The Official Kerbin Cup Tournament Thread - Final Entries Posted

[Wooks]

I didn't edit out the fuel, I just drove up a fuel truck with 6 LVT30s, attached with a claw and burned it off.

Put a rover with a big empty tank and a Klaw in front: there, a place to hold the fuel while you build the ship. Bet you are slapping your face right now.

SHHHHHH! ಠ_ಠ

Don't interrupt me while I'm being sassy.

Yes, we have a save with the legs empty and that's our main one. I'm playing with an alternate one with legs full because I like suffering, hate myself and really want to pull it off.

Edited July 3, 2014 by Wooks

[allmhuran]

Some frames from the recorded video:

Burning off fuel - Two claws at two heights so I only need the one truck. Using the biggest fuel tank because fuel flows faster into bigger tanks. Also drains and burns off monopropellant.

Lining up the spaceplane

Vertical takeoff because of uneven terrain

Heading for space

Spaaaaaaaace - 160km orbit to make docking easier.

[allmhuran]

Anyhow, I have a feeling this can be done without Klaws at all...

On my first try I attempted to build a spaceplane that kinda "sheathed" the big leg sections and then trap it in there with landing gear, but all the sticky-outy bits means the sheath can't wrap around very much and the column kept prying open the sheath and falling out the bottom.

Edit: Oh, heh, I think I just figured out a reliable way of avoiding the claw bug. Will give it a shot.

Edited July 3, 2014 by allmhuran

[m1sz]

good job allmhuran, that's a nice idea you got there, we had it too...

I'm starting again and I'll try to avoid claws at all costs -.-

[Wooks]

Edit: Oh, heh, I think I just figured out a reliable way of avoiding the claw bug. Will give it a shot.

... *waves a wad of fake 100$ bills* name your price for that information

[The Jedi Master]

Ok, and for the bug-plagued, even if the bugs prevent you from directly doing anything useful with the Arkingthaad tower lander, screenshot everything! What you did, how it went wrong, and how it went boom! My personal vote don't hinge on success. I'm more interested in the creative means used to assemble them. Especially so if you don't do things the easy way!

I can't say for anyone else, of course, but even if the Kraken moves into your apartment and welches on the rent, you can still get my vote.

Thank you for your mercy!

[allmhuran]

OK, the idea I have may or may not work, it's 2am and I'm about to go to bed. But I do have a screenshot of a vehicle in the SPH using the idea. The design is a possible solution to the "claw detach bug", but I don't know if I should publicly post it. On the one hand, it's a workaround for a bug. On the other hand, if it works then it is "the solution" to the challenge.

I will therefore wait for a post from either Rowsdower or whackjob giving me the yay or nay.

[Xacktar]

OK, the idea I have may or may not work, it's 2am and I'm about to go to bed. But I do have a screenshot of a vehicle in the SPH using the idea. The design is a possible solution to the "claw detach bug", but I don't know if I should publicly post it. On the one hand, it's a workaround for a bug. On the other hand, if it works then it is "the solution" to the challenge.

I will therefore wait for a post from either Rowsdower or whackjob giving me the yay or nay.

Its not just the claw, I had it happen first with docking ports and I then switched to the claw to see if it would make any difference. :/ Good luck, though. Any information about why it happens helps.

[allmhuran]

If my reasoning is correct it will work for docking ports as well. My assumption is that multiple dockings to whackjob's column is what causes the issue, but multiple dockings are needed for stability. The idea may be a way to have multiple dockings to the column when attaching, but also not have multple dockings to the column when detaching. Yeah, hard to describe.

[Xacktar]

Sound complicated. Thanks for working on it, by the way. Much appreciated.

[allmhuran]

Testing tomorrow, sleep now! PS: The solution only works if it is specifically multiple dockings *to the column itself* that causes the problem.

[Xacktar]

So... I broke the probe core off the leg by accident, decided to keep going with testing and this time no float glitch. Still testing, but to all teams struggling with float glitch, try breaking those probe cores off the legs!

[HafCoJoe]

Anyway, of course, 10h+ of video and pictures ready to show in my HD.

HD. I wish I had the CP for that ...

[Whackjob]

The probe cores on the legs were only there because I suspected they may not be persistent without them. That's why they come with a decoupler. Snap 'em off when you don't need them.

[Wooks]

The probe cores on the legs were only there because I suspected they may not be persistent without them. That's why they come with a decoupler. Snap 'em off when you don't need them.

... and there was I, adding MORE probe cores.

[HafCoJoe]

Some frames from the recorded video:

Burning off fuel - Two claws at two heights so I only need the one truck. Using the biggest fuel tank because fuel flows faster into bigger tanks. Also drains and burns off monopropellant.

Lining up the spaceplane

Vertical takeoff because of uneven terrain

Heading for space

Spaaaaaaaace - 160km orbit to make docking easier.

Allmhuran I wish I knew about you sooner. Following!

[allmhuran]

So... I broke the probe core off the leg by accident, decided to keep going with testing and this time no float glitch.

I actually thought breaking the probe core off was causing me the issue (since I did break it off when recording the video, but not the previous time).

[Wooks]

I actually thought breaking the probe core off was causing me the issue (since I did break it off when recording the video, but not the previous time).

We removed the probe core and our pieces are in orbit now, but now we are experiencing phantom forces and "float" glitch ... in our docking ships, tugs and refueling units.

I'm going to say it: THIS CHALLENGE IS CURSED! CURSED I SAY!

[allmhuran]

I wish I could tell you what I did differently before but I have no idea.

[Andrew Hansen]

Y'know what I think? I think SQUAD should take this save folder and play with it, to see what bugs they can fix. I mean, not only does the game crash for me every hour or so (stock only), but everyone's been encountering float glitches and other crazy things with this save.

While the float glitch is mainly caused by docking ports or the claw (it seems), it also occurs randomly for me. For example, I was taking a leg to orbit and everything was working fine. Then, at around 10 km up, the camera moved off center and the ship began speeding up faster. Gravity was no longer pulling the ship down. The float glitch had occured. This has also happened to other members of our team.

Of course, since 0.24 is already 90% done cooking, maybe this wouldn't make sense.

[Whackjob]

I'm wondering if I'm not reverse-cursed. I've never seen any of these things. Or at least, don't remember seeing those things. Man, if I had known you guys would have this much trouble with my crafts, I probably would have left it in one coherent piece and maybe just installed it into a launch clamp array upside-down or something.

[Wooks]

I'm wondering if I'm not reverse-cursed. I've never seen any of these things. Or at least, don't remember seeing those things. Man, if I had known you guys would have this much trouble with my crafts, I probably would have left it in one coherent piece and maybe just installed it into a launch clamp array upside-down or something.

No regrets Whackjob, there is no way you alone could have forseen any of this in the short time you had to assemble the challenge. On the other hand, now you know

This is a challenge for the ages, I can't believe how much I have learned this week working on this thing alone and I'm sure SQUAD allseeing eye is hovering over us, this is prime Q&A test ground.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Wooks

[allmhuran]

I'm wondering if I'm not reverse-cursed. I've never seen any of these things.

I've never seen it before either. It seems to be a result of some combination of the strange save ("ships" in the persistence file that are not in the ships folder) and attempts to attach things to them, particularly with multiple points. But it doesn't manifest all the time. Even the second time I ran the scenario (for the video) and got glitches, when I was moving the spaceplane into place I had to reposition a couple of times to get more claws attached, and had no issues when undocking/redocking.

[Wooks]

... It seems to be a result of some combination of the strange save ("ships" in the persistence file that are not in the ships folder) and attempts to attach things to them...

I agree with this analysis, as I said before the floating glitch only happened on the provided ships until we removed the COMs, after that the glitch translated to ships docked to them. It seems like we have managed to control it and we are chugging along with only minor glitches here and there.

Edited July 4, 2014 by Wooks

[Xacktar]

I agree with this analysis, as I said before the floating glitch only happened on the provided ships until we removed the COMs, after that the glitch translated to ships docked to them. It seems like we have managed to control it and we are chugging along with only minor glitches here and there.

Just want to echo what Wooks said and add some thoughts. The removal of the probe cores did help quite a bit, there are some other bugs that came up and some things were noticed. Any craft with multiple claws docking both or more at once seems to reactivate float glitching and having docked sections too close together sometimes caused glitchy explosions on any timewarp. Crashing to desktop became an issue with certain claw-enabled craft whenever attempting to return to space center after connecting to the Whackjobian parts. *Tries to remember other problems. File in brain is too big to process*

Anyhoo, the completely accidentally and totally malicious destruction of probe cores DID help, with copious amounts of quicksaves and quick learning on what to avoid, we've managed to struggle toward progress one CTD at a time.