I think it needs more struts

[Wachman]

So I started a new career game using FAR and fairings mods. Been doing OK. Decided to do a multi landing mission to Mun with four of my little landers/return craft. Since I'm using FAR I stacked them all up on top of each other, wrapped them in a fairing for launch, stuck a really big (relatively) rocket under them and sent it all to the launch pad. When physics kicked in, this happened.

Surprisingly nothing broke, it just swayed back and forth like that until I could recover the craft.

Time for more struts it seems.

[Boris_T_Roach]

Just slap a control unit on the 2nd stage and launch it anyway

[Sirrobert]

I think the 1.25m stage is the main problem there.

Try a 3.75m base, and 2.5m as final stage.

[Wallace]

I think the 1.25m stage is the main problem there.

Try a 3.75m base, and 2.5m as final stage.

Definitely this, you need to loose that skinny little stage, it's like a little twig, of course it can't hold all that payload upright.

[Franklin]

The limpness of docking ports has been a jagged pill for many, many versions. Whatever metal Kerbals use to build their rockets it's both impossibly heavy and impossibly soft.

[cantab]

I've had stuff like this happen before. I concur the strength-to-stiffness ratio on the joints needs looking at.

When you do add struts, I suggest making them quite long. Eg link the bottom of the lander stack to the second stage, and maybe the bottom-most lander to the top-most lander. The 1.25m third stage probably isn't any worse than the landers themselves so not sure how much good removing it would do.

[Renegrade]

Putting some struts on top of that 2.5-1.25m adapter could help brace that skinny stage, although the rest of it will still be rather floppy. To keep a skinny rocket like that from flopping about, you'll need some fairly aggressive, braced strutting.

Note that there's some misconceptions floating around about the "autostrut" feature of pfairings - it just prevents the fairing itself from flopping, it doesn't actually reinforce the payload at all.

Regarding floppy rockets though -- I thought joint reinforcement in 0.24 was supposed to let Squad set rigidity separately from strength, allowing them to up the rigidity without making the rockets indestructible. All it seems to do is make rockets much stronger but just as floppy as ever. What happened?

[juanml82]

It will still need struts. I've tried piling landers like that and you need to strut them

[Felsmak]

I don't think even struts can save this.

[Franklin]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/55657

Will help some, but wont save you. Squad just needs to stiffen joints.

[FleshJeb]

I suggest two large spherical fuel tanks at the bottom, and then time warp about about 65 years. That won't fix your problem, but hey, Realism.

(With apologies to my dad. ;-))

[The Destroyer]

I don't think even struts can save this.

Oh no, it can. I remember this thing pre-struts:

This:

Turned into:

[SpacedCowboy]

Is there a "Viagra" mod out there? But seriously, That ship's gonna need more than just more struts!

[Guest]

Is there a "Viagra" mod out there? But seriously, That ship's gonna need more than just more struts!

Kerbal Joint Reinforcement, or something like that.

[Archgeek]

The limpness of docking ports has been a jagged pill for many, many versions. Whatever metal Kerbals use to build their rockets it's both impossibly heavy and impossibly soft.

Lead? Gold, maybe, spray-painted to not be shiny anymore? I'm guessing lead.

[Wachman]

I was kicking myself for sending that rocket out without struts, I do know better. I was surprised when all it did was fall over and not disintegrate on the pad. So I went back to the VAB and made some changes. I threw out the 1.25m stage and replaced it with a 2.5m stage. This gave a better base for the bottom struts. Then simpley strutted one lander to the next.

Here's some pics without the fairing in place so you can see the landers

And now with the fairing

And finally in orbit just before the final burn to circle orbit

The thing wobbled really badly in the atmosphere but managed to make obit in one piece.

Unfortunately the game crashed as I was preparing the Mun orbital insertion burn and corrupted the save file. Oh well, maybe I'll pull out sandbox for awhile and play with massive rockets.

[BDelacroix]

The charlie brown christmas rocket.

[Javster]

I hate the fact that the payload can just clip through the fairing like that...

[aircraftgalaxy]

LOL! Fairing makes it harder to play in my opinion.