Quote:
Originally Posted by Lionclaw
The 4 quad-engine liquid fueled boosters feed the main engine keeping the main fuel tank full for the rest of the ascent.
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Your using Asparagus staging.
Quote:
Originally Posted by USNSRCaseySmith
Didnt know there was a forum here! I Woulda been coming here for a while!! KSP is way to much fun, Im having problems getting my rockets up into orbit in 18 thought, particularily heavy loads. I am trying to get up a orbital rendevous fuel docking station which carries 4 orange fuel tanks up for transfer. Any ideas guys? IM using stock btw,
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Asparagus staging helps you launch large loads efficiently. You either use 4 or 6 boosters(or 8 if you're using smaller tanks). As your tanks empty you drop them. You run fuel lines from your booster tanks into your internal tank. If you're using 4 boosters your boosters run out and then are decoupled leaving your center tank with full fuel.
If you're using 6 tanks you have two options. You can have 3 tanks empty first and then be dropped leaving you with 3 full tanks and your internal tank. Or you can have pairs of 2 empty, and go through 3 pairs and then have your internal tank.
Fuel drains from the first tank in a chain first, even if all the other links in the chain have burning engines. As fuel lines don't care about thrust or gravity, they work in all conditions.
As your tanks empty and are dropped your lowering your weight and thrust as the atmosphere thins. Generally you need more thrust in thicker atmospheres and higher fuel in lower or no atmosphere.
In real life this wouldn't work as we don't have magic fuel lines, and if we did Astronauts are wary of transferring highly explosive fuel between a fragile fuel line while in flight.
If you want an example of asparagus staging look at one of the stock crafts in the game.
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