Docking with Multiple Clamps at a time

[Khalashnikovf]

Is it possible with no cheats or modifying save file to dock for example 2 or 3 Clamp O Trons at once?

You know, for better stability of some parts.

I searched forum and I could not find any thread similar to this.

So bring it on.

I hope with positive answers

[rodion]

In earlier versions of the game people used to do this often when they were docking parts of the 2-meter (Rockomax) size, by mounting three Clamp-o-Trons on a 1-meter tri-coupler each side, then lining them up perfectly and hopefully getting them all to attach to each other at once. Now, however, the Clamp-o-Tron Senior part exists to facilitate docking very large parts, so it's sort of useless to go through the trouble at this point.

[UbioZur]

it's possible, here are a few things to consider however:

- they must be perfectly align during docking to have all of them docked.

- only one (the first one that will be considered docked) will have fuel crossfeed, the other will only act as struts, so be carefull with the fuel flow.

- sometime if they are nicely align and don't dock, just quicksave/load or change ship to reload the physic will fix it.

tips to align them perfectly,

On equatorial orbit, pointing north (0°) or south (180°) your ship will only roll and keep it's heading to the north or south, making it easier for both ship to be align (one docking port point north and the other south).

[espm400]

It is entirely possible, and it's how I usually setup docking ports on my space stations. Just remember, with Unity's parent>child part-tree, there's a right and a wrong way to do this. If you just want multiple ports on a single multi-couple (I use quad-couplers, as they allow you to dock in 90* increments) here's a video I found after having some serious difficulties of my own a few months back:

Now, this isn't my video (it's by youtube user HoYin1600p), and I can't take credit for anything other than finding it. That being said, it's a great simple little video that shows you the proper way to circumvent to part-tree.

If, however you're trying to line up multiple docking ports that aren't on a single part, the setup is much easier, but the docking is much, much harder. You must make sure that every port is perfectly lined up, otherwise you'll end up with this:

(Just a test ship I built to check someone elses design)

On top of that, as UbioZur mentioned, there are some wonky fuel-flow mechanics that happen when you do it this way, so that's one more thing that you have to worry about.

[LoneRider]

When i found my space station to be a bit... unstable when having to correct its orientation (e.g. when a docking vessel docks too hard) i needed a way to fix that. Since i had standard docking ports all over, i designed an additional part, which was designed to snap to 3 docking ports at different points of the station. When the first docking port started to attract its desired counterpart, the whole module was pulled in position and the other 2 docking ports also snapped on their counterparts, resulting in a successful installation of the whole module. So it definitely works. And since i also had a problem with senior docking ports not working at all (in 0.20), i still use the standard docking ports.

Using more docking ports instead of a big one (right next to another, on the same part) worked only with 2 std ports for me - 3 didnt work somehow in my case (I tried to connect multiple vehicles on kerbin base, each having a 1-to-3 adapter and 3 std docking ports). I dont know why...

edit: The three marked docking ports were used to connect one big structural part, so the upper "arms" will get more stability. The same was intended on the other side, but the left "arm" has wrong orientation, so it doesn't fit. And it cant be disconnected due to a bug...

Edited July 27, 2013 by LoneRider