Is there a way to combine craft in the VAB

[Kerbface]

I was making a large ship for going interplanetary and then I tried making a launcher for it, but I couldn't get one that could lift the weight without exploding. So I went and downloaded a heavyweight launcher from the spaceport... but I don't know how to connect it to my ship.

There must be a way. I've seen youtubers use the same launchers for different payloads many times.

[bulletrhli]

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/subassembly-saver-loader/

[NeoMorph]

Excellent mod - can also recommend it as I use it extensively.

[shand]

ditto. i use it a lot. just remember to design anything you may want to attach to something else either with the command pod as the attachment pod, or with a random command pod to symbolise the attachment point (and then save everything but) i've had a few occasions [mostly rovers] where i've had to rebuild my payload otherwise.

[Kerbface]

Thanks a lot! I'll try this out, looks great.

[FortyCaliber]

I keep getting an error message about how the subassembly is bad and has no free nodes.

[Spartwo]

I keep getting an error message about how the subassembly is bad and has no free nodes.

do you have any command pods attached?

[ThatBum]

I keep getting an error message about how the subassembly is bad and has no free nodes.

The subassembly you're saving has to have one of those green attachment nodes somewhere on it. If there's not you need to save it as two halves.

[Coelispex]

I'm new to this game but what does those green attachment nodes mean? This is getting frustrating

[Tw1]

The green balls that appear at the end of parts when you add them are the nodes.

When you pick up parts, you will see them if it's a good sub-assembly.

[NeoMorph]

Usually you can fix the bad assembly thing by grabbing the vehicle just underneath the pod or probe body and dropping the lot minus the pod/probe onto the jigsaw.

To be honest with you I don't know what it would be like without sub-assembly loader. I build various boosters so it just means having to build the payload and grabbing the booster I want to send it into orbit without any remaining debris in orbit. Saves a LOT of time.

[CalculusWarrior]

I've got several lifters of varying size saved to SubAssembly, and I just pick and choose after I've finished building my payload. I'm worried for 0.20 though; there's a flag button that goes exactly where the purple SubAssembly button is now. I guess we'll have to do without until the mod is updated.

[NeoMorph]

Crud, you are right. Should be easy enough to fix though.

[CalculusWarrior]

Crud, you are right. Should be easy enough to fix though.

I wouldn't even be surprised if there's an update to it in the next few days moving the button preemptively. Of course, that depends if the developer checks the forum often and decides to take action.

[Zardiz]

Can someone kindly explain what on high heavens I have to do to make this work? I am about to rip the little hair I have off and send that into orbit with the power of rage...

It will complain about every configuration I do, no free subassembly node, yet one test I made was had at least 20 of them all over, yet P#)(%/=((/%"#¤ing keeps saying it. I can save it upside down...but what bloody good is that :| Do I have to redesing all my s**t upside down to use this?

[NeoMorph]

Okay simple example

If you take the Apollo stack you could pull off the pod that the astronauts splash down in and then take the rest of the rocket and drop it onto the jigsaw piece. Basically leave one piece behind in the VAB (normally the root piece which is usually a pod or a probe brain).

[Deadweasel]

Can someone kindly explain what on high heavens I have to do to make this work? I am about to rip the little hair I have off and send that into orbit with the power of rage...

It will complain about every configuration I do, no free subassembly node, yet one test I made was had at least 20 of them all over, yet P#)(%/=((/%"#¤ing keeps saying it. I can save it upside down...but what bloody good is that :| Do I have to redesing all my s**t upside down to use this?

It's not about having free nodes in general, the issue is that the ROOT part doesn't have a free node. The root part is the first part you brought in to build the assembly. If you remove that part, the second part you added becomes the root.

If you use the single pilot cockpit as your starting point, then tack on say an ASAS, then a fuel tank, you won't be able to save that assembly because the single-pilot cockpit only has one attachment node (which is connected to the ASAS). Now, if you pull the ASAS (and therefore everything below that), you will find that you can save THAT assembly without issue.

Make sense?

If you plan ahead a bit, you can make a subassembly that starts with a separator ring as the root part, so you can import it into another ship with the "root" node already in a place that makes the assembly mount the way you need it to in the final build.

Sadly, this doesn't help if the "assembly" you want to import requires careful balancing and testing during the initial build, such as a VTOL plane, because your "throwaway" root part is inevitably going to throw off the balance.

Edited June 26, 2013 by Deadweasel

[Zardiz]

Thank you for a reply and explaining this, I understand what you mean but still have no clue how to plan this so I can use separator as the root. How exactly you do that?

Been trying just with few parts, and only way I've now been able to do it is to use radio controller as the root, then add separator above it and continue like that (and what I want to do, I can continue from there) but how to use that separator as root I havent figured?

[Deadweasel]

You can start a new ship with parts other than a capsule now. Using this, it's possible to more accurately control the hierarchy of parts order. In other words, each part you bring in becomes the next in line of succession for the role of "root" part. Pulling the assembly from the first part makes the next part in line the root.

This is demonstrated in the video below, where I throw together a quick and dirty "ship" starting with a decoupler, save it (which is possible because the root part -the decoupler- has an open node), import it to another vessel, mount it, then go back and pull the decoupler. Notice how the ship now snaps back in place on the nose of the capsule?

Even if I hadn't added the engine at the tail, the open node back there wouldn't count as a valid root node, because the fuel tank isn't the root in this case; the capsule is. It all comes down to the order in which you build your initial assembly that you want to import elsewhere.

It doesn't matter what part is initially the root part, so long as it's first in the order in which you brought the parts onto the ship, AND it has an open attachment node.

Does that make sense?

[Skorpychan]

The link at the start of the thread is 404 not found. Is it pending a new version or something?

[Deadweasel]

The link at the start of the thread is 404 not found. Is it pending a new version or something?

Wow... Maybe that's possible, but it looks like in the meantime it has been pulled completely! D:

Haven't seen anything from the mod creator (DEADBEEF) since the forum crash, so it's possible it's just gone. If that's the case it really sucks because folks had worked out the minor fixes needed to keep it working in .20.

Guess it's a good thing I keep all the original downloaded archives, because it would really blow if Squad doesn't implement this function in the next couple of updates...

[Zardiz]

You can start a new ship with parts other than a capsule now. Using this, it's possible to more accurately control the hierarchy of parts order. In other words, each part you bring in becomes the next in line of succession for the role of "root" part. Pulling the assembly from the first part makes the next part in line the root.

This is demonstrated in the video below, where I throw together a quick and dirty "ship" starting with a decoupler, save it (which is possible because the root part -the decoupler- has an open node), import it to another vessel, mount it, then go back and pull the decoupler. Notice how the ship now snaps back in place on the nose of the capsule?

Even if I hadn't added the engine at the tail, the open node back there wouldn't count as a valid root node, because the fuel tank isn't the root in this case; the capsule is. It all comes down to the order in which you build your initial assembly that you want to import elsewhere.

It doesn't matter what part is initially the root part, so long as it's first in the order in which you brought the parts onto the ship, AND it has an open attachment node.

Does that make sense?

Yes made it clear now, thank you for taking your time to explain! much appreciated