Structural Fuselage exploded due to overheating while in orbit. Seemingly random.

[spacecat84]

Mods installed:

• Chatterer v0.9.5
  
• EnhancedNavBall v1.3.6
  
• HullCameraVDS v0.4
  
• KerbalEngineer v1.0.17.0
  
• RCSBuildAid v0.7.2
  

Third attempt: I get my ship into orbit, and begin to execute maneuvers to close with my target, at some point while planning a maneuver in map mode i will hear an explosion and one of my structural fuselages has randomly exploded. There was no vibration or indication there was any undue stress. This has happened as early as 30 minutes into the flight and 10 hours into flight. The output_log.txt file simply reports:

Packing Space Station Docking Station with Boosters for orbit

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/StandalonePlayerGenerated/UnityEngineDebug.cpp Line: 56)

[CHATR] Capsule starts the exchange...

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/StandalonePlayerGenerated/UnityEngineDebug.cpp Line: 56)

Unpacking Space Station Docking Station with Boosters

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/StandalonePlayerGenerated/UnityEngineDebug.cpp Line: 56)

[00:28:59]: Structural Fuselage exploded due to overheating.

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/StandalonePlayerGenerated/UnityEngineDebug.cpp Line: 56)

Mk1FuselageStructural Exploded!! - blast awesomeness: 0.5

(Filename: C:/buildslave/unity/build/artifacts/StandalonePlayerGenerated/UnityEngineDebug.cpp Line: 56)

[ladder1]: Deactivated

Is there maybe something wrong with how I built the ship? I am fairly new at this game. Below are some screen caps of my ship and after it blew. I circled the part which blows up. Any advice would be great.

[Norok]

The same thing happened to me when I was trying to assemble a modular interplanetary ship in orbit. Your design and use of parts (docking ports on structural fuselages) is what I was going for as well. It happened when I switched to the other vehicle too. I heard the explosion and saw in the distance my connecting section breaking up. I was actually kind of amused in a roleplaying sense that part of my planned ship and mission (took almost a RL week before I even launched the parts) experienced a catastrophic failure.

Thinking I had gotten hit by debris or something I reloaded my quicksave and then immediately after the game finished loading the vehicle exploded. Thus I am left to conclude this is a physics engine bug. This is my original design:

I chewed out my Kerbal engineers at the VAB for using such structurally weak parts. We went back and resigned the whole ship. Instead of using the docking ports for planned modular, replaceable drive sections I went for a single drive section connected more securely on a more structurally sound Rockomax tank which gave us the idea of using the tank as a fuel reserve for the main NERV engines and to allow refueling the attached lander for multiple Mun and Minimus landings. We increased the delta V for the whole ship to compensate and the whole project topped over 600,000.

In the end this change of fate that expanded the mission parameters yielded a 6000+ Dv ship that gave a happy tour to 6 Kerbal Tourists, achieved 3 Mun landings, 2 Minimus landings, and brought back 3100 science after being out in space 94 days. Now it sits stably in LKO until Duna comes in window.

Bottom line is one of the reasons I love this game is trial and error through iterations. So my suggestion is to rethink your design with different parts and see the bug as a feature

[Sheppard]

Seems to be a random bug - here you have the solution (page 4): http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/126664-MAJOR-Heating-Bug