Small doughnut tanks - attachment points?

[James_Eh]

So after deciding to build teeny things for a bit I'm having all kinds of issues with the toroidal fuel tanks. They only seem to want to attach to other things at the central hole. This leads to some strangeness, it looks like they are just hanging there. Plus it seems impossible to run fuel lines to them. Last, I can't figure out the rules about sticking them together. In the picture below, it is not immediately apparent but the pair at the top are somewhat clipped inside each other even though I don;t have clipping enabled or anything. I can't make them attach any other way. But on the side tanks, they will only attach normally - and then the engines won't attach to anything.

I have resorted to using cubic struts everywhere, but that only got me this far. Any hints on how to deal with these infernal things would be appreciated.

Edited May 21, 2014 by James_Eh

[Taki117]

The reason your top two are clipped (Even without clipping) is that the top and bottom nodes are so close together your Probe Core is sitting on the Top Torodial's Bottom Node, and the Bottoms Torodial is sitting on the Top Torodials Bottom node.

[James_Eh]

Hmmm. I tried the following: pulled off the outermost cubic struts (engines came along) and threw them out. Then tried attaching a second ring of doughnuts and yep, they went on and clipped also. So yah, the above seems correct. But engines wouldn't attach. So I threw a cubic strut into the middles again, and then was able to attach engines. Up to 5500 dV! (2 engines per tank now to keep TWR up.) So, if I want to join the last two tanks to the main tanks in true asparagus fashion, I guess I need to have to build a wee tower of cubic struts so I can run a fuel line from them to the core somewhere?

To be clear - there is no way to attach anything to these things except in the hole at the center? Seems odd to me. Maybe they just aren't meant for this kind of thing?

PS - this modification allowed me to reach orbit, then deorbit and land safely. I was watching dV the whole time and was relieved to see it at around 150 when I touched down. Then I looked at the fuel levels remaining and laughed because I had something like 0.8 units left. Gotta love wee tanks!

Edited May 20, 2014 by James_Eh

[zarakon]

Yeah, they are pretty annoying to work with. The nodes are so close to each other that they often try to go on backwards, and even when they do attach "properly" they clip into each other.

You can't radial mount engines to them or attach fuel lines because they're not set to enable any surface mounting. If you want to run fuel lines, you'll have to run the fuel to one of the attached cubic struts instead. To attach engines, you'll have to point the nodes up/down and use inline instead of radial engines.

On top of all that, they have a worse mass fraction than the normal sized tanks.

[Taki117]

Generally what people do is put the Oscar-B tank (The really small grey ones) in the middle of a toroidal tank, you can then attach a fuel line to the inside of that, and an engine to the outside, and it looks a lot better.

Here's what I'm talking about.

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Edited May 20, 2014 by Taki117
Made an Album

[Claw]

Your top toroid tanks actually don't look cross connected to me. They do clip into each other quite a bit even when connected correctly (as you can see in Taki's pictures).

The level of clipping ends up looking nice (in my opinion) when you're working with very small craft. It makes them look a little tighter. Although I agree with you. You have to get really fancy with the camera angles to get them connected correctly. I will usually drift the mouse back and forth (or up and down) a bit to make sure I'm connected to the correct node.

[James_Eh]

I made some more progress this evening, and then realized that I hadn't actually tried out any of the new parts from 23.5 yet, and things got a bit away from me. I still hate the little tanks, but like every new bit I try to tame in the "game" ("lifestyle choice") I'm getting there. Thanks in particular to Taki117 : I will have to fiddle with those Oscar-B tanks. And thanks to all for the advice. I still hate these jerk orange circles, but less than before. Here was my final solution (heh):