FIXED IT! the problem was, as you all likely guessed, located between the keyboard and chair. somewhere along the winding road of changing game versions it looks like ckan was setting modulemanger to an incorrect version of the mod for the various versions of ksp i was trying. even when i cleared all the mods and only installed b9partswitch it was still defaulting to the wrong version. so it was 100% me, i seem to have annoyed ckan into actual insanity lol. your mod as well as ckan, b9partswitch, freeiva and all the other mods were never an issue. im an idiot. i just wanted to thank you all for your help, i genuinely appreciate it and your mod is awesome!! thank you!