Decoupler Damage...

[Euel]

...or

Almost made it...

Well, I managed asparagus staging, but when I was trying to land on The Mun, my next to last stage -wouldn't- cut loose. My Flight Results window says "stack Decoupler was damaged by engine exhaust from liquid Engine 2". So, how do I solve this little problem? Do I use wider radial decouplers, longer staging delay, prayer, or a blood sacrifice to certain dark gods?

Edited July 18, 2013 by Euel

[Johnno]

Picture? I suspect you've mounted it the wrong way so that it's actually still attached to the engine. Is the red arrow pointing at the engine, or away from it? The arrow indicates what part will be cut loose, so if it's pointing away from the engine it's still attached to the engine.

[SRV Ron]

A photo would help to diagnosis the problem. Sometimes, decoupling doesn't go smoothly when struts are involved. Throttle down, decouple, activate the engine on no throttle, and slowly apply throttle to separate.

Be advised if you are using a nuclear engine, you need a clear path for the decoupler to blow the skirt sideways or it will get hung up in the rigging of the upper stage.

I had some radical decouplers blow out without staging on external tanks because the struts and fuel lines were not cut by the decoupler when it was activated.

Edited July 17, 2013 by SRV Ron

[aftershockzap]

No one can be sure without pictures, but, its probably miss-attached like the Johnno said! Sometimes the decouplers attach inside the engine instead of where it should, and its very hard to tell the difference. I had a rocket that should have released 4 engines between 2 stages. The first set of two engines, perfect. The second set EVERY TIME would stay on ship hanging with struts just like two swaying, highly explosive, anchors. I tried EVERYTHING to get them to work. I even attached 16 (Yes 16) Sepertron engines just to ENSURE it wasn't the struts. In the end I trashed the two non working setups and copied (alt+left click on windows) the two correctly working setups and after a lot of pain re-struted everything. Worked first time. First station launch successful at a stable orbit of 400km.

Just long enough to realize that every docking port was installed backwards.

[Giggleplex777]

This is caused by clipping the decoupler. The only thing you can do now is to edit the save file. When you're building though, disconnect and reconnect decouplers and test every decoupler out by launching it. If there are decouplers that don't work, attach and reattach and test it again. If it automatically snaps in and it is clipped into something, attach it, detach, and try again.

[Euel]

...to all those who replied to my post. I'll try as many of your suggestions as I can. As for posting pictures, the board says I can't, what gives? Also, how do I zoom in on an image in game? BTW, the game runs like a rusty donkey on my 'puter, should I upgrade it?

[aftershockzap]

I'm not sure about pictures, but as far as how the game is running have you messed with the "Max Physics Delta Time" setting inside of the options menu before entering a game?

The link is to the forum post which explained how it works but long story short:

Slide the bar to the right for smoother gameplay/fps, but the game's simulation timescale will slow down. This only slows down the game as needed however, and you can tell when the game has decided to slow down by looking at the "METS: " timer in the top left of the screen. If the writing is green, game time is normal. It then goes to yellow and red.

Launching a rocket/flying in atmosphere or a large ship part count can kill performance (semi)regardless of pc specs for various reasons that would be too long winded =P

[Vanamonde]

Post pics here by uploading your screenshots to a free service like Imgur.com, and then include the BBCode link they provide in your post.