Surface station - kraken safe?

[Michel_0]

Hi there,

i'm trying to construct a modular surface station concept.
This has been my last try:

• The vessel in the middle have had a ground anchor, it exploded as i docked the third vessel.
• After i docked the fifth vessel and joined using the KSC tracking station it was kicked few hundred meters up in the air, parically exploded and broke apart
• Managed to set up four vessels again, next time when i used the tracking station to control it, it was trown up and broke in two parts and exploded again
• The effect seems worse when i use the KSC tracing station to jump on it, compared to when i approach slowly with another vessel

My question now is how may we build a vessel that reduces this effect or how to make it more robust against it or reduce the effects causing it?

Already searched the forum and other places on the internet about it - there are few outdated opinions about it, some say more struts, other say less autostruts...
As you can see i've got 20 landing struts and 24 wheels, all "locked autostruts heaviest part" - if there's any problem with it, i surely triggered it.
May more "real" struts or more ground anchors be a solution?

Or may it be better the other way - most flexible joints and no struts?

Or is or it solveable with RCS / reaction wheels and SAS?

I'm also playing on a DarkMultiPlayer server, that makes it worse i guess. But i think this effect takes place in vanilla as well?

Looking forward for ideas, kind regards,
Michel_0

KSP Version: v1.12.3.3173 Windows player x64, 1.12.1 Making history, 1.7.1 Breaking ground, Win11 x64

EDIT: The vessels got big reaction wheels, plenty of RCS and liquid fuel thrusters. I made sure to shutdown all thrusters, turned RCS and SAS off before i left the station (and it still was as i rejoined).

Edited February 7, 2022 by Michel_0

[s_gamer101]

Pretty sure you're dealing with some kind of a glitch here. Therefore I don't think the design of your base is the problem. I've had some weird issues with DarkMultiplayer. Maybe try if it happens in stock too. Also, I think this should go in the subforum for bugs with modded installs and not gameplay questions (you can ask a moderator to move your post, they can do that)

[18Watt]

Anything with a spring in it can cause what you are describing.  That includes rover wheels, aircraft wheels, and landing legs.  Ideally you would want to retract or remove any of those items.

It looks like you have a lot of rover wheels which would be difficult to remove.  In that case, playing with spring/damper settings has been one workaround that sometimes works for me.  Try turning down the spring strength on all wheels as low as it will go, and possibly cranking up the damper value to max.

I consider the behavior you described a bug, which makes docking anything on the surface a frustrating and risky endeavor.  Hopefully others will also respond with additional suggestions to work around the issue.

[miklkit]

In my opinion it is the wheels.  load that thing up with pistons and lift the wheels off the ground and see what happens.  Half of the rovers around my small base simply exploded before I built "carports" for them to lift them off the ground.  No problems since then.