Payloads partially falling through cargobays.

[Hobizor]

Hello, after installing 1.0.5 I tried to put the new cargo ramp to use and dock a rover inside a cargo bay, this was the result(on the left side: )

The back tires clip trough the floor of the bay and the whole rover hangs of the docking-port as if the rear tires disappeared.

It happens both with the rear tires resting on the short straight section of the ramp and with the floor of the actual cargo bay.

I tried adding a landing leg to the back to act as a jack: however that doesn't work either, with or without suspension activated.

When I time-warp the problem goes away (on the right) with all parts properly resting on the floor but as soon as I go back to 1X time-warp it reoccurs.

I tried different ways of attaching the wheels and it's the same every time.

[sal_vager]

Hi Hobizor, yeah this one's tricky...

Parts of the same craft do not have collisions with itself, this is deliberate to fix other issues but it means that legs and wheels don't work to support a vessel docked inside a bay.

At one point I thought the new Cessna style wheels would work for this but it doesn't survive reloading.

The only trick I and others have managed to make work is to have docking ports on the floor of the bay, a central medium port or a pair of small ports in the bay and on the base of the rover/payload will support it better than a single port on the end.

It's an old problem, and just exacerbated by the ramp making rover carriers more feasible.

Hopefully this helps.

[Hobizor]

Thanks for clearing that up. Seems odd though that Squad would add a ramp when it's main use is unfeasible. Maybe it would be possible for them to fix it by assigning cargo-bay parts to a special layer like they did with jettisoned fairings to give them specific properties, or maybe I'm being an idiot and all parts of a craft have to be the same layer.

[sal_vager]

I have no idea if that will work, the fairings become their own vessel when staged so collisions are active

[smjjames]

One way to fix this would be some kind of deployable struts, there are a few mods around with things like that.

KJR might be of some help here.

I know this says unmodded support, but there aren't many stock only solutions.

[Technical Ben]

Multiple docking ports works at times. Else as above, docking ports in the COM to reduce wobble/lean.

[fireblade274]

I use KIS/KAS to put struts on my cargo for re-entry (pretty much the only thing i use the mods for) but yea it would be nice to have another way of working around this. And until KIS/KAS updates for 1.0.5 i cant use it. Using fixed landing gear worked for me going up but the cargo would ignore it upon re-entry. Yea without KIS/KAS and the multiple docking ports (which i find a complicated work around and it add more weight if your looking to be as light as you can) its a tough work around

My advice is to just chill and wait for the KIS/KAS update like me

[Hobizor]

Thanks for the suggestions everybody, especially Smjjames: Turns out Kerbal Joint Reinforcement works like a charm. Not only does it prevent the rover from hanging too much it also (apparently) somehow allows collision detection between parts of the same ship: The wheels rest firmly against the floor without clipping and don't freewheel like before. When deploying the gears they briefly start clipping trough the floor but then abruptly retract a bit so that they contact the floor and support the rover. The same is partially true of the small landing gear - although that is a bit hit or miss.

As a bonus I learned that adding small landing gears at the right angle plus RCS allows correcting for misaligned docking-ports without having to live with a high CoM or an unpractically low bay port. Either way, the wheels do tend to get shredded (about two-thirds of the time) when undocking regardless of deployed jacks.

So I guess problem solved?

[sal_vager]

Yeah, or worked around, either way it's not a problem for you