Surface Rendezvous Malfunction (100% ?)

[Steve7893]

I am getting a malfunction when doing a surface rendevous.  It has been 100% so far with Minmus as the target planet.

I decided to embark on a series of missions to "have a gathering" of kerbals in a certain location on the surface of Minmus.   I landed 5 kerbals there with no issues.

On the second mission, with the next 5 kerbals aboard, I began my approach and descent.   I had the first vessel targeted, and everything seemed normal until I was very close to it.   I saw the blue letters indicating its name and distance, but I never sighted the vessel.   On my final descent to within 100m, the blue letters began indicating that the target vessel was now on the move directly into the surface of Minmus.   Heading directly towards its center.   I then landed and watched the indicator.   I looked up the radius of Minmus as 60km.   But my indicator disappeared at 50km precisely. 

I then switched to the  Tracking station and saw that the vessel still existed, so I hit the control button.   It had a velocity of 56870, and was still on a straight line trajectory, but at this point still in the SOI of Minmus.   Scrolling in and out on map view, I noticed it did not have any orbital line visible.

I gradually accelerated time, and it kept moving.   At some point I received a notification that it was "out of communication range", it kept moving and I turned in map view and watch the kerbol system recede.   Then at some point it disappeared.  All 5 kerbals were still pictured, and I tried to EVA one, but the EVA did not function.   I switched to the Tracking station again, but the vessel was no longer being tracked.

These kerbals were never heard from again.

[Steve7893]

duh, this is going to sound strange, but one of my "sinking crafts" has just reappeared on the surface of Minmus, a mere 262 meters away.   I can switch to it, and see that all 5 kerbals are aboard.

The other ship is still lost, not to be found.

I am going to walk various kerbals around, jetpack them some distances away in different directions, and try yet another rendezvous.

[Steve7893]

Nevermind, it didn't reappear, I got confused in the dark by the fact that a Kerbal appears to be a ship from a distance.

The ship with all the Kerbals aboard was actually missing one, it was the same ship I came there in.

[Steve7893]

Ok this time, not only did the target ship sink into the surface, but as I started looking around for the kerbals I jetpacked around, noticed they were all gone, the craft I was in began sinking too while I was still observing.  I took a screenshot at this poing showing me at a ground elevation of -4262 under the surface.

After warping ahead 53 minutes.

I guess I'll see if the Mun has this same effect.  It stands to reason that they won't all be the same.   Never happens on Kerbin, unless thats special, somehow.

[Steve7893]

Appears to be the same on Mun.   Here you can see the formerly landed rocket whose blue letters are falling into the Mun below where I am in my rocket.

However, this time Burfred was jetpacked quite a distance from the landing site, and did NOT fall through, and still exists on the surface.

I wonder what would happen if I walked over to Burfred.

.....strangely nothing.   I jetpacked over and nothing unusual happened.

Also nothing strange when I jetpacked back to the ship.

[Steve7893]

Next I took a new ship full of Kerbals, and landed 2.6 km away from the first ship.   One kerbal went on EVA, and began jetpacking over to the first ship.   This time, as the kerbal approached it, it DID sink and disappear in the same manner as when I landed next to it.

So its like, two ships must be involved.   Once the second ship lands, the first ship is corrupted somehow.   It remains stable until something, either a kerbal in a jetpack, or a ship either one, gets close to it.   Close enough for the mechanics to engage.   Its variables are corrupted, so off it goes.   My guess is that its initial movement into the surface would be the gravity of the planet or something.   Somehow the ship isn't solid to the surface anymore.   But that second ship is still good until the next ship lands.

[Steve7893]

More testing on this today, all on Kerbin.    It happened, but has happened a bit differently on Kerbin.    I built an air-breathing jet engine rocket, and landed 8 kerbals 34 km away from KSC.   4 Kerbals died (no bug this was proper) on landing leaving 4 of them.    I disembarked all 4 remaining kerbals, and walked them a very short distance.

Checking in tracking station the craft and all 4 kerbals seemed stable.

I built an airplane and flew over and landed nearby.    At this point, all of the kerbals were gone, but the empty original craft remained on the surface.   I then started flying other planes out there, sometimes disembarking 2 kerbals, and sometimes one and sometimes none.

On the second or third approach (keep in mind that kerbin time is passing, planet is rotating, etc), the original craft was no longer on the surface.    I was able to switch to it using the square bracket key.   It appeared in the tracking station.

I then began a program of using the plane as a rover and rolling out kerbals to distances of 1km, then 2km, then 3km from KSC.   Each time checking the tracking station.   I then noticed that my original ship at 34 km no longer appeared, but a nearby plane-14 was still there.   I took control of plane-14, and using the square bracket, I still can control the original ship which is now some 327 meters under the ground and spinning rapidly.   Strange that it is there but no longer visible in the tracking station.    Many of the kerbals though, are not to be found anywhere.

[Steve7893]

I managed to catch the focus on a Kerbal fall through of the surface, and kept the focus on him on his extended journey.   His tooltip shows his speed at nearly 25% of the speed of light.   Although the star is visible in normal view, there is nothing of the kerbol system visible in map view.   In the first 200 km of his journey he seemed to be accelerating under the force of gravity until he reached the center of the planet.   Thereafter he appeared to be translated into space at a much higher rate of speed, although as far as I can tell he has always been on a direct line from his point on the surface to the center of that planet as it was at the time he fell through the surface.   His trajectory so long as it was visible was unaffected by any other gravitational forces as he progressed through the kerbol system, and was unslowed by the kerbol system's gravitational forces as he receded from it on the other side into the vast distance of the cosmos.

Edited March 5, 2023 by Steve7893

[Steve7893]

Sad to report that following this, the _campaign_ would not complete a reload.   The reload phase it stuck on was "patching conics".   I attempted 8 times with intervening machine reboots.

However, deleting that campaign and starting a new one resolved the issue.