Parts touched by a grabber floating off as if gravity no longer affects them.

[ColdJ]

To @JPLRepo , @IgorZ or anyone else who might know.

Some time ago and then just recently I have observed parts that are not attached to a command pod, when coming in contact with a grabber, instead of being seized, end up becoming unaffected by gravity, then a slight touch will send the part drifting off into the sky to drift like a balloon forever more.

Has this been discussed in the past?

Did anyone have a fix for this?

Thank you.

[DeadJohn]

I've never seen that but it's been a long time since I've tried to grab something that didn't have a capsule or probe attached.

That crane is not stock; does it happen with the stock grabber? What mods are installed? If you press alt-] to focus on the floating part, does the part continue to float, fall, or explode?

Edited September 21, 2022 by DeadJohn

[Zacspace]

1 hour ago, DeadJohn said:

does it happen with the stock grabber?

I've had this happen to me with the stock klaw.

I was testing the grabbing ability of a craft on the runway so had it load in with a fuel tank that staged away, when I tried to grab it the connection would immediately break and the tank would float away. I actually had to come up with a different test method because this bug presented itself every time I tried to do this. On a couple of occasions I chased down the part and attempted to reconnect, but I was only able to knock the part away faster.

At the time I was annoyed because I had to come up with a more complicated test procedure, but now I wonder if this behavior is exploitable.

[ColdJ]

3 hours ago, DeadJohn said:

I've never seen that but it's been a long time since I've tried to grab something that didn't have a capsule or probe attached.

That crane is not stock; does it happen with the stock grabber? What mods are installed? If you press alt-] to focus on the floating part, does the part continue to float, fall, or explode?

The crane is built by me. It is part of a larger mod I am building. The grabber I was using that time was from my Thunderbirds mod but though it may look different than stock it uses exactly the same module and collider system as the stock klaw. I have seen this behaviour with stock and with other mods. I think the first time was with grabber arms made by @Angel-125 It is something to do with parts that are just on their own, not connected to command modules, although it has happened with a part that had a IVA and was a sort of escape ball. I even had a kerbal hang on to the airlock ladder and float away with the ball. I haven't tried alt-], I will have to try and see.

2 hours ago, Zacspace said:

At the time I was annoyed because I had to come up with a more complicated test procedure, but now I wonder if this behavior is exploitable.

I am not sure, never tried, they are kind of hard to retrieve and at first the grabber thinks it is still attached even though it is not. My experience is exactly as you described for yourself.

[Rutabaga22]

This happened to me in my Kerbal crane challenge

[darthgently]

Possibly related, I've found if a kerbal engineer uses KIS to grab something from a klaw the klaw will still think it hasn't released it so much kraken fun can ensue 

[Gargamel]

Moved to tech support modded.

[IgorZ]

I'm not sure how is this situation related to KIS/KAS (my field of responsibility), but I know when this kind of things happen. I saw a lot of this stuff in my KIS developer carrier. It happens when the part object got detached with no `Vessel` module on it. The most common case is an exception in the middle of the part attach/detach process.  Such cases can easily happen due to a mod conflict issue. No way it can be worked out with no detailed logs. Enable verbose logging in the game, reproduce the case, then share => chances to find the reason. However, a better approach is removing the mods one by one until the problem is gone. Knowing the name of the "offender" reduces the amount of work by an order of magnitude.

[ColdJ]

Hi @IgorZ and thank you for your answer.

I tagged you not because it is an issue with KIS/KAS but because the code for attaching and detaching things in KSP is something you are well versed in, so I thought if anyone would have a clue it would be you or @JPLRepo.

@Gargamel. This is something that happens with stock grabbers and the part I was using at the time only looks different. It has the same collider, module and parameters as the stock grabber. The KSP I was running in is for building and so apart from my mods and KAS it is pretty much stock.

I will try the verbose logging.

This is not a new phenomena, I have seen it many times in the past as well. I guess most people do not try to pick things up that aren't attached to a command module of some type.

[Rutabaga22]

What if through some codey wodey magic when you touch them with a grabber something in their code thins their in space and therefore behave so? COud that be the issue? 

[Gargamel]

5 hours ago, ColdJ said:

 

@Gargamel. This is something that happens with stock grabbers and the part I was using at the time only looks different. It has the same collider, module and parameters as the stock grabber. The KSP I was running in is for building and so apart from my mods and KAS it is pretty much stock.

Any mod make it's a modded game.    And please don't repeatedly tag the dev team, we have rules against that.