Structural tolerances and things "breaking" when it seems like they shouldn't be

[wildkittyv1]

Alright, pardon the resolution and quality of the image, but I am on my laptop right now and it\'s not really built to play games, so I have to dial the settings down for KSP.

Anyway, the yellow circles are the joints/links in question:

http://i.imgur.com/lSxgP.png

I\'m using a variety of parts packs, but the structures in question are from the Truss Pack:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/index.php?topic=9026.0

Originally, I had the white modules stacked on top of each other and they were separating during my gravity escape just about as soon as I crossed the 600 m/s mark at full throttle (accelerating at appx. 20-30 m/s when I cross the barrier). I fixed it by dialing down the throttle, but as I\'m trying to land this little module at Kerbin\'s North Pole to start a little base there, I needed to keep my acceleration high. I also had the fuel tank from the pack stacked above the white module for variety, but ended up scrapping it since it was just too heavy and I was never going to slow it down with all that fuel with the descent engines. The structure in the Truss Pack link\'s second photo is the fuel tank in question (blue/yellow balloons/capsules with the frame in the photo).

It was still separating (not breaking from sway, but almost as if the force from underneath it is too much - first the command pod 'detaches' and I lose control of everything, after the fuel burns out, all of those pieces slowly separate away from each other since the engines were keeping them 'together' by its thrust) after tossing the structural pieces and dropping the fuel tank, but this time it was occurring just as I was leaving the atmosphere and getting to orbital height at appx. 1100 m/s, accelerating at about 30 m/s.

I added the strut ties and it seemed to help a little bit, but only gets me to about 1200 m/s before everything detaches. If I dial back my throttle, I can survive getting to orbital height, but as I\'m trying to land a fairly heavy object from high altitude via rocket, I want to conserve as much momentum as possible so I can bring as little fuel as possible. I still have to add some tanks to the descent engines, and might have to add another stage with more powerful boosters for the initial slowing down after reentering.

Basically what\'s happening is that all three structural pieces seen in the photo seem to just come apart while I\'m traveling in a damn near straight line vertically. Are there structural tolerance values in the game, as to how much force things can take? If so, I find it odd that things placed vertically are snapping off (even the command pod mounted on a larger surface below it) and not the free-floating radial struts holding a ton of fuel and the engines which use it.

Also, as far as landing 'buildings' on different parts of Kerbin are concerned, any suggestions for this? The way I\'m going about it now is to basically achieve orbital altitude and speed, swinging myself North and then slowing down over the pole to need as little attitude adjustment as possible and to avoid coming in at a steep angle. I figure it\'d cheaper in fuel to only have to slow down from one axis rather than two, and that it more than makes up for the additional fuel needed to get to orbital height and change my trajectory.

[dylan1234]

if you go fast enough the pressure on the rocket will rip it apart the except you have to go over 15000 m/s for it to break though so you didn\'t go that fast, so it\'s just a bug.

[wildkittyv1]

Hmmm,

I\'m wondering if it might be a collision issue or something then. It\'s pretty much 100% reproducible and I can avoid it from happening by pulling back on the throttle by something as little as about 5% while crossing those particular thresholds in the particular variations I made.

I\'m wondering if it\'s even possible to land this thing on the north pole - it\'s just too damned heavy to slow down in time and if I put more descent engines on, I need more fuel, and that means more weight, which means more engines... I just don\'t know if I can do it.