Edit a craft into orbit without launchpad?

[Meta Jonez]

I have a space station I want to edit into orbit, but it crumbles under gravity when moving from VAB to launch pad, so the quicksaving + editing VESSEL entry in save game isn't going to work. Is there a way to copy the craft file into the save (maybe taking the place of a placeholder object already in orbit) that will essentially achieve the same objective?

Things I am trying not to do:

brace it with dozens of struts so it will stand up on the launch pad

brace it with dozens of Launch Stability Enhancers - if I assume correctly, these will go with the station into orbit if I edit the savefile, so I'd have to couple them with decouplers or docking ports to get rid of them once it is up there . . .

. . . . any ideas?

Edited December 1, 2014 by Meta Jonez

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

Well, if you do that. You will be in space. Not orbit.

Or - You could launch each module and dock them

[zekes]

hyperedit - you can set it to an orbit instantly.

[JTpopcorn]

Hyper edit it is very useful for things like that. If you want to actually launch it use decouplers to attach struts so you can get rid of them in space. I did that when I launched my carrier.

[Meta Jonez]

Yea, this is for testing purposes, I don't really want to do the six launches and dockings that it would take to get it together up there just to see if some aspects of the station work like I want them to. If they do, I'll get it up the hard way in the career save. and let me clarify, If I used the placeholder, I would of course have the orbit info there - just replacing the craft in that orbit . . . or am I missing something else?

[Red Iron Crown]

The "Hack Gravity" option in the Alt-F12 debug menu will allow it to survive on the pad until you either HyperEdit it into orbit (easy) or save the game and edit the save file to put it in orbit (harder).

[Meta Jonez]

hyperedit - you can set it to an orbit instantly.

Hyper edit it is very useful for things like that. If you want to actually launch it use decouplers to attach struts so you can get rid of them in space. I did that when I launched my carrier.

So . . . no way to get it there by editing the file? I'm not trying to be obtuse here, really, just weighing my options. Adding another mod is iffy, and I understand hyperedit comes with it's own issues?

[Meta Jonez]

The "Hack Gravity" option in the Alt-F12 debug menu will allow it to survive on the pad until you either HyperEdit it into orbit (easy) or save the game and edit the save file to put it in orbit (harder).

Man, these replies are coming faster than I can answer! (awesome!). Hadn't thought of the hack grav option. I'll try this. Thank you!

[Red Iron Crown]

So . . . no way to get it there by editing the file? I'm not trying to be obtuse here, really, just weighing my options. Adding another mod is iffy, and I understand hyperedit comes with it's own issues?

HyperEdit works by editing the in-memory copy of the save file, if you're willing to edit the file you might as well use HyperEdit and save all the time of saving, manually editing and loading. HyperEdit is incredibly lightweight and robust, you'd have to be awfully close to the memory limit for it to cause issues. It's also a fantastic testing tool, highly recommended.

[zekes]

HyperEdit works by editing the in-memory copy of the save file, if you're willing to edit the file you might as well use HyperEdit and save all the time of saving, manually editing and loading. HyperEdit is incredibly lightweight and robust, you'd have to be awfully close to the memory limit for it to cause issues. It's also a fantastic testing tool, highly recommended.

Yes, It's very much worth it - it doesn't do much, doesn't tax your system, and the bugs are minimal/nonexistent, in my experience (as long as you don't start doing things that would break the persist file like loading under the surface XD).