Space Station

[ghost22]

So I have this space station and I want to change the orbit for it but as soon as I touch any controls it starts to wobble so much how can I reduce the wobble??

http://i.imgur.com/XZRAqdf.jpg station

Edited November 6, 2014 by ghost22

[cat-the-cat]

Kerbal Attachment System has struts that you could install with Kerbals on EVA.

Kerbal Joint Reinforcement makes existing connections much harder to break, not requiring struts.

[Tex_NL]

You've already strutted the crap out of it so 'moar struts' is not an adequate answer.

What you could do is shut down a few SAS units. It might turn a lot slower but in return the SAS units won't be fighting each other.

[AtlanDuda]

Hello, you should not have unsymetric atachments !

[Jimbimbibble]

Controlling the station from a location near the CoM can help too. Also, disable SAS (not the reaction wheels themselves, just the auto stabilization) during the move so it doesn't make the wobble worse.

[Capt. Hunt]

docking ports are inherently wobbly in this game, I'd love it if they made them have more solid connections, I don't think the ISS would have this problem as much.

The obvious solution would be to undock the modules and lift it up in pieces.

[Slam_Jones]

I've run into this problem before, and what I did to fix it was one of two things: made sure there are no asymmetric attachments (I.E. the fuel can(?) attached to the side of the ship). The other thing I do (for when I can't/don't feel like keep it symmetric) is to adjust the thrust limiter on your engines. What I do is turn off SAS and RCS, and make sure the station is completely still. I'll give the engines a small amount of power, observe which way the ship starts spinning, then adjust and repeat until it doesn't spin at all (or a negligible amount).

Hope this helps!

[ghost22]

How do I turn off different SAS?

[Red Iron Crown]

How do I turn off different SAS?

Right click them and disable them in the menu that appears.

[ghost22]

So I tested turning off all but one of the SAS units still wobbled I disabled SAS and still wobbled alot guess I will test the thrust limiter on my engines

[Redshift OTF]

Use less thrust?

[Zylark]

1: If it got engines, it is not a station but a ship

2: Plan ahead - make stuff modular. So if you need to re-arrange or move the entire thing, all you have to do is break it up and ship it off to its new location and then re-assemble there. A bit more work, but no wobble. Also makes it easy to ship it to far away places. For instance those big Cyclotrons from the Station Science mod. They need not be permanent at any one place. Once you've done the kuarq experiments in one location, just detach and ship to another location.

3: Make sure your load is balanced _and_ when transporting big things that are stuck together via docking ports and struts, you need to pull it, not push it. So engines up front, not at the back. And since KSP gets confused when Center of Thrust is in front of Center of Mass, turn off engine gimbal and let _ONE_ central SAS module keep the entire assembly pointing in the right direction.

4: Use Docking Port Sr for big heavy things rather than connecting with standard Docking Port. Even better, mods like Near Future got trussed docking ports that lock together really well. Strutting should only be the last resort. Besides looking ugly, struts doesn't add that much stiffness to big heavy things compared to the other alternatives I mentioned.

[Laie]

So I tested turning off all but one of the SAS units still wobbled I disabled SAS and still wobbled alot guess I will test the thrust limiter on my engines

Sometimes, things will resonate. I once had engines-on-outriggers swing like church bells. Any input would start the swinging, and any attempt at countersteering (like SAS does) would only make it worse. It was possible to turn the vessel with gentle inputs and lots of patience, then stop the turn through timewarp. Unless the engines were already swinging so wildly that I couldn't leave or enter timewarp, because the ship was supposedly under acceleration. Eventually I gave up on the vessel.

[mdkendall]

Good advice above about picking your control point and disabling unhelpful SAS.

I suggest picking a "control from here" point that is near whatever thrusters you are using (by "near" I mean not the other side of something wobbly like a docking port). And if you have multiple reaction wheels, disable any that are similarly not near the control point. Then you should be able to keep SAS on during the burn. The parts of the ship that are on the far side of wobbly joints will still wobble around, but it won't affect your control, and SAS will at least not make it worse. And using low thrust definitely helps.

[davidpsummers]

I hear that turning off the gimbal on the engines can sometimes help.

You could detach the pieces and move then one by one. (You will loose the struts, so you will have to keep doing that in the future. Unless you are using the mod that lets you add struts in orbit. If not, how did you get it in orbit?)

Other than that, bit the bullet and do a series of short, low thrust, burns.

I had this problem on my first station, so I decided to go with parallel tubes with two points of connection on my second one. (Picture below.) The more compact station helps. (Though it was trickier to design and dock).

[ghost22]

Well will try with the new suggestions if all that fails I guess I will design a new station