Jeltz

I have tried all the suggestions posted above. They help a bit but IMHO all are workarounds at best. The OP is correct to raise this as something KSP needs to improve upon. Here is a scenario i have not been able to get to work: on long Mk3 tank. 2x structural radial decouplers on one side (one is clearly not enough to resist rotational moments). Now try to attach another Mk3 long tank to both decouplers. Insanity results! Looks fine until you launch and you find one not attached, and one is not enough to give the craft structural stability. Same problem if you use 2xMk3 normal tanks stacked - getting both pylons plus the axial intertank connect is really hard. And yet it can be done! I think I get it right about once in 50 times - so frustrating, even with the hints given here. So here is my solution (if KSP is reading) It is my view KSP should take a leaf out of some of the 3D CAD programs like Solidworks (including using the mouse wheel for zoom - why is it up/down for construction but zoom in/out elsewhere in KSP? but that is a story for another day.) These CAD programs use the concept of a mate which is implemented only partly in KSP - that is the green/black ball. Every part should have all attachment points and only the attachment points indicated by green/black balls - for circular symmetry these can be proceduraly generated as required on the part if available depending on the degree of symmetry chosen. Then it is a simple matter of clicking a green ball, shift clicking another ball and mate! Any other balls that then overlap also mate, and if done correctly, visible bits of the two parts can never overlap (an overlap test would not go astray in KSP either, but I do confess to making some insanely funny rockets with congruent parts!) Back to mates - this idea that all connections go through mates also permits simple generation of the structural support tree needed to realistically simulate stress and failure in an interconnected structure. Finally get rid of the part move/rotate/reroute menu. right click mouse gives the camera view and its rotation options (you could consider left click drag to go from rotate to translate). Holding down left shift should simply switch to moving/rotating the part instead of the camera. All done. Clean and simple.

Sal_vager, Thanks for offer, problem solved (or at east went away) with the recent 1.2 Loud and Clear update. My recommendation to others with this sort of problem is to revert to clean install.

Contract disappears after accepting it when you go to vehicle assembly. Strangely you can still fulfill the contract and get science points for it, it just does not appear as an active contract or later in the contract archive (mission control). Only error in output .log is ArgumentException: An element with the same key already exists in the dictionary. at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[System.String,System.Int32].Add (System.String key, Int32 value) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Contracts.ContractSystem.LoadContractWeights (.ConfigNode gameNode) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at Contracts.ContractSystem+ .MoveNext () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 at UnityEngine.SetupCoroutine.InvokeMoveNext (IEnumerator enumerator, IntPtr returnValueAddress) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 (Filename: Line: -1) Where should I look to redress the LoadContractWeights issue that seems to cause this bug? Looks like it might just be a file entry missing/duplicated somewhere. UPDATE: Thanks for all the replies. The installation was stock and the problem went away with the loud and clear update. I confess to doing some preliminary looking around in anticipation of writing a mod and do not recall changing the stock install, and steam validated the files. Examining the forums though, this problem is only really happening on modded installs so maybe stuffed up somewhere. Anyway, All good now and I can get on with my Kerbal career!