of struts to root from each module, it should work.

[king of nowhere]

16 minutes ago, Kerbal Productions said:

Root part is the first part you add. It might be a command module whatsoever. The first part is the root part.

EVA Construction might not be worth it. Autostrut is really the best way.
So, what's a better way than autostrutting everything to the heaviest part? Doing it, but automated!

This mod can help you. It'll solve all wobbly problems. And instead of adding autostruts to random places, the mod can add autostruts at all parts, therefore stabilizing your craft to the max. And there's no need for visible struts. 

Tell me if you have anymore problems. But if this solved your question, you can mark it as the answer for more people to see!

  Reveal hidden contents

And also, I know wobbly stuff are the worst. 

 

thanks for the help, but in the caveman challenge, mods are frowned upon. I don't think I should be doing it.

The first part I did add is the center of the ship, so if everything get autostrut there, it would be great. but if that was happening, there would be a lot less wobbling.

[king of nowhere]

39 minutes ago, steuben said:

Root can/will change sometimes when building stuff out of modules. So relying on first part can be problematic.

Alt F12 to go to the Debug Menu/Physics Tab/Visualize Autostruts, that will let you the see auto-strut map. With the rules of caveman  however... I think it might be allowed. But that is something for the jurists there to decide.

But short of running EVA struts, if you strut to grandparent across both sides of the join, should tackle most of it. Then when built you run a couple of struts to root from each module, it should work.

Great input. Caveman rules say no cheat menu, but this is not cheat - and if it is, I've already been using the aerodinamic section of it all the time, and posted screenshots with it.

So I went and check and I did not like what I saw

Of all the autostruts I did put in, there doesn't seem to be a single one of them covering an actual joint. Trying to autostrut to grandparent - or to root part - apparently has no effect, as you can see in the screenshot; I have selected the crew pod, and I selected it to have autostrut root (or grandparent, not sure about the translation there because it's not literal), and there is no autostrut in the part. what kind of crappy autostrut routine is that?

Anyway, it doesn't seem to be working. I may have to use manual struts after all. As for the mod, I am pretty sure it does count as "altering gameplay"

 

[steuben]

There maybe a refresh required. I don't know if it is real time or not.  (having just checked it is real-time)

As for translation... grandparent is two parts closer to the root part. So not the part it's connected to  but the one after that. 

[king of nowhere]

17 minutes ago, steuben said:

There maybe a refresh required. I don't know if it is real time or not.  (having just checked it is real-time)

As for translation... grandparent is two parts closer to the root part. So not the part it's connected to  but the one after that. 

I mean translation from italian. In italian they are translated as mother part, and origin part. I don't know which one is root and which one is grandparent

Silly, me, I can just check in the VAB. Mother is root, and origin is grandparent

 

I tried to get the game to recognize the proper struts in my ship, but maybe it's too complex for the algorithm. it still leaves blanks when I try to strut to root or grandmother. And I noticed that autostrut to heaviest seem to work like grandparent

Edited January 22, 2022 by king of nowhere

[Kerbal Productions]

9 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

I don't think I should be doing it.

Understood.

You can try manually autostrutting all of them to the heaviest part since it's, for me, the most stable one.