How to "stabilize" jettisoned stages?

[Ivan Ivanovich]

I have a bit of a problem getting my docking targets 'stable'. They usually rotate out of the way, even if I take my time to steady my rocket before jettisoning them, but in general it\'s simply impossible to get the rocket perfectly level before staging. Not to mention that I noticed some odd behaviour with time warping, like the rocket banking upwards at three times warp speed but left at four times, without changing a thing in between.

Does anyone know a good way to steady a docking target before jettisoning it so it doesn\'t spin like crazy and make docking pretty much an impossibility?

[Saaur]

Use Wobbly\'s low-powered decoupler. Won\'t solve the problem entirely, but will help a lot. Use can use RCS in translate mode to get a little further away from it before you come back to try and dock.

[Eat Uranium]

Or make a decoupler with zero force and do the separation with RCS.

[Zeroignite]

Nova Silisko has a 0-force decoupler, though it does tend to wobble a lot if not braced with struts. Works very well for deploying payloads precisely: just release the payload, then gently thrust away.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

That\'s actually not the problem. The problem is more that I cannot get my rocket to 'remain still'. It always turns, no matter how much I try to adjust and align it, if ever so slightly. Of course, you don\'t see it \'til you wait a while, but less than 10 degrees per minute is simply an impossibility to achieve.

[Zeroignite]

That\'s because the planet is slowly rotating under you while you orbit, and the ship keeps its same heading in the same relative-to-celestial-sphere orientation.

[semininja]

You would think that\'s what\'s going on, but it seems sometimes the parts just start drifting around on their own, in directions unrelated to orbital plane or anything else.

[Tim_Barrett]

<0 force on decoupler ejection force should do the trick.

[NovaSilisko]

That\'s because the planet is slowly rotating under you while you orbit, and the ship keeps its same heading in the same relative-to-celestial-sphere orientation.

But the planet doesn\'t rotate.

[Zeroignite]

But the planet doesn\'t rotate.

Poor choice of wording on my part. The navball is oriented relative to the zenith, while the ship\'s orientation is constant in inertial space (assuming locked SAS). As you orbit the planet the orientation of the two change relative to each other.

[SteevyT]

<0 force on decoupler ejection force should do the trick.

Hmmm.....what would a -100 force decoupler do?

[CarolRawley]

[Douglasdtlltd]

You would think that\'s what\'s going on, but it seems sometimes the parts just start drifting around on their own, in directions unrelated to orbital plane or anything else.

I noticed that after i was orbiting earlier today. If i turned SAS off, it would just go \'Hmm, what direction can i point and how slow can i do it?\' (slowly starts turning and rotating in direction.

May have been slowly, but hell, it\'s weird. Also, it wastes RCS fuel. always constantly correcting for that small movement that happens.

I think it might be a physics thing, with parts pushing on each other.

[gabyalufix]

Do you think this is the effect of the 'tide'? Does anyone know if the physics engine simulates gravity\'s effects on each component individually, or if gravity is only simulated for the object as a whole? In other words, if I built an extremely long and thin rocket, will tidal forces pull my rocket into a vertical orientation? I should probably just test this . . .

As for why objects drift around after release: if you are aligned vertically on release, the lower components will be in a smaller orbit but going too fast, and thus will (initially) start slowly drifting outwards as you slowly drift inwards. (right?) Have you tried orienting yourself horizontally before release?

[Crash]

You might try decoupling in a high eccentricity orbit with a very high Apoapsis. As Zeroignite said, 'The navball is oriented relative to the zenith, while the ship\'s orientation is constant in inertial space (assuming locked SAS). As you orbit the planet the orientation of the two change relative to each other.'

If you try your decouple and manoeuvres while on the out bound or inbound leg of a high eccentricity orbit with high apoapsis you\'ll find that the relative movement of the stages (spin wise) is minimal as you\'ll be heading in an almost straight line. Ergo the ships orientation and navball orientation remain constant relative to one another.

I had the same problem and found that this allowed the types of docking your trying for.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Well, right now the solution is rather simply, albeit cheatin: Time warp to 5x, that eliminates any kind of pitch/roll/tilt, then return to 1x and have fun.

Yes, it\'s cheating, but \'til we get some kind of fine tuning control, I\'ll consider it legit.