Part prograde direction

[CaptainKipard]

One of the weird thing about Skylon is that the the the engine exhaust vectors are not parallel to the spaceplane nose direction. This will make piloting the plane very difficult in space. Is it possible to specify a prograde direction of a command pod part whilst still keeping the geometry aligned to global axes?

[Porkjet]

Not sure. Would rotating the geometry slightly away from global axis not be an option? You'd just need to define the attach node with it properly. The part would probably spawn slightly rotated in SPH but would attach straight to other things.

[Nertea]

Yes, that would be the best way to do that. Have your geometry slightly rotated, and define the attach node's vector such that things will still stick on it "straight".

[EatVacuum]

Skylon has an orbital maneouvering system seperate from the Sabre engines that it would be using for most of it's time in space. If those align better with the nose direction then I don' t think you have a big problem with the Sabre thrust being slightly skewed. Of course since the OMS and Sabres don't align that means one or the other would always be a problem. Other than putting in two differently aligned probe bodies I don't see how to fix this and that doesn't seem ideal either.

Edited March 13, 2014 by EatVacuum

[CaptainKipard]

No worries, I've already modelled two separate cores. One would be "Controlled from here" for the Sabres, and the other for the OMS. I know it's not ideal, but there's no other way I can think of. Ideally We coul have tweakable prograde directions but that have to be done by Squad.