Set an adapter's widths

Make an Adapter step a wide stage down onto a narrow one, or the other way up, by setting the width of each of its ends.

Use this when a Fuel Tank L or another 8 m part has to carry a 4 m pod, tank or separator on top of it, or when a narrow stage sits on a wide one and you want the join to taper instead of stepping. The Adapter holds fuel, so it is also a short tank of whatever shape the stack needs.

Before you start

• You own Wide Stacks on the tech tree, which needs your Research Centre at level 5. The Adapter is in the Tanks tab.
• The two parts the adapter will join are already on the canvas, or you know their widths: a Fuel Tank is 4 m across, a Fuel Tank L 8 m, a Solid Booster S 2 m.

1. Pull an Adapter out of the Tanks drawer and drop it under the wide part. It arrives 8 m across the top and 4 m across the bottom, 3 m tall.
2. Tap it to select it, then tap it again. Its properties sheet opens with three rows: Length, Top width and Bottom width.
3. Set the end that meets the wide part to the wide part's width, and the other end to the narrow part's. Each width slider runs from 32 to 128, which is 2 m to 8 m; the number on the row is the width in the hangar's units, so a Fuel Tank L is 128 and a Fuel Tank 64. Turn the cone over by swapping the two figures: an adapter with 64 on top and 128 underneath carries a pod on a wide tank.
4. Drag the Length slider if the cone should be taller or shorter. A longer cone holds more fuel and weighs and costs more, exactly as a longer tank does.
5. Drop the narrow part on the narrow end. The adapter's two stack points sit on its axis whatever the widths, so the stack stays straight.

What you should see

The adapter redraws as a trapezoid the moment a slider moves, its wide end the width of one neighbour and its narrow end the width of the other. The Mass and Cost figures along the top of the screen follow the cone's volume, and the part's card lists the fuel it now holds.