Strange rescue target

[purpleivan]

I'm in the later stages of going through the parts tree in career mode and came across what looks like a very weird bug.

I'd accepted a rescue mission of a kerbal in solar orbit, but on rendezvousing with the target vehicle this is what I found I was expected to rescue the kerbal from.

Yep... an empty command seat, but the interior view showing the unfortunate Tamny Kerman inside it, in what appears to be a pod of some kind, but one which I don't recognise. in IVA view the pod has no hatches or windows and when I attempt to EVA via the HUD, the message "Can't exit, module has no hatch is displayed".

This would be strange enough, but I also found that the "vehicle" to be rescued seems to be impossible to approach close enough to to snatch with a grabber unit (my plan B when I found I couldn't EVA the kerbal), because even at full thrust from a couple of hundred metres away, my vehicle crawls towards it at just 20-30 cm per second, instead of what should be several metres/second cumulatively and as soon as I stop thrusting, the distance to the vehicle shown in the HUD (F4) stop decreasing, as if my ship is having to push through syrup. However my actual position as shown in map view is far away from the target vehicle, as would be expected with the kind of thrust being applied.

In almost 2 years of playing the game, this is the strangest behaviour that I've seen and wondered if anyone has come across anything similar.

Edited May 15, 2016 by purpleivan

[Waxing_Kibbous]

Yeah, this happened to me in either 1.04 or 1.05, if I recall my IVA pic was really creepy tho

Edit: My post is around here somewhere...

Edited May 15, 2016 by Waxing_Kibbous

[FullMetalMachinist]

Are you using mods? I remember seeing a thread or two in the support forum about rescue contract kerbals being stuck inside of probe cores and other such parts. It was a bug from a mod that added crew seats to all command parts. Sadly, don't remember the mod that was the problem. 

[Geschosskopf]

How stock is this game?  In particular, do you have the Take Command mod installed?

 

[Geschosskopf]

How stock is this game?  In particular, do you have the Take Command mod installed?

 

[purpleivan]

Just now, Geschosskopf said:

How stock is this game?  In particular, do you have the Take Command mod installed?

 

I do indeed have Take Command loaded for my sandbox games.

I'll try removing it to see if that helps, although it might be too late to fix the vehicle in this contract.

[marshrover]

I think you've got yourself a black hole here. Think about it. As you near the event horizon your craft seems to move more slowly making it impossible to reach. You can still see the chair because of wierd black hole stuff (can't think of how it works off the top of my head). The only thing wrong is that the kerbal is not visible and that you can still move away again, rather than being stuck there forever.

[Snark]

Moving to Technical Support.

Yes, it can happen with mods.  I think the problem that @FullMetalMachinist was referring to was with an older version of one of RoverDude's mods (UKS/MKS, I think), but I believe that has since been fixed.  Sounds like Take Command may be the likely culprit here.

You can "fix" this problem for the current contract by manually editing the save file.  (Make a backup copy in case you munge something!)  Open the .sfs in a text editor, find the ship with the stranded kerbal.  It has one part, which is currently the command chair.  Just edit the line with the name of the part so that instead of the chair, it's a Mk1 pod or a lander can or something.

[purpleivan]

11 hours ago, Snark said:

Moving to Technical Support.

Yes, it can happen with mods.  I think the problem that @FullMetalMachinist was referring to was with an older version of one of RoverDude's mods (UKS/MKS, I think), but I believe that has since been fixed.  Sounds like Take Command may be the likely culprit here.

You can "fix" this problem for the current contract by manually editing the save file.  (Make a backup copy in case you munge something!)  Open the .sfs in a text editor, find the ship with the stranded kerbal.  It has one part, which is currently the command chair.  Just edit the line with the name of the part so that instead of the chair, it's a Mk1 pod or a lander can or something.

I've now applied the fix you suggested, although I copied the complete data for a Mk1 pod, rather than just change the single line... just in case. I now have Tanmy comfortably seated inside a pod instead of trapped in the depths of a chair.

Thanks.

12 hours ago, marshrover said:

I think you've got yourself a black hole here. Think about it. As you near the event horizon your craft seems to move more slowly making it impossible to reach. You can still see the chair because of wierd black hole stuff (can't think of how it works off the top of my head). The only thing wrong is that the kerbal is not visible and that you can still move away again, rather than being stuck there forever.

Actually I was thinking it was a bit like an episode of Farscape, in which a ship gets stuck in something called the Flax