Fuel Crossfeed Capable

[Taki117]

So, I've been thinking of making an interplanetary mission (Thank you Brotoro for the inspiration) and was using the following tug design. (Again I blame Brotoro) But I was curious what Fuel Crossfeed Capable actually meant. I've never really run into this (Except when clustering engines) I've never tried using it as I am here. Will fuel flow from the center tank to the outer nacelles? (They are FL-T800's covered in heat shields)

Edited November 13, 2013 by Taki117

[KvickFlygarn87]

Yup.

10char.

[Tank Buddy]

Fuel crossfeed capable means fuel will freely flow through the part into wherever there is demand for fuel; To my knowledge fuel tanks only flow top to bottom. Parts like decouplers are not fuel crossfeed capable, meaning fuel above them will not flow to the engine below it, even though fuel runs top to bottom. Therefore fuel will no flow between stages.

I recently edited (made a second one) a small cube strut to not be crossfeed capable so I could attach fuel lines to run behind some SRB's without the fuel flowing into the center stack.

[capi3101]

Look at any part's configuration file - unless there's a line in it that specifically says "fuelCrossFeed = False", it will will allow fuel cross-feed. That's a sizable fraction of the parts in the game, incidentally.

In your design, you can indeed feed the outer nacelles from the central tank; I've got that very phenomenon going on with my Thanatos Heavy 7 booster for the Constellation Challenge. You can also go the other direction, of course; it all depends on how you aim your fuel lines (stick them on the part you want the fuel to come from, connect them to the part you want to run fuel to). It's part of the usual advice I give to people who are having problems with their early Mün landers (e.g. take that FL-T400 you're using and swap it out with four FL-T100s, put three of those tanks outboard and run fuel lines to the center, put your legs on the outer tanks and voila - you've widened and shortened your stack so it's less likely to tip over while not sacrificing fuel or adding mass).

[Sirrobert]

No, fuel will not flow from a central tank to one that's been attatched radial to it. You'll need a fuel line for that.