Docking with a stranded craft without electric power

[BigWhale]

Is it possible? I had a stranded vehicle that ran out of power and for the past hour and a half I've been trying to rescue it, by docking with it. Unfortunately with no success. Both crafts have Clamp-O Tron's Sr. and everything looks right.

I've docked before, probably a few hundred times, am I just having a really, really bad day at docking?

[LickableIce]

Hmm... i haven't tried it, but is the dead spacecraft's port magnitized? If not, then yeah its gone.

[Johnno]

It's possible yes. You may have gotten the docking port bug that prevents it from working.

Copied this from one of my posts elsewhere;

Posted by kujuman

HOW TO FIX THE DOCKING PORT

1. Go into the persistent.sfs file

2. Search for a line which says "state = Acquire"

3. Change to "state = Ready"

4. Load up the game and dock with the port nearby.

[Millitron]

Also, you may have that bug on more than one ship, and simply don't realize it yet. To fix just the dead probe, only change that line in the probe's section of the file.

Alternatively, you can fix them all with notepad I believe. Just use Find and Replace All, and it should fix it on all current vessels.

[Lheim]

It's possible you installed the docking port backwards, too. Happens enough that they had to include a picture in the wiki; take a look and see: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Clamp-O-Tron_Sr._Docking_Port

[BigWhale]

It's possible you installed the docking port backwards, too. Happens enough that they had to include a picture in the wiki

Yeah, I realized this a little while ago. Now I have a half full orange tank in orbit and no means of getting it back to the space station. I wonder if I can edit this in save file.

The funny thing is that this particular space craft was a two part space craft. I have a problem with just the engine section that I decoupled before docking the main section to the space station. Engine section was to be de-orbited.

Whole configuration was supposed to look like this (brackets are docking ports): [ Main ][ Engine-<

And my broken ship looked like this: [ Main ]] Engine ->

It seems that docking port is able to decouple whatever is attached to it. I wonder if this is by design. Until now I was always using two docking ports.

[MrKicker]

Get out and push?

[Skorpychan]

Yeah, I realized this a little while ago. Now I have a half full orange tank in orbit and no means of getting it back to the space station. I wonder if I can edit this in save file.

I feel you on the wasted fuel thing; my second Duna mission left a very nearly full orange tank in a nice orbit, just sat there with a decoupler on one end and nothing else, after the nuclear engine exploded. Had to abort the mission and get the lander back to kerbin.

[krenshala]

I'm tempted to always throw a clamp-o-tron jr (well, two, for CoG balance) on the side of stages that have a high chance of not crashing back into the planet after separation. In theory, a kerbal could dock a tug of some sort to it and tow it somewhere where it can be useful.

[Starwaster]

I feel you on the wasted fuel thing; my second Duna mission left a very nearly full orange tank in a nice orbit, just sat there with a decoupler on one end and nothing else, after the nuclear engine exploded. Had to abort the mission and get the lander back to kerbin.

I once had a (I thought) beautiful design for Duna that was a two section craft with clamp Sr's and I left the drive section in Duna orbit, went down, had fun then blasted off into orbit... and the drive section was GONE. I was sure I put it in a stable parking orbit.

I've heard of craft just up and vanishing before but what I think happened was it got classified as debris. And I had set debris to 0 because I was having all kinds crashing problems at that time.

Oops.

[sojourner]

^Yep, always put a control pod of some kind on anything you want to keep.

[lammatt]

yes you can

but its a little more difficult because you cant line up the ports as how you would when both ships are alive

(an easy way is to have a KAS on the dead ship and EVA the KAS robe to the dead ship to dock the two)

[chrischambers]

It's possible yes. You may have gotten the docking port bug that prevents it from working.

Copied this from one of my posts elsewhere;

Posted by kujuman

thanks for the Fix Soluction. I had this and I ended up crashing the module and re-sending it to the planet, and wasting a lot of time in doing this,

[DChurchill]

Sounds like a job for KAS.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25563-0-20-KAS-v0-3-1-Kerbal-Attachment-System

[Tiron]

Sounds like a job for KAS.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25563-0-20-KAS-v0-3-1-Kerbal-Attachment-System

What he means is that with KAS you can dock via a cable attached to a connector port on the target craft by a Kerbal on EVA, so if you can rendezvous and get within 50m you can make a connection. A big bonus there is that KAS includes a radial connector port that can be detached and reattached to any craft. Bring one of those along, and you can use the cable to dock with literally any craft at all. It's a godsend for rescue missions or for surface docking in general.

[Corbald]

Not to mention fuel transfer!

Seriously, there's only five mods that I hate to play without:

Kethane,

Mechjeb,

Kerbal Alarm Clock,

Subassembly Loader,

and...

Kerbal Attachment System!

[meeware]

Can a KAS link transfer electrical power to a dead probe?