Mounting engines radially?

[Stealth2668]

I was wondering if this is possible because I wanna try out the nuclear engines but they are rather weak and I'm not down for 15+ minute burn times. Instead I want to use about 4 of them but have them to all feed off of a single tank rather than all of them having their own fuel tank above them in a stack.

Here's a pic of what I DON'T want.

Edited June 2, 2013 by Stealth2668

[Barujin]

You can use a double adapter and then attach two more double adapters to it, rotated the other direction. That easily gives you four. I don't know how stable this would be on a launch setup, though.

[Khrissetti]

Why not just mount them underneath the smallest fuel tanks?

[Specialist290]

It can be done with creative use of one of the I-beam parts. You might have to still put a small fuel tank on for the radially-mounted engines to feed from, but then you can just use fuel lines to have the other engines pull fuel from the main fuel tank as well.

Here's a screenshot of one of my own craft that's set up to work in such a way:

[Nao]

You can place BZ-52 radial attachment points in a symmetry below the 2m tank and attach engines to it. You could try searching for "engine clusters" to get some examples.

[PlayMp1]

You could downgrade from 4 to 3 engines and use a simple tricoupler for additional stability instead of the jury-rigged quadcoupler using multiple bicouplers. Alternatively, get the Kerbal Stock Parts Expansion mod and use the quadcoupler from that. The KSPX mod is practically indistinguishable from the real thing (some of its parts are actually stock parts now, including the cupola, MK1 Landercan, and the Skipper engine).

[Stealth2668]

Why not just mount them underneath the smallest fuel tanks?

Well I want them all to have the same amount of fuel. If I use fuel lines, the central tank will run out of fuel the fastest and just be dead weight.

[rpayne88]

So radially attach some structural fuselages to the sides of the main tank. They are fairly light and strong and don't carry any fuel. Just don't forget struts and fuel lines.

[GmixerGaming]

If you want to radially attack some boosters to the main tank without a tank above them, you could mess with struts since they carry the fuel crossfeed.

[Stealth2668]

So radially attach some structural fuselages to the sides of the main tank. They are fairly light and strong and don't carry any fuel. Just don't forget struts and fuel lines.

Ahh yes, didn't even think about that. Even the it's a structural fuselage, it can accept fuel with a fuel line?

[Dunbaratu]

Well I want them all to have the same amount of fuel. If I use fuel lines, the central tank will run out of fuel the fastest and just be dead weight.

Then JUST have the outer 4 engines and not the central one, using 4 fuel lines to run from the center tank to each outer fuel tank, so they all feed off the same one central tank equally and deplete it together. That way the 4 engines will run out of fuel "together" equally.

[Stealth2668]

^ sounds like a plan.

[Specialist290]

Steven Mading's plan also has the added advantage that it frees up an attachment node that you can use to place something else, like a docking port. That way, you can turn your craft into something like a reuseable payload hauler.