staging between docking ports

[Steampunked]

So I enjoy doing Apollo style lander missions. In addition to this simply being my preferred way to go about things, it also serves the benefit that I can leave a lander on the surface and have a return craft to science retrieval (2 kerbals are needed of course).

However, I have a very hard time building docking nodes in to my rocket stack. Clamp-o-tron to clamp-o-tron connections are very weak and tend to cause my rocket to turn in to a noodle when launching.

How do you guys handle having docking nodes in the middle of your stack?

~ash

[Fendleton]

Structural pylons with struts on them. They'll provide some rigidity, and can then be ejected once the ship's in orbit. Or just spam struts, or just use a seperator with struts attached to it.

[Wanderfound]

So I enjoy doing Apollo style lander missions. In addition to this simply being my preferred way to go about things, it also serves the benefit that I can leave a lander on the surface and have a return craft to science retrieval (2 kerbals are needed of course).

However, I have a very hard time building docking nodes in to my rocket stack. Clamp-o-tron to clamp-o-tron connections are very weak and tend to cause my rocket to turn in to a noodle when launching.

How do you guys handle having docking nodes in the middle of your stack?

Struts. Struts struts struts struts struts. Or girders or I-beams.

As mentioned above, use decouplers to ditch 'em when it's time to undock.

[Pecan]

Most people (I think) prefer to build in-space tractors so that they pull loads instead of pushing them. They're much less wobbly that way.

In any case only a very low TWR is needed for in-space operations so pushing shouldn't be too awful IF you use standard or large docking ports.

If you have to push hard - at launch - then, like the others said, use struts.