Multi docking

[Fkostt]

HI, I think it would be amazing to be able to design ships with multi docking ports. Especially in view of the interstellar colony part. I tried to build a small fuel station + habitats and if possible a hangar but I saw that I was very quickly limited when I went to more than two docking ports. As in the screenshot we can see that one of the ports doesn't  seem to want to dock. A solution or a possible reflection on your part? thank you for this incredible game that just needs to evolve best reguards.

[dansiegel30]

It seems you are simply trying to have the ship "dock" with itself.  I believe this may be a Unity limitation or simply a KSP design restriction, this limitation was with KSP1 as well.  Another example would be that a booster can have only 1 radial coupler connected to it, where as in the real world, they can have multiple (obviously releasing them at the same time).  There is an exception to this rule, using struts.  It does limit imagination for craft design, I've just gotten used to it being this way.

[mattihase]

I swear I remember hearing some talk in the past about KSP2 using a graph style representation for ships rather than a tree representation, that would allow for stuff like multi-docking but it seems like that isn't the case so same limitations as KSP1 at the moment am fraid.

[mattihase]

Interestingly though I have had a poke around in the file format for crafts before and the file system at least seems like it could handle representing loops, but I doubt the game engine would be happy about it.

[Kerbart]

There would only be one real docking point. The others would be kept together by their "magnetic force," which is how multi-port docking currently works.  I'm sure it's possible to convert that to some strut-like connection when docking but I'm not an expert.

[TonyC123]

On 11/11/2023 at 3:04 PM, dansiegel30 said:

It seems you are simply trying to have the ship "dock" with itself.  I believe this may be a Unity limitation or simply a KSP design restriction, this limitation was with KSP1 as well.  Another example would be that a booster can have only 1 radial coupler connected to it, where as in the real world, they can have multiple (obviously releasing them at the same time).  There is an exception to this rule, using struts.  It does limit imagination for craft design, I've just gotten used to it being this way.

I was able to dock a vessel with itself in KSP 1. Example of use was with wide vessel, in the centre is 1 large fuel tank with say x8 symmetrical fuel tanks pointing down attached to it's side. I wanted to save the launching vessel (for financial reasons) so I didn't make x9 separate launchers as all of them but the one I was controlling would be lost in orbit as it descended down from it's sub orbital position. I instead had 1 large fuel tank with other fuel tanks connected symmetrically to it's side, just like the payload it was delivering had. As you know, you can't do multi decoupling. so Instead I only had the centre large tank attached to the payloads large tank by a decoupler. All the other fuel tanks had docks on them but the docks had not been attached to each other in the VAB and instead they were attached to the fuel tanks which were positioned so that the docks were next to each other, like they would be when docked. When I launched the vessel, they all docked and showed in the information window as docked. I also "enabled staging" on the docking port in the VAB and put it in the same stage as the main decoupler in the centre and when I activated that stage, they all undocked with the decoupler (on most occasions), sometimes I would have to manually undock them. I have also used docks before as locking mechanisms for attached rovers and this worked in a similar way.

[Jeq]

+1

I wan't this behauviour from KSP I be translated to KSP II.

It did bring new bugs especially when docking itself with claw and docking ports but if they can do it stable then it would be cool.

I am starting to see pattern at KSP II, there will not be problems introducted which cannot be solved, if docking with itself is one of problems which cannot be solved reasonable clean code, it will not be in game.

Edited January 7 by Jeq