Docking Ports "destroying" ships and not undocking

[n1ck7hequick]

So, I was doing an Apollo-style Minmus mission, and all was going well. I had reconfigured the ship in Kerbin orbit, then went in and stabilized a Minmus orbit. But when I tried undocking the lander, the failure screen, indicating a destroyed craft, showed up, but when I went back to the tracking station, I could switch back to, and use, the ship. I just couldn't get the docking ports to separate, so I went back to the VAB to see if I could fix it. At first, I just thought it was the struts being weird, so I made sure there were no struts connecting the mothership to the lander, but when I tested it again in Kerbin orbit, the same exact thing happened. I do have the craft and some save files I would happily send over because this issue breaks a major part of the game. I'll continue trying to troubleshoot while waiting for a response, but it doesn't look like much is helping...

[Sitting Duck]

I saw a post here or elsewhere where the victim pilot added a separator to the docking clamp of one ship, disabled the feed on the actual docking clamps after completing the dock, then blew the separator and then undocked. Apparently this was successful for them.

I tried this, but inevitably one of my ships pretty much loses its identity, loses control, and disappears--usually ship #2 (which did not have a separator).

I also found that if I warp shortly after undocking, the ship that originally had the separator on it spins and disintegrates when coming out of warp. If I did not warp, it survived.

Not sure how other people are accomplishing this - through lots of sacrificial tears, no doubt...

Edited March 11, 2023 by Sitting Duck
Screenshot

[Sitting Duck]

Found it!

[Razor235]

15 hours ago, Sitting Duck said:

<snip>

Are you sure that you're using a stack separator and not a decoupler?  I see a separator in your parts tree but it looks like the one highlighted between the ports and active in the parts thing is a decoupler.  (TD-12 instead of TS-12)

And it doesn't work on a second docking, but it just "guarantees" one free working undock assuming a predocked-assembled vessel, at least in theory.

Edited March 11, 2023 by Razor235

[Sitting Duck]

23 minutes ago, Razor235 said:

Are you sure that you're using a stack separator and not a decoupler?

Yep, my bad: used the wrong term. I used a decoupler. My next step is to try an actual separator.