fuel tx, ore harvester, Gilley traverse bugs

[JJR2]

1. Fuel Transfer:  The fuel transfer lockup bug is still very much alive.  Sometimes it can be fixed by changing focus between every single transfer, sometimes by warping.

2. Ore harvester and drills often stop when the mining complex on Gilley (see photo) loses focus to another ship somewhere.  This was also happening with a refinery/miner on the Mun.  It's basically impossible to produce meaningful amounts of fuel unless you want to keep the focus on the miner for around 24-48 hours.

3. My mining landers-- 4x Refinery, Refueling Lander, and Storage Farm---have wheels so that they can traverse overland after landing and dock, so that no separate mining truck is needed.  On Gilley, they can't get any traction, which might be understandable.  However, they also sit a couple of meters above the ground after landing, so that they roll around and are difficult to keep upright.  I eventually settled for traversing to the refinery and docking with the RCS thrusters, using SAS and reaction wheels to keep them from rolling upside down.  Once docked, with the landing legs extended, they seem to sit on the ground.  They still jump off the ground when the focus switched to the docked complex, which should be bug 4., I guess.  Oh, and 5., the fueler has been sucked underground once, which also happens on Minmus regularly. Had to edit it back into existence. 

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by JJR2

[jimmymcgoochie]

1) Fuel transfer bug is a known issue, the fact that it hasn’t been fixed yet would indicate that it’s a rather complicated thing to track down.

2) That’s what time warp is for? If your ore and/or power production rates aren’t high enough when you switch vessels then you’ll probably run out of them and then it won’t produce any more until you switch back again. Either keep the focus until you produce the fuel you need, or leave it running in the background for a while with enough ore and power being generated to meet the demand for both.

3) Gilly has puny gravity, so it’s not surprising that wheels don’t work well. The floating part sounds odd, but a top-heavy design in really low gravity could be unstable especially if the wheels are spinning while off the ground then abruptly apply some acceleration when they touch down again, causing the whole craft to rotate.

[Blaarkies]

For the fuel transfer bug, some thread on the forum had a great work around to fix it:

• Hover your mouse over the fuel details at the top right of the screen
  • Just a quick mouse-over them should be enough

Edited October 9, 2020 by Blaarkies

[JJR2]

6 hours ago, jimmymcgoochie said:

1) Fuel transfer bug is a known issue, the fact that it hasn’t been fixed yet would indicate that it’s a rather complicated thing to track down.

2) That’s what time warp is for? If your ore and/or power production rates aren’t high enough when you switch vessels then you’ll probably run out of them and then it won’t produce any more until you switch back again. Either keep the focus until you produce the fuel you need, or leave it running in the background for a while with enough ore and power being generated to meet the demand for both.

3) Gilly has puny gravity, so it’s not surprising that wheels don’t work well. The floating part sounds odd, but a top-heavy design in really low gravity could be unstable especially if the wheels are spinning while off the ground then abruptly apply some acceleration when they touch down again, causing the whole craft to rotate.

I probably need to make a video of the float problem.  The craft hovers off the surface with legs up or down, wheels turning or not, reaction wheels spinning or not.  Attempts to activate the wheels threaten to flip the landers.  Can't force the craft to the surface using RCS.  Once docked, the craft seem to stabilize and sit on the ground.  Aside from the fear that extending the landing legs will propel everything into orbit, they seem to behave normally.

A brief warp has been the most practical workaround for the fuel transfer lockup so far.  For a while there, I thought they had fixed it.

The drills and harvesters stop completely on loss of focus.  I have an excess of fuel cells and solar arrays, so the electrical power stays pegged.  This happens when only storing ore in the tanks, even without running the refineries.

Edited October 9, 2020 by JJR2

[Blaarkies]

I have seen stock landing legs making the craft do Yoga poses, like a phantom force the pushes the craft to tilt over to only one side (and only while the legs touch the ground).

But i haven't seen the hover issue you are describing, and being on Gilly, its difficult getting people to believe you 

Try it using non leg/wheel parts, maybe you can pin down what combination of factors causes this?