Grappler/Klaw Functions

[airelibre]

I was excited to see on the description of the newly added Grappler something like "it grapples asteroids and many other things too".

I have a dead satellite on a rocket orbiting Kerbin from when I started playing and didn't know about the need for electricity and thus solar panels and batteries.

I just tried grappling this rocket so I could either transfer a solar panel over to it (I have the mod which allows you to move things and has cranes, clamps etc.) or deorbit it if necessary.

However, when I tried to attach to it like I did with the asteroid in the scenario, it just sent the dead rocket into a spin, which as I'm sure you know is extremely annoying! (Any tips on what to do with a spinning object you are trying to couple with?)

So the question is does the grappler actually attach to anything other than asteroids (and probably planets, moons)?

Edited September 26, 2014 by airelibre

[Claw]

Yes, it does grab other things. I haven't tried on smaller objects myself, but the posts I have seen about it lead me to believe you must approach very slowly and be very careful about attaching to smaller space junk.

If the object is spinning, try to approach from the side and target the center of the craft (where it isn't really spinning anymore). The other thing you can try to do is put a support beam or something out in the way to slow down the spin before you hook up to it.

I would imagine the best bet is to target the center of mass of what you're trying to grab and approach very slowly. It will be much less likely to go spinning off.

[airelibre]

Yes, it does grab other things. I haven't tried on smaller objects myself, but the posts I have seen about it lead me to believe you must approach very slowly and be very careful about attaching to smaller space junk.

If the object is spinning, try to approach from the side and target the center of the craft (where it isn't really spinning anymore). The other thing you can try to do is put a support beam or something out in the way to slow down the spin before you hook up to it.

I would imagine the best bet is to target the center of mass of what you're trying to grab and approach very slowly. It will be much less likely to go spinning off.

Thanks for the ideas. How do you turn on the indicator of where the COM is? On the navball, is the target's prograde at the COM? Because I've been aiming at that and then it seems to just spin way off.

Do you know how fast you can hit the target and it will still work? When I did the asteroid mission I tried with it really slowly (0.1ms) to see if it needs any momentum to force it in, and it doesn't. So I was a bit silly when I tried to capture this satellite, because I thought, "it's moving slightly, I know, I'll go at it with a bit of speed so I'm not off-target when I reach it and then I won't send it spinning", which is ironically what happened. Still, I was only going a little above 3ms that time.

[cantab]

If you want you can always cheat. A burst of 5x time acceleration will kill the spin.

[airelibre]

If you want you can always cheat. A burst of 5x time acceleration will kill the spin.

Thanks, I didn't know that. In this case I think that's what I'll do, as I feel cheated by the claw not working the first time.