Rocket blows up on Gilly

[Chik Sneadlov]

Landed on Gilly with a big rocket and went EVA. I was on steeper terrain than I'd have wanted and I appear to be touching a big boulder with my feet and maybe other parts. 

So I was trying to fly get back to the ship with my EVA guy and at one point I went to the tracking station and got into the landed ship. It might be the ship slid downhill since I'd left it. As soon as gravity or whatever kicked in the ship violently blew up sending my command module way up and parts spinning wildly. Tried it a number of times and always the same, big explosion. Tried reloading and it exploded. 

My guess is that the rocket slid very slowly against this boulder and it sort of builds up stresses, which get real and concentrated when I focus on the ship or try to take control of the ship. I'm guessing there's no easy way to fix this. I need to land on level terrain, away from boulders. 

 

[FrostedShoe]

Physics doesn't work when you are not looking at the rocket so it won't slide when you are at the tracking station. It would probably be because when you switched back to the rocket the physics loaded and spazzed out. 

The only fix I can think of is to use alt-f12 and set unbreakable parts.

[The Aziz]

Just in case, do you have "physics ease-in" setting on? People say that it helps in some way. 

[Chik Sneadlov]

Yea. "ease in gravity" is lit up. 

I've got max debris

I don't have "tidy up debris". Seems to me that used to be a good idea.

I'll try alt + f12

Okay. I have tried the alt + f12 cheat. As my eva guy approached the rocket it jumped into space. I guess  it worked. It didn't explode. Now I have to wait for it to come back down and I'm almost out of propellant. 

Why does my eva guy keep changing direction? I think he's going from maneuvering on the ground to orbit, but it is making it hard for me to aim him and I waste a lot of mp with all these transitions. 

 

 

Edited December 25, 2017 by Chik Sneadlov

[Atkara]

3 hours ago, Chik Sneadlov said:

Why does my eva guy keep changing direction? I think he's going from maneuvering on the ground to orbit, but it is making it hard for me to aim him and I waste a lot of mp with all these transitions.

It's because of Gilly's low gravity. Doesn't take much for a Kerbal to get into orbit.

Since the default camera view is set on auto, your view transitions accordingly. With the "V" key, you can switch between auto, free, orbital & chase view. Pick which one suits you

[Zhetaan]

On 12/25/2017 at 2:30 AM, Chik Sneadlov said:

[...] I appear to be touching a big boulder with my feet and maybe other parts [...]

If you mean terrain scatter, the boulders (and trees and cacti) don't have physics; you can walk right through them.

On 12/25/2017 at 8:19 AM, Chik Sneadlov said:

[...] As my eva guy approached the rocket it jumped into space. [...]

That usually means that one of your parts clipped into the ground accidentally while you were out of physics range.  The physics ease-in is supposed to help with this, but sometimes it doesn't.  The problem is caused by small errors in the coordinates of the rocket versus the ground.  When the physics engine loads, a tiny mismatch between the distance from the rocket's landing feet to the centre of Gilly and the distance from the surface of the ground to the centre of Gilly causes your rocket's feet to load embedded slightly in the ground.  Since the ground is a thin repellent surface (this is why, if you clip totally through it, you fall into oblivion), it tries to force the offending part upwards, and the stresses of that end up looking exactly the same as a violent crash.  Setting unbreakable parts just lets the ground force the rocket up without adding breaking stress; it does nothing to slow down the resultant speed.  You may want to be sure that your rocket isn't thrown so far that it escapes.