Share your Kraken Attacks

[lemon cup]

Inspired by a recent rather severe Kraken attack that wreaked havoc on a pair of unsuspecting spacecraft which, according to the finance department, cannot be filed as a tax write-off. The crew were not too happy either.

It started off as the first flight of a new shuttle design. While the plane itself performs beautifully, it proved exceedingly difficult to reach orbit, being that it uses a poorly designed external tank and boosters as the primary propulsion (nothing a bit of actual engineering effort can't work out, but for various reasons I'll go into, work has been halted until further notice). Nonetheless the crew breathed a sigh of relief after finally rendezvousing and docking to the target, a reusable nuclear ferry for crewed missions to and from Mun and Minmus. The payload was 40 tons of Liquid Fuel and as the transfer began, I happened to snap a picture of the two craft locked together.

But not all went according to plan. A small bug that I've dealt with a few times before, the fuel transfer UI breaks and fuel can no longer be transferred between any tanks on the craft. In my previous dealings with this bug, the fix was a quick F5, F9. But this time, the stars were aligned such that those two key strokes summoned the Kraken. This particular Kraken had a pension for rotating all parts of the spaceplane by roughly 90 degrees, but leaving it's soul intact.

Horrorstruck (though the crew seemed unphased at the time) I tried loading the quicksave several more times until realizing that was only making matters worse. The space plane would load in even more drastically discombobulated and phantom forces proceeded to rend the two docking ports against each other, causing the port to shear off of the nuclear ferry wholesale. Once it became apparent that neither craft could be saved, crew rescue efforts went underway.  After some discussion at mission control, the decision was made to perform a sort of ritual where basically we profusely apologized to the Krakens and asked them to use the F12 menu to hack gravity, transforming our stable orbit into a ballistic trajectory down into the atmosphere. Following that the mission played out pretty much according to plan, with both craft exploding into fiery chunks minus the crew compartment, whereupon all 5 crewmembers parachuted to safety in the middle of the desert. 

Looking back I have experienced a mild form of this attack before, and before you say this was caused by modded parts, one time it was 4 radially attached Mk.55 Thuds on a Duna lander. Doing anything that caused the game to reload the scene caused the Thuds to be rotated and shifted into unusable positions, and this caused me to have to execute the entire mission - from launch, to transfer burn, to capture burn and finally entry, descent, and landing - all in one go.  

So to all the Kraken experts out there, what on earth do you think caused this vicious attack? And what is the name of this particular Kraken?

To everyone else, please feel free to share your recent Kraken attacks!

[Caerfinon]

This is how "Kthulhu" gets summoned...

[Corona688]

KSP really does not like radially-attached docking ports right now.  Worse things can happen than scrambling your craft, people have experienced antigravity, ruined the local frame of reference, crumpled suns and planets.

It reminds me of my very first docking way back when.  I sent up a batch of probes, docked it, and it rotated the wrong direction with respect to the station, squeezing them through each other like cheese through a colander.

Each explosion added an extra 'ship' or 'probe' to the name of anything back then.  So that "ship ship ship probe probe" had to have collided and exploded at least five times.

[sir rocket]

i was testing my modset for the space race yesterday. I had stranded 6 kerbals in orbit of the sun. I sent a rescue out and got everyone EVAd to the rescue craft, but then it started. I had everyone in except for jeb and bill, when it started. first, thomlock's portrait appeared next to bill's during the EVA, then when he tried to get in he was transported about a half orbit, and jeb right next to the rescue craft. I tried to get jeb in, but he was always transported a meter away from the hatch. when I finally got everyone into the ship and back home, I realized that i had left my scientist behind in a stasis pod, on a derelict, orbiting the sun.

[vv3k70r]

On 11/19/2020 at 3:27 PM, lemon cup said:

phantom forces proceeded to rend the two docking ports against each other

Have You put any struts to keep it together? Like inside the wings?

How was the SAS?

On 11/19/2020 at 3:27 PM, lemon cup said:

So to all the Kraken experts out there, what on earth do you think caused this vicious attack? And what is the name of this particular Kraken?

To everyone else, please feel free to share your recent Kraken attacks!

Kraken is often in design - try to avoid summoning him. I realized it by conecting parts in wrong order. Order is important.

 

On 11/21/2020 at 6:49 PM, sir rocket said:

when I finally got everyone into the ship and back home

Did You think that maybe he dosent want to get back home?

For Jeb home is a place that other set him on the top of the booster and ignite - there are reasons to not getting back there.

Edited November 23, 2020 by vv3k70r

[lemon cup]

23 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

Have You put any struts to keep it together? Like inside the wings?

How was the SAS?

No struts were present and SAS was set to HOLD I believe. But you might be onto something with the idea of structural forces, I am using a slightly older version of Kerbal Joint Reinforcement and suspect that might have a few quirks coming out in 1.10.1.

23 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

Kraken is often in design - try to avoid summoning him. I realized it by conecting parts in wrong order. Order is important.

You’ll have to elaborate a little more on this... what do you mean? What would be an example of putting something like a spaceplane together in the right or wrong order?

 

 

[vv3k70r]

36 minutes ago, lemon cup said:

SAS was set to HOLD

Turno off SAS - it helps. Warp time x5 for just a second so it stabilize. Propably control from shuttle could help a little (because of mass).

36 minutes ago, lemon cup said:

No struts were present

If You put struts from the bottom of the wing they hide inside and do not affect aerodynamic. As in real vessels - all construction suport is hidden inside. Or You can move wings after conecting, put struts inside in between and move back - struts gonna adapt.

36 minutes ago, lemon cup said:

You’ll have to elaborate a little more on this... what do you mean?

Like do not connect things to wings (wheels are specialy bad) - connect them to hull and spread so they seat on propper place - then strut.

Do not connect things to flappy parts, specialy heavy part that carry lot of momentum.

Wings connected to wings are quite instable in the game (in the case You have - front to back) - conect it to the hull and then strut in between inside wings.

Only reason to conect structural wing to other structural wing is to spread them far away - they gonna be flappy and they should.

I suspect that when SAS try to stabilize Your vessel forces goes from docking port to some flappy wing on front-end axis and this break the shuttle in pieces. I had such issue with to big space station. Turned SAS off and structuraly it helped (but orbital drift was so high that I had to burn radial out to get Minmus even if previously it indicated I gonna reach it.

SAS is quite agresive for flappy  vessels (like conected with dock jr.) trying to counteracts its own actions when they start to carry momentum with delay throu whole structure.

When You test Your vessel start it on runaway (add some engines to fly) and see how it behave in agresive manouvers on Gees. Like rapid ascend, or rapid roll-turn. You can see if it is flappy in any axis. Without struts propably it is. Generally vessel should survive Gees better then crew.

In Your specific case I would plase this shuttle with connected station on runaway to see how flappy this connection is even with 200% docking force.

Its easier to carry momentum if You dock Your shuttle (I put docking ports in same place on shuttles) on side of the station in same axis direction of another vesse as possible so they point same direction.

Edited November 24, 2020 by vv3k70r

[king of nowhere]

i have an electric plane that for unknown reasons was the kraken's favourite snack. look what it did to the propellers. a few other times it made them, and the rotors, disappear entirely. and it would retroactively affect saved games too; the kraken can eat you back in time.

i counteracted this attack by making a new plane, using the alt-f12 menu to move the new plane on rendez-vous with the old one, transfer the pilot, and editing the ship log in the save to trick the game into thinking the new plane is the old one.

And lo, though I shall walk in the valley of darkness, I shall fear no kraken, for the f12 menu shelters me

[vv3k70r]

2 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

i have an electric plane that for unknown reasons was the kraken's favourite snack. look what it did to the propellers. a few other times it made them, and the rotors, disappear entirely. and it would retroactively affect saved games too; the kraken can eat you back in time.

Because I have some electric planes:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2290351596

I susspect Kraken where summoned by toggle motor power/engage motor issue. This issue happen on game load. See in what state You are leaving motor and where rpm, power and engage (clutch?) is conected to controls.

I spend some time arguing with Kraken until I make workarounds in design (part conection order) to start motors as I would at all.

What counterforce to torque You expect in this specific atmospheric condition and how fast rpm gonna grow aginst this friction? What Gees proppeler gona take?

[king of nowhere]

1 hour ago, vv3k70r said:

What counterforce to torque You expect in this specific atmospheric condition and how fast rpm gonna grow aginst this friction? What Gees proppeler gona take?

no specific  idea, but i also noticed that strong stress against the propellers is often associated with kraken. many times, it happened after i accidentally sped time up with the blades moving. though sometimes i did sped up and no kraken appeared, and sometimes it happened in other circumstances. I haven't seen kraken in a while, though. maybe my being extra careful helped, or maybe it got sated after heating a handful of planes already

Edited November 24, 2020 by king of nowhere

[vv3k70r]

17 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

no specific  idea, but i also noticed that strong stress against the propellers is often associated with kraken

Think about it - in phy engine there is no internal motor friction implemented. You are outside atmosphere. Nothing gonna stop Your motor to get max rpm and torque in none time. We can blame the mighty Kraken, but it is summoned by our action.

[lemon cup]

On 11/24/2020 at 11:58 AM, vv3k70r said:

Turno off SAS - it helps. Warp time x5 for just a second so it stabilize. Propably control from shuttle could help a little (because of mass).

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Great write-up and makes tons of sense, now I see what you mean by order! I have been building spaceplanes on and off for the past several years and have always fallen into the same pitfalls: attaching wings to wings and then lament at how much flap I get, struts on the outside and then deal with an ugly and unaerodynamic plane, etc etc. Seriously I’ve been placing rear landing gear wheels on the wings for ages and whenever they fail or get randomly malrotated I always just assume some other bug was rearing it’s head, not that the design was to blame. Also I’d never thought of how docking the craft together in the same control axis might help.
 

[king of nowhere]

i also have this. robotic parts in general are delicious to krakens

1 hour ago, vv3k70r said:

Think about it - in phy engine there is no internal motor friction implemented. You are outside atmosphere. Nothing gonna stop Your motor to get max rpm and torque in none time. We can blame the mighty Kraken, but it is summoned by our action.

oh. i thought you were asking about data from the game.

anyway, i don't think the game can load with a throttle on.

[vv3k70r]

44 minutes ago, lemon cup said:

Great write-up and makes tons of sense, now I see what you mean by order! I have been building spaceplanes on and off for the past several years and have always fallen into the same pitfalls

Thank You. I'm just familiar with cad/cam and phy engines for many aplications (some of R&D, some for fun like games) and when kid told me about some Kraken disturbing his life I took a look on da game, found a very common issues that trouble us in other aplications for years. So I know workarounds. Now I stick to the game myself. Good that we have some crisis and I have time for this.

49 minutes ago, lemon cup said:

I always just assume some other bug was rearing it’s head, not that the design was to blame

If You do not know what is hierarchy order in computing of such objects then You expect common sense results. Simulated simplified physics have nothing to do with common sense, it is just a toy to use in one, propper manner.

 

20 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

i also have this. robotic parts in general are delicious to krakens

Free the pivots. Unlock them, set dumping to zero and let them relax.

They are often oveconstrained.

21 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

anyway, i don't think the game can load with a throttle on.

Its do, but because it was causing troubles electric engines are disengage on load, however they carry rest of values.

[vv3k70r]

I make first mining facility to test how it do. And realise that it dosent have cooling packed in drilling machine. But it is already on da Mun so I have to send something to cool it down.

So see how to conect pipeline (because I think it should look like pipeline not like set of gridcrates). I set drill for test on launchpad and run with vehicle to connect from airfield.

And Kraken is summoned. First empty tanks - empty better. Second - for driving lock hinges. But under conection I get Kraken:

So I make a magic button to disengage all robotics motors, and then set dumping to zero, and unlock on power loss.

And after first movement before disengaging there is no more Kraken.

 

Now I gonna pack such an arm on rocket to land side by harvester, put more cooling because I get only 16% and drill baby drill. Oil on Mun indicates that dinosaurs where there first?

[Gordon Fecyk]

On 11/19/2020 at 10:32 AM, Corona688 said:

KSP really does not like radially-attached docking ports right now.

How about node-attaching the docking ports to a node on a radially attached mounting point, like the cubic octagonal strut, or that 'failed docking port' part that connects radially? Would this work around the issue?

[Corona688]

4 hours ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

How about node-attaching the docking ports to a node on a radially attached mounting point, like the cubic octagonal strut, or that 'failed docking port' part that connects radially? Would this work around the issue?

I doubt it, but honestly don't know.

[king of nowhere]

so, the kraken feasted on my propellers again. what's interesting is that it had started eating already a while ago, but it wasn't immediately visible because the blades were folded inside cargo bays. at first, they get scrambles around their position, but still they mostly stay in place. then, gradually, they tend to move more and more outward, until they get out of the cargo bay and i see them. by then, the attack already started several hours earlier.

I can buy @vv3k70r theory that it's caused by them being used in the vacuum, because while i was running around an atmosphere they were more stable. thoughit's not as clear-cut. perhaps it is connected by using rockets (which also spins the propeller blades, which then keep moving forever in vacuum) and then saving the game or changing vessel. though i had one instance of it happening inside an atmosphere, but it was an isolated accident.

I will try to activate the brakes when i am in space from now on, let's see if this stops the kraken.

anyway, i discovered how to edit the saved game file, copying the propeller parts from an old save where they were functional, to fix them. it takes some 10-15 minutes to find the parts, not as bad as i assumed.

 

On 11/25/2020 at 10:51 AM, vv3k70r said:

 We can blame the mighty Kraken, but it is summoned by our action.

Hey, now that's just victim-blaming. next thing, you'll be asking how the spaceplane was dressed

 

[Dr. Kerbal]

I keep getting a hug that attxoaks me when ever. It just contanslt freezes the game.