2 Ships docked to the same Asteroid

[SkyRender]

Think of it as saving the step of having to laboriously hook up a fuel transfer pipe between the two sections of the same craft. If it bugs you that much, install Kerbal Attachment System and exclusively only transfer fuel between parts that are attached to one another.

[rottielover]

Personally I'm not too worried. I bet you money that some modder is hard at work right now, writing the next plugin "claw-fixer" that will disallow fuel transfers and Mono Prop etc. Modding community is great.

[Tex_NL]

It can transfer fuel, it can not transfer fuel. Why bother discussing this?

This entire discussion is as useless as the one about unrealistically stacking air intakes. If you don't want to transfer fuel through it then don't transfer fuel through it! It really is that simple.

[HafCoJoe]

Even funnier, I think you could claw a Kerbal with two ships and transfer fuel through the Kerbal. I don't want to think about the...plumbing involved in that transfer.

Huehuehue...

Spootyman ran into an error when reloading his ship with a kerbal attached to the claw. He wanted to grapple massive boosters to either side of Jeb and play tug of war but it destroyed his ship without F12 and sent it flying away with. That will probably be fixed before release but this is an interesting concept of "Plumbing..."

Later!

[Red Iron Crown]

It can transfer fuel, it can not transfer fuel. Why bother discussing this?

This entire discussion is as useless as the one about unrealistically stacking air intakes. If you don't want to transfer fuel through it then don't transfer fuel through it! It really is that simple.

For some things, we're not in that much control. Monopropellant, electrical charge and xenon will all flow "through" the claw without the player explicitly requesting it.

Edit: The devs haven't said that explicitly, I think, but if the claw behaves like a docking port it seems likely.

[TheFactory]

It can transfer fuel, it can not transfer fuel. Why bother discussing this?

This entire discussion is as useless as the one about unrealistically stacking air intakes. If you don't want to transfer fuel through it then don't transfer fuel through it! It really is that simple.

This man speaks sense, why do people even care? Just do not transfer fuel through it if you don't want to! The poster that said he will hate it, fine hate it and just leave it in the parts bin back at the VAB.

[CaptainKipard]

It can transfer fuel, it can not transfer fuel. Why bother discussing this?

This entire discussion is as useless as the one about unrealistically stacking air intakes. If you don't want to transfer fuel through it then don't transfer fuel through it! It really is that simple.

This man added nothing to the discussion.

[Sandworm]

For some things, we're not in that much control. Monopropellant, electrical charge and xenon will all flow "through" the claw without the player explicitly requesting it.

Edit: The devs haven't said that explicitly, I think, but if the claw behaves like a docking port it seems likely.

If that is the case, this crossfeed behavior should be easy enough to disable via cfgs.

[Red Iron Crown]

If that is the case, this crossfeed behavior should be easy enough to disable via cfgs.

Crossfeed rules only apply to liquid fuel and oxidizer, as far as I know.

[TheFactory]

This man added nothing to the discussion.

Ironic? Or just moronic?

[timsfitz]

I meant I don't think fuel will transfer through an asteroid. Its confirmed the claw will act as a docking port. Not all ship parts transfer fuel either I don't think, though most do.

This is a silly discussion

[Red Iron Crown]

I meant I don't think fuel will transfer through an asteroid. Its confirmed the claw will act as a docking port. Not all ship parts transfer fuel either I don't think, though most do.

All ship parts permit fuel transfer. Transfer is not the same as crossfeed.

[problemecium]

In my personal headcanon I imagine that claw's fuel crossfeeding as more of "now that we have the other ship secure, we Kerbals can safely run [invisible] hoses between the two."

Hey, when you think about it, Kerbals are more safety-conscious than real space programs - it's us players that make things dangerous.

[mellojoe]

Mostly the reason for asking this question in the first place was to figure out the behavior if I put multiple pods attached to a large asteroid and put a bunch of SAS units all over it. Then I could manipulate that thing into any orientation I wanted. Strap wings to it, and have all the control surfaces work in unision? YES PLEASE

Giant kerbal rock glider

[Kasuha]

Crossfeed rules only apply to liquid fuel and oxidizer, as far as I know.

Crossfeed only applies to consumption of liquid fuel and oxidizer by engines.

It has nothing to do with transferring resources around the ship.

By the way, if you claw one ship with monopropellant but no RCS and second ship with RCS ports but no monopropellant to the asteroid, you will be able to use RCS. Or electric charge. Or xenon. You can attach a bunch of Ion engines to the asteroid and send constant stream of Xenon containers and just claw them to the asteroid to refuel your Ion asteroid station.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Kasuha

[CaptainKipard]

Mostly the reason for asking this question in the first place was to figure out the behavior if I put multiple pods attached to a large asteroid and put a bunch of SAS units all over it. Then I could manipulate that thing into any orientation I wanted. Strap wings to it, and have all the control surfaces work in unision? YES PLEASE

Giant kerbal rock glider

One of the mods somewhere said that you can attach multiple claws for extra stability so I assume since ships merge with asteroids then there should be no problem attaching multiple ships.

TheFactory what is a subjective opinion?

[Brotoro]

The fact that we can transfer fuel and other resources between ships that are docked with normal docking ports implies that there is a LOT of plumbing and wires running from said docking ports to all the fuel tanks, monopropellant tanks, xenon tanks, and batteries. We don't see that plumbing, but it's apparently there.

I choose to believe that the Claw comes with a set of hoses that my kerbals can run to an attached ship via EVAs, and that is why I can transfer fuel using the Claw. So I personally will NOT be transferring fuel between ships that are glommed onto opposite sides of a Size E asteroid (just because I think it's silly to expect the hoses to be that long). I personally will also NOT be using the claw to transfer resources between unmanned ships (because I lose my excuse for how the hoses could be connected). I personally will NOT be using the claw to transfer resources between manned ships that are in a situation where a kerbal couldn't do an EVA (while the ships are screaming into the atmosphere sheathed in reentry plasma).

With those restrictions, I'll happily use the Claw to transfer fuel (mostly because the Devs have not yet given me a way to run hoses between two ships sitting on the ground together...when clever spacefaring kerbals certainly should be able to run a fuel hose from a gas station to their plane).

We all play the way we like to play... and the fuel transfer capability of the Claw gives us more options that we can take or leave as we desire.

[Red Iron Crown]

Crossfeed only applies to consumption of liquid fuel and oxidizer by engines.

It has nothing to do with transferring resources around the ship.

By the way, if you claw one ship with monopropellant but no RCS and second ship with RCS ports but no monopropellant to the asteroid, you will be able to use RCS. Or electric charge. Or xenon. You can attach a bunch of Ion engines to the asteroid and send constant stream of Xenon containers and just claw them to the asteroid to refuel your Ion asteroid station.

We're saying the same thing, I think. I mentioned that even if one doesn't use the transfer capabilities of the claw, electricity, xenon and monopropellant (and intake air, too, I guess) will still flow through them without the player explicitly requesting it. To which the other poster responding that crossfeed disabling via cfg editing would fix that, which it not so since crossfeed rules don't apply to those resources.

[Vanamonde]

Knock off the insults, guys. Discussion the forum subject, not each other.