Disappearing ships?

[Xwingace]

So I had a probe on its way to Duna for a flyby, and I go to the tracking center and it's just... Gone...

What's the deal with that? It had plenty of power and fuel, and the engine wasn't even running it was just coasting. Very frustrating as it had been in flight for nearly a year already. Anyone else have this happen?

Edited June 27, 2015 by Xwingace

[bigcalm]

It might be that it's still there (though KSP will occasionally remove bugged ships I believe - I've not had it happen to me though).

In the tracking station at the top, is everything selected here?

[Xwingace]

Everything's on in the tracking station, it's gone for sure.

[Geschosskopf]

Everything's on in the tracking station, it's gone for sure.

Yeah, this unfortunately happens sometimes. The Kraken just grabs ships when you're not looking. I've had this happen quite a few times. Sometimes, however, the ship is just in a WAY different orbit that where you left it, instead of being just vanished. So look around, zoom way out and make sure it's not in some huge solar orbit. But it's probably just gone

[Windspren]

Hyperedit in a new one

[Xwingace]

Oh well, now I know how NASA feels when one their probes goes dark.

Laythe thank you, I've never done that but how hard could it be?

[Evanitis]

The Kraken brought my mining-mission home from Duna transfer in my current career. Tried to switch to it for some science, got black screen, freezing. After restarting the game, I found it's crew down in KSC and I'd swear my credit balance was suspiciously high, like if I recovered it. Everything I did since it's launch was untouched, so it wasn't an unintentional loading on my part.

Since the ship was a bit mis-designed, I'm glad for that Kraken. Or was it a wormhole? Bill even considered sacrificing a pilot or tourist to show his gratitude for the instant rescue, but the suggestion was dismissed by the KSC administration.

[Old Foxboy]

Had one ship returning from Duna with a juggernaut truck load of science. Loaded my game the next day - gone. Loaded a quicksave BEFORE - gone. Loaded a save with the ship in direct focus - gone. Like KSP hyperedited all of my savegames. It was totally like i never launched it. Even the Kerbals were back in the center.

This really sucks.

[Evanitis]

Strange... The stories above all involve Duna. Maybe there's the nest of a certain creature somewhere there...

[Old Foxboy]

Here's another Duna story. Unfortunately, i couldn't reproduce it, but it really happened:

I directed a craft to intercept Duna and had a valid intercept. However, i wanted to change the orbit a little bit to establish a more Delta-V friendly insertion burn. Suddenly, the intercept was way off. I immediately pressed X, thinking i burned into the wrong direction and checked my attitude. But it was perfectly right. I planned another maneuver, and no matter what i did, the closest encounter was getting further and further from Duna.

Until i realized: The planet had stopped moving! Everything was moving except Duna. I loaded a previously saved game, and everything was fine.

[Geschosskopf]

Strange... The stories above all involve Duna. Maybe there's the nest of a certain creature somewhere there...

To me, it appears that there are several "pot holes" in the space highways that fairly regularly eat ships. IOW, at certain times in the game (so specific planetary positions), moving through certain points in space is rather dangerous. These are all duly noted on my star charts as "Here there be Krakens".

The most ruinous for me is the place that routinely eats ships returning to Kerbin from Eve if you make the round trip at the earliest available windows from the start of the game. If I exit the game when the returning ship is within about 1 week (of 24-hr days) of reaching Kerbin, it's about 75% likely not to be there when I start the game again. And if it is still there, it's still quite likely to be dragged into the Void by the Hell Kraken as soon as I try to continue its flight. To avoid this, I either don't use the 1st Kerbin-Eve / Eve-Kerbin windows or fly the ship all the way back from Eve without stopping.

The most aggravating and most commonly encountered pot holes for me, however, are spots along Mun's orbit about 1.5x times its SOI diameter both ahead and behind. Satellites placed in these positions to simulate being at Lagrange Points quite frequently jump between game sessions into very different orbits, either around Kerbin or even Mun, and not infrequently just vanish. In addition, outbound interplanetary ships passing through these regions have about a 25% chance of vanishing even during the same game session while you're messing with another ship in the flotilla. Passing closer to or further from Mun as you cross its orbit is no problem.