uncontrolled ships with chutes are removed when using timewarp from another vessel

[Justin Kerbice]

Hi,

I just launch something stay in low altitude (600m max), deploy chutes, eject a kerbal from the pod:

1. it doesn't die from the fall (> 300m) just in front of the VAB,

2. I see the vessel falling slowly at ~ 250m

3. use TW 2x speed => vessel is removed !

log shows:

Packing biza t1 for orbit

Packing Wilbur Kerman for orbit

Vessel biza t1 was on-rails at 0.9 atm pressure and was destroyed.

(with biza t1: the vessel from which Wilbur Kerman has been "ejected")

Looks like the bug which make vessel disappearing when hey should not.

Put in modded install cause I don't use a vanilla game for this but I bet it also occur in this case.

[Guest]

KSP does it. Anything in atmosphere and not player-controlled removed if out of visual range or somehow switched to "on rails" mode.

There is mods which block such behavior.

Edited September 24, 2014 by Guest

[Alshain]

KSP does it. Anything in atmosphere and not player-controlled removed if out of visual range or somehow switched to "on rails" mode.

There is mods which block such behavior.

Not at 250m. It's not on rails till it's 2.2km away.

[ExplorerKlatt]

If the kerbal isn't moving then he is considered landed and using time warp will enter "on-rails" mode, thus destroying the ship.

[magico13]

Not at 250m. It's not on rails till it's 2.2km away.

Not entirely true. Activating non-physical timewarp puts EVERYTHING on rails. Every single vessel. That's the purpose of non-physical warp. If it's on-rails and in atmosphere (above 0.01 pressure, about 22km), it gets destroyed by KSP.

Solution: Don't use non-physical timewarp. You can use the Alt key to activate physical timewarp even when it would otherwise use non-physical, meaning your unfocused vessel won't be deleted (as long as it stays within about 2.2 km).

I don't believe you actually went to 2x warp, you likely actually went to 5x (one press of the . key, which if you've never noticed is also the > key, which is awesome since the reduce warp key is <).

[Alshain]

If the kerbal isn't moving then he is considered landed and using time warp will enter "on-rails" mode, thus destroying the ship.

Ah, I didn't know that.

[Justin Kerbice]

Whatever, it's an issue, or an evil feature.

And it's not 2.2 but about 2.5 kms (if you drop something in atmosphere, you can see 2.3 and even 2.4 kms distance mark before it disappear).

For the kerbals, the problem is they are quite "dumb", they fall and... ragdoll, it's fun when you launch them, crash them onto walls, try to blend them, etc but in "normal" play, they should not be so dumb and be able to keep moving after a jump, so not be considered "landed" like vessels, or either not be considered as a vessel at all by these "on-rail killer".

[BudgetHedgehog]

But you'd see similar behaviour if the kerbal wasn't a kerbal, but a command pod or something - set up a tractor design hovering craft that stays at say, 100m. Decouple a pod from the bottom and float it down on chutes. Once it's landed, you'll be able to TW on rails and the ship above you will disappear.

I'm not sure it'd be possible to fix this or even that there are many occasions where it would be catastrophic - you'd rarely be operating more than one vessel in atmo AND one of them is flying AND the active vessel is landed AND you really honestly need to timewarp. If you find yourself in such a situation, surely you could just either wait or use phys timewarp?

Yeah, it's a bug, and one SQUAD probably hasn't thought of, but that's because the situation presents itself so rarely and the workaround is so simple (just wait..).