I am having a mining problem and could use some advice...

[Ncog Nito]

Hello All.  I have established a mining operation on Minmus.  I have 4 drills going on the craft with 4 medium thermal control systems cooling the units, and everything looks like it is running smoothly.  However, when I go to leave the operation and head back to the tracking station, or anywhere else for that matter, it tells me that I am on a collision course and cannot leave without reverting back to a previous save.  Anybody got an answer to this problem?  Here is a picture of my setup:

[Aegolius13]

Is your ship sitting on the drills,  or on landing legs?  Looks like your legs are not extending.   Sometimes the drills will push your ship up when deployed (only the bottom portion can go below ground level),  and make it move around a little as they drill.  Maybe try extending the legs, or mounting the drills higher.

[Ncog Nito]

21 minutes ago, Aegolius13 said:

Is your ship sitting on the drills,  or on landing legs?  Looks like your legs are not extending.   Sometimes the drills will push your ship up when deployed (only the bottom portion can go below ground level),  and make it move around a little as they drill.  Maybe try extending the legs, or mounting the drills higher.

Well, I re-extended the landing legs and they are about 1/4 Kerbal height from touching the ground as the drilling process is running.  I had raised them after deploying the drills because the drills lifted it off the surface.  So, what your saying is I am going to have to reposition the drills that much up or the gears that much down? 

[bewing]

Yes. Your drills are bouncing your ship up off the ground. Then it falls back to the ground. That is the collision course the game is complaining about.

 

[Ncog Nito]

Well that's a pain in a little green Kerbal's backside.  Such a minor design flaw.  Thanks for the help guys.  Not what I wanted to hear, but...

[Loren Pechtel]

On 6/10/2017 at 2:59 PM, Ncog Nito said:

Well that's a pain in a little green Kerbal's backside.  Such a minor design flaw.  Thanks for the help guys.  Not what I wanted to hear, but...

Yeah, the collider on the drills is a royal pain because it's not clear.  The way to avoid this in the future is to deploy the drills in the VAB or SPH and see where they go--the narrowest part of the drill has no collider and must extend into the ground.  The thicker part above that has a collider and must not touch the ground.

[StrandedonEarth]

When I ran into this problem once I used KAS to move the drills up. If you don't already have it, or didn't bring the screwdriver, then after installing the mod you could edit the save file (back it up first!) to put the screwdriver in your inventory (I had to do that once, it was like "Pssst! Bill! check your pockets again, maybe your screwdriver will be in there this time!") I was able to figure out the editing on my own, maybe I can remember how I did it to help you do it.