Quad Clamp-O-Tron Ports vs. Srs.

[capi3101]

Morning all, I guess this thread's more for Temstar than anyone else, but y'all feel free to chime in.

I've been using the "heavy docking port" subassembly part for some time now and I've gotten a lot of good use out of it; it's helped me get to Duna, Ike, Gilly and Eve so far (nowhere else just yet because of some problems with my initial interplanetary design / poor piloting / lack of time). However, I've been taking a good, hard look at the Clamp-o-Tron Sr. since 0.20 came out. My chief reason for using the quad port was to sturdy up the connections; my understanding is that the Senior does this fairly well as well but that it has a tendency to "break". My big beef with the quad port is that I occasionally don't get them aligned properly and have to re-dock modules together. So I'll ask the experts: should I switch over to the Sr., or should I continue using the quad port?

Next big project is to improve on my interplanetary design, doable by adding more of the existing service stage designs. Because each one of those is 130 tonnes a pop I'm building a "superheavy" tug module - 25 LV-Ns, gives me the thrust of a Mainsail and the Isp of LV-Ns, made for flying some seriously heavy loads.

[GJames]

I've heard that the quad docking port setup is stronger, but it is a pain to dock. It took me about 20 minutes even after I had rendezvoused the two craft. If docking them isn't so much of a problem for you though, then I reckon they have a slight edge.

[Pulstar]

Seniors work great for me, although you can't physics warp with them. Still seeing 6 NERVAs on a tug pull 3 orange tugs all the way to Jool was most satisfactory. Haven't tested how getting pulled by a mainsail level of thrust works on them though.

[capi3101]

Well...three jumbos by themselves weigh 108 tonnes...plus 104 for the superheavy...about 212 total? F/m=a...so 1,500 kN/212 tonnes......7.075 m/s^2, a little over seven-tenths of a gee. Oughta be something a docking port can handle (tug might be the wrong term here; these things will be pushing, not pulling).

[Pursuedtank]

I use them a lot of the time and don't have many problems with them, however I haven't used them for anything big yet, so I would stick to the quad docking port arrangement for anything large or with a high thrust.

[nhnifong]

The Sr. docking ports have performed great for me, assuming you strut them to the ship thoroughly

ps, yuck. why can't we just spell that thoroly?

[entaran]

I'm experimenting with tri-coupler docking (3 ports instead of 4) because SR. docking ports are simply too weak and snap off your main ship all the time if there's a reasonable amount of weight applying perpendicular motion.

[capi3101]

Well, I was using quad ports because I knew Temstar had already built them and I wasn't interested in reinventing the wheel as it were. I use subassembly - only mod I'm using at the moment.

How much is a "reasonable amount of weight", give or take?