2x4 Solar Panel Array Breaking

[GKSP]

I have a rover I am using for my attempt at a Minmus Elcano Challenge, and my attempt is going mostly ok. 

My rover is here .

I have had some solar panels broken, and once I lost more parts, I sent up a KIS repair ship with supplies.

After doing so, I noticed that one of my two 2x4 panel arrays were broken.  As far as I knew, the flat panels could not be broken.  I also was not able to find out until I right-clicked the part, where the status was Broken!  What causes this part to become broken?  And is there a better indicator of this status?  There is no visual change between normal and broken status.

Edited June 14, 2018 by GKSP
Link edit

[Vanamonde]

Your link leads to a real-world solar eclipse map. 

[GKSP]

2 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

Your link leads to a real-world solar eclipse map. 

Sorry.  Was trying to do two things at once.  Gotta get back to kerbalx.

[Gargamel]

I have the same issue in 1.3.1 on my rovers too.  Those seem to be made of glass..... oh wait.....  errr...   really fragile glass.   I just got rid of them and took the hit on part count and replaced them with singles. 

[mystifeid]

On 6/14/2018 at 8:10 AM, GKSP said:

After doing so, I noticed that one of my two 2x4 panel arrays were broken.

I've just finished a 1000km+ trip on Tylo trying to maintain speeds of 80 - 100m/s (rocket assist) with four of these puppies without breaking them.

I noticed that the wheels on your 15t rover are using the default spring and damper strengths of 1. You may find that you get more resilience and much less bounce if you increase both of these settings to 2.

Also, and I'm not sure if it has any bearing on the fragility of your solar panels but both of them are clipping a rung on the adjacent cupola module.

Edited June 16, 2018 by mystifeid

[Xd the great]

did you try repairing it?

[Superfluous J]

Solar panels become "Broken" when they take a it within a relatively small range. When hit, one of 3 things happens:

1. Nothing. They were just bumped.
2. They become "broken!" if they are bumped a little harder.
3. The explode (like all other parts in the game) if hit too hard.

To fix them, as @Xd the great suggested, an engineer with enough skill (I think 3 is enough?) should be able to repair it. Or you could go into the persistent.sfs file and find the solar panel and change the status to whatever a nonbroken panel is.

[bewing]

Engineers (and you) cannot repair a solar panel. They are not repairable.

 

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, bewing said:

Engineers (and you) cannot repair a solar panel. They are not repairable.

 

Oh really? Ok then your only choice is to replace or persistent edit.

[mystifeid]

It's quite difficult to break one of these panels at KSC. I've managed it twice out of about thirty attempts. Impact elsewhere doesn't work as the part it's attached to has a lower impact rating than the panels - as do other parts. So ramming things is out. Even the one time I managed to just destroy the cupola by running over the bumps in front of the VAB, the panels were fine. A soft roll doesn't work because the monopro tanks hold the rover up enough to protect the panels. A hard roll and everything explodes. Rolling it with just the right speed/turn, I can break a panel without destroying anything else.

So what.

Drove it around for a while and everything was fine.

There is a very fine clearance between the panels and the cupola and I wondered if there was a scenario where they came in contact and if that was possible, whether the panels wouldn't just pass through the cupola without damage anyway.

[bewing]

54 minutes ago, mystifeid said:

and if that was possible, whether the panels wouldn't just pass through the cupola without damage anyway.

Yes. A vessel cannot collide with itself.

[klesh]

4 hours ago, bewing said:

Engineers (and you) cannot repair a solar panel. They are not repairable.

 

I wonder what the design thought behind that is?  Seems like exactly the kind of thing an Engineer would do?

[bewing]

4 hours ago, klesh said:

 

I wonder what the design thought behind that is?  Seems like exactly the kind of thing an Engineer would do?

It's an incomplete game feature. Maybe the original intent was for all radial parts to be breakable and repairable. It just hasn't been fully implemented yet.

 

[klesh]

Fair enough, just wondered if you had the inside scoop. 

[bewing]

Any actual inside scoops I may have -- I'm not allowed to tell.

[ArmoredLipid]

On 6/14/2018 at 12:06 AM, Gargamel said:

I have the same issue in 1.3.1 on my rovers too.  Those seem to be made of glass..... oh wait.....  errr...   really fragile glass.   I just got rid of them and took the hit on part count and replaced them with singles. 

Glass ain't nothing. Solar panels in this game are made of single-atom thickness gold leaf. One time, I broke them off by driving too fast on Kerbin - they got "snapped off by aero forces". The trick is to offset them into a structure piece - preferably a modular girder, or a box made out of structural panels - those can take an 80 meter-per-second impact. I personally use a "cage" made of modular girders.

Edited June 19, 2018 by ArmoredLipid
More relevant information.

[nasa legolas]

On 19 de junio de 2018 at 12:28 AM, ArmoredLipid said:

Glass ain't nothing. Solar panels in this game are made of single-atom thickness gold leaf. One time, I broke them off by driving too fast on Kerbin - they got "snapped off by aero forces". The trick is to offset them into a structure piece - preferably a modular girder, or a box made out of structural panels - those can take an 80 meter-per-second impact. I personally use a "cage" made of modular girders.

true i think they are made of a 1 centimeter thick cardboard sheet

Edited June 28, 2018 by nasa legolas