RoveMax Model XL3 large rover wheel can not be grabbed with Advanced Grabbing Unit

[Scorptrio]

KSP 1.2 gave me a campaign contract to recover a part from the surface of Minmus.  I lowered the orbit of my survey scanner probe until I could get a visual on the part, and discovered that it is a RoveMax Model XL3 large rover wheel.  My retrieval spacecraft reached the site, and is more than adequate to the task, but hours of trying to grab the object resulted in no joy.  I built a test-rig on Kerbin, which dropped RoveMax XL3 large rover wheels onto a platform of dozens of advanced grabbing units, and they always come to rest on top of multiple AGUs, sometimes even bouncing around on top of the AGU's, but none have ever been grabbed, not once.  The experiments lead me to believe that this part can not be grabbed by an AGU.  I searched around the forums and web, but didn't find any information on this topic.  If the part in question can't be grabbed and it's supposed to be that way, then the game shouldn't offer contracts for that specific part to be retrieved.  I suppose it's possible to make a "scoop and hook" craft to take the wheel up to orbit, but I wouldn't be able to use any time compression for the whole mission back to Kerbin's surface.  Has anyone else encountered this?  Is it possible to grab the rover wheel with an AGU?  Any suggestions or solutions are appreciated. Thanks.

[bewing]

I will definitely attempt to reproduce this. If it truly doesn't work then it's definitely a bug that needs to be resolved.

[Scorptrio]

12 hours ago, bewing said:

I will definitely attempt to reproduce this. If it truly doesn't work then it's definitely a bug that needs to be resolved.

Thank you, good Sir.  I have tried multiple experiments with these two parts and after hundreds of tries with several different test rigs and crafts, I have been unable to grab the big RoveMax wheel at all.

 

[Scorptrio]

Just for clarification, I'm using an unmodded 64 bit KSP 1.2.1 running on Windows 7 professional 64 bit OS with 16 GB of memory.  On an unrelated topic, one that deserves its own thread or a comment on an existing thread, I have been able to almost completely eliminate the garbage heap collection (Unity memory housekeeping) stutter on my system, though I still have to restart the game if I've been playing it for several hours straight and the stutter/jitter comes back.  First of all, I don't have any non-hardware related services or startup items enabled on Windows, at all, and have disabled all non-Microsoft scheduled tasks and anything else that could be using memory for no reason.  Then, I use two free utilities to free up even more memory by stopping services that aren't needed for gaming.  Third, and most important, run KSP in a frameless window (fake full screen) instead of full screen.  Not only does this greatly improve the lag time from Unity's garbage collection, it completely solves the GPU overheat problem when KSP is running in the background.  I'm even able to stream Netflix in HD and have browsers with several tabs open and be playing KSP with almost no jitter from Unity's garbage collection.  I hope this helps someone and I'll look for a more appropriate thread to post it on.

 

Edited December 9, 2016 by Scorptrio
spelling

[Scorptrio]

Well, it took me six hours, but I built a flying snow plow truck, and shoveled/shoved the part up the Mk. 3 Cargo Ramp.  The Rovemax Model XL3 clips through the middle, horribly, making it hard to get into the bay, which it barely fits in.  I called the recovery ship "the whale" because it would open its maw and chomp down on the rover wheel.  I could not use any time warping except physics warping up to 4X, or the part would slide through the bay.  It would have taken almost 3 days of real time to get it back from Minumus at that rate, so several times I went back to the Tracking Station and used Time Warp there, until I saw the icons for the part and the ship drift apart, then I would have to go back to The Whale and swallow the part again.  After 6 hours building, flying, and returning the craft, the mission was complete.  You didn't think I'd abandon a mission just because it's impossible due to a bug, did you?  Here are some screen shots of The Whale and the flying snow plow truck in its bay.  I took an Engineer along in case the wheels broke.

 

The Whale

The rover wheel clips through the center, making it very hard to get in the bay.  At least it stays put when it's chomped down on.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Scorptrio
grammar

[bewing]

wow

[bewing]

To update: I have confirmed your issue -- the wheel cannot be klawed. And I filed a bug report about it.

[Scorptrio]

Thanks!

 

[dvp]

Is this still a bug in 1.3 or do I just need to learn to play?

[bewing]

It was still a bug in 1.3.0. It has been worked around in 1.3.1.

The contract system got adjusted so that it will no longer generate wheels as recoverable objects.

The fact that wheels are not grabbable is basically required to prevent horrible interactions between kerbals on EVA and the wheels.