How does the game consider the front of a vehicle?

[SaturnV]

I was trying to sent some worker ship to my station, however when I‘m ready to dock I found my worker not behave as I expected: when I push H key to translation forward, it just move backwards.

After some experiments I can tell the ‘front‘ is related to the root part of a vehicle if the root part is a docking port or some vertical connection part, but if it's a fuel tank and you attached it around your lifter, I didn't found the relationship of the front and the direction of the root part.

So, can anybody explain the ‘front‘ mechanism to me?

I also need some advice for making workers and rovers move as expected.

Edited September 5, 2013 by SaturnV

[Johnno]

Root part doesn't control it, your command part does. The pod/probecore.

[Araym]

Every probe, command pod and cockpit have their own "direction".

It's fixed: if you take a pod, for example, and point it down (in a rocket that you build like anyone with also thruster pointing down) on the launchpad you must command it in "reversed way" (E.G.: your prograde direction becomes the retrograde in the Nav-Ball)...

... simply put: the direction where you point your command element (probe/pod/cockpit) is the "forward" for the game, even if in your design it is (intended) another one.

[HeadHunter67]

If you have multiple command-capable components on a craft, you can select one and "control from here". The navball will then display as if that component is the "front" of the craft.

Also, translation won't necessarily match the orientation of your screen unless you are in chase mode - that's the whole purpose of that view.

[Dangerous_Beans]

if you right click on a docking port, pod, or probe body you get an option that says "control from here". if you choose that option the orientation of that part will be used to determine forward/backwards directions.

if you have probe bodies in weird places you often end up with the game getting confused, so it's good to check.

[SaturnV]

Hey guys thanks for the tip!

I did more tests, finally found the key point: right after decoupling, the drone‘s controller is mostly the root part which in my situation is a dock port, that's why I thought it's related to the root part.

After manually change the control to the probecore, the direction is then what I expected.

I hope there's a way to set the ‘default‘ controller of a sat/drone/rover, then it's no need to set it every time you release one