How to launch multiple vessels

[Certified Dudette™]

Hi all,
It may be a very stupid question but, how do i launch multiple vessels at once?
I have seen some youtubers fly multiple aircraft and crash one into another and such, i know you can switch with [ and ], but how do i launch a vessel when another is already flying and how do i leave it while its in the air without going back to the last saved point?

[MisterSpock]

I dont think that vanilla KSP got the option you are looking for. There is the possibility of switching to nearby craft, but thats not the same. You need mods.

[Certified Dudette™]

but lijke, there's an option to switch between craft, but how do you get another vessel to switch to?

[MisterSpock]

Originally posted by DR modkip:

but lijke, there's an option to switch between craft, but how do you get another vessel to switch to?

To switch to a nearby vessel:
ß
or
´

on europe keyboard

[MisterSpock]

Originally posted by DR modkip:

but lijke, there's an option to switch between craft, but how do you get another vessel to switch to?

At launchpad you may need the multiplayer mod and a snd player

[Certified Dudette™]

Yes i know i can switch to another vessel and i know how, but i mean like, i dont need to control them at the same time, i want to set a plane to a certain altitude and just leave it flying, then start another airplane and fly to that plane. The youtubers didnt use multiplayer, but they did use BDarmory but i installed that and used the AI pilot and that won't let me leave without resetting either

[AoD_lexandro]

The [ and ] keys will change between nearby vessels on a UK keyboard layout. Extremely handy for docking manouvers.

[Certified Dudette™]

as i said, i know i can switch beween vessels with the bracket keys
but i cannot launch another vessel when another one is already in the air, or at least i dont know how to

[AoD_lexandro]

If you click above your height on "return to space center", you can then launch another craft of any type you want and the original one is still active. IDK how this affects aircraft though, never tried that tbh.

[Certified Dudette™]

Thanks man that's kinda what i was looking for, i can't do that in-flight sadly, any idea how that could be accomplished?

[Pembroke]

Originally posted by RoofCatA:

then just keep them close within few km or one of them will be lost.

Same max distance as the physics bubble I'd assume.

[dunbaratu]

In stock there's no way to send control inputs to anything other than the (single) currently active vessel, and you are often banned from swapping to another nearby vessel while your current vessel is in motion in the atmosphere, so swapping back and forth is not really practical either.

But what you're looking at can be done with some mods.

Here's some that might be able to do it:

BDarmory, which adds weapon parts and some dogfighting stuff, has a module for it called "Wing Command" which lets you send general commands like "follow me" or "fly to position foo" to a non-active vessel that's on the same "team". as you.

Mechjeb has an autopilot and *maybe* it can be told to operate on a vessel other than the active vessel, but as I don't use Mechjeb I really don't know if it can (others here might know).

kOS is a do-it-yourself autopilot where you can write script programs to control a ship using a language the mod made up from scratch called "kerboscript". It definitely can do it (I know, we spent a lot of work on trying to fight KSP's standard assumptions about only the active vessel needing to be controlable, just so kOS can be used for this scenario. But not all those stock assumptions are overridable so you might have problems in one or two areas (that are documented)).

KRPC can also be used to make a do-it-yourself autopilot, as it's a generic bridge between the KSP C# API and outside processes written in whatever other language you like, via the use of remote procedure calls.

(The above two examples do both require you to be willing to learn quite a bit, though.)

SmartParts is a mod that lets you set up some simple if/then conditional activations of parts based on simple triggers like "when the altimeter reads >= N, then activate this engine", and it might be able to do some kinds of automation to do what you want.


Essentially the one common thing about all the above solutions is this: You need some kind of automation software on the not-active vessel to control it or it will just keep going as-is with no changes.

[Compilatron]

there are three ways: mods, decouplers, launching multiple vessles and moving them.
i dont knw any mods for it, but look around!
you can make some fancy decoupler mechanisims if you want,
in most videos, the youtuber probably launched multiple vessels before recording :D

[koimeiji]

Launch plane 1, move it off the runway so that the game doesn't recover it when you launch a new vessel
Launch plane 2, takeoff, keep it stable but nearby the KSC.
Take control of plane 1, take off, stay near plane 2.

Works for as many vessels as you want, but the more you add the more unreliable things will get.