What is a Kraken drive?

[NERVAfan]

Is it some kind of bug-powered spacecraft?

[SSSPutnik]

Yes. Basically involves parts pushing against other parts.

They sound mostly unstable. Probably go away next version...

[vexx32]

Check out this thread: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/69088-The-Kraken-Drive-is-Showing-It-s-Worth

Yes, it's basically some crazy idea one user thought up -- "Let's try harnessing all of the physics glitches!" -- which soon proved to be really quite doable, from most accounts. Still in fairly early stages, but even if the craft aren't super flyable, they will sure as hell come in handy pinning down and getting rid of the bugs involved at some point.

[ZodiaK]

how does it work?

[Starwhip]

When parts clip, they sometimes invoke a bug which has come to be known as "The Kraken". It comes in many forms, from invisible forces to ruin-your-day glitches which wipe your space station from the skies. Now, somehow this "drive" clips landing legs into structural panels, generating Kraken power and creating torque. This torque is balanced, and thus does the only thing it can do: push the craft upwards.

[Captain Sierra]

how does it work?

If I'm understanding it correctly, which I may not be, it exploits a but in the way the game calculates forces within a ship. Large landing legs push on a pusher plate, which only sometimes registers an equal and opposite force. The times it doesn't suddenly applies large amounts of force, resulting in large accelerations.

And they won't fix this bug. Any game designer with half a brain knows that if it's not game breaking, and the community is having a blast exploiting it, you don't squash it, not unless you want to seriously tick off hordes of people. TBH, I might just shun KSP if they kill our kraken drives.

[Wahgineer]

how does it work?

Basically, parts like landing legs push up against plates. The plates get shoved back, but the connection is strong enough that the plates don't snap. The plates push on the legs, trying to go back to normal. The legs keep the plates back. As the parts continue in their shoving match, phantom forces are created that allow the ship to move without using fuel at all. If harnessed correctly, these ships can be used to launch massive payloads to any planet, or cross the solar system in a matter of minutes, all by harnessing the power of the physics bug known as the Kraken.

(stink'n NINJA'D!)

[Seret]

And they won't fix this bug. Any game designer with half a brain knows that if it's not game breaking, and the community is having a blast exploiting it, you don't squash it, not unless you want to seriously tick off hordes of people. TBH, I might just shun KSP if they kill our kraken drives.

Well, maybe not while the game is still in development. I'd expect all known bugs that have good fixes to be squashed before release day though.

[Captain Sierra]

Well, maybe not while the game is still in development. I'd expect all known bugs that have good fixes to be squashed before release day though.

I still doubt it. This isn't a bug you can induce without trying. The community has put tons of combined effort and engineering into these things and if squad gives half a rat's tail, they'll let us keep our precision engineered glitch engines.

[Seret]

I still doubt it. This isn't a bug you can induce without trying. The community has put tons of combined effort and engineering into these things and if squad gives half a rat's tail, they'll let us keep our precision engineered glitch engines.

They may well do. But just remember that it is a bug, not a feature. Don't get all bent out of shape if they decide it needs squashing (they may even have good reasons to do so).

[Doctor Axel]

With the recent announcement that groundwork is being laid for multiplayer, I'd imagine they'll be looking to smash exploits like the Kraken drive. Which is a shame, really, but I'd understand their reasoning.

[JimmyAgent007]

If they fix it they wont be doing it just to be jerks, they will do it because there are related issues messing up the game for the rest of us. Id rather no have to deal with a game full of bugs just because some people want them.

Edited February 14, 2014 by JimmyAgent007

[sal_vager]

This wouldn't even count as a bug, it's not preventing gameplay, the only way this would be fixed is by accident when fixing other things

It's not a bug, it's a feature

[regex]

I can't believe players are allowed to cheat like this, the issue should be fixed immediately.

[Rakaydos]

If SQUAD finally killes the Kraken once and for all, removing the phantom forces that randomly explode your craft, then the krackendrive will be a casualty of war.

[Captain Sierra]

This wouldn't even count as a bug, it's not preventing gameplay, the only way this would be fixed is by accident when fixing other things

It's not a bug, it's a feature

This is pretty much my logic. The physics glitch by which the Krakendrive runs does not ever spontaneously occur by landing leg deployment. It takes some pretty precise engineering to build a device that exploits this glitch. The krakendrive isn't something you can create by accident, so yes, I'd call it an undocumented feature.

[Thiel]

It all depends on what new features they intend to implement. If say the implement robotic arms for instance then it might become an issue.

[Comrade Jenkens]

Yes, it's basically some idea one crazy user thought up

fixed it for you

[Rakaydos]

696 m/s, the number of the Kraken.

[briansun1]

I can't believe players are allowed to cheat like this, the issue should be fixed immediately.

how is this cheating?

[sal_vager]

It isn't cheating, there, answered

[Uncle Mort]

He only thinks it's cheating because he can't do it himself.

[ethernet]

Obviously the "Kraken Drive" should be fixed. It breaks game balance. If you want a reaction-less drive, it would be trivial to do so in a mod.

Same is true of "Ram-Intake-spam turbojets", and part clipping (without the debug menu), and I say that even as most of what I've been doing lately uses those things.

It's fun to take a game and push it to its limits and see how it breaks. But when those limits are obviously contrary to intent of the game, they should be fixed. Getting angry about the devs fixing the bugs you found is looking at it backwards. You should be grateful for the new challenges, the new limits to look for.

[Odielthen]

I have no idea how it works on the code level. Because it isn't truly a feature, I'm sure it won't be tested for before release. Because of this, the Kraken drive may be fixed not to spite the community, but because the code changes over time.

[Rune]

If I understand the Kraken bug correctly, it's got nothing to do with forces. Well, we call them phantom forces, but they are actually position errors. See, from what I've heard the developers say about the feared Kraken, it happened because the calculations to get the position of a ship (taking into account the center of mass of each part), didn't converge in a nice way in some cases due to floating point calculation errors, causing the position of the parts and the ship to become... well, erratic. Krakensbane fixed it somewhat so that the equations converged faster and with less inaccuracies, but the basic problem is still underlaying the physics system of KSP. So what we experience as acceleration... is actually a rapidly changing position vector, which in turn is accompanied by a changing velocity vector through orbital mechanics... and what is a velocity vector changing over time? Yeah, children, we just defined acceleration.

This hypothesis is also supported by the two distinct modes of operation, surface mode, where you maintain a constant speed (rapidly oscillating all over the place, but constant over long periods of time), and orbital mode, where it gives a constant acceleration (again, it even out to constant). Remember what I said about krakensbane changing the behavior of the bug? Krakensbane only kicks in while in orbit, not on the surface.

Rune. Of course I could also be terribly wrong...