Guides on attaching lander to mothership, please?

[BanDHMO]

This is rather frustrating. All I'm trying to do is set up a ship with two smaller ships attached to either side of it, so that I can leave the big one in orbit, while some of the crew take a shuttle or two down to the surface and then come back up.

It sounds like something people would be doing all the time. Why on earth is this so hard?

Is there a guide or tutorial online explaining how to do this?


I made a big ship, put some girders sticking out the side, put small docking ports on them. Then I made the lander ship, put a docking port on its side, re-rooted it so that the port is the root, saved. Tried to merge the lander into the mothership, connecting the two - the game refuses to connect them properly. Fine, removed the side dock port from the small ship, made the big fuel tank the root, added a second docking port to the mothership, rotated backwards to fit the first port, then imported the lander and now it snapped just fine. But wait, the ports don't work, the option to undock never appears and it looks like the stupid thing glued my lander to the girder instead of the dock.

So, question is, am I doing something stupidly wrong, or does attaching ships sideways and decoupling in orbit just not work?


http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=798575519

[Rhedd]

Well, I'm going to tell you exactly what you don't want to hear. :P I do this all the time and don't have problems.

I tend to use templates to do it, though. Never messed with merging two craft files that much. Maybe it's buggy.

Just build your mothership and save it. Then build a secondary ship, make sure your preferred docking port is the root part, and drag it to the templates section and save it there. Load up your mothership, grab the secondary ship template, and stick it to the right docking port. Works just fine that way.

Seriously. I'm testing a Duna mission. I think I did this about 400 times yesterday! :P

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by Rhedd:

Then build a secondary ship, make sure your preferred docking port is the root part, and drag it to the templates section and save it there. Load up your mothership, grab the secondary ship template, and stick it to the right docking port. Works just fine that way.

Maybe that's the part I'm missing. Can you elaborate exactly what the "template section" is and how to save/load from it?

EDIT: never mind, I think I found what you were talking about. It's the "Subassemblies" secton, right?

[Rhedd]

Look at the very top left of your screen when building. There's a big black arrow pointing to the right. Click it and a bunch of other tabs will open down the left. A lot of those are useful if you don't know about them, but the one you're looking for is near the bottom. It's green and I think it has a rocket on it. Click it and it'll open a (probably empty) list, and at the bottom will be a dotted box that says to drag ships there. Grab your ship by the root part like you were moving it and drop it in that space. It'll prompt you for a name and a description. Voila!

Just select them from the same list to get them back. Very useful for saving arrangements of parts you use often. I save all of my individual stages there, and assemble them into the rocket I need.

[Joschi]

The root problem here is that you have trouble creating a new vertical attachment node once you build horizontal...

Here is a small concept image of how I would do it: http://imgur.com/a/ocZPx
Basically a landing crane that has been repurposed...

There are other ways to do it too but thats the quick and dirty one (imo) ;)

Here is another example, which is maybe more elegant but has some minor balancing issues:
http://imgur.com/a/wHfXT

(Second design is based around the structural radial attachment point)

[Rhedd]

You know, we could all discuss the best, most efficient way of doing this all day long, but that's not what he asked. He wanted to know how to get the interface to let him build what he envisioned. Whether or not that's a good design is another question that wasn't asked.

What he wants to do IS possible, so hopefully he'll have better luck with making it happen.

And yes, it's called "subassemblies" I couldn't remember what they had called it. ^_^

[maj.solo]

I find 4 stacks with 1 and a half flt800 and 4 terrier engines is enough for moon landings. You put those 4 stack out there in each dirrection and then landing legs trying to point even further out for stability on even ground. Then the command pod, passenger module, and science in the center. And below in the center a docking port. Having the terriers in the 4 corners gives room for the docking port so the lander can sit ontop of the mother ship at launch.

These landers are easy to make with low tech in the tech tree. And they work so well I still make them even if I completed the tech tree and make larger landers and miners I still like those small landers. Easy to make.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by »BoH.Crew×IRA™:

The root problem here is that you have trouble creating a new vertical attachment node once you build horizontal...

Ah, so it's a known bug then, it's not just me? Good to know.

Yeah, I ended up building it with vertical connections. That always worked fine for me, although it looks stupid and is hard to re-dock to after. It's too bad horizontal connections don't work.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by RoofCatA:

why don't you put your landers on top of Jumbo tanks? You would save half of the drag.

Because two landers is just the beginning. I wanted six of them (notice those other girders sticking out).

Originally posted by Rhedd:

What he wants to do IS possible, so hopefully he'll have better luck with making it happen.

Hopefully, some day I'll figure out what's missing. So far, no luck. Tried different designs from scratch, subassemblies and load/merges, different places to mount, etc, etc. Even tried 64 bit vs standard executable. All the same result, as soon as I try for a horizontal connection, it gets awfully confused.

Oh, well, this is KSP, so who cares if a design is ugly, as long as it works. :) And mounting a small tank to those girders to make the connection vertical works.

[Rhedd]

Horizontal connections work fine. There's no bug. Don't make me build a ship just to prove it to you guys.

[Rhedd]

I did it anyway. :P
This isn't a serious ship that I've built, it's simply a demonstration I did really quickly to show it's possible.

I took my Duna vessel, replaced the airlocks and cupola with four docking ports, and stuck some Apollo CSMs to it.

This was all built in the VAB. Then I teleported it into orbit and undocked all the CSMs. I used the subassemblies method I outlined above, and as you can see, it just works.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=798717190

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=798717443

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by Rhedd:

Horizontal connections work fine. There's no bug. Don't make me build a ship just to prove it to you guys. :KSmiley:

Oh, I don't doubt you can build one. I've seen people do it, that's why I expected it to work.

And yet it doesn't. :) Some bugs are environment-specific and don't reproduce for everyone.

Or maybe I'm missing something. But, considering how simple it's supposed to be, I kind of doubt that.

[Toastie Buns]

If you're having problems with horizontal connecting...

....flip the craft until you're working vertically

(also, snap the docking ports together. Just alt+click the docking port, flip it with the keybinds, lock it in place.)

[Pembroke]

Originally posted by Rhedd:

You know, we could all discuss the best, most efficient way of doing this all day long, but that's not what he asked. He wanted to know how to get the interface to let him build what he envisioned.

Acknowledging and understanding the above, and even agreeing very much that KSP is about experimenting and trying out stuff, I'd still like to ask: Why not build the mother ship and the landers separately and then simply dock them together in orbit?

That way you don't have to think about launch viability and air resistance issues when placing the docking points and the only thing that matters is how well it works in space.

[BanDHMO]

Originally posted by RoofCatA:

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

Because two landers is just the beginning. I wanted six of them (notice those other girders sticking out).

Attach them one below another? Even with some spacing they will have much less drag.
The thing is, drag is very large force. It both slows down your main launcher (burns fuel a lot) and also stresses all docking ports and construction a lot with the momentum, which is distance from the core. You shouldn't build serious rocket ignoring air resistance. Just a recommendation.
Last time I used Jr docking ports (months ago), they couldn't really handle serious weights. Serious weights at launch is even worse situation. G forces and drag.

Funny space stations are best launched as streamlined bars, separated in space and re-docked in star form or circles up there - depending on which fancy way you do prefer.

You can make one docking port connections in VAB and still disconnect them in space (like just 1 docking port below engine). It's one way solution and you have to dock to real docking port in space after you separate, but would work nicely for streamlined launch purpose of star designs.

Yeah, that's a good point, most of the time in early game that's what I would do. Those times, though, I was optimizing for efficiency - lowest cost (therefore lowest drag, etc). This mission, I'm optimising for my own player convenience. Sure, I could throw all these things into orbit on small efficient launchers and then dock there, but it means flying seven missions and spending time docking seven times. Or, I could just tie the whole thing together on the ground and build a launcher large enough to throw it all into orbit together in one go regardless of cost. Less money efficient, but more player time efficient. Everybody choses the value that appeals more to them.

As far ports not holding stress well, I kind of expect that. Their job is to hold things together in orbit, not during launch. So I strutted all connected ships together in addition to using docking ports. Worked perfectly fine.

The biggest drawback of the mission was the lag during initial launch. I'll have to look up what the exact part count was, but you can imagine, probably. :) Seven ships tied together, plus a 1-million launcher to push it all up, all held together by extremely liberal application of duct tape (I mean struts).

[Toastie Buns]

Originally posted by BanDHMO:

Originally posted by RoofCatA:

Attach them one below another? Even with some spacing they will have much less drag.
The thing is, drag is very large force. It both slows down your main launcher (burns fuel a lot) and also stresses all docking ports and construction a lot with the momentum, which is distance from the core. You shouldn't build serious rocket ignoring air resistance. Just a recommendation.
Last time I used Jr docking ports (months ago), they couldn't really handle serious weights. Serious weights at launch is even worse situation. G forces and drag.

Funny space stations are best launched as streamlined bars, separated in space and re-docked in star form or circles up there - depending on which fancy way you do prefer.

You can make one docking port connections in VAB and still disconnect them in space (like just 1 docking port below engine). It's one way solution and you have to dock to real docking port in space after you separate, but would work nicely for streamlined launch purpose of star designs.

Yeah, that's a good point, most of the time in early game that's what I would do. Those times, though, I was optimizing for efficiency - lowest cost (therefore lowest drag, etc). This mission, I'm optimising for my own player convenience. Sure, I could throw all these things into orbit on small efficient launchers and then dock there, but it means flying seven missions and spending time docking seven times. Or, I could just tie the whole thing together on the ground and build a launcher large enough to throw it all into orbit together in one go regardless of cost. Less money efficient, but more player time efficient. Everybody choses the value that appeals more to them.

As far ports not holding stress well, I kind of expect that. Their job is to hold things together in orbit, not during launch. So I strutted all connected ships together in addition to using docking ports. Worked perfectly fine.

The biggest drawback of the mission was the lag during initial launch. I'll have to look up what the exact part count was, but you can imagine, probably. :) Seven ships tied together, plus a 1-million launcher to push it all up, all held together by extremely liberal application of duct tape (I mean struts).

I find it ironic that you took the lazy approach but insisted on having multiple landers to run a tandem mission.

It's nothing against you, it's just funny you wouldn't use one lander and be lazy (like I do)