Why Do Things Just FALL APART In This Game?

[NeoMorph]

I just made a nice and gentle landing on the Mun... AND THE DRILLS JUST FELL OFF THE SIDE OF MY LANDER!

I swear, if it isn't held together with struts this game assumes they are held together with tissue paper.

There is so much good with this game that I hardly ever rage quit but I just did for the first time in months. I managed to finally get this off-balance lander down and the pads just touch the surface and the damned Kethane drills drifted off like a ballet in slow motion. GRRRR.

Surely they could up the joint strength. Not calling making them unbreakable but at least increase the value by default. Joints wobble, things fall off and to fix it you have to strut everything that means your part count increases which means you get more lag. You shouldn't NEED to have to strut every little thing.

[Motokid600]

I feel your pain... really I do lol.

[Brotoro]

...I swear, if it isn't held together with struts this game assumes they are held together with tissue paper...

Explosive tissue paper.

[RazorWolf19]

Funny you start a thread about this specific topic on this specific day. I'm starting to do interplanetary stuff in my game right now, and I recently set up a station around Duna (to connect my ships orbiting) and the first real mission to the surface was a three-pilot lander with two rovers on the sides. The landing went successfully and I left the two rovers and two Kerbals on the Dunan surface, sending the lander for a direct ascent to my station. The problem is that I was a little low on fuel so I just BARELY rendezvous/docked and now I don't have enough fuel for a return. I think "OK, well at least they're docked, I can send more fuel to them". I set out designing a fueling ship which ended up having to use half it's payload fuel to actually get into orbit. Now I have to refuel my refueler... once again, no big deal. More designing. Launch. Random failures...over...and over, different every time, too. I tried launching the same damn ship for a little over an hour and at one point I'm just like "screw this!" and rage-quit. This is the first time I've done that since learning how to dock. I feel you, man.

[ferram4]

Define "nice and gentle landing." Most landings (in real life) take place at well below 1 m/s; keep in mind that if you're landing at ~10 m/s your vehicle is going to move from the top of a 3-story building to the ground in a second (possibly less, depending on the building). I mean, that is pretty fast for a rocket that is still partially filled with fuel, you'd expect something to break. Honestly, all of the parts in KSP are already amazingly good at taking impacts, so the problem is likely that you're coming down too hard.

Take a breather, practice landing on the Mun with smaller landers and try to keep the vertical velocity as low as possible; then repeat that for the heavier Kethane miner you're sending down.

[RazorWolf19]

Define "nice and gentle landing." Most landings (in real life) take place at well below 1 m/s; keep in mind that if you're landing at ~10 m/s your vehicle is going to move from the top of a 3-story building to the ground in a second (possibly less, depending on the building). I mean, that is pretty fast for a rocket that is still partially filled with fuel, you'd expect something to break. Honestly, all of the parts in KSP are already amazingly good at taking impacts, so the problem is likely that you're coming down too hard.

Take a breather, practice landing on the Mun with smaller landers and try to keep the vertical velocity as low as possible; then repeat that for the heavier Kethane miner you're sending down.

Naw, I've seen this guy posting around on this forum... he knows what he's doing. I'm sure there's another problem.

[SkyRender]

There are some attachment problems with KSP right now, particularly when certain mods interact. Problem is, there's no way to be sure which mods synergize with which, so it could be just about anything doing it. Parts can fall off with no real impact speed at all, even in stock. Just try doing a rover with a jet cockpit on either side and watch how quickly the non-piloted pod falls off at the slightest touch.

[NeoMorph]

Out of the hundreds or so landers I've successfully landed I know that I need to keep it low. I was lowering it down on translatron set at -0.1m/s as I had had the things fall off several times before and so was trying to ease it down. Nope... no luck. Wheeeeeeeeeeeee.....

Most landings I manage on my own. Targeted landings I bring it down to about 1000m and then use Translatron like the Apollo astronauts used P66. So yeah, I kind of know what I'm doing. What I have been getting a bunch of are these strange random happenings like Razorwolf has been getting. Actually half the time I went to the lander+orbiter in orbit, decoupled, switched to the lander and then see the orbiter explode just because I switched FROM it. Well, not exploded but flew apart. Bits flying off in different directions. Like I said... held together with tissue paper.

It's hard testing my hardware mods when the game just can't hold it together. I understand bugs in the game but this problem has been reported and moaned about since I first started playing. Like I said, it's like the code for the joints is not working right and are understrength and we have to use struts for everything.

Struts are like band-aids for our sick rockets.

Edited June 22, 2013 by NeoMorph

[Fel]

Ferram is quite correct here.

KSP is, by default, EXTREMELY strong. I had a small problem in my mun rover landing design.

I attached a small tank, radially, attached the small radial motors to the decoupler, and then fuellines to said motors... had RCS on it which would allow ASAS to "somewhat stabilize" the thing. I came in at 100m/s from a good stable orbit at 3km above the surface (~7km ap and pe)... I decouple the big tank only to find that the RCS ports that were going on so well doing yaw and pitch didn't recognize that the new command pod orientation didn't change that they could still do "yaw / pitch".... I tried salvaging it (Habitual F5 presser)... and then, without F12 options... I decided just to let the thing fall... and the damn thing survived.

It bounced and cartrolled on the wheels for several Km, mostly intact, (usually it was the awkwardly placed docking port that I had for "visual effect"... and of course the wheels occasionally popped). [i decided just to launch a new one rather than keep waiting for a zero damage landing... but it didn't experience the critical failure that I expected upon hitting the ground])

What matters here is PATIENCE; Even though I was coming in hot, I still had enough altitude and enough delta v to slow down (I intended to land it a fair bit like a plane); and I started my approach a long ways away so that my angle was nicely sloped allowing me a gentle landing. Going in sharp means you'll be using a very strong engine which makes landing harder as you cannot get the thrust you need to have a fairly low vertical velocity without having it become a positive velocity... I suspect even with that, people would rather get it landed than slowly bleed off speed.

[Themohawkninja]

It looks like all you are complaining about is the modded parts. That might be your problem, the mods, not the core game.

[RazorWolf19]

It looks like all you are complaining about is the modded parts. That might be your problem, the mods, not the core game.

No, atleast not in my case. I don't play with mods, not yet anyway. The only mod I've ever downloaded is Kethane, but I have that in a separate save and it has one flight in progress; a little Kethane mining drone on the Mun.

[Whackjob]

The problem is quite simple. The Kerbonians, while a space faring people, have not yet invented duct tape.

[Sir Nahme]

I thought it was the other way around, thats ALL they used to hold the ships together

[Whackjob]

No, duct tape is far more robust than that. Which reminds me... I need to tell the Mythbusters via their site to make a reentry capsule with duct tape.

[ecat]

It looks like all you are complaining about is the modded parts. That might be your problem, the mods, not the core game.

No. Unless you count adding the MechJeb control module? And if you believe that single part can cause multiple random problems then I'm happy to do some tests without it. So, all stock parts, return to the VAB after a successful test flight to find fuel lines, struts, engines, fuel tanks have somehow disconnected. We are not talking some nice pattern here, say six struts were added with symmetry = 6, suddenly 2 or 3 are disconnected, or one out of four fuel tanks again added with symmetry, or a third of your entire ship looks fine but can no longer be selected.

There are two problems I can verify.

1) The symmetry option can cause additional, as in more than symmetry = x, parts to be added, resulting in major clipping. At least I've seen a 7th, 8th and/or 9th engine magically appear and watched as another engine has been placed to occupy an already taken location.

2) Returning to VAB or loading a save of previously working craft results in connections going missing. The question now is how many times does the game rebuild a ship from a saved copy, every time you switch vessels? What about when you dock, from what I've read the game rebuilds the tree of parts that make up the new combined vessels? Or when you undock and two part trees are created?

Edited June 23, 2013 by ecat

[Themohawkninja]

No. Unless you count adding the MechJeb control module? And if you believe that single part can cause multiple random problems then I'm happy to do some tests without it. So, all stock parts, return to the VAB after a successful test flight to find fuel lines, struts, engines, fuel tanks have somehow disconnected. We are not talking some nice pattern here, say six struts were added with symmetry = 6, suddenly 2 or 3 are disconnected, or one out of four fuel tanks again added with symmetry.

There are two problems I can verify.

1) The symmetry option can cause additional, as in more than symmetry = x, parts to be added, resulting in major clipping. At least I've seen a 7th, 8th and/or 9th engine magically appear and watched as another engine has been placed to occupy an already taken location.

2) Returning to VAB or loading a save of previously working craft results in connections going missing. The question now is how many times does the game rebuild a ship from a saved copy, every time you switch vessels? What about when you dock, from what I've read the game rebuilds the tree of parts that make up the new combined vessels? Or when you undock and two part trees are created?

I have yet to have either of those problems occur, and I don't use any mods (although MechJeb doesn't sound like it should affect ship loading minus loading it's own parts).

[NeoMorph]

ecat, I just had to go check... Went to the VAB with my lander and found that there were TWO drills in the two places I put them. No wonder they weren't attaching properly.

Hmmmm... I seem to remember this happening with some landing legs on another lander I was working on. In the end I had to remove them, save lander WITHOUT the legs, back out of the VAB and go back in and then put them back for them to not double up. I don't suppose you were using Editor Tools were you, ecat? I am wondering if it could be that mod which is now at fault.

[ecat]

Editor Tools?

No.

MechJeb is the only mod I use on a regular basis. Yes I have Kethane and PartyStarter and DRRobotics but none of these have been in use when I've seen problems. I can try to make a video of the symmetry problem as I think that is easily repeatable. I may be able to make a video of the missing connectors too as it happened again just yesterday, big ship unfortunately.

[Nao]

ecat, I just had to go check... Went to the VAB with my lander and found that there were TWO drills in the two places I put them. No wonder they weren't attaching properly.

Hmmmm... I seem to remember this happening with some landing legs on another lander I was working on. In the end I had to remove them, save lander WITHOUT the legs, back out of the VAB and go back in and then put them back for them to not double up. I don't suppose you were using Editor Tools were you, ecat? I am wondering if it could be that mod which is now at fault.

I have encountered this problem from time to time when doing symmetry (with and without Ed tools), and i play 99% stock game. I have no idea what actually causes it except it happens only for larger rockets.

These glitches/bugs are pain but just because they are in the game i wouldn't say the parts are like a paper. They already feel really strong for me.

[joppiesaus]

Just slowely landing my probe on Eeloo, perfect touchdown and wait... My solar panels!

I feal your pain.

[ASnogarD]

Dont I know it... had a rocket all ready to go to orbit, a nice hefty lifter with a nuclear engine powered payload cradled inside the lifter (I like compact designs) and when the physics loaded in... my nuclear engine simply fell off, it hadnt touched the ground nor does it have things dangling it, it simply fallen off.

I was like oh nice, yeah just drop off why dontcha its not like I needed the bloody thing... really

Had odd issues with my last ship (equally cool looking but ultimately useless 'bus') , the lifter portion has 3 engines and fuel towers and for some odd reason 1 engine would wobble in a weird fashion... but only one, its odd because I basically design 1 engine + tower + struts/lines/nose caps/etc etc then pull it off and then re-attach with 3 times symmetry, ie all the engines are exactly the same.

I have rage quit a number of times, been all ready to type out a rant on the forums... then calm down, then think of another approach to try, then when that fails go rage again...repeat ad nauseum ad infinitum.

KSP is a evil game I tell ya! Pure evil !

[Johnno]

This is a generic response to the issues discussed here, rather than at anyone in particular. What I gather from anyone who's stuff is breaking is that it's either a freak glitch, or you haven't done proper shakedown flights. If you've drop tested, flown, parachuted and generally abused your lander/rover/payload on Kerbin and it has survived, go ahead and launch. If something still breaks off at a random point, it's a glitch, which there's no control over.

Having bits fall off something at landing or other deployment when the payload has never been tested or touched the ground then that's down to poor design. Yes glitches happen, but stuff being attached with 'explosive tissue paper' is a bit of a stretch when you could've simply tested your payload thoroughly and fixed any issues during design. You don't need MOAR STRUTS just to have stuff work, personally I'm down to using struts for cosmetics on my payloads.

I've gotten into the habit of testing everything, over and over until I'm satisfied. Nothing ever 'just falls apart'. I have stuff I've built and deployed on the launchpad for a droptest just freak out and explode on their own, stuff with no fuel/engines. Recently I had to design 4 different surface probes from scratch to get one that didn't freak out and explode, cubic strut/girder glitch.

There are several known bugs like sometimes your landing struts just disconnect from the vehicle if you've left them deployed out in space and log back to the ship. And putting stuff inside eachother sometimes causes unexpected rotation or disassembly. Stuff shouldn't occupy the same space and yes sometimes the VAB glitches and places 2 pieces instead of one and then potentially both break off. But that's where testing comes into play.

Put your stuff on the launchpad, put clamps at the top and go through each step in order. Fly your lander (by hack gravity if you don't have TWR for liftoff). Launch stuff with parachutes on a small booster to a few thousand meters and test it properly. Several times. Droptest stuff with landing legs from different altitudes to see how strong they are.

Once you get into a proper design routine then stuff will stop breaking for you. You'll also learn better design and workarounds.

[NeoMorph]

I found the lander that had multiple landing legs in the same position... and this is what it caused WHEN I JUST DECOUPLED.

As you can see, it caused another effect.... my engines just drifted off. It's such a peculiar glitch because it doesn't happen often but when it does it's frustrating. At least now I know to look for this on my builds.

Edit: Oh yeah... forgot to say that once I fixed those landing legs my engines didn't fall off and I didn't have to strut them. Here is the proof.

See... identical lander and it worked fine.

Edited June 23, 2013 by NeoMorph

[Tw1]

Things that just fall of are the main reason I use modded struts now. Otherwise, I stick to the stock strut. But It would've taken an insane amount to prevent the LV-N falling from my latest creation when the main 'chutes open fully.

Took a fair few superstruts anyway, and a fair amount of parachute adjustment. But it's now working!

Edit: Took a pick that actually shows the engine.

Quite a few struts.

Edited June 24, 2013 by Tw1

[Storm1]

In the Firespitter mod when you are taking off... I swear the planes are held together with blades of grass... and small movement on the runway and BOOOM bye bye wings, bye bye pilots, bye bye engins...sign... Ill post a picture to show you what I mean...