Any way to turn faster?

[IriathZhul]

I'm having a trouble with controlling ship orientation. Even using the largest ASAS model, the vast majority of my ships are almost impossible to rotate. E.g., one of them I have only weighs about 10 tons and it takes nearly four minutes to turn 90 degrees in any direction.

Is this normal? Is there anything I can do to improve the turning speed? As it stands, this is just unfeasible since I can't even get oriented properly before hitting apoapsis after launching off Kerbin...

[waffelzman]

ASAS doesn't help turning, neither does SAS. Use RCS tanks and thrusters and press r to turn them on

[GreenDragon]

ASAS and SAS dont help with turning speed, you can however add an RCS system and use that or add more command pods. Point of note, the probe pods have very little turning speed so anything of decent size will turn very slowly, which is why my bigger unmanned ships always have RCS these days.

[SalmonellaDingDong]

Small ships shouldn't have that much difficulty turning. Try some RCS.

You're at 1x timewarp, right?

[IriathZhul]

RCS affects rotation as well? This is good to hear! I thought it was just for translation. I shall try it out.

Yes, I'm at 1X timewarp.

[ComradeGoat]

ASAS will prevent you from turning. It tries to hold your heading. You need to turn it off to turn!

All command modules have reaction wheels to turn, but the small ones don't have much turning force. If you have a small command module and a great big heavy ship, the control wheels aren't going to do much, and as others have said you will want to augment with strategically placed RCS thrusters.

[FritzPixel]

Each command pod has a different level of torque it can apply. For example controlling a large, heavy rocket with a tiny probe core can make turning even a few degrees a chore. If you use RCS to assist turning, the placement of your thrusters can make all the difference. I always try to put port linear thrusters as far away from the center of mass as possible, usually with four symmetry. If that still isn't enough, I've had some success using pairs of small radial liquid engines instead of port linear thrusters and controlling them with action groups, but it can be overkill even with large heavy cruisers.

Another cool tip is to use the physical time warp. The regular time warp puts the craft on rails, but if you hold alt while advancing time warp you can still apply torque and use engines. It can only go up to 4x speed, but for large craft or space stations, it can help a bunch.

[chainedlupine]

Probe bodies. They contribute a (small) amount of rotpower. If you are using stock probes, though, it might take a LOT to have any appreciable notice. (For comparison, the small mk1 capsule is rotpower=5, where the largest probe body is rotpower=0.5)

[Genera1]

Probe bodies. They contribute a (small) amount of rotpower. If you are using stock probes, though, it might take a LOT to have any appreciable notice. (For comparison, the small mk1 capsule is rotpower=5, where the largest probe body is rotpower=0.5)

True, but it's really inefficient, if your craft is so heavy it cannot turn normally, it's better to use RCS

[chainedlupine]

True, but it's really inefficient, if your craft is so heavy it cannot turn normally, it's better to use RCS

You can shed them on the way. That's what I do. I stick a probe bodies (and SAS modules) on practically every part my rocket which is discarded on its way to the LKO. That way I don't have to bother with finicky aerodynamic surfaces that might slam into each other when separated... Only down-side is that the probe bodies sometimes cause boosters to glitch and not be automatically deleted when they fall below 25km. At least, I believe that is what I am seeing at times. (I've had discarded boosters stuck in orbits inside of Kerbin.)

There's a mod part someone made which is a modified probe body that is a radial attachment, and has insane rotpower. Something like 40 or 50. I used to use those, but I found they were a lot of trouble later on. Too much rotational control and you spin out of control...

[Ruedii]

Make sure you don't have time warp on. Additionally ASAS will prevent the ship from turning at all. SAS will reduce the amount the ship turns when activated.

For very large ships you need RCS.

I often add SAS units at both ends to improve stability. However, adding multiple ASAS units doesn't help for much of anything.

[Tw1]

SAS units don't help turn the ship? I was so sure they did...

Not when the SAS is actually on, of course.

They aught to, that'd be handy. Real spaceships use reaction wheels.