Feasibility of plan involving aligning two docking ports at once

[THX1138]

I have a plan which involves assembling a craft in orbit. You can see the eight arms of the craft in the picture below, side by side. They are intended to be undocked from one another and then attached radially to a large fuel tank, each arm using two docking ports. I'm now wondering, since aligning one docking port is already pretty tricky, is this going to be near impossible? (the fuel tank does not yet have the eight docking ports in position - that's a separate problem)

[Axelord FTW]

It's quite possible to link up two structures via multiple docking ports. How hard it'll be will depend on how you decide to go about and do it. A powerful RCS tug might be useful.

I prefer using docking port Jr. whenever I decide to make that sort of stuff. Lighter and when you have more than one point of attachment, you don't need the full strength of the regular docking ports.

Not to mention I use KJR.

[KSK]

Tricky but not impossible. I see your signature, but I would definitely recommend some kind of docking alignment mod for this. No idea if it's still going but Romfarer's docking camera would be a good choice if available. Plus you might want to add an antenna or something else on the tank to give you a visual cue as to which way is 'up' during docking.

[Laie]

Tricky but not impossible. I see your signature, but I would definitely recommend some kind of docking alignment mod for this.

- Seconded.

[SaturnV]

However I doubt there is a mod that can align TWO docking ports at once

[Kryxal]

So long as you align one with zero rotation, you should be good ... after all, they're placed so you CAN attach both, so it should just happen with the right alignment.

[capi3101]

I'd recommend Navyfish's Docking Port Alignment Indicator - hell, I'd recommend that one even if you were just doing single-port to single-port. One of those mods that's so useful it should be stock, IMHO.

Back in the day (prior to the release of the Sr. Docking Port in 0.20), getting docking ports that wouldn't wobble was a major problem that folks tended to overcome by putting multiple normal Clamp-O-Trons on their craft, so yes, it is possible to do. The tricky bit, as has been mentioned, is to get them all to line up so that they all suck each other in at the same time and make a solid connect (otherwise you wind up with only one properly connected and then the thing is just as wobbly as it would've been had you just used one port).

The most common solution back in the day was to put the ports on both craft on a Tri-Coupler - the triangle shape was the easiest one with which to eyeball the alignment, and it made a pretty solid connection. Tri-Adapters would also work for the same purpose (but of course, they were released in 0.21 and by then Sr. Docking Ports were in use).

Whether you're adverse to mods or not, using the tri-coupler or tri-adapter is probably your best bet.

[KSK]

So long as you align one with zero rotation, you should be good ... after all, they're placed so you CAN attach both, so it should just happen with the right alignment.

Yep - that's why I suggested adding a reference mark component somewhere. You align on one port but provided your marker is in the right place, the second port should be lined up automatically. I'm sure there are less cumbersome ways of doing it though.

[MarvinKitFox]

It works, and works well.

Can be hell to get it right though.

And don't even *think* of undocking again, unless you have all the docking ports involved on an action key.

I have managed (just to prove myself it can be done) to dock a 17-port worm with its mirror image.

[chrisb2e9]

Here is a ship that I made ages ago.

the only mod I used was quantum struts to add struts after so that it wouldn't wobble around. This was before squad made the joints stronger. Not sure if it would be necessary now.

the 3 red circles show the three different ships docked together. Each held by two docking ports(the large ones).

the reason that i did this was to make sure that the thrust was pointed in the same direction.

Keep in mind that this ship was made over a year ago. It's not how I would do it now, but it does show that 2 docking ports can work just fine. I didn't use any mods to align it. just went slow and used my eyes.