How do I keep my large drilling rig from going critical mass when approching it?

[Malsheck]

I'm not sure this is the right spot for this post so please forgive me if it's not.

I placed a large lander on the Mun that is my drilling rig/refinery/fuel depot/refueling point that consists of 256 parts once landed. Now, with that said I'm trying to drop a fairly decent sized base near it that acts as a habitat/solar farm. Problem is on landing my base, when ever I get within 300m-500m of my drilling rig it shoots off to like 17k away and then blasts all of those 256 parts across the Munar landscape. Is there a setting or mod that I am unaware of that will allow me do this sort of thing without it going thermo-nukelear on me?

Many thanks in advance.

[localSol]

I'm not completely sure, but I think this may be because of the debris limit (in options menu before loading a save) working to clear out stuff when the limit is reached? I noticed it happening when I lowered the setting and drove by some debris on the ground, it exploded into many pieces, which then most or all exploded. Maybe it would help to set your limit higher.

[Panichio]

I'm pretty sure it is a mod that's causing that. In Scott Manley's videos, he encounters the same problem. I'm pretty sure it was conflicting mods.

[Rainbowtrout]

Either what localSol said or.... THE KRAKEN!!!!!!

[Karriz]

I've had similar problems, using various mod parts. Usually I get around it by loading a quicksave and trying again.

[togfox]

... it shoots off to like 17k away and then blasts all of those 256 parts across the Munar landscape ....

The Kerbal engineers worked hard to make that happen. You should appreciate their efforts more!

[Malsheck]

I'm pretty sure it's not a debris issue cause it is currently manned. So far I've landed the base some 1.2k away and tried to hover it in and I've dried to practically drop it right next to it using mechjeb. Both times as soon as the game trys to (im assuming here) load the object's collision it blows sky high. Switching to it directly instead of going through the control center if I wasn't already close to it has the same effect.

[Tristavius]

I also had this problem with a very large rover base on Minmus... from time to time if I was accelerating time from a nearby structure the whole thing would just blow itself up across half the planet. It would also register as 'crashing' most of the time while stood still - I seem to have this problem with the largest wheel types a lot.

[Stelith61]

It's happened to me completely stock on Duna, Dres, and small kerbin islands.

It's the kraken.

[Jason Patterson]

It has nothing to do with the kraken - that was wildly uncontrollable vehicles at high speed. The only remnant of it are mild phantom rolling torques you can get sometimes at very high speeds with a lightweight vehicle.

Odds are good that you've got two parts clipped together, whether intentionally or by accident when the game stored your vehicle.

If you'd like you can post the persistence file and I or others can perhaps test to see whether the ship is bugged. If you choose to do this, be sure to list any mods you might be using on that vessel.

Another cause for this can be cubic struts attached to docking ports, though that usually causes its problem when docking actually occurs. If you've got that in this vehicle, it's likely the culprit.

This is a really annoying bug; it's one of the last bugs that will make problems for campaign mode as well, though I suppose unexplained failures happen all the time in real life. It's terribly frustrating to spend huge amounts of effort putting a station in place only to have it explode. My condolences.

[Stelith61]

A something-like-11-part-duna-probe explodes when neared by rover (of the ion powered variety, 0.18.2)...

Similar sized Eeloo probe explodes when switched to...

Plane on kerbin explodes when landed near...

All stock...

It's the kraken, or a ground clipping bug.

I'll just call it the ground kraken.

[Sol_Rokks_Teddy]

When I read "ground kraken", I instantly thought of street sharks:sticktongue:

http://youtu.be/8ZKpdihzeIo

Maybe they're the ones who keep (gene-)slamming your base into orbit

[Malsheck]

Well, here's a few pics of what I'm trying to re-create. This base was made useless by some bug that appeared to put everything below ground and took control away for any item on site. The large drilling rig is already on site and I'm trying to land the base next to it.... later to be followed by the delta clipper shown in the center:

This is what the Drilling rig alone looks like:

If there is clipping then it's likely where the main tanks meet up.

[Malsheck]

Hmm I seem to have forgotten that the Kethane tank was purposely clipped into the main center tank. I guess that's what you guys were referring to? The odd thing is that I had this plus the base on site at one point and was able to bring in the Delta Clipper so close it nearly hit without issue. Now as soon as I get within 300m (my last attempt a few minutes ago) it blows sky high.

Edited May 7, 2013 by Malsheck

[Malsheck]

Btw, if anyone is interested I'm including a link to download the craft file. I'm including a list of required mods below. I tried to upload this to the space port the other day but after 5 attempts with each one saying the file was loaded and nothing appearing I gave up. The media fire site is here: http://www./?odm9n646p4z5dp8 or for direct download click here: http://205.196.123.165/qfjwt77xscog/odm9n646p4z5dp8/Behemoth+Heavy+Miner+v_2e.craft

Required Mods: (I think this is all of them)

[0.19.1] KAS – Kerbal Attachment System v0.2.3 - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-2-kas-kerbal-attachment-system-v0-1/

[0.19] MechJeb 1.9.8 - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/mechjeb/

[0.19.1] KW Rocketry - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-1-kw-rocketry-overhauled/

ISA MapSat 3.3.4 - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/isa-mapsat-3-3-4/

[0.19.1] B9 Aerospace Pack / Release 2.5 - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-19-1-b9-aerospace-pack-release-2/

[0.18.2] DEMV Mk 5 - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/0-18-demv-mk-5-ant/

Kethane Pack 0.4.3 - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/23979-Kethane

Protractor – for KSP .19 (2.4.0 updated 4/21/13) - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/protractor-for-ksp-0-18/

[0.19.1] Kerbal Crew Manifest v0.5.1.1 - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/18-1-kerbal-crew-manifest/

TAC Fuel Balancer v1.1.1 - http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/tac-fuel-balancer-v1-0/

Edited May 7, 2013 by Malsheck

[Malsheck]

I'm not completely sure, but I think this may be because of the debris limit (in options menu before loading a save) working to clear out stuff when the limit is reached? I noticed it happening when I lowered the setting and drove by some debris on the ground, it exploded into many pieces, which then most or all exploded. Maybe it would help to set your limit higher.

I gave this a try and at first set it to 500 and it allowed me to get within 200m of the site before everything blew. Setting it to unlimited has the same effect. Odd thing is that not only is the whole drilling platform going up but so is a DEMV mk 5 ANT that I got parked about 35m away from it. It's like something just comes along and says "Oh, your trying to land here? let me clear this for you!" and shoots the whole site off to a 270' heading where the sky is then filled with rocket parts. Thanks for the idea though.

[Merinsan]

I've had this happen with stock. I worked out that something had clipped through something else due to time acceleration/being on rails, and when physics kicked in (within 200 meters), it recognized the collision and blew up. My only solution was to revert to an earlier save and rebuild what was missing.

[Tommygun]

I have run into this issue before when a base gets too large.

I had several completely separate spacecraft and rovers all explode at the same time when I tried to land a new lander near them.

[Malsheck]

From the sound of what you guys are saying I'm thinking that at 200m the game is trying to load the physics for the drilling rig (which takes a while to load when going to it from the sys control) and the program takes one look at it and chokes. I guess I need to take some stuff back off of it so the game has a better chance at handling it. Each time I would launch it for the Mun I would find some area to improve and add a part here and there. Guess I found it's limit. Thanks for the help. Hopefully one day they will make it so the game will predict that it needs to start loading the physics for an area that is up ahead so it can ease into it.