[HELP] Craft veering off course

[whonut]

Hello

I have created a simple ship which I hope to make the basis for other, larger craft. However, with ASAS off the ship will begin to veer off-course within the first few hundred metres and eventually curves to face downwards!

I don\'t really know a lot about the process of proper rocket design as I\'ve only had the game for a few days and a lot of the tutorials are somewhat hard to understand so any advice on this would be much appreciated.

The offending rocket:

I took the ASAS off in the screenshot for some reason...

Thanks

[Kryten]

This happens because the ship is extremely top heavy, which gets even worse as the solid rocket becomes lighter as it burns; you could try attaching SRB\'s to the sides rather than on the bottom of your rockets, or attaching more winglets.

Also, here\'s that image; quote the post to see how to use the tags here;

[whonut]

Thanks, will do that.

Now to get into orbit with some semblance of control! A lot of this is way over my head, and I\'m a bit of a physics nerd, albeit only a teenaged physics nerd

Thanks again

[VincentMcConnell]

That ship is crap. It will not get anywhere... I recommend mods..

[togfox]

... with ASAS off the ship will begin to veer off-course ...

Then I suggest you don\'t turn ASAS off.

[Zephram Kerman]

Hmmm. I\'m not seeing helpful posts, except for Kryten. Come on guys!

Whonut, don\'t give up; keep trying! Tackling problems is what a space program is all about. 8)

The root issue here is the weird way KSP handles aerodynamic friction. For some reason, the math includes an extra term for mass. The friction on each part is proportional to the mass, instead of incident surface area. As a result, when your solid booster runs down, it becomes lighter and has less friction than the stage above it. Once this happens, your rocket will want very much to fly backwards. It\'s like trying to shoot an arrow with feathers on the front and metal at the back.

This is why you\'ll see a very stable rockets that are wider than they are tall. As long as the fuel burn is symmetrical, these pancake ships are much easier to fly. It\'s non-intuitive, but it works.

[whonut]

Thanks Zephram, really helpful to know, would\'ve never figured it out on my own!

I know the ship\'s crap. I wouldn\'t be asking for advice on making it better if it was God\'s gift to rocketry, would I?!

Thanks again to Zephram and Kryten