Asparagus Help

[Kadawg]

I need help with my rocket. it isn't *too* big, 468 parts. it's a lander with a 4 side engines and a main, with 5 nukes under that, then an orange tank with a skipper, then the main lift with 2 orange tanks and a mainsail with a 6 way asparagus with orange tanks and mainsails and an extra orange tank with mainsail off to the side for a bigger initial boost. I am trying to land Kerbals on the other planets, this probably isn't a good design for it but the trouble I am having is the initial lift off. if I put all the outside tanks feeding straight in I have no problem but when I put it into an asparagus arrangement the first tanks get messed up in flight somehow. one side is emptying faster than the other. I have checked the fuel lines a number of times and it looks right to me.

if somebody could take a look and tell me what is wrong with that stage I would really appreciate it, also any advice about how to engineer this better would be great.

Thanks in advance.

http://www./view/v6g9eynp20xxg84/4_7.craft

mods: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-1-kerbal-engineer-redux-v0-5/ but no parts installed on ship.

Edited March 1, 2014 by Kadawg

[*Aqua*]

Edit: Didn't read right.

Edit 2:

I got the outer aspargus ring working without flaws. Maybe you attached the fuel lines between the wrong tanks?

That's one hell of a rocket. I couldn't set the throttle above 50% or the engines overheated. The rocket only climbed up to 2 km and then fall down because of too low TWR. Split it up into several rockets und assemble your interplanetary ship in the orbit. That makes constructing lifters and acending easier. ~500 parts also caused incredible low frame rates - that's not fun.

An use less struts! For example the outer aspargus ring should work with only 2-3 struts per tank (2 on each side above the decoupler, one in the center below it or the other way around). Also have a look at this mod . It makes your rockets less wobbly. You will need even lesser struts with it.

Edited March 1, 2014 by *Aqua*

[Kadawg]

What I mean is that the first set of tanks that empty are emptying at different rates.

it might be that I had the outside boosts linked in with fuel lines, I took them off as well as the engineer part and it worked out.

this is just a horribly designed rocket. guess I need to buff up on docking, not that good at it....

[Kasuha]

The only problem I found with it is that the first asparagus stage burns its fuel before boosters on the outside do. It makes sense, as those boosters burn one orange tank each while the asparagus stage burns four orange tanks (two on each end) by five engines.

There are three solutions:

1/ add the outer boosters to the asparagus too and stage them as they run out of fuel

2/ merge second and third stage and only activate the central engine after that staging. That way the external boosters and first asparagus stage will run out of fuel at once

3/ add some fuel to the first asparagus stage

Also, don't use hydraulic manifold if you use struts - struts disappear too late for the manifold to be able to act on the payload and it is unnecessarily heavy. Add some sepatrons instead

And I would recommend you to rotate that one nuclear engine above the decoupler by 45 degrees (Shift + Q/E to rotate in 45 degree increments) so its shrouds don't hit your ship.

[capi3101]

Here I come to link Temstar and his basic principles for good asparagus.

Without looking at your craft file, answer me this: have you tried to feed some of your asparagus fuel lines through the "gap" in the Hydraulic Manifolds? If so, there's your issue - that "gap" doesn't exist and the Manifold itself doesn't allow fuel flow. Had this problem myself with the early Storax Anacostia mission (only diff there was the design was onion instead of asparagus, but that's what the issue turned out to be).

[Vanamonde]

Does this happen consistently? It's rare, but I have seen it happen randomly on a ship which had no design problems, and which had flown properly before and after the problem flight.

[Kadawg]

Here I come to link Temstar and his basic principles for good asparagus.

have you tried to feed some of your asparagus fuel lines through the "gap" in the Hydraulic Manifolds? If so, there's your issue - that "gap" doesn't exist and the Manifold itself doesn't allow fuel flow.

that would be the problem then.

Thanks!

*edit*

also, I think in the .craft I linked I had removed the fuel lines on the outside boosters.

Edited March 1, 2014 by Kadawg