worst. contract. EVER!!!

[king of nowhere]

so, a while ago i got a contract to recover a stranded astronaut and his command pod from minmus. and i thought, cool, something requiring some extra planning. so, i had a rover with a claw, and the claw could be detached and it had a small spaceship attached: i would move in with the rover, grab the command pod with the claw, detach the claw with engine and fuel, and fly away with it. the whole thing was on a robotic arm, so i could point it upwards; otherwise, my rover could even take flight with the rescued pod attached, if necessary. i was confident i could grab the command pod and send it to orbit all right.

until i landed (by night), and after a while suddenly saw the command pod rolling down to me, slamming against my rover and breaking several parts.

i waited the day to find out what happened, and this is what i saw

 

yep. the astronaut and command pod are stuck in midair on top of a steep slope. as soon as i get within 200 meters, physics reassess itself, the pod start rolling down the slope (it's even the one better suited for rolling) and it crashes down the slope after picking up a bit of speed. i can move in and intercept with the rover, but to get in position fast enough i need to go so fast with the rover, that i would destroy the command pod upon contact.

after a lot of save scumming, i managed to get to the point where i could make contact with the falling command pod without destroying it or the rover in the process. too bad the pod bounces off the rover and keeps falling. i am sure there is a way to stop the command pod for good. it did happen, once. although i still had to reload because it broke a piece of rover in the process.

in the end i decided to cheat. i set the position of the command pod in a way that it would not roll. i could have completed the contract eventually, but i did not see the point of reloading the game 50 times to get around a glitch.

also, i had to do it twice, because the first time my rover mechanical parts disassembled after i saved the game

 

in fact, every single time i made contact with the command pod, the rover arm got bugged.

i'm still working on this. i may have to use the cheat console again. again, my conscience feel fine using the cheat mode to fix a glitch.

Edited July 29, 2020 by king of nowhere

[purpleivan]

It's a bit like the time I accepted a contract to recover a part from the surface of the Mun. When I go there the part was a command seat... try picking up one of those with a grabber.

[Grogs]

I usually avoid these "Rescue X and his craft" missions. Even doing it from orbit, I found it was a pain to align the grabber so so that our craft didn't go spinning out of control on re-entry. In this case, given you were handed a mission that was so obviously impossible (in the sense the craft would have exploded long before you got there) I would have just hit ALT-F12 and set the contract to complete. I think you handled it about as well as you could.

[Cavscout74]

34 minutes ago, Grogs said:

I usually avoid these "Rescue X and his craft" missions. Even doing it from orbit, I found it was a pain to align the grabber so so that our craft didn't go spinning out of control on re-entry. In this case, given you were handed a mission that was so obviously impossible (in the sense the craft would have exploded long before you got there) I would have just hit ALT-F12 and set the contract to complete. I think you handled it about as well as you could.

Yep, same.  I avoid the surface recovery contracts just to skip the glitches that come with them.  Out of the maybe 3 I've done, 2 had glitched parts floating above the surface.  And the one that didn't glitch spawned on a hillside & rolled down.  Miraculously, it didn't explode but I had to chase it for a few km's

Edited July 29, 2020 by Cavscout74

[Yellowburn10]

These missions become so much easier if you have cargo bays unlocked. Just have a ship with a claw detach from the cargo bay, collect the debris, and put it back in the bay. Depending on the mass of the capsule you're collecting, reentry may be a bit wonky, but you're usually fine if you don't do anything too crazy during reentry.

 

Of course, that doesn't really help in your particular case, but I also don't typically take contracts that recover debris from surfaces, so...

But good job being able to fix the issue!

Edited July 29, 2020 by Yellowburn10

[Minmus Taster]

 (hardley related to this topic) When you plan a massive laythe mission without any quiksaves for days and the parachute glitches off the pod at the last minute: