Yet Another Obstreperous Docking Port

[Srpadget]

There seems to have been a rash of docking port issues of late. And I've got another.

I launched a space station core recently. It's a variation of a design I've used before, and I know from prior experience that its Clamp-o-Tron Sr attachment to its booster is too wobbly to survive launch unaided, so I provide launch restraints in the form of struts attached to I-beams which I then discard once it's safely in orbit.

One of the ways in which this was a "variant" was that I added Clamp-o-Tron Jrs to its fuel-storage tank and attached the launch-support I-beams to those. Idea was that I could then get rid of them by undocking the port, and the I-beam floats away. I've done this before in other contexts (though I confess this was the first time I did it with Jrs). Works just fine.

Except this time it didn't. I click on the docking port, and the ONLY option I am given is "control from here". No "undock" option. All 4 of these docking ports behave identically; but I also set up a quad of Clamp-o-Tron Srs the same way, and they behaved as expected.

My first thought was that maybe the Jr was too small, and the I-beam slopped over onto the tank and was thus irrevocably attached. However, this does not seem to be the case, at least with a visual inspection.

Looking at the responses to other folks' docking port issues, I imagine I can edit my persistent.sfs to fix the port...IF I knew what to look for and what to change it to. (Alternately, I could "cheat" with a more "game-y" solution and just delete the I-beams from persistent.sfs...but I suspect I'd have to change something about the docking port's state rather than just delete the I-beam, and I don't know what changes I'd have to make to the docking port.)

Help?

Edited September 11, 2014 by Srpadget
Mark back to 'Unanswered', darn it!

[Huzke]

Have a read of this: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/35777-Can-t-Undock-Bug-How-To-Fix

It seems to cover what your problem is as well as the persistent file editing. Have fun messing around with the coding, also needless to say, don't forget to make a backup!

I have had this issue as well but fortunately I tested my craft on the launchpad and found that it didn't work haha.

I found what I had done wrong was placing the attached object on the surface of the docking port, instead of attaching it too the little node available (idk if that makes sense) I tested this a few other time and it's only a problem for my jr ports. Placing the docking port on the other object however I never had a problem, node or no node.

Idk if that will help you for future crafts or not but goodluck up there!

EDIT: Better luck next time claw But I agree with him, his link is better. Roscoe's post was just the first link I had at the time.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Huzke

[Claw]

I would recommend against deleting the I-beams from your save file. Your I-beams will be gone, but you probably won't like the resulting crashes and exploding ships.

You can take a look at this thread. You can pick the correct section, depending on exactly how things are broken: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/78863-FIX-Dock-Undocking-Bug-in-0-23-5

Let me know if it's not making sense. Also, make sure you aren't connecting the I-beams to the surface of the docking port, instead of the node.

Cheers,

Claw

EDIT: I see I was ninja'd. The above link to Roscoe's post is similar to the link I posted. I might be a bit biased, but I think my link fills in some of the details missing from Roscoe's post.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Claw

[Srpadget]

Thanks, I'll look into it. (I have a sneaking suspicion that I may have connected the beams to the node surfaces; but I'll poke at it and see what happens. Worst comes to worst, I evacuate the station and destroy it, then launch again. Huzzah for a healthy bank account!)

[Srpadget]

Well dang. No joy.

Now that I know what to look for, I can verify that the I-beams are indeed SURFACE ATTACHED to the docking ports. On the plus side, I edited the docking ports suggested in Claw's thread, and when reloading the edited persistent file, Kerbin High Port did NOT explode (yay!). On the minus side, the I-beams remain solidly welded to the edited docking ports (boo!)

The next thing to try would presumably be to make a similar edit to the I-beams so that they are node-attached rather than surface-attached. But to do that right, I'd need to know how far the I-beam would have to MOVE to be properly aligned, yes?

EDIT: Curiouser and curiouser! After loading the edited persistent.sfs, trying to decouple the I-beams from the ports (and failing), then quitting out...KSP re-edited my edits. Now the docking ports are all back to 'state = Ready' (I had edited them to 'state = PreAttached' per instructions) and for some reason KSP decided that the I-beams are attached to the BOTTOM docking port node rather than the top node. (Which would certainly explain why I can't undock from them...!)

Edited September 11, 2014 by Srpadget

[Huzke]

Hopefully Claw comes back with some information, i'll try not to steal his thunder this time. But if you are just trying to remove the I-Beams... have you thought of either sending up another ship to just collide with them... although I think they are pretty tough so if you don't mind a bit of debugging bring up wack-a-kerbal and go to town trying to snipe them off.

I once landed on a kerbal and he got stuck in the landing gear, no matter how I twisted or turned he was pretty damn happy chilling there, so once I got back into orbit around the moon, I had a good time trying to blow up the landing gear without a) killing him, killing the other two in the command module, c) having 700 mini balls orbiting the mun.

I honestly don't know where I would be without quicksaves...

[AlexinTokyo]

Might be easier to replace the current ship with a new one.

Essentially, place the corrected ship on the launch pad, exit the game and then swap the orbital parameters between the old and the new. (Make a backup, always make a backup).

The result should be that the corrected ship ends up in orbit and can be flown as normal, and the defective ship can be recovered from the pad (or destroyed, or whatever).

I'm sure I've seen answers like this including the actual lines of the persistence file that need to be copied, but the only one I can find is kind of old. I'm not immediately sure if there have been any changes.

[Claw]

Well dang. No joy.

Now that I know what to look for, I can verify that the I-beams are indeed SURFACE ATTACHED to the docking ports. On the plus side, I edited the docking ports suggested in Claw's thread, and when reloading the edited persistent file, Kerbin High Port did NOT explode (yay!). On the minus side, the I-beams remain solidly welded to the edited docking ports (boo!)

If they are surface mounted, my fixes will not work as posted. As I'm sitting here thinking about it, you probably aren't going to get away with a simple edit to convert the surface to node attachment. You'll need to add lines to the docking ports to attach them, since surface attachments don't create an anchor point on the parent part. I also don't know which end is the default node attach, and which end is the surface attach for the I-beam. That can cause problems (as it sounds like you've found).

EDIT: Curiouser and curiouser! After loading the edited persistent.sfs, trying to decouple the I-beams from the ports (and failing), then quitting out...KSP re-edited my edits. Now the docking ports are all back to 'state = Ready' (I had edited them to 'state = PreAttached' per instructions) and for some reason KSP decided that the I-beams are attached to the BOTTOM docking port node rather than the top node. (Which would certainly explain why I can't undock from them...!)

That's because your I-beams are not nodally attached. The game is trying to "fix" what it sees as a broken save file since you told the docking port has something PreAttached, but yet there's nothing attached to its node.

At this point, I think it would take less time to build and launch a new ship than to fiddle with the save file (unless you want to learn more about how they are structured).

Hopefully Claw comes back with some information, i'll try not to steal his thunder this time.

You're not stealing any thunder. We are all here to help out! Roscoe's post was the basis for mine. His is just a bit outdated with recent game changes.

Cheers,

~Claw