mining drill capsizes mining complex

[king of nowhere]

After long trials, i finally managed to bring my mining complex on the ground, and i was ready to start operation.

I didn0t expect any trouble, i even posted a screenshot of the complex here asking if it was of sound desing.

too bad when i activagted the drill, instead of sinking into the ground it capsized the whole thing

https://imgur.com/a/60gvOQB

what the hell?

assuming I cannot mine with the actual thing, is there a way, reloading a save from before activating it, to add something to salvage the mission?

 

[bewing]

Well, there's nothing that says you need to do your mining standing up. You can probably rotate that craft while it's on the ground -- especially if you try retracting and extending that drill. If you can get it so that the tip of that drill enters the ground, and the "pumping" motion of the drill does not  move your craft around, then you can still mine and convert. But yes, when you mount drills, you must take into account that they extend down and bounce when drilling. So you need to mount them higher than that. Always best to test a mining craft on the runway before committing to an actual mission.

[king of nowhere]

12 minutes ago, bewing said:

Always best to test a mining craft on the runway before committing to an actual mission.

yes, now i always run a full simulation of a mission before doing anything new.

at the time when i launched the mining complex? i still didn't.

[Spricigo]

I wouldn't bother to try to try to keep it upright. I'd just design mk2 to be way more wider, it makes everything so much simpler. 

If you have a earlier save you may try to use those docking ports to attach some structure that keeps it upright but I think you will not be very satisfied with how it behave (or even looks) 

[king of nowhere]

yay! i find a way to fix it!

https://imgur.com/a/zt4p5Ke

turns out the rover i was planning to use to transfer fuel from the facility to landed crafts is also good as counterweight. when i made the middle wheels very large to prevent capsizing, i'd never have imagined that it would also avoid capsizing a whole factory.

i didn't have much faith in this attempt because the rover is much lighter than the factory, but in desperation i tried it, and it looks like the lever and wide base make the difference.

1 hour ago, Spricigo said:

I wouldn't bother to try to try to keep it upright. I'd just design mk2 to be way more wider, it makes everything so much simpler.

yes, everything would be much simpler if the thing was wider. everything, except launching it on a rocket. also landing, the sky crane that i use to lower cargo on mun is a docking bay with four rockets at the sides, it has a limit to how large it can take stuff. as it is, the complex was already at the limit, if i made a brusque manuever during the landing the thing would wobble a bit and some part of the factory would end up on the path of a rocket exhaust, getting destroied.

still, my original plan called for decoupling the upper and lower part of the factory (you may notice the decoupling ring) and connecting them through one horizontal strut. I already sent the land crane on a previous trip that would move the pieces, but it turned out it's not powerful enough to lift that module. also, the clamp-o-trons need to be at the same exact height to couple properly, and I can clearly see they aren't lined up well enough. also, half of them are mounted in the wrong direction and are therefore nonfunctional.

yes, i realized i needed to test everything on a mission on a separate save after i had to scrap an expensive mission because on an inverted clamp-o-tron. back when i launched that isru complex my testing procedure was less rigorous; i had the thing already flying and i had to find a way to make it work or scrap yet another expensive piece of machinery (not to mention send a rescue mission for the engineer)

[Spricigo]

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

 i had to find a way to make it work or scrap yet another expensive piece of machinery (not to mention send a rescue mission for the engineer)

Actually the engineer could just wait for the replacement. Yep, it is expensive but my reasoning was that running the missions to get the money is actually "cheaper" in terms of quality of my game time. Mind you, I have the luxury of knowing that my wide design would work since I already deployed it long ago.