how to avoid robotic glitches?

[king of nowhere]

in the last few weeks, every time i tried to dock something with robotic parts, i got some awful glitches on them. I can understand with very complex ships with hundreds of parts, but now i coupled two small things with less than 100 parts total and still the game screws me

this is a mechanism to load/unload a rover into a cargo bay, should be rather simple with just two hinges. as i'm still experimenting on the launchpad, there is nothing else above the cargo bay, just a fuel tank to act as counterweight. in the upper image you can see the hinge properly connected. in the lower image you can see that after i dock the rover, when i tell the hinge to bend, the part attached to the rover stand still, and the part attached to the cargo bay moves freely. interestingly, they still count as attached; if i move the other hinge it still carries that hinge along, even if they are disconnected in the visual. I tried using a claw instead of docking port, same result.

this is getting very annoying. when i try to make very complex stuff i can blame myself for overloading the pc with too many parts, but this system is simple enough that it should work. and it doesn't happen occasionally so i can just save the game before docking and reloading if needed. no, it happens every single time, effectively preventing me from ever trying to dock ships with robotic parts.

is there anything i can do to fix this?

(sorry if i'm making so many questions those days, but i'm deep into engineering the helicopterover and its cargo bay, that's when issues arise)

Edited August 16, 2020 by king of nowhere

[Serenity]

12 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

is there anything i can do to fix this?

Try attaching to the robotic part a small structural part or a small fuel tank part or whatever you want,

and then put the docking part on that, and use Grandparent Autostruts AND TURN OFF Rigid attachment if you have it on for some reason.And play with the Locked mode see what works best.

I dont recommend attaching docking ports or anything similar straight to the robotic part.

Also i avoid attaching robotic parts straight to the main body of the vessel, its a bit...wonky, having more parts with autostruts around them helps a lot.

And for me lately when i launch them in orbit, i usually do the launch for immersion, then revert back and use the cheat menu to put them in orbit, because usually they break(mostly visually) during launch.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Boyster

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, Boyster said:

Try attaching to the robotic part a small structural part or a small fuel tank part or whatever you want,

 

i had to put structural parts between both the hinge and the docking port and the two hinges to make it work. at least now i know how to fix. though i don't like much this solution, i already had precious little space in my cargo bay, putting in structural parts acting as spacers did not help anything. i'll see how well i can do with clipping.
 

Quote

 

and then put the docking part on that, and use Grandparent Autostruts

 

in my experience it is a terrible idea to activate any kind of autostrut with robotic parts. now the robotic part has the autostrut telling them to stand still, while it is also trying to move. it never ends well. especially when there are multiple robotic parts involved.

[Serenity]

Well autostruts do create obstacles but you can always turn them off when you operate robotic parts and turn them on when you are about to dock or something,

it is a bit tedious and depends on what you doing, but in my experience they help sometimes, if used right.

To be honest from what i am seeing and what you telling me, looks to me you are doing too much clipping, 

Maybe you can test if this is your problem by doing the same thing with two crafts that do not use clipping,

if you still have the same problems then you know its a problem with the robotic parts in general.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Boyster

[king of nowhere]

47 minutes ago, Boyster said:

To be honest from what i am seeing and what you telling me, looks to me you are doing too much clipping, 

Maybe you can test if this is your problem by doing the same thing with two crafts that do not use clipping,

if you still have the same problems then you know its a problem with the robotic parts in general.

to be honest, i was using more clipping than i realized for this ship.

but i have at least another ship where i'm sure i used no clipping at all, and still i have the same problem

[Serenity]

50 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

to be honest, i was using more clipping than i realized for this ship.

but i have at least another ship where i'm sure i used no clipping at all, and still i have the same problem

Well hmm, its been a while i played around with robotic parts,

just try i guess to not connect two robotic parts straight with each other and see how it goes, 

I dont remember  having like huge problems with them except when launching them in orbit etc, but all my experience was a while ago, so i might be forgetting something.

Edited August 16, 2020 by Boyster

[king of nowhere]

i tried to put spacers between the two hinges and it works. and i finally managed to find a way to fit that rover inside a 3-ton cargo bay with a mechanism to lower it to the ground and pick it up again. took me 3 afternoons of trials.

i tried the same on the more complex piece of machinery (incidentally, i was sure i didn't use clipping in that vehicle, and i didn't intentionally, but there are some parts that have been rotated in ways that would not be used normally and as a result end up with some clipping on some corners). it didn't work there. but we're talking a very complex robotic arm, with 2 hinges, one piston, and two more hinges all in a row. i'm not surprised if that thing does not work. but i know i have this awesome-looking robotic arm that would be fully functional without glitches, so i still carry it around. if i need to transfer kerbonauts after the coupling i do EVA, if i need to transfer fuel i edit the save file.

 

so, it seems attaching robotic pieces directly to each other causes bugs. putting spacers in between helps, but with the more complex pieces it's a lost cause.

i am curious if anyon else is experiencing the same bug?