Strange problem, would like some advice or 12 kerbals are going to die.

[Aerindel]

So I think this is a bug but I don't know as its a very strange problem.

Last night I ran a long mission to take a science vessel out to a class E asteroid, mine it and then just for the heck of it I adjusted its orbit and placed it around kerbin. It was a lot of fun and I was pretty happy with myself since it was the chance to set up another science lab chugging away.

Anyway, before going to bed I decided I should transmit all my lab data from my various science labs. I switched vessels to one in orbit around kerbin, saw that it had 300 or so science built up and so I started uploading it.

And then while I was waiting for this to happen the camera flipped, I was suddenly no longer in orbit but headed down. After a WFT moment (this station has NO ENGINES) I started trying to figure out what was happening. My Nav ball shows no increase in velocity but in the map view I see my orbit is becoming more elliptical second by second as though I had a small engine thrusting me away from Kerbin. Now my nice circular 125km orbit is stretched out to 240km and my station and all its kerbals are on a path down to disaster.

And its getting worse, if I let the game run the AP just keeps going up by a few meters every second and I'm locked to that spacecraft since I keep being told I cannot switch while under acceleration. Remember, this craft has no engines, and RCS and SAS are turned off, the only way out is to revert or quite the game.

Is this a version of the Kraken? Help?

[SelectHalfling0]

Alt F4 NOW!

Autosave should have kicked in before the accel.

[ScriptKitt3h]

I'd attempt to reload the save, but if that doesn't work, I'd try and intercept the station using some sort of rescue vehicle.

[Jovus]

I'd try to replicate it. Sounds like you may have discovered a 1.0 Kraken drive.

FWIW, when trying to prevent the problem, my first guess would be that you have some part with colliders trying to extend, but running into another part considered a piece of the ship.

[Aerindel]

Alt F4 NOW!

Yeah, sadly that ship as sailed and my previous save is hours in the past since the first thing I tried was quitting the game and hoping the anomaly would be gone when I came back.

I've tried to rescue them but since the station is constantly accelerating I can't match velocities. Its only a few m/s but it adds up fast. Its like a black hole suddenly appeared in the system and is pulling my ship out of orbit.

Maybe I can bail my kerbals out in EVA, they would still be in a doomed orbit but maybe I could at least match velocities that way. Unless the same thing happens to them.

Anybody have any idea what is happening here?

[katateochi]

wow, way to ransom Kerbals for help!!

seriously though, does sound like a Krakeny kinda thing. Some part interaction causing a phantom force (if you have a hexagonal strut part I'd point my suspicions at it).

You might be lucky and have an autosave that was made before this happened, in which case make a backup of your quicksave file, copy your persistent.sfs and rename the copy to quicksave.sfs and try and load that.

If that doesn't work.

You could try using HyperEdit to replace your orbit. or you can manually edit your persistent.sfs file.

Actually, better to edit the quicksave.sfs so you can easily load it with f9. So do a quicksave, edit the file and search for the vessel's name, right under the name are a whole bunch of vars that define it's position. I just hyperedited a craft into a 125km orbit to get you the values, I'm not 100% sure what each of them are but I think you want to take the lat, lon and alt values and all of the ORBIT sub section. I put the whole lot in here just in case you need them. Try just replacing the ones I suggested first and seeing if that works.

			type = Ship
			sit = ORBITING
			landed = False
			landedAt = 
			splashed = False
			met = 910.27408113447
			lct = 325140.365665694
			root = 0
			lat = -1.74743860733943E-15
			lon = 226.213223517689
			alt = 125005.998891152
			hgt = -1
			nrm = -0.6948341,0.719161,-0.003632353
			rot = -0.7076933,0.001059359,-0.003875959,0.7065084
			CoM = 5.421093E-06,1.47645E-05,6.27673E-08
			stg = 1
			prst = False
			ref = 908860299
			ctrl = True
			cPch = 0.9452803
			cHdg = 0.7931818
			cMod = 1
			ORBIT
			{
				SMA = 725000.014270157
				ECC = 2.90004596759583E-05
				INC = 0
				LPE = 106.492964665206
				LAN = 350.455074513804
				MNA = 4.42391494917293
				EPH = 326050.659746829
				REF = 1
			}

Good luck!

[Xacktar]

Can you change the orientation of the ship so the phantom thrust repairs your orbit?

Could by you some time.

[EladDv]

can you send me the persistant file here? i want to see if this can be made into a Kraken Drive- might be that the science is so strong that it's generating thrust...LOL

[Aerindel]

Can you change the orientation of the ship so the phantom thrust repairs your orbit?

I tried that but I acts more like gravity than a drive, ship orientation doesn't seem to matter, its just a stead thrust pulling me into an elliptical orbit.

But, I think I figured it out.

seriously though, does sound like a Krakeny kinda thing. Some part interaction causing a phantom force (if you have a

I started looking at the ship really closely and found a AGU (the claw) that was flipping out, bouncing all over the place for no reason. (I put them on everything I can just in case I need to rescue something or refuel since they are a lot easier to use than docking ports)

Unfortunately I couldn't do anything about it. I reverted back to the auto save made just after it started happening (caused when I switched ships hoping to stop it) and then bailed all my kerbal scientists out into space. I was close enough to a minimum orbit that I was able to use RCS to get their PE above 70k, so they are safe now, but since the ship was accelerating while they where jumping out every single one is in a different orbit. Its a kerbal cloud.

can you send me the persistant file here? i want to see if this can be made into a Kraken Drive- might be that the science is so strong that it's generating thrust...LO

Sorry, it got saved over during my rescue effort. If it happens again I will save it.

[eddiew]

HyperEdit should be able to pull it out of the dive and set it back on a correct course... unless there is indeed a kraken drive at work.

On the other hand, rescuing the kerbal cloud sounds like excellent fun