Building into extradimensional space!?!?!?

[Keymaster89]

I see lots and lots of design on the forum where parts share the same place in the same time. Really compact design where air intake stacks inline on each others, where griders magically became ones with fueltanks, multiple engines merge into one, adapters that incorporate and reshape cockpits and tens of wings that merge into one solid structure to form functional hangars and crazy wingshape that aren't supposet to exists...

the question is: HOW DO THEY DO THAT?

are they exploiting bugs? is this way of constructing ship actually legit? every time i try to place a part that overlaps some others the game refuse to attach the part! often when i use simmetry mode i'm unable to place 2 air intake without no reason on my stupid SSTO that is unable to deorbit without refuel, and they are able to build SUPER UBER ALLDOING THIS(!) in half the space i used:

I wanna learn too! why is the game allow this, and how should i build stuff to merge into cooler stuff? i mean, i'm actually only able to put a tank inline or radial to another tanks and that's it, it make the job done but that it's not that cool and efficient like this other ones. Not even close.

The game is really not clear on how u could build this stuff!

I also tried to download some designs to make reverse engineering and try to understand something of this techniques, but as i touch a part i'm unable to reassemble it, so i'm more confused than before!

Please someone teach me! I wanna build with satisfaction too...

[Ascension Islander]

Alt+F12 brings up the debug menu. On it is an option called 'Allow part clipping.' Click it, but be warned, strange things may happen.

Also, it's technically cheating

[m4rt14n]

You can turn on allow clipping i debug forum. But most of the people here dont use that cheat, instead do some crazy clipping. There are several methods for wings involving wasd ing around to clip them inside the fuselage. A lot of method uses the cubic strut and placing them between joints or using it to stack intakes.

I dont have access to my pc right now. But what you do for intakes is place a cubic strut onthe side rotated with the joints facing front and back. Then you place the intake on the strut. After that its just copying the cubic strut to however many do you want. I'm still learning other methods but try to start with this.

P.S: i dont think any of the pics he poste uses the debug menu allow clipping..

[Kasuha]

There's a HUGE LOT of clipping you can do without debug menu.

Place orange tank in VAB. Then pick smaller tank and hold it against the side of that orange tank. Then start pressing WASDQE and see what that tank does. It will happily clip inside.

If you construct something off several parts and you go stick it radially to something else, it will also happily allow you clipping it inside if you rotate it accordingly. The game does not check for clipping very thoroughly, although there are some checks done.

Whether it is legit or not ... it's a single player game. You are the one who decides on rules for yourself. If it matters to you, don't use it. When you run a challenge, you can always make it forbidden by rules of the challenge. But if you like it, there's nobody preventing you using it.

[Silverchain]

it's not that cool

When I see a ship design that relies heavily on part clipping I don't think it's cool. Quite the opposite.

[Javster]

I find it's only cheating if you have fuel tanks inside each other, or loads of intakes in one space. If it's for looks I actually support it.

[Keymaster89]

i know what u mean and i feel that's cheating too, i actually don't want to understand this building technic for stacking fuel tanks but to make my ship much more appealing because for now, my ships works really good (well, most of em ^^) but they look all the same cylinderish stuff. I'm a guy who build really efficiently and compact so my stylish/decorative skills are pretty inexistent, i thought that maybe if i'm able to move around parts like them i could build something that work AND look cool(ish)

[Claw]

I think that it's a good thing that you're able to clip. Because it's there, you can choose for yourself to do it or not.

In this regard, I agree with Kasuha. It's your game, play it how you want. And if it's another person's game, let them play how they want.

Personally I only do clipping that's allowed by default in the editors, and there's quite a lot of clipping you can do in there. I find that typically when I clip in this way, I don't usually run into problems with phantom forces or parts spontaneously exploding.

I have also found that allowing debug clipping results in some undesirable VAB/SPH behavior. In my experience (if I'm going to use debug clipping), it seems to work out a little better if I turn on clipping, do what I want, then turn it back off.

[Geschosskopf]

Clipping parts attracts the Kraken. Just be aware of that risk and if it's acceptable, then knock yourself out. But don't be surprised when the Kraken appears

[m4rt14n]

Unless u purposefully summon it by makibg a K drive, which works on clipping...

While I dont clip fuel tanks, i think with the limited ability of parts available, some clipping is fine. Otherwise all rockets/spaceplanes would look almost exactly the same.

[Vim Razz]

There's a thread on using various construction techniques like this to get different looks with stock parts stickied at the top of the Spacecraft Exchange forum.

[Motokid600]

Enabling clipping for me is important just for every day builds. I run into the problem where parts just won't atatch. For instance you have 4x symmetrical tanks, but when you go to place engines on them only one of the four are green... Despite not actually clipping into anything. Some parts just will not cooperate. That's what I use clipping for.

[Claw]

You can get around that by building the one tank/engine stack. When you're happy, turn on symmetry and pick the whole piece up and set it down.

Also, sometimes rotating the engines a little (using Shift) until they turn green, then rotating them back helps.

[Wooks]

I´m learning to build using part clipping on the debug menu (Alt+F12) because you can build really awesome looking ships with it. Also without the debug menu you can still clip some parts inside others, it requires some wiggling here and some nudging there but it can be done.

Is it cheating? Technically Yes. In reality: No.

I mean, is a single player game, you are not getting advantage over anyone in an online competition or a leaderboard, and even if you are competing on a challenge here on the forums or reddit, the challenge itself takes into account if you are using clipping, mod, stock parts of whatever.

For example I´m running a personal challenge to circumnavigate Kerbin on a rover (http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66887-I%C2%B4m-circumnavigating-Kerbin-on-a-Rover) and I have very strict rules (no mods, no debug, etc) ... and that´s only for myself! I´m the referee of my own competition. What? I´m going to cheat against myself?

[problemecium]

My warning is that clipped ships explode more often than their less-clipped counterparts, especially if they're heavy and liable to experience structural failures.