How do Sepratrons work?

[Deses]

Well, the question pretty much sums it up, I'm having problems with the darn things. I have rockets in asparagus staging, and I set the sepratrons to the default position (black thruster down) the things seems to work, but almost every time the debris collide with the other rockets, so I figured that the thruster should be pointing down, no? That way the debris is pulled down and the rocket keeps going up without problems, right? Wrong! That makes everything worse. The debris goes UP even faster than the rocket. Finally, I figured that it should be pointing out! That was the worst idea ever.

So... what is the correct configuration? Everything is crashing and exploding, like fireworks! But I want reach orbit. ;_;

Maybe it's because the wings? Should I remove them and place them somewhere else?

And some pictures of the rocket:

Rockets pointing down:

Wooooooooh!! Woops, this is going to end badly.

Edited July 11, 2013 by Deses

[Sirrobert]

Put them on the sides of the side boosters, pointed sideways so that they push the booster AWAY from the main rocket

They should go where I proffesionally put red smears with paint on your picture, on both side of each booster. Maybe several per booster

[Kimberly]

They work like any other rocket.

If you put a Sepratron on the side next to your main rocket and point it down, the thrust will be pulling the booster inwards and make it more likely to hit your main craft. You need to provide balanced thrust to prevent this from happening, by using multiple Sepratrons or aligning the Sepratron properly with the booster's center of gravity. Also keep in mind that the boosters will have lots of upward momentum, which the Sepratron may not be able to counter.

[Raptor831]

This is how I put them on my rockets:

You want them pointed mostly up, with a bit of an angle out. If you put them straight out, sometimes the exhaust will hit the main rocket or (if it's light enough) it will just flip the booster really fast back into your rocket. This way it just pulls away nicely and slowly from your core.

[Boffinbox]

imagine them as very tiny SRBs. if you had hundreds together you'd actually have a usable rocket

edit: i didn't explain anything cause i'm a moron

you dont want to point them down, cause that's retrograde. i find them best pointed sideways away from the main stack, so you're adding to the velocity already in it, and moving it away, so it moves away faster.

[Guest]

This is the effect you want to achieve, where the boosters get pushed away from your rocket.

[TheSaint]

Hmph. Maybe I'm different, but I always put mine on the sides of the boosters with the nozzles facing inwards so they push the booster away from the core during separation.

Edit: Yeah, what they said.

Edited July 10, 2013 by TheSaint

[Deses]

I see... I'm going to try those tips right away.

Thanks!

[Xeldrak]

hm, I never realized, that the Shuttle SRB still burn during seperation....

[stupid_chris]

Personally, I put them a bit differently:

As said by other people, it can be complicated to use separatrons because you have to take in consideration the booster's mommentum and the CoM of the booster. For that reason, placing them this way offers a simple solution to both of these problems. By pointing them upwards, instead of fighting the momentum, which can be a bit disastrous, you play on changing the direction of the booster and pushing it out of the way while still keeping it going forward as he was. I never had a problem with this configuration, excepted with really really light boosters, then you have to put them slightly lower else this pushes the booster away too fast and instead causes it to spin on itself.

[austin4050]

Best thing to do is use the auto-snapper that places parts in increment (have no clue what it is called) and 1 (more if needed) at the top AND bottom, you must make sure that they are on complete opposite sides of the part, or it will just spin.

[Sirrobert]

hm, I never realized, that the Shuttle SRB still burn during seperation....

What I concider way more interesting is that while seperated, the SRBs and the shuttle keep going at the same speed. If I seperate a booster from the main rocket with it's engine still on, almost always it will accelerate aLOT faster suddenly, having been freeed from the weight

[stupid_chris]

What I concider way more interesting is that while seperated, the SRBs and the shuttle keep going at the same speed. If I seperate a booster from the main rocket with it's engine still on, almost always it will accelerate aLOT faster suddenly, having been freeed from the weight

If I remember correctly, there is a sort of flameout procedure inside the SRB that reduces the thrust then stops it from burning . It keeps burning on separation to help direct it away from the shuttle, the SRB's could gimbal IIRC and they used it to thrust away.

[Deses]

Hmm... how do I sightly rotate the parts? I know I can use WASDQE but that gives me hard 90º rotations.

[stupid_chris]

Hmm... how do I sightly rotate the parts? I know I can use WASDQE but that gives me hard 90º rotations.

shift+wasdqe

[Snooze]

If I remember correctly, there is a sort of flameout procedure inside the SRB that reduces the thrust then stops it from burning . It keeps burning on separation to help direct it away from the shuttle, the SRB's could gimbal IIRC and they used it to thrust away.

It's how the solid fuel is molded inside the SRB. It's something like an inverted cone, if I remember right. Reduces thrust instead of cutting it so the separation is a redirection as opposed to a brute force push.

[Deses]

shift+wasdqe

Oh, the possibilities.

Thanks man!

[pasty2k2]

To save you time, alt-click on an object copies it and everything attached to it - comes in real handy when you want to have various bits like sepratrons/batteries whatever on the sides of something, then repeat it somewhere else, keeping everything exactly the same so there's no odd Center of Mass to fight. Helps get docking ports with lights/quantum struts on the edges repeated everywhere nicely, takes like 10% of the time as you only need do it once.

C and X toggle symmetry and snap-to, so you don't need to keep going to the corner of the screen. If it keeps forcing you to use a certain symmetry, its because you are moused-over something else. To stop it, change it to 1x, put your mouse in-place (1x stops this auto-symmetry behaviour) then C to choose your symmetry, then you don't have to dodge parts of your rocket while designing it.

Finally, Ctrl-Z is undo - in case you accidentally your hard work.

Have fun! VAB/SPH designer is not so bad when you know these tricks