Problem with capsule on the ground that's still "in flight"

[mrplainswalker]

Hi everyone,

I just attempted my first rescue mission, and everything went well up until the end. After parachuting down to the ground, it won't let me retrieve the spacecraft, nor will it let me go to the space center. I can even get out and walk around on Kerbin, but it still says I'm in flight. Is this a bug, or am I missing something? I reloaded an earlier save back in orbit, tried again, and it does the same things.

[Snark]

Interesting... are you running any mods? The only time I've run into this was when I had a mod installed with a custom engine, and the engine was what was touching the ground-- my guess is that it was some sort of problem with the engine's collision mesh, or something. Have never seen this bug in stock, though.

One question: Does it just say you're in-flight when you're focused on the spacecraft, or does it apply to your kerbal when he/she is out walking around? e.g. could you complete the contract by taking the kerbal out, and then retrieving just the kerbal? (leaving the craft)

[mrplainswalker]

I am not running any mods. As to your question, it won't let me retrieve the kerbal by himself either. I figured out several workarounds for it. The first workaround is to land in the water. It doesn't seem to happen if I can reach 0 elevation. The second workaround is to quicksave, and then go to the space center anyway. At the tracking station, I can retrieve the craft. What's interesting is that if I try to fly the craft again, it goes back into the same mode as before where it thinks I'm in flight on the ground.

[mrplainswalker]

Seems that I might be the only person experiencing this problem, for some reason. In any case, if anyone else happens to be experiencing it, the true workaround is save file editing. My previous workarounds don't always seem to work. So now anytime I get a rescue mission, I play it as usual and then when I reach around 2000m over Kerbin I quicksave, edit the quicksave file to change my status to landed, and then reload and recover vehicle. Kinda stinks that I have to resort to those levels, but whatever works in the end.

In case anyone is interested, here's the video I watched on editing save files.

[danturo]

I experienced a similar problem once. Except with mine, I had a materials bay between my capsule and the ground. I don't know if this was the same in your case, but I just rolled my craft over onto its side and it then allowed me to recover the vessel.