Are more struts really better?

[buggy]

If two parts are strutted together, does adding more struts increase stability? Does the positioning of the struts affect anything either?

[Captain Sierra]

Hmmmm. Never seen this before. I imagine more struts increases strength per strut but I don't know about positioning. I think that might effect where the force they exert holding stuff together is applied.

Good question. To the testing!

[arq]

I'm not certain. I rarely have more than one strut between any two parts. Maybe I'll mess around sometime to find out too.

That said, there are cases where even single struts can be bad. Struts can serve to redirect forces to other parts of the vessel. Sometimes the parts can't handle these forces and this causes them to fall apart. Though I've only really experienced this with 2500t+ vessels.

[Olympic1]

You never have to many struts.

[stringyquark]

I like to add struts to my struts, only way to be sure.

[Johnno]

If two parts are strutted together, does adding more struts increase stability? Does the positioning of the struts affect anything either?

Yes and yes.

Strut placements follows the laws of ingame physics just as much as center of mass or asymmetrical crafts. Knowing where to place them reduces the amount you need, compared to just strutting everything in a huge web.

[Bacterius]

I like to add struts to my struts, only way to be sure.

I add boosters to my struts.

[Skorpychan]

There's a point where 'moar struts' is eclipsed by 'lower part count'. Generally, it's not how many you use, so much as where you put them.

[Vanamonde]

Putting more struts between the same two parts isn't all that helpful; geometrically, 3 should be all you need to fix their relative positions. But if you link part A to parts B and C, stresses are distributed better and your ship will be more resilient and rigid.

[maccollo]

Then there's also the off chance that adding more struts will cause a bug where an extremely powerful resonance builds up and shakes your entire ship to pieces. It has happened to me quite a few times, and usually when I've had a lot of struts connecting radially attached tanks is a circular fashion.

[bsalis]

More struts are not always better.

More than what is needed to hold a craft together adds part count.

Bad strut placement can cause forces to be directed to weak and/or already stressed part bonds. So actually may make it worse.

[lewille]

I like to add struts to my struts, only way to be sure.

I heard you like strutting, so we released a strut for the strut that was supposed to strut your strut.

[PetWolverine]

I add boosters to my struts.

Strut the boosters and boost the struts, it's off to space we go!

[M4ck]

Strut the boosters and boost the struts, it's off to space we go!

And then... "Release da Kraken!"

And now on topic. Struts reinforcing between different stages still remain after separation on one end at least(the origin block - 100% sure, the other end - I don't think so, but will check soon). If it is only the first end that remains, you can save some parts count by always reinforcing multi-stages always towards the payload.

Edited August 26, 2013 by M4ck

[Dooz]

It Does help with wobbling But add to many it melts Your CPU

Edited August 26, 2013 by Dooz
I needed to fix my Grammar :P

[zarakon]

I've had a few cases of rockets that would spontaneously explode, but then work fine (if a bit wobbly) after I removed most of the struts.