Subassembly Issue

[Fox]

Okay, when I heard that the functionallity from the Subassembly Loader mod was coming to the vanilla game in the next update, I put my space program on hold for a little while. The reason for that is that I am currenlty building a small automated rover in the SPH, and I want to deliver four of these babies at once to different points on the Munar surface, to explore and analyse various areas.

I have the rover design laid out, and I want to make a stack of them one above the other, then use a heavy skycrane to drop them down, release the bottom unit, then climb into orbit again and drop down at the next location. Initially I was thinking that I would have to send each rover up individually and use docking ports to stack them beneath the crane in Kerbin orbit. So when I found out about the subassembly features I was excited, as I thought this would allow me to duplicate the rover design and build the stack with decouplers instead, making the whole thing stronger and less wobbly, and also allowing me to send all four rovers up in one go.

Unfortunately having hopped onto the game earlier to try this, I find that it doesn't seem to work. I picked up my rover and dragged it to the subassembly area at the bottom left, but the game refused to let me place it there, claiming that there was 'no attachement point' or something of the like. I also tried to pick the rover up via the girder segment on it's back (using shift to get the whole craft) which does have an attachement on it, but I got the same message, and it wouldn't let me save.

So I'm just wondering, has anybody else experienced problems similar to this, and does anyone know a way around them? Is there a way to save an entire craft as a subassembly, or will I be forced to resort to launching each rover individually and docking them in orbit as I was initially thinking I might have to do?

Any assistance would be appreciated, thanks.

[Xandurz]

Is there an attachement point (the half oval thing that shows one attachement point on the fuel tanks when you stack them) anywhere on the rover that you speak of?

[76561197963493072]

idk exactly what is wrong without seeing it for my self... BUT... i have had this issue when i go to SAVE my finished desgin.... what i do... is remove a piece from the core of your design... usually is the cockpit or drone module... and remove ONE of the pieces attached to it so now you should have a FREE sport on the CORE of your design... now if you try to save it... IT should work then... give it a shot

[Defensivedig]

I think that you have to remove the control pod

[Fox]

Messaggio originale di Xandurz:

Is there an attachement point (the half oval thing that shows one attachement point on the fuel tanks when you stack them) anywhere on the rover that you speak of?

You mean the green attachment nodes? Yup, the whole thing is built around the small 6-way structural connector so there are tiny girder segments going up and down to attach to the last/next rover in the stack. Next time I'm on the game I'll try to get a screenie or two to better illustrate what I mean.

Messaggio originale di ll Patriot ll {KusH}:

idk exactly what is wrong without seeing it for my self... BUT... i have had this issue when i go to SAVE my finished desgin.... what i do... is remove a piece from the core of your design... usually is the cockpit or drone module... and remove ONE of the pieces attached to it so now you should have a FREE sport on the CORE of your design... now if you try to save it... IT should work then... give it a shot

You mean take out the control module? Sure that may work, but then how would I control the rover when it hits the surface? I wouldn't be able to patch one in in orbit or anything, so I'd end up just depositing a battery, some wheels and a bunch of generators/science debris without any way of operating them.

Messaggio originale di ssgavinm:

I think that you have to remove the control pod

I hope that's not the case, because that would defeat the whole objective of the subassembly feature in my view. I like to be festidious in my rocket designs, so I make everything I build capable of self-control and deorbit should the need arise. Even with launch and orbit stages, if there's a chance that they may get stuck in orbit and not return to Kerbin, I place a small computer module on them to make sure they don't just become space debris clogging up my sky.

So if the subassembly system doesn't accept anything with a control module on it, then it's pretty much useless to me and I'll have to continue building everything from scratch piece by piece.

I'll continue to experiment and see if I can figure out what's going on. If anyone else has any further ideas I'd be interested to hear them too. Thanks for the replies so far^^

[Xandurz]

@Rhymane:
Just hopped into KSP to check it out for you and yep, control must not be on to make part a subassembly template (Main launch Vehicle for example that you can attach landers, controls, etc. to)

[Naiba]

It needs the have an attachment point on the starting-part/parent-part of the design for the subassembly to work with it. So for your docked rovers, you need to start new with the first piece you place as the docking port. (Might be an idea to use subassembly to copy and paste other bits of the rover onto it to rebuild it faster.)

The reason you can't just choose the part you want to connect to other designs when you stick them in subassembly is the way the parts are coded to join together, they're all branching with parent-child relationships. It's the same reason you can't join any part you want back onto your ship from groups of parts you copied with alt-click.

There may be some sort of work around, but the chances are to change this would require the developers recoding the way the part editor works from the ground up, and something like that would require a ton of development time. Probably not all that worth it for what's pretty much just a minor inconvenience with the workarounds you can do, at least not at this stage in development.

*[Any part you grab off your main design is the parent of its group, all the parts attached are child parts. It was the child to the part it was disconnected from, meaning it will be able to be attached to a new parent part on a different design. This means any group of parts you take off of a design should, in theory, work in sub-assembly]

[Fox]

Oh hang on, so you're saying the part that you start with has to have a connector node available to it?

So basically if I want to make my rover work, I'll have to start out with a command pod and rebuild the whole thing beneath that initial command pod, then detatch the girder (and the rest of the rover below it) from the command pod and save -that- as a subassembly?

Do we know wether the subassembly system will accept command pods as part of the save if they are not the initial part in the build then, only a secondary part? Or do they just not work in asseblies regardless of what order they are added to the ship?

Thanks again for the responses, keep them coming :)

[Naiba]

It'll accept a command pod fine, problem is you can't attach command pods to the sides of things, leaving just 2 connecting nodes, one above, one below. If you've got stuff stuck to the top and bottom of the command pod, and the command pod was your "parent" part for the whole build, then there's no way it could connect to anything.

It’s actually kinda nice that sub-assembly tells you rather than lets you copy a bunch of parts across you have no way of connecting up again.

[Naiba]

OH, if you've got a docking port on top of the command pod and nothing else, just take the docking port off and the rover should go into subassembly fine, would save you a bunch of time there. ^^

[Fox]

I'm not actually attaching things to the side. The command pod is the parent of the build, but it's mounted horizontally (rover, not rocket ;) ) and I specially built two girder sections into the rover's body, one pointing upwards and one pointing down.

The idea was that those girder sections would connect to each other (rover B would link to the underside of rover A, rover C would attach to the bottom of rover B, etc) and could break off with decouplers, allowing one rover at a time to drop from the stack onto the surface, while the others hang from the crane above, ready to deploy.

So those two girder sections, above and below, have connection nodes on them. But they are children to the rover's command unit in the nose of the vehicle, which is the parent. I thought that the system would just allow me to save the whole rover as an assembly, then import it and connect those girders together to form the stack.

So basically I'm going to have to rebuild the rover and make everything from the upper girder, down through the body of the rover (including the rover's control unit) through to the lower girder, a child of some other parent part? And then detatch the whole rover from the parent at that upper girder section, and save that girder and everything below it as an assembly?

Hmm, that's a bit irritating as the rover I have now is very nicely balanced and handles well - hope the rebuild doesn't come out unbalanced or off-center in any way. Guess I could do it if it saves me having to send all four rovers up one at a time though...

[Naiba]

Well, there are worse rebuild jobs out there:
http://imageshack.us/a/img28/4485/htag.png
(I gave up on it and SA'd the rocket instead)

Still, hope the mission you're sending them out on goes well for you, and putting the rover together again isn't too fiddly. :)

[Fox]

Wow, nice design there :o That all made from stock parts? My model certainly isn't that complex lol.

Anyways thanks for the help all. Bit of a pain to find out that I've got to redo my work like that, but at least we got to the bottom of the issue, so the assistance is much appreciated. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be off to my SPH to drag a bunch of rover parts around...

[5donuts]

Messaggio originale di Rhymane:

Oh hang on, so you're saying the part that you start with has to have a connector node available to it?

So basically if I want to make my rover work, I'll have to start out with a command pod and rebuild the whole thing beneath that initial command pod, then detatch the girder (and the rest of the rover below it) from the command pod and save -that- as a subassembly?

Well, it doesn't matter if the core part is a command pod or not, it just has to have at least one attachment point. What I did was take the structural part with a battery built in and put a command chair on top of it, since radial attachments don't take up attachment points. Maybe you can apply this idea to your design.

[Daveroski]

If you are building a child vessel which is launched with it's parent.
Build the parent and save it.
Before you start to build the child pick up a small command pod. The little remote guy usually works for me. Think of it as an anchor.
Then get the actual command pod for the child and attach it to the anchor.
Build your child as normal.
When you wish to create a subassembly of your child, it is then simply a matter of taking your command pod, with everything attached to it away from the anchor and saving it as a sub-assembly.
It may be useful to know that when you attach the command pod of your child to the anchor, it is best to attach it by the same node with which it will eventuall attach to the parent craft.
I hope this helps.

[Orkat]

They really need to recode the rocket assembly, in particular removing the "main command pod" structure. Subassemblies are great, but with the current data abstraction they only work properly without their own command modules, which seriously limits the available options. There are numerous workarounds using "anchors", but you continuously have to think ahead about how and in which order you're going to fit the pieces together, which removes the whole purpose of the subassembly facility.
What they need to do is allow the players to make a rocket, save it immediately as a subassembly, start building a new rocket to which they add the previous one as (for example) the final stage. Currently, doing this with workarounds is next to impossible, especially if the subassembly ends with a rocket engine or a docking port and you want to stick that to the top of the main command module structure.