Some newbie questions

[Charlie32]

Been playing the game for a few days and I'm loving it, despite only just getting the hang of space travel, but have a few questions about the game.

Firstly, particularly with big ambitious rockets, ill put them on the launch pad and switch my advanced sas on (no standard sas on board) and it'll go crazy with whatever winglets I have trying to keep it 'balanced' when I have it held by the launch supports, and continues this as the rocket ascends; is this a) wasting fuel, and a fault of sas? I accept that my rockets are probably for the most part unstable, but if I turn sas off it doesn't require an awful lot of effort on my part to keep it straight!

On the topic of sas, I read (while searching for this issue) and the difference between advanced and normal sas, would that be a possible solution?

I've been experimenting with some ion spacecrafts, using other rockets to get it up there and then breaking off, but I've got two issues there, I can never get much electricity input, no matter how many panels I cover the wings with. And then I struggle to design it, I know I need to keep the weight low, but what can I make the body out of?

Any help is much appreciated!