Suspected antigravity. The amazing accellerating asteriod

[Z-Key Aerospace]

Following serious craft wobble and destruction. Asteroid was not just flung out from Kerbin LEO but was seen accelerating. Asteroid had no attached parts; they all exploded. Asteroid was uncontrollable and not under thrust. VOID Advanced HUD was reporting acceleration starting at about 8 and decreasing with altitude. This is speculation, I know, but it looked a hell of a lot like reversed gravity. Asteroid continued to accelerate albeit at a decreasing rate and is now leaving Kerbin and, I suspect, the solar-system at an impressive speed.

My theory

Docking 2 asteroids using a craft with both forward and reversed "Claws" is OK and stable at the time. However following a Save->Exit->Reload serious craft wobble ensues. I suspect that the forces on the asteroid attached to the backwards facing Claw are reversed by the reload routine. Following craft destruction forces on asteroid remained reversed and it left Kerbin _REALLY_ fast. That is - the docking routing handles backwards Claws, the reload routing gets it wrong.

(End theory)

This is what I did

• Catch 2 asteroids.
  
• Produce a craft with both forward and backward facing Claws (my last one had 3+3)
  
• Dock backwards Caws to asteroid (90 tonnes)
  
• Dock forwards Claws to asteroid (240 tonnes)
  
• (At this point I went and had lunch, the craft was stable for an hour at least)
  
• Save->Exit->Reload (Because I was unable to change craft or return to the space centre - I get that a lot with Claws, no surprise.)
  
• Upon reload observed wobble.
  
• Attempted to dock extra craft to the asteroid craft because I hoped the additional SAS would reduce the wobble.
  
• I happened to dock my extra craft into the 90t asteroid on the backwards facing Claw.
  

What happened

• Nothing for about 6 seconds
  
• Central craft (the one with 6 Claws) seemed to bend in half. It bent into a right angle so that the big asteroid was facing Kerbin. It did this "suddenly" ie no animation.
  
• Nothing for 3 or 4 seconds
  
• Explosions, bits every where.
  
• Craft parts seemed to be falling away rapidly. Flip to map. No - I'm on the 90t asteroid and _ITS_ orbit has moved. Craft parts and big asteroid are on 80k circular orbit.
  
• Asteroid periapsis disappears into Kerbin. I realise that the asteroid is accelerating.
  
• No parts found on asteroid and asteroid is no longer controllable.
  
• Asteroid achieves escape velocity. VOID reports acceleration has dropped to <2 but asteroid is still accelerating.
  

Windows 7 64bit. 8GB RAM. Decent Nvidia GFx Card. KSP0.90

Number of mods increased during this project at a rate proportional to my frustration and exasperation.

Screenshots or more info - just ask.

I really wanted to get a whole load of asteroids docked together but they always go wrong after a reload. Claw _are_ buggy as hell but I'm sure now that it the reload routine is getting something very wrong because my asteroids are fine until I have to reload.

I read about "rogue-forces" and so tried synchronous-orbit. I read that LEO was best because the rogue-forces would be proportionally less - that was why I was at 80k when this happened. I tried a single Claw each end, 4 Claws each end, then my last craft which had 3+3 and was super-rigid. Then I read that more SAS and RCS _could_ control the wobble so I thought I'd experiment by docking _everything_ and see what happened.

Thinking of trying "Quantum Struts" but I'm not sure anything is gonna beat antigravity and I'm now convinced that is what I'm seeing.

Totally gutted - it was going to look _SO_ cool. Any ideas appreciated.

[Akira_R]

I would recommend trying to have two ships both with claws and docking ports on the back end and use that to connect the two asteroids, because as you said sometimes the claws cause... issues lol

[Z-Key Aerospace]

I would recommend trying to have two ships both with claws and docking ports on the back end and use that to connect the two asteroids, because as you said sometimes the claws cause... issues lol

Thanks for the advice.

My first craft did indeed have 1 Claw on the front, a Dockomax (whatever they are called) on the back with radial engines. 2 of those was super wobbly. Having said that the big docking ports _did_ hold. It was the single Claws that got ripped off.

Designing a single craft with a Claw on each end took thinking about.

Any how - pictures or it didn't happen...