Solution to asparagus staging taking out centre engine

[Callmedave]

Hi, Sometimes i have a problem with my asparagus staging taking out the centre engine when i drop the two side engines, this happens when the side engines don't drop straight down, but turn to point inwards.

An obvious solution to this is to use the small boosters pointed inwards to push the debris away from the engine and clear. But this adds cost and part count, and can still be tricky to get right.

My solution to this is to induce a small roll in the craft, holding Q or E will rotate the craft around its centre, the centrifugal force will naturally make the side engines fall away from the craft better.

Im not sure if this has been covered before, but i searched and could not find it. Hope this helps guys!

[Mister Kerman]

Seperatrons like you mentioned are the best solution.

Either that or spamming F5 and F9.

EDIT: I just realized this was a help thread. =3

Another trick is making sure your throttle is all the way down, stage, then throttle up again. If you stage while the craft is in freefall (upwards) there's a better chance of you slipping by the staged parts.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Mister Kerman

[Frank_G]

Getting clear of the boosters with separatrons is easier, when you are willing to sacrifice the last drops of thrust in them... staging the decouplers and separatrons when the boosters are still running on the last bit of fuel will give you a clear separation all the time, as they follow your ship while drifting away, instead of falling the whole ship distance downwards and probably hitting the engine. If you do so, it even does not matter, if the boosters are aligned correctly with the horizon. Throttling down a bit, when using LFO Boosters and throttling back up after separation perfects this process. However you will loose some delta V, but its a fair trade off.

[Luis]

My hunch is that you will lose more dV by staging early or throttling back before staging, than you would from the extra mass of a few separatrons. But I haven't actually tested this.

[maltesh]

Personally, I haven't used Separatrons since 0.16.

For me, the solution's always been:

0) Only use the TT-70 Radial Decoupler. Don't use the flat ones.

THe TT-70 provides enough horizontal separation of the radial liquid boosters, that I've not had any issues with Boosterscrape on something like 99% of the hundred of spacecraft I've flown since then, regardless of whether the radials are 1.25m stacks or 3.75m stacks, and I've not had to mess with separatrons or rotation on ascent..

That said, there may be other conditions when I build that contribute to this as well.

1) I play with stock Aerodynamics.

2) The connection between the radial tank and the radial decoupler is as high on the radial tank as the game will let me place it.

3) There's always a single steering fin at the bottom of any radial stack.

4) The engine on the central stack is always at the same height, or higher than the radial engines.

[Navy2k]

You could bring your decoupler nearer to the center of mass of the booster so it won't rotate as much.

Greetings

Ben

[colonel0sanders]

I've had the same problem more on this update than previous versions. It seems like the ejection force of the decouplers is higher than it used to be, causing more torque in the ejected stages.

[UmbralRaptor]

In some cases, this is a bug

[AlexinTokyo]

I haven't progressed far enough in my 0.90.0 career for this to become an issue yet (I'm still mostly using RT-10s), but I'm hoping it can be solved (or at least mitigated) by using the offset gadget (widget, thingamebob, whatever) to offset the radial boosters down so the decoupler is attached near the top of the radial stack.

In theory at least, this should apply the ejection force well above the CoM of the booster, causing it to rotate outwards (at the top) instead of inwards. With a bit of luck, this should prevent booster strike without having to apply Claw's bug-fix module.

Other solutions I've used in the past include fixed winglets (the first ones you unlock, with no control surfaces) at the top of the booster (or top and bottom for really big ones) angled out at 10°, and sepratrons mounted at the base of the booster pointing upwards and staged to fire with the decouplers.

[Asharad]

Until recently I used Separatrons attached to my boosters. But I've learned a better way. Learn the center of mass of each booster. If your decoupler is attached at the booster's center of mass, it will almost always be ejected smoothly. It does help to reduce throttle some, in case you misjudge the center of mass.