Exploding Launch Pad

[Srpadget]

So I finally had my first experience with "destructible buildings". It happened when I took a vehicle I've successfully used a couple times in V0.24 and put it on the launch pad.

And the launch pad promptly blew up. Near as I can tell, from the stress of setting the rocket on it...?

Now, this was NOT a Humongo-Booster[tm], certainly not by the standards I've seen tossed around here. Most of the mass was in 9 Kerbodyne SRBs that get it most of the way to orbit; those add up to around 200 tons, so the whole thing on the pad is probably 250 tons or thereabouts.

I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there who have successfully launched vastly heavier lifters than that, in V0.25 with destructible buildings turned on. I have also seen complaints here that the runway is too fragile (though I haven't experienced that yet, myself).

So how have others worked around this? Is the era of Heavy Lift over?

(And for that matter, do we know if the devs have any plans to toughen up the runway and launch pad?)

Edited October 15, 2014 by Srpadget
Mark as 'Answered'

[Geschosskopf]

Use launch clamps to jack the rocket up a couple meters off the ground. Problem solved, even for monstrously monumental rockets. Just make sure you have the staging done right so it doesn't fall on the pad anyway .

[Srpadget]

D'oh! "Launch clamps: they're not just for stability any more!"

[Pecan]

Just don't try landing back on the pad - however gently you touch-down it'll still blow up.

[Srpadget]

Just don't try landing back on the pad - however gently you touch-down it'll still blow up.

::snort:: Yeah, right, like THAT'S a danger. My "precision re-entry/landings" when returning rockets to Kerbin are now getting good enough that I *usually* don't hit the mountains to the west, or end up too awfully many kilometers out to sea in the east.

Thank goodness funds are so easy to come by (flag spam! *ka-ching!* orbital science spam *ka-ching!*) that it's just gilding the lily to try to extract every possible Kredit of recovery costs, or I'd never fly anything I couldn't launch in a spaceplane...