Difference between revisions of "Place-Anywhere 7 Linear RCS Port"

Revision as of 06:22, 18 October 2012

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The Linear RCS Port is used for spaceship rotation and translation movement and is fueled by FL-R25 RCS Fuel Tank. As of 0.15.2, it is massless and dragless, despite the CFG file values. The Linear RCS Port is higher thrust than the RV-105 RCS Block, but only capable of thrusting in one direction. This part is only available in the paid version of KSP, though non-stock parts with equivalent functionality are available for the demo.

Usage

RCS thrusters are used to rotate and translate the ship, and can do so outside of the atmosphere unlike canards and control surfaces. They need fuel from an RCS Fuel Tank but do not need to be placed on the tank itself, unlike the larger engines. When you don't want to spend fuel you can toggle the RCS thruster system on and off with the R key. RCS thrusters work together with the Command Pod's reaction wheels and the Advanced S.A.S. system.

The little cold gas thrusters are still powerful enough to be used instead of liquid engines for major orbit changes with smaller ships. This capability will be useful for docking (planned in future versions). For adjusting heading, it is helpful to have the S.A.S. on to prevent unwanted rotation.

The positioning of your RCS thrusters is very important. They should be placed as far from the centre of mass as possible to give them maximum leverage. You should to mount at least 4 RCS thruster blocks around the nose and tail of large rockets. Beware, they will be fatally damaged if they brush against the ground.

RCS Thrusters seem to prevent RT-10 Solid Fuel Boosters from overheating, even when offline.

Description

In real life, RCS stands for Reaction Control System. It is used to control the attitude of a spacecraft.

Changes

0.15.2

• (undocumented) Thrust reduced from 10 to 3, bringing part Isp in line with the RV-105 RCS Block

0.15.0

• Initial Release