Tokamak

As far as I can tell from testing, they just need to be on the craft. However, beware physics stuff disconnecting craft docked by kerbitrails and other KAS parts. Recently I had to restore from a backup, because my colonists all died when the part my scientist was in came disconnected from the agriculture module, and they ran out of food while I was time-warping elsewhere.

I also read that moving machinery around requires an engineer. In both cases they aren't available for transfer through local logistics. But I've not yet actually found out _how_, so I'm a little unclear. Having an engineer on the craft doesn't enable the resources in local logistics, and I haven't seen and relevant PAW items. Is there something I'm meant to do to replenish nuclear fuel and machinery other than just use KAS pipes?

Ah, but not just a mining rig; I'd need to throw an mpu in there. Not the worst thing.

I'll see if I can replicate it (which ought to be easy when I have the time) and get logs and perhaps video. I do. Why?

I was just saying that in defense of the realism of hovering, using TCA. Unfortunately, that particular feature has never worked properly for me, though. The status says it's looking for a safe landing space, and it almost 100% of the time fails to find one, even on flat ground, and gives up and just hovers, using all of my fuel.

Regarding hovering: Remember that the final stage of Apollo landings was to hover for a bit, with a bit of horizontal velocity, until they were above a good landing site.

I don't know about the videos, but if it helps, disassembly is pretty simple. When a kerbal is on EVA, the right-click menu for parts (I keep forgetting what it's called) contains a "disassemble" option. If you use that option on a part with no children, the part will go poof in a cloud of smoke, and some amount of MaterialKits and SpecializedParts will appear in nearby storage, if it is available. Unrelated: Sorry if this is a silly question, but... I've just been experimenting with Planetary Logistics. I've mostly figured it out messing about in a sandbox. But as far as I can tell, if I want a remote mining rig to send its spoils back to my main base, I need to have the rig actually have or be attached to a logistics module, even if an unmanned one. That's fine, but am I missing some simpler (and lighter) way to do it?

Thank you guys for being so helpful so far. Err... I have another question. Yes I've been looking around for an answer before posting here. I'm pretty confused about lodes. I get that it's a rock that I need to use a klaw or KAS to hook up to, and then can pull out resources. The discussions I've found about them say either that the regolith sifter can process the lode, or that it will appear as a container full of recyclables. If I look in the VAB, the inputs that the sifter can accept are dirt, and "ResourceLode". That all makes sense so far. But once I actually send a vehicle to the lode and hook up to it, the resource in it is "rock". There's no mention that I can find of rock in the MKS wiki, and as far as I can tell there are no MKS parts that can take rock as an input. So what am I meant to do, exactly? O.o I'd appreciate a pointer in the right direction.

I have a largeish mining crawler, driven by the also largeish MoveMax Model XL3, and steering works fine some times, and not at all others. I can't figure out a pattern. I know it steers with differential motor power, since they don't turn. But when I've been testing the thing, in some circumstances I can turn just fine, if slowly. The turning radius is a couple of times the length of the crawler. But in other seemingly identical sitiations I can't get it to deviate more than a degree or two from its course, for kilometers. It can be even or uneven, sloped or flat, it just sometimes does not work. Is there some trick to these guys that I'm missing?

@Tonka Crash That makes sense. Thanks for taking the time to explain!

Thanks for the explanation! While I'm more or less familiar with how physics simulation generally works, I didn't know about the mechanism that MKS's tether used, so that's interesting. I do know that one way around this sort of problem can be do what Blender's rigid body sim does, and have a threshold velocity below which an object is considered "at rest" and no longer has any kinematics applied to it at all until there is a certain amount of change on the forces acting on it. But I guess that would be a fundamental change to KSP's physics simulation, rather than a mod you can throw onto the top. Regarding the stresses on the craft, might there be some way to just have the landed colony bits be considered a point mass, instead of a bunch of separate connected physics objects? I suppose that is also probably easier for me to say than it actually is to do. So is there _any_ way to stop my colony bits from gradually sliding around on the surface, and make them actually stay where I put them? The tether helps a lot in the short term, but in the long term, those small deltas that you pointed out do start to add up.

Re my previous issue: Hah! I caught it happening! A KAS pipe undocked while I was watching. The log entry when it happened was [LOG 10:32:47.232] [Part:KAS.RTS1 (id=F2757413194)#Module:2] KAS joint is broken, unlink the parts [LOG 10:32:47.235] [Part:KAS.RTS1 (id=F2757413194)#Module:0] Unlinking from target: [Part:KAS.JS1 (id=F3514968736)#Module:2], actor=Physics [LOG 10:32:47.270] [Part:KAS.RTS1 (id=F2757413194)#Module:0] Make the cable connector physical [LOG 10:32:47.273] [Part:KAS.RTS1 (id=F2757413194)#Module:0] Connector state changed: Plugged => Deployed [LOG 10:32:47.436] [Part:KAS.RTS1 (id=F4134134619)#Module:2] Change coupling mode: COUPLED => ATTACHED So, rather than a bug, it's clearly something happening in my game. The thing is, my craft was just sitting there doing nothing, tethered to the ground with MKS so it couldn't even shift around, and I was reading something so I wasn't giving any input. Does anyone have any thoughts as to what might cause this? I'd appreciate the help. Obviously I can upload full logs and everything, but all of the other entries for some time before and after were the usual stuff, like RasterPropMonitor complaining that a part didn't have an IVA, and USI-LS updating life support status. Here's the log file, if that is at all helpful: https://mega.nz/file/Akg1QT4B#JgDTizz3WHQoNKZBEknhyE1l7Q2nGJEBz3tunXVbR8k

Oh, there is no tethering part. Many MKS parts just have "toggle ground tether" in their action menus, but that tethers the whole craft the part is in. A few times I've just thrown one of the tiny Ranger airlocks on a thing just to get that feature.

If you have a Pioneer Module, you can periodically right-click on the part and select "check kolony rewards" and it will dump some funds and science into your accounts. Also, you can mine and refine things, and ship them home. You'd have to do some math to figure out what is best, and land it right at the KSC to get full recovery value. See also: https://github.com/UmbraSpaceIndustries/MKS/wiki/Resources-(Stats)

Any kerbal can unpack/inflate a part like the ranger habitation and agricultural module. You need to be an engineer to move parts around with KAS, but to just get the inflatable part deployed you don't need special skills. The inflatable storage modules can just be inflated from inside the craft.

Ah, I see! Thank you. I was confused, because the top of the thread says: "Important update Note:To be compatible to KAS 1.0 the flexible corridor now consists of two separate parts. The active part is called "K&K Flexible Corridor" it can now be connected by a Kerbal to any "K&K Docking-Port" or "K&K Corridor Docking-Port". It is not possible anymore to connect two "K&K Flexible Corridor" parts with each other like it used to be before." It might be best for that to get edited.

I'm sure you guys are sick of getting this question, but what am I doing wrong with trying to use the flex corridors? I have one craft with a "K&K flexible corridor" just a couple of metres away from a craft with a "k&k corridor docking port". All the googling I've done had said that it should be as simple as right-clicking the corridor, selecting the connect option, clicking on the corridor docking port. However, when I do this, the message "select a compatible socket or press esc" just stays there and the UI beeps at me. Obviously there is something that I'm not doing right. You can see they're lined up pretty well, and are close, so I'm not sure what else to look for. I'm running PBS 1.6.11 and KAS 1.6 on KSP 1.8.1, if that is relevant. I generally don't update too often so I don't break all of my mods. I'd really appreciate a pointer in the right direction.

I just checked and it's KSP 1.8. Oh dear, I seem to be a version behind. I tend to avoid upgrading so as not to break all of my mods. This particular glitch has been fairly repeatable for me, unfortunately. As for MKS... it is pretty good about that, but certain parts are required to make it work. So if you are relying on a crewed vessel to be connected to another vessel which has the supplies 'warehouse' part, you have a problem, since now you don't have access to the supplies.

Quick question: I find that when I have vessels connected by a resource pipe (or MKS kerbitrail) in "docked" mode, if I check back a bit later they have usually switched back to "undocked" mode. Is this normal? Is there perhaps some setting I ought to look for? It's not a game-breaker, but it does effect how I have to plan my MKS bases, if I know things will come undocked and become separate vessels.

IIRC "out of the box" it should present you with a dialogue the first time you go into or create a save, asking you what settings you want. Is it possible that that happened and you accidentally skipped it somehow?

* I keep seeing some parts whose module feature list include "Performs daily maintenance on nearby vessels" but I haven't seen any mention of this in the wiki. Is this a deprecated feature, or something to work with another mod? One other thing... I'd just like to make sure I am understanding correctly. I've been looking in the wiki and experimenting, but given that going from VAB to launching takes something like 30 seconds, so isolating every variable takes a _long_ time. And sometimes there are things I missed and didn't even think to try * So here is my understanding: Specialist bonuses require a specialist of an appropriate type actually in the vessel in question, yes? And one specialist can only buff one bay. So if I have a resource converter with 2 bays, it needs to have crew habitation space on (or docked to) it, and I'd need to have 2 engineers to buff both bays. Is this right? Thank you again for all of the help you guys have been giving me. It is very much appreciated. Phew, this mod has a lot to it.

It's patchy and could be better organized, but the official MKS wiki does have a lot of good information, though not up-to-date tutorials. https://github.com/UmbraSpaceIndustries/MKS/wiki You don't need to make a pull request. If you have a github account, you can just edit it like a normal wiki. I've already made a few small edits, like fixing a few broken internal links.

I've also found that saving and reloading fixes the issue for me. So when coming in for a landing, I now always quicksave. If uncontrolled lithobraking occurs, I just quickload and it does it right the next time around.

Gotcha. Thanks! Once I've played with it a bit more to make sure I haven't misunderstood anything, I will probably try to make the wiki a little more clear.

But so basically, I don't need a rover and pilot on both ends of the transaction just to make it work, yes? For what it's worth, I have done some experimenting, but trying every combination of things starts to get really time consuming after a while. Thanks for the info.