Flight Unstable Orbits with no Atmosphere

[cakirk13]

Still having an issue where ships/stations in low orbit of celestial bodies with no atmospheres behave as though there is one and quickly lower the periapsis until they crash. Most recent (of several dozen) times I've experienced this was in low Minmus orbit with an Apollo-style mission. The mothership was left in a stable orbit at just about 10km, it lowered its periapsis and crashed within a fifth of a full orbit while I was piloting the lander. When I reloaded and tried to keep it stable by firing the engines intermittently (it continues to degrade while I'm piloting it), the lander quickly lowered its periapsis and crashed about a quarter of the way along it's original landing trajectory. I have experienced this issue around the mun and minmus. 

[Jason_25]

I am seeing this too on Minmus.  I wonder if it has to do with world unevenness and/or gravity gradients playing a role?

[LowSnow]

Same on Mun

[wasml]

I've seen this on Minmus too,  multiple times. Saw somewhere that if you were below 25km this happened and the (single) time I tested this a 30km orbit didn't appear to have this problem.

KSP2 version 0.1.2

[Douces]

This needs to get fixed, as of right now this game is unplayable for me.

[BigMax]

Hi everybody, i'm experiencing the same issue on low Kerbin orbit trying to build a space station. I placed the first two modules in a 80km stable  orbit with some difficults because the first module already changed his orbit a little bit, but when i got there with the third one the station's AP was 84km and PE 70km.
I docked and watched what happened next: even with no engines (modules have only RCS that i disabled as i did for SAS) the station continues to slowly accelerating, yes, not slowing but accelerating.
I placed other 3 SATCOM at a geostationary orbit but they don't seem to be affected by this bug.
Hope they fix this as soon as possible..

[Socraticat]

On 5/3/2023 at 1:12 PM, BigMax said:

I docked and watched what happened next: even with no engines (modules have only RCS that i disabled as i did for SAS) the station continues to slowly accelerating, yes, not slowing but accelerating.

Velocity does change in proportion to your location in your orbit. Slows on the way to AP, increases on the way to PE. So to tell if you are accelerating be sure to watch your AP and PE change while your inputs are at zero- not velocity alone.

_____

I too have OP's problem, and it basically means I don't ever try to leave anything in orbit. Pretty wild workaround for a game that depends on orbiting craft.

On a similar note, parked vessels Don't remain stationary either. Sometimes they spawn above their previous location when they reenter your physics bubble.

Sometimes I could swear crafts respond to the input of another vessel, even from far away (that's more difficult to prove, and also results in craft falling out of, or expanding, an orbit.)

[Turbo Ben]

This is happening around all celestial bodies. My grand tour visited and landed on Duna, Ike, Dres, Laythe, Vall, Tylo, Bop, and Pol, it was the same on all of them. I think it happened at Eeloo too, but another bug ended the mission before I could land. It looks like a phantom radial in force (you'll notice one of PE or AP goes up while the other goes down, depending on where you are in your orbit). It even happens at Kerbol (the sun). In fact, I glitched inside Kerbol a while back and decided to see how close I could orbit the gravitational point at the center. I was unable to circularise the orbit because the radial in force was extreme as I got close to the center, eventually yeeting me out of the solar system when I got too close.

I've also noted that avoiding the use of timewarp with a lander seems to make any orbiting craft more stable, as long as they were stable when you undocked.

Edited May 11, 2023 by Turbo Ben

[vianna77]

I posted two topics like yours here   ... I hope they fix it at some point!