How do you put small blocks on a big grid?

Hi, I've seen people use small blocks on a big grid in videos without using something like a connector (at least as far as I can tell). How do I do this?

 

Connecting stuff with connectors is SE 101 stuff, I'm gonna assume you already know this. (small connectors can connect to large ones just fine)

Rotors. Create a large grid with a rotor on it. Grind down or detach the rotor head, the rotating piece. Now you can create a small grid and place a rotor head (it's a separate block in the G menu). You can attach this small rotor head to the large rotor just like you can with the large rotor head.

 

Does this work in survival, I haven't tried it in a long time.

 

Yes.

 

The tricky one, is doing it while on a planet where you can't just nudge it in zero G.

Also, why do the "Merge Blocks" for both large and small not meet up, when they are essentially the same surface area on the 'merging' faces? I guess that would just be too easy

EDIT: nm about merge blocks... I was SO THINKING the wrong sizes there, my bad. No, they dont meet up, they dont match in surface size... so ignore that bit.

 

How do I create a small grid? I mean just creating a small ship gives me a small landing gear. Or is the rotor head automatically a small grid block?

 

The small landing gear is the first block on a new, small grid. If you attach other blocks to it, the blocks that are created will be small blocks.

 

The first block of a station is always a cubed light armor block. You place that and that's the beginning of your base.

The first block of a ship is a landing gear (both large and small). You place that where you want to start building your ship.

You only need enough components to place the appropriate block (not build it fully).... assuming you're building in survival mode.

You can choose to either keep the block and build on it. Or you can start building on it and then once you have at least one other block, you can grind it off or delete it in creative.



Another technique is to start building your creation attached to another creation, then separate them once you are either finished or have enough built up to not worry about any of the game mechanics tripping you up. In this instance you don't need to start a new grid. You can just add to an existing one. This is also how you build from a projected blueprint.

:EDIT:

To properly answer your question: yes start a new small ship and make sure that the "Rotor Part" is attached the way that you want the small grid piece to attach to the large rotor.

There are several tutorials on Youtube regarding small grid rotor large grid and vise versa.

 

Gentlemen! What is obvious to someone that has done it before is not obvious to someone that has not done it before!

Option One:

1. On your station or large ship create a rotor
2. grind off the rotor's top
3. create a new small ship landing gear attached to the side of the rotor
4. place small armor blocks from the small ship gear to form an arm hanging over the rotor
5. on the bottom of a small armor cube that is overhanging the large rotor place a rotor top
6. ensure the large rotor bottom and small rotor top are fully constructed
7. open console, type "rotor" and click the "attach" button
8. if the "attach" button is not clickable cut your small block arm in half and watch the rotor top fall onto the rotor bottom
9. check again if the "attach" button is clickable

Option Two:
Place an extra

• small armor block
• and rotor top

hanging from an existing small ship as suggested by Ronin

 

Watch this, skip to 5:20
Takes some trial and error, as you have to hit a very narrow "sweet spot"
Also in the control panel, make sure it's "Looking for any rotor to attach", or it will not work.
You may or may not have to "reset" it first (click detach, then click attach)

 

As this just got bumped, i would much rather suggest this video as it contains several methods

 

However informative... it didn't answer how to get small blocks attached to large grid using the rotor

 

The video shows several methods of connecting rotor ends as well as those where rotor top and rotor base get connected to each other.
A few methods for the second method can be used to connect small rotor base/head to large rotor head/base.

Though while that doesnt work for advanced rotors, there is a workaround using blueprints like
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=454684619
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=495068105
or by bringing both parts in close proximity and then save and reload the world.
Additionally the manual alteration of blueprints, what i generally prefer, is another approach but more difficulty for most and useless if you got a read blueprint at hand.

 

How to do this in survival mode?

I have a small vehicle that uses a small-large advance rotor (Large advanced rotor and small advanced rotor head).