Weird staging behavior - bug or just unanticipated consequences?

[chd]

So, how would something like this arise, do you think?

 

Well, let me tell you. :-)

So, this started as a rescue-bozo-from-Eve-orbit contract. I built the rescue ship with a klaw (jr) since I've gotten contracts where there was no hatch on the target capsule. I get there, meet the target, and grab it with the klaw. (Which was stupid, in this case I could certainly have just EVA'd the rescue guy over, but hey, it takes like a year to get to Eve and we were almost out of Scotch by then.)

Now the interesting part -- as soon as the klaw connects, my rescue ship final stage decoupler fires! All my engines and fuel and whatnot for the return trip are now drifting away, and I'm left with this sad configuration.

So -- what happened??

My best guess, but it's just a guess, is that when you dock two ships together the "control from here" point may change in ways I've never really looked into, and in this case it changed to the to-be-rescued capsule, which had some state of "all stages fired" and revised the entire state of everything to be "all stages fired."

Is that a thing that makes any sense, or could happen? Or if anyone else has seen something similar, what's behind this?

Thanks!

[vv3k70r]

7 hours ago, chd said:

Is that a thing that makes any sense, or could happen? Or if anyone else has seen something similar, what's behind this?

It could be that part lost it root/parent node (whatever games call it). It happens when You fulfill assigment /part of assigment combined with staging. You can edit it in save game manualy or use KML to open Your gamesave - it detect those problems automaticly and allow You to fix them.

But without fuel or engine You propably need another rescue ship?

I hope this is funny part of the game when things dosent go acording to plan.