KSP vet... rockets won't launch, mod conflict apparently?

[bigsilverhotdog]

Just as the title says. I haven't played since mid 2014 but I played a whole lot and did most of the advanced things you could do in the game at that time. This morning I installed a bunch of mods, CKAN says no conflicts, and the game loads ok. Memory usage is too high and the game stutters (just like it used to, but even worse) despite my system being ridiculously powerful and with tons of free resources, but I've literally spent all morning trying to launch a basic rocket and nothing works. The rocket fires, goes between 5 and 50 feet, and turns off and falls back to earth. No log errors until it crashes, and it happens in manual mode or with Mechjeb on autopilot. Any idea why this might be happening? I've finally given up trying to figure out why. Fuel lines don't affect it, amount of thrust doesn't affect it, struts don't affect it -- indeed I can't even find out why the engine is turning off.

Also, and this isn't directly related, but what mods are the worst at causing this horrific stuttering? I've got a 4ghz i2500k with 32gb of memory and a watercooled 980ti 6gb heavily OC'd and the game is unplayable like this, even without the settings maxed out and no antialiasing! Crazy!

Edited April 21, 2016 by bigsilverhotdog

[Genolution]

Memory usage is too high with 64 bit? How many mods do you have? How does the game work stock? I would start there.

[bigsilverhotdog]

Define too high. I can dump a list of mods I'm using so far and yes, I probably have a conflict somewhere... but I thought that was the point of CKAN? I'll make sure stock works now.

 

edit: We'll have to start with CKAN not launching though, because I don't want to delete the game entirely and start over and without CKAN launching I can't easily remove all my mods... unless you can just cut them out of the mods folder temporarily?

 

edit2: Ok very strange behavior. Loading CKAN from within the steam KSP directory gives the above crash, but running it via the downloaded installer exe runs it fine. If I cut all the mods out of the GameData directory CKAN still reads them as being active, however. What the heck?

 

edit3: Is CKAN distributed with KSP? Because the exe in the game directory is dated 12/29/2014 and is the wrong one, surely!

 

edit4: Ok surely outdated CKAN was the reason for the above crash, replacing it with the newest exe gets rid of that problem. Ok, on to testing stock next.

Edited April 21, 2016 by bigsilverhotdog

[N_Danger]

14 minutes ago, bigsilverhotdog said:

edit3: Is CKAN distributed with KSP? Because the exe in the game directory is dated 12/29/2014 and is the wrong one, surely!

No it is not.

 

[bigsilverhotdog]

That's crazy, how did it get there? I haven't played KSP since 2013 or 2014 and I just reinstalled it fresh in Steam. I never even heard of CKAN before this morning! And no one has access to this PC except me. o_0

edit: I think I might know -- the only possibility I can think of is that a previous mod included an early version of CKAN and I didn't realize it, then when I uninstalled it on Steam, steam did not delete the folder and modfiles and it stayed there to interfere with me today until I noticed it.

And stock launches ok, so like we thought there is a conflict somewhere.

Edited April 21, 2016 by bigsilverhotdog

[Genolution]

Well then I guess the next thing to do is post a screenshot of your gamedata folder.

[moogoob]

35 minutes ago, bigsilverhotdog said:

That's crazy, how did it get there? I haven't played KSP since 2013 or 2014 and I just reinstalled it fresh in Steam. I never even heard of CKAN before this morning! And no one has access to this PC except me. o_0

edit: I think I might know -- the only possibility I can think of is that a previous mod included an early version of CKAN and I didn't realize it, then when I uninstalled it on Steam, steam did not delete the folder and modfiles and it stayed there to interfere with me today until I noticed it.

And stock launches ok, so like we thought there is a conflict somewhere.

I backed up, deleted via Steam then manually deleted what was left of my KSP folder yesterday before reinstalling fresh to avoid this very problem. Spent half an hour re-doing all my controller bindings, but it was worth it for the clean install. Steam doesn't remove anything that's NOT in the stock game when you re-install, so it makes sense that some things linger.

[bigsilverhotdog]

removed pointless wall of text.

 

Edited April 22, 2016 by bigsilverhotdog

[Genolution]

CKAN or not. Installing that many mods at once is just asking for trouble. My advice is to start with a handful (the part packs should be ok) and add a few at a time until something breaks. This early after a new update is sure to cause problems. Even the best mod authors don't catch all the bugs right away.

[bigsilverhotdog]

The problem, amazingly, is Mechjeb. The reason stock worked was because it doesn't have mechjeb and I used a mk1 command module. How is mechjeb, possibly the most popular mod ever made for this game, causing this problem? Was mechjeb changed significantly since the last 300 hours I used it in 2013-2014? I can't find any reason for this behavior, but reality doesn't lie: my rockets work fine without a mechjeb on them, but they do nothing if I add it (even if its turned off, they still do nothing).

[sumghai]

12 minutes ago, bigsilverhotdog said:

The problem, amazingly, is Mechjeb. The reason stock worked was because it doesn't have mechjeb and I used a mk1 command module. How is mechjeb, possibly the most popular mod ever made for this game, causing this problem? Was mechjeb changed significantly since the last 300 hours I used it in 2013-2014? I can't find any reason for this behavior, but reality doesn't lie: my rockets work fine without a mechjeb on them, but they do nothing if I add it (even if its turned off, they still do nothing).

MechJeb has changed significantly since you last played in 2013~2014, although I cannot say with confidence exactly how much has changed.

The latest version of MechJeb does work with KSP 1.1, but it takes time for CKAN to know that a mod has been updated.

My advice: CKAN or no CKAN, install one or two mods at a time and check for compatibility; as tedious as it may sound, this will help you avoid mod conflicts.

[bigsilverhotdog]

That's such... I can't even find words to describe that advice.

Even if I find and isolate the conflict involved here by doing as you suggest, who is to say there isn't another major problem waiting for me the instant I do something more advanced than try to fire the first stage? By your logic I should play the entire game with one or two mods at a time to "check for compatibility". Surely there is a better way to fix such a serious problem? I never had this problem, or anything remotely this serious, in 300+ hours in my first KSP career, and I used probably 2/3rds as many mods as I'm using now (including Mechjeb, of course). And that was with a much more primitive mod compatibility system and level of overall KSP development!

I'm going to test MechJeb alone next to see if it is the culprit itself. Then, if the problem isn't mechjeb in isolation, I'm going to install batches of mods alongside Mechjeb to see which one is incompatible. I will report back with what I discover.

[MoonPies]

i had the same issue. built a test rocket with the mechjeb pod and as soon as the staging light turned green, everything fired at once. my ship simultaneously launched and exploded. but it only happened with the pod, the mechjeb radial mounted  case works fine. and i'm only using 5 mods, all updated to 1.1, mechjeb2 2.5.7.0, interstellar extended 1.8.9, modular rocket system 1.12.5, kerbodyne plus, and real scale boosters 0.11.2 

 

EDIT: just tried a fresh install with only mechjeb2 mod added. put just the mechjeb pod on the launchpad and again, as soon as the staging light went green, it exploded.

Edited April 21, 2016 by MoonPies
added info

[bigsilverhotdog]

Your problem is different from mine, because stock + Mechjeb2 for me works fine. At least to launch a rocket it does. I'm currently adding mods a few clumps at a time... haven't found it yet.

 

edit: I found the problem, RemoteTech, which technically isn't conflicting with MechJeb since it actually supports it, but it isn't clear from the mod description in CKAN (indeed there's no description in CKAN whatsoever) that this mod instantly breaks unmanned craft functionality without very specific usage of antennas and comm relays to link to capcom. I didn't know what this mod did, or even want the mod per se, but CKAN suggested it multiple times in relation to other mods so I went ahead and added it on. Because of this, I wasted approximately 10 hours today working on a conflict that did not in reality exist.

 

edit2: There's no point in arguing with you, you're a mod so you're going to be right no matter what I say. But your attitude and advice are depressingly familiar. I won't be asking here for help again.

Edited April 22, 2016 by bigsilverhotdog
Bye bye.

[sumghai]

2 hours ago, bigsilverhotdog said:

That's such... I can't even find words to describe that advice.

Even if I find and isolate the conflict involved here by doing as you suggest, who is to say there isn't another major problem waiting for me the instant I do something more advanced than try to fire the first stage? By your logic I should play the entire game with one or two mods at a time to "check for compatibility". Surely there is a better way to fix such a serious problem?

@bigsilverhotdog, I never asked you to test each add-on in isolation. Please don't misquote me or take my statements to the extreme to vent your frustrations.

What I'm saying is for you to start with an unmodded game, add one or two mods at a time, check that they don't cause any major problems, then add a few more and repeat the process.

Quote

I never had this problem, or anything remotely this serious, in 300+ hours in my first KSP career, and I used probably 2/3rds as many mods as I'm using now (including Mechjeb, of course). And that was with a much more primitive mod compatibility system and level of overall KSP development!

Bear in mind that for KSP 1.1, SQUAD migrated to the Unity 5 engine, and practically all plugins required recompilation - this is a major change from 2013~2014, when KSP was still based on Unity 4.6.x.

1 hour ago, bigsilverhotdog said:

edit: I found the problem, RemoteTech, which technically isn't conflicting with MechJeb since it actually supports it, but it isn't clear from the mod description in CKAN (indeed there's no description in CKAN whatsoever) that this mod instantly breaks unmanned craft functionality without very specific usage of antennas and comm relays to link to capcom. I didn't know what this mod did, or even want the mod per se, but CKAN suggested it multiple times in relation to other mods so I went ahead and added it on. Because of this, I wasted approximately 10 hours today working on a conflict that did not in reality exist.

While CKAN is a convenient tool (which I myself use), it is poor practice to hurriedly install suggested mods without understanding fully what they do.

CKAN listings for each mod are not necessarily maintained by the original modders themselves, so there are bound to be entries with insufficient description. So basically, if in doubt, don't install it until you've read the manual / thread describing what the mod does.

Edit: I should also add that while a mod author may have updated his/her mod to KSP 1.1, it takes time for the updated version to propagate through CKAN, since it (again) is often maintained by third parties.