Claw

“That’s the beauty of nature; it always comes up with these wonderful surprises.†The scientists are astounded, the engineers relieved, and the pilots are just happy to be alive. The director is left scratching his head, as if his worst concerns had been confirmed. Travel Day 4 This post is about crossing the narrow-ish land bridge at the north end of the big eastern continent, the most nail-biting portion of the journey. Map study through this area shows that it’s smooth but rolling terrain. So long as the crew can stay away from the edges of the water (steep terrain) or the mountain foothills (excessively rolly), they should be okay. Although the crew does aim to find spots to drop into the lakes along the way and take advantage of the higher water speed. As it stands, they did encounter a few problems on this leg of the journey. The Cockroach drove into the deepest part of the inlet before finally climbing onto shore. Getting up onto shore went as well as in previous sea trials and was relatively uneventful. Once ashore, the real fun began. The first anomaly happened while cruising along down a small ridgeline and across a valley. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but it looked like the glitch where the wheels catch the seam in the terrain. If you’re unfamiliar with this glitch, the terrain in KSP is composed of large “grids.†There are seams where these grids meet, and sometimes wheels crossing these seams can get hung up. As it was, the crew was rolling along at 2x warp when the front left leg of the Cockroach caught on a seam and bent, rotating approximately 90 degrees from where it should be. This caused the Cockroach to trip forward and drive shoulder first into the ground. Below, you can see the wreckage from this event. Somehow, miraculously, the crew cabin survived. So after this, I was stuck in a bit of a “what to do?†The craft crashed under warp due to a glitch, and the crew survived. The only restriction I placed on myself for quickloads/quicksaves was that I wouldn’t use it to escape a fatality that was my fault. Well, when I flipped over to see what else I could do, the kraken ate my save. So, pretty much no choice but to go back a save and try again. After that event, I decide that time warp isn’t going to be as much of an option. The result is that the rest of this leg of the journey was spread over a few real days, which necessitated some saving/loading. For the most part, that turns out okay until about the half way point... At roughly the half way point, I loaded up the game and discovered the Cockroach sank into the terrain all the way to the landing gear wells. Cycling the landing gear a few times didn’t work, so the crew decided to throttle up the engine a little to see if they could rock the Cockroach loose. Turns out that was a really bad idea. The wheels broke loose all right. The legs sheared off and the body of the craft basically exploded (looked more like some sort of kraken attack). The Cockroach erupted into a ball of fire and explosions, leaving nothing but legs and (by some miracle) the crew. Literally nothing else. I feel even less guilty about quickloading out of this one, since it turned out that a full restart of KSP was required... After that, the rest of the leg was uneventful, though it was definitely my biggest concern for the mission as a whole. To keep the Cockroach’s weight down, the mission director waited till the end of the leg to stop for refueling (which took about three unremarkable weeks of time warping). However, the crew did spend some time to take in the scenery, which I’ll share a bit of below. Cheers, ~Claw

There used to be a stock bug that did this a loong time ago but was since fixed. I think all the recent examples of this have been triggered by add-ons. This is the unmodded support section, so I'm going to slide this over for now, and hopefully it'll get faster attention. Cheers, -Claw

Could you be more specific as to what resets? The editor selection? The craft? Parts already in symmetry on the craft? Do they move? Are there steps that happen before the problem arises? Perhaps some pictures? It's difficult for me to guess which bug might be the issue, or if it's something new entirely. More info would help keep us from guessing in the dark. Cheers, -Claw

I've seen the "instant ore fill" posted a couple times, but I'm not sure I've seen any reproduction steps (which I may have missed). Those are pretty critical for any bug, otherwise we end up spinning around in circles. If you have good reproduction steps, save files, craft files, or anything, that helps out a lot. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/92230-%21%21%21-PLEASE-READ-BEFORE-POSTING-%21%21%21-Stock-Support-Bug-Reporting-Guide Cheers, ~Claw

Yes, and some other math bits I think associated with the hashing. It's a clever system, but annoying to deal with inside. This would be glorious! Cheers, ~Claw

Rhomphaia's point is that you're using KJR. That's what he's referencing in your screenshot (since it's not stock). Though my personal curiosity poses two questions, since I am in the throws of wrestling down the Claw Kraken. (I have made some headway.) If KJR is the only mod affecting this ship (no mod parts), then please do post the save as I would like to take a look. Pre-Question: Does this overheat still happen without KJR? 1) Is this a fresh save, and/or fresh mission for version 1.0.4? Or is it a carry over? 2) If you turn on the thermal debug info, do the numbers run away to infinity? Cheers, ~Claw

This is one of those posts that always generates a lot of discussion. It really revolves around two points, most of which relies on what you consider "better." From one perspective, it's easier because you don't have to do much maneuvering or bother establishing that pesky orbit. However, I'd say that it's generally easier to learn how to establish an orbit, which buys you time to get your maneuvers set up and your plan ready before executing. Other people consider "better" a matter of what is the most efficient, which is usually measured in Delta-V expended. Rather than answer this one directly, I'll let the masses swarm about direct ascent vs. orbital rendezvous. Welcome to the forums! Cheers, ~Claw

Those are good observations and it matches up with similar reactions another user had. Unfortunately with the add-ons, it really complicates the tracking down of the bugs. Unless, if by chance, the bugged ship happens to be stock. And that reminds me, I should try and dig up that other thread to see if there are any similar events between your two results. If you find the save, go ahead and post it. It might still be useful or maybe can point to another clue if I can't untangle it from other add-ons. Cheers, -Claw

Okay. I started working on this bug again tonight. Thanks to this report and LittleBlueGaming's save game, I have at least one part of this bug fixed. I'm going to try to keep working on getting better repeatable steps for the phantom bending. That way I can test if the fix I just created has any effect on it before digging harder. If you guys found more info about the phantom forces/bending under timewarp, I'm all ears. Keep up the good work! Cheers, ~Claw

It looks like KSP is running out of memory, but without some more details it's hard to say exactly why. There is a better file that will help us tell what's going on, and it would be helpful if you could provide details as to what you're doing when it crashes. The other file that would be good to upload is called output_log.txt and is in the KSP_Data folder. You can find all these details in the sticky in this forum. One of my first questions would be how long are you playing before it crashes? And what exactly were you doing at the time? Also, are you using any add-ons? There are a few memory leaks in KSP, so playing for extended periods of time can sometimes result in out of memory crashing. Welcome to the forums! Cheers, ~Claw

idk what you're talking about. (Thanks, and fixed.) ~Claw

Also, if it's not already known, you can press ALT+F5 to make named quicksaves. ALT+F9 will allow you to load them. I keep a huge backlog of quicksaves, and often keep my kraken-bait funny business away from my main save. If I hit a kraken or some other random save eating bug, simply ALT+F4 out of KSP and copy over the previous quicksave. Even if it turns out that one is broke, there's a backlog of others. This also prevents me from only having a save from the beginning of session time (since I save periodically during playtime). Though that doesn't answer the question of "what's the oldest." I've only been playing about 1.5 years. My oldest was 6 months, but I mostly start new now. This is primarily due to all of the support help and testing I throw at KSP and the forums at large. Cheers, ~Claw

Challenges like this are hard not to create minimized craft with spammed engines (unfortunately). Though it was fun trying to keep it on the ground.

Because it's the only large scale planning tool there is. I've also not done a lot of prospecting, so I'll admit to my lack of experience here. Really, I'm trying not to use my inside knowledge to simply bowl through my first real ISRU usage. I know it's horribly inaccurate, which actually leads me to the one thing that really drives me crazy in this game: The utter lack of planning tools. Then, one of the few planning tools that exists is nerfed beyond usefulness. Also, I didn't include a ground scanner on the ship because it isn't a prospecting mission. So, unfortunately, when I have to stop it won't matter what the concentration is. I have to accept it because I need fuel. The mission report lags a bit, but I've already scanned the shores around KSC and it's 3 or 4%. Unfortunately this map is pretty lacking, but since time is irrelevant, it won't matter how long it takes to refuel (which turns out to be three weeks for a full load when I stop). Though it might be somewhat late to apply to this mission, I do appreciate your insights. Thanks! Cheers, -Claw

Also, if you are willing to edit save files, you could send a fixed version of your probe to the launch pad then do a quicksave. (Keep a backup in case something goes wrong.) Edit the save file with a plain text editor (like notepad) and find the old probe. Copy the vessel header info that contains the situation Orbit info. Copy that info into the new probe's header. Then, copy the new probe's lat/long/alt info to the old probe. For both probes, you'll also need swap the state info (I forget the name of the variable off hand), but on the new probe, it'll be set to PRELAUNCH. You might also have to set the old probe's "Landed = True" variable. After you swap that, save the file and ALT+F9 load it. This should effectively swap the two vessels, and you can recover the broken one. Cheers, -Claw

You are very welcome! That might be something I can work out. I know what you are talking about, though I haven't poked around into that particular bug. Good info. I'm not sure if I'll be able to tell anything, but I can give it a try. Thanks, that might indeed be helpful. I'll see if I can poke around in there soon-ish. Cheers! -Claw

Here's my best attempt of the night. Managed to get 700 m/s. All stock. Thanks for the drag race. Cheers, ~Claw

Pictures would be awesome, especially for us to give a solid answer about the blue marker in the HUD. Cheers, ~Claw

This looks interesting. I will definitely give it a go. Hopefully whatever I come up with is worth actually posting. Cheers, ~Claw

So as to avoid confusion, since ihtoit is posting a new and updated challenge, I will go ahead and lock this one. Cheers, ~Claw

I've made a lot of progress on my boat-rover circumnavigation. Most of it you can see in my mission report, but I thought this particular picture was really awesome. Gave me a sense of how big but how cool this challenge is (the Cockroach is at the bottom of the pic). It's physically a large picture, but I made it a .jpg. So hopefully it'll be easy on the bandwidth (69kb). Cheers, ~Claw

"We will not make them idly..." Scientists and engineers scramble on a collaborative effort to put a resource scanner in orbit. Nobody is particularly pleased with the results. The director is starting to have second thoughts, feeling that the rush to launch might have endangered the crew. Travel Day 2 I’ve made nearly 10% of the way around the globe on the first day. Not too bad, but it’s probably only 7% of the actual journey. I was actually debating whether or not to abort this run and start over after uncovering some faults with the hastily modified prototype. However, for the sake of seeing how this pans out, I’ve elected to push on. Most notably is the aft CG causing the ship to "dig in," and the tendency for the ship to wander without a rudder, both of which are problems under warp. There is definitely risk to the kerbals here, especially when I make landfall. I’m also concerned about refueling operations now, since I have to do them more frequently and in some places I hadn’t considered before the most recent jet engine changes. I’m definitely a risk adverse player, but rather than back away from this one and starting over, I’m going to press ahead and see what other risk mitigation I can try along the way. So, first step is to launch a resource scanner into orbit, before the crew has to wake up. The scientists and engineers whip up a quick orbital scanner probe and get it to orbit uneventfully. As alluded to earlier, the results aren’t particularly promising. Turns out the little peninsula I was looking to refuel on initially (which the Cockroach is currently parked next to) doesn’t have much of a resource concentration (actually there’s no color on it at all). This refueling stop isn’t critical, but I was going to use this one before making the big traverse across the open ocean on the way to the land pass. I could still go there and accept the slow production rate, but it’s feeling overly risky for such a poor stop. I already know how the shore is there (a bit steep), since an unmanned prototype made a stop there previously. Now, it looks like I need to either hug the coast to make a stop later (Options marked A or , or aim for the large island in the middle of the ocean (marked C). I’ve ruled out changing the route to Option D since I hadn’t surveyed that path: it’s rougher terrain and there’s no water to capitalize on. Way too risky for pretty much zero payback. After surveying the map for a while (at kerbalmaps.com) I elect to aim for the island, and start underway. While enroute, I continue messing with the CoM and let most of the LF burn down. Eventually it’s balanced enough that I can run full throttle at 4x warp! Yay! The downside of this is that it requires a lot more attention to balance fuel, ore, and electrical charge. At one point the pilots were listening to youtube and didn’t notice the electrical charge ran out. It went unnoticed until executing a minor course correction which resulted in the ship spinning out. At the end of the day, I close within sight of the island and stop for the crew to sleep. After sending the ship out of control earlier, I don’t want to risk a night landing with a tired crew. I still have about one third of fuel remaining, and now have a bit of a debate: Execute this refueling, or skip it and try to make it to reach the land pass. The large island is also surrounded by several steep shores. Also, lower fuel holdings means the ship is capable of traveling at 4x warp. However, it’s proving very difficult to determine exactly how far the ship needs to travel (and how much fuel it needs). Plus I am not confident about what the shore looks like. At least I’m feeling better about putting the crew to sleep for the night. The scientists work feverishly through the night and, with the concurrence of the engineers, develop a plan for the director. Travel Day 3 Further map study through the night reveals a promising option. The large island has a few landing areas, but more detailed analysis of the outlying archipelagos shows that the eastern barrier island might have gentle slopes. Additionally, it appears the option exists for the Cockroach to drive straight across the island if necessary. Again, in the rush to deploy, the engineers now realize the faulty decision to not include a means to drive in reverse. The option to “drive through†the island will reduce the risk a bit. The director has agreed to this option, on the condition that the Cockroach execute a reconnaissance pass around the south end of the main island while enroute to the eastern barrier island. When possible, islands of opportunity will also be surveyed on the way. The final spot will be chosen after team collaboration. The scientists also offer another option to attempt: Offshore drilling. It’s risky and requires some reasonably flat land. The director okays immediate deployment of the Calamari prototype to conduct feasibility testing at the shores around KSC to determine feasibility while the Cockroach is enroute. Turns out the offshore drilling option isn't very good. The ship doesn't like going into and coming out of warp like this, and it tends to drift while drilling at 1x speed (not to mention that it's slow drilling). At least one wheel has to be on the ground so it qualifies as landed, or the drill doesn't even work. In the end, there actually isn't much traveling this day, as it's primary goal is to make landfall and start pulling ore. I circle around the big island and make landfall on one of the smaller islands on the east side. The roll-on roll-off style works out great. I fast forward a couple days and only pull enough extra ore to make it to the land bridge. I might have been able to make it without stopping here, but I didn't want to take the risk of getting stranded at sea since I'm not fully certain about the range of this thing yet. Technically the "end spot" for this day is right at the refueling site (since it takes a couple days), but I'll cut this "Travel Day" at landfall on the land bride.

I did find during my initial trials that the craft wanted to drift left when under warp while using Stability Assist. Using Hold Prograde seemed to work better, and also forced the boat into a slightly better trim condition. So I left them off to keep drag down as much as possible. Although now that I'm underway and using hold prograde, I am finding that it wants to wander a bit. So yeah, probably should have tried adding rudders. Cheers, ~Claw

Okay. I see what you're talking about. It looks like there's an internal frame of reference shift at 100km. Actually, this might explain some other behavior that I see in other areas. In either case, it looks like you're correct. You can see the cutoff if you set an elliptical orbit with PE below 100km, and AP above 100km. Then set your rocket pointing at the sun as you did in the pics. Nice find. Cheers, ~Claw

In addition to the info Sal is asking for, I'd say that in the past I've seen issues with updated video drivers causing incompatibility with KSP. People report having no issues with KSP, then suddenly one day it stops working correctly. Sometimes reverting a revision (or a few revisions) on the video drivers resolved the issue. Separately, I loaded your save file and experienced the same NRE problems. Upon further inspection of your save, it appears that one of your craft must have experienced a Kraken attack of some kind. The rocket debris in your save is running away at high speed, and is already way outside the solar system. This causes issues with the game when trying to delete said debris in the tracking station (because it messes up all the references when recalculating things). If you want to rescue this save, launch KSP. At the Main Menu->Settings, set "Max Persistent Debris" to 0 and "Accept." Load up your save game and go to the tracking station, the debris should all be gone now. If you want, you can exit the game back to the Main Menu, and set the Max Persistent Debris back to the previous setting (defaults to 250). That will force the game to delete the debris before it starts referencing things that are invalid. Cheers, ~Claw