Runway selfdestructs when launch heavy plane

[Shtirliz72]

I'm just happened to run into one crazy thing. When I try to launch my superheavy SSTO runway selfdestructs at start(because of game mechanics, when plane at start fall from horizontal position/small height (which he has in editor) to runway.

Please fix it. My suggestion - turn off for a few second selfdestructions of runway at start, when plane falls on runway.

P.S. And I want to ask, when Squad will fix that annoying bug with clearing all actions on paired symmetrical parts, when you delete-return/move them?

Edited October 25, 2014 by Shtirliz72

[slumpie]

Should be in the suggestions subforum.

[Wanderfound]

There's likely to be building construction in .90. Hopefully "heavy duty runway" will be one of the options.

In the meantime, three choices:

1) Build sensibly sized planes.

2) Turn off destructible buildings.

3) Use launch clamps. Even with spaceplanes, you can clamp the craft a few inches off the deck and then drop it before takeoff.

[Shtirliz72]

Should be in the suggestions subforum.

Nope, it's a bug in game mechanics. Obviously this shouldn't work like this.

[CaptainKipard]

I kinda hope this gets patched soon. It's a bit weird that it hasn't been yet.

[Shtirliz72]

There's likely to be building construction in .90. Hopefully "heavy duty runway" will be one of the options.

I don't think that this will work. That not the bug with hardness of runways. It's bug with starting engine/scenario.

Actually my bug should be pretty easily fixed if they use my suggestion. I know that this is spike solution, but I don't think that they have enough time and people to rewrite all starting engine.

In the meantime, three choices:

1) Build sensibly sized planes.

2) Turn off destructible buildings.

3) Use launch clamps. Even with spaceplanes, you can clamp the craft a few inches off the deck and then drop it before takeoff.

1) No. I like big machines.

2) This is what I did.

3) This is the same as normal start. Problem there that my plane have his back landing gears above front gears, so that my plane has better angle of attack and wings give me more force to lift. So back-part of my plane is the one who falling and destroing runway.

Edited October 25, 2014 by Shtirliz72

[Master Tao]

For the moment, you could try Kerbal Joint Reinforcement. The Physics Easing feature makes hulking planes smash the runway with less force.

[classyjakey]

1. KJR

2. MAke it less heavy

3. Indestructible Facilities.

You have 3 options.

BONUS : Edit the density of liquidfuel!

[Shtirliz72]

For the moment, you could try Kerbal Joint Reinforcement. The Physics Easing feature makes hulking planes smash the runway with less force.

You think? There is problem with runway, not with plane. My plane is undamaged even after runway blow ups, but I can't do anything, because my landing gear is sticked in destroyed runway. =(

And even this will help, it has it's own limits. Starting with some mass of plane runway will be destroyed anyway.

But thanks anyway, I will try this. =)

[zxczxczbfg]

I can attest that KJR does work (though not for the REALLY heavy stuff) because it "smooths out" the game's physics, so that they start gradually, rather than with a jolt like in the stock game.

[Dunbaratu]

I'd say the real source of the bug is just the way the game spawns planes above the runway and just drops them. It's very reasonable that a large airplane just dropped from a couple meters up onto its landing gear would would damage the runway (and the plane. The rate of vertical descent during a good landing is less than you'd get from a few meters of dropping). What's not reasonable is why is KSP dropping planes from 2 meters up as the means of spawning them?

If there's some issue with needing to account for variation and the game doesn't know exactly where the surface of the runway is, then it should "drop" the plane under lower gravity first, then after it's down, turn the gravity up to normal. It's not fair to expect people to account for the dropping in their design as that's an artifact of the game, not a real-world problem.

[Shtirliz72]

I'd say the real source of the bug is just the way the game spawns planes above the runway and just drops them. It's very reasonable that a large airplane just dropped from a couple meters up onto its landing gear would would damage the runway (and the plane. The rate of vertical descent during a good landing is less than you'd get from a few meters of dropping). What's not reasonable is why is KSP dropping planes from 2 meters up as the means of spawning them?

If there's some issue with needing to account for variation and the game doesn't know exactly where the surface of the runway is, then it should "drop" the plane under lower gravity first, then after it's down, turn the gravity up to normal. It's not fair to expect people to account for the dropping in their design as that's an artifact of the game, not a real-world problem.

You are right at start. But I can tell you that you can lower down to groud your plane in editor and he will be started with almost no height from ground. But it wont work when your plane has angle of attack(when back and front landing gears lays on diffrents height). The plane will start at horisontal position and part where landing gear is heighter will fall.

Back of my plane fall down from very small height(maybe twenty centimeters) and even this was triggered to blow up runway.

I think you misunderstood one things - at the lauch your plane would be in position which you left in editor and lowerest part of your plane will be not so height from ground(or even on ground if you left plane on ground in editor). This is how it was when I launch.

Upd. I agree, there should be rewrited that part where game seen only your lower part of plane and start it with position from editor. I think defore start of plane game should searched for 3 point of plane that touch ground under center of plane mass and start plane on them. That would be ideal.

Edited October 25, 2014 by Shtirliz72

[Wanderfound]

1) No. I like big machines.

2) This is what I did.

3) This is the same as normal start. Problem there that my plane have his back landing gears above front gears, so that my plane has better angle of attack and wings give me more force to lift. So back-part of my plane is the one who falling and destroing runway.

You can adjust the angle of craft in the SPH so that they hit the runway with all wheels at once. Just grab the root part and rotate.

[Shtirliz72]

You can adjust the angle of craft in the SPH so that they hit the runway with all wheels at once. Just grab the root part and rotate.

Tried. Big planes doesn't have large angle of attack. Even with SHIFT rotate steps are too large.

[Wanderfound]

Tried. Big planes doesn't have large angle of attack. Even with SHIFT rotate steps are too large.

Part Angle Display is your friend there. You can adjust the rotation increments however you want; I think the fine adjustment bottoms out at 0.1° per step.

[Padishar]

Part Angle Display is your friend there. You can adjust the rotation increments however you want; I think the fine adjustment bottoms out at 0.1° per step.

Actually, the rotation increment cycling bottoms out at 0.01 degrees and the current angle displays show two decimal places, but you can actually enter any increment so, theoretically, it actually bottoms out at the limit of single precision floating point numbers. I have tested 0.0001 degrees and, while the current angle display only shows two decimal places, the display does change after 100 presses of the rotate key so the increment is applied internally.

[Dunbaratu]

But the existence of a mod to workaround the bug should in no way be taken as a reason *not* to call it a bug and complain about it in the support forum like this. It still is a bug and still needs fixing. It's nice that there's a mod that lets you adjust the angle that precisely, but it's a bug that it's even necessary to do so in the first place. Real planes don't magically teleport into existence above the runway and then drop down onto it, therefore any problems that occur as an effect of that should be properly viewed as an undesirable artifact of the simulation, rather than a thing players should have to compensate for in their gameplay. One simple fix would be to design a bit of taxiway just off the edge of the foot of the runway that, unlike the rest of the runway, is indestructable, and have the spawning happen there. Make the indestrucable part just one patch big enough to handle whatever the SPH lets you make and no more. That way people still have to deal with landing planes on the destructable runway and the consequences of doing so poorly, because one patch of indestructable surface isn't enough to land on - just enough to spawn on.

[Padishar]

I don't think anyone has seriously suggested that. Most of the posts have been suggestions on how to work around the problem. However, there have already been numerous (e.g. more than 10) threads about this subject in various sections of this forum, it is already in the public bug tracker and has also been forwarded on to Squad's internal bug tracker. These are much more compelling reasons not to post about it (again) here on the forum.

[Dunbaratu]

I don't think anyone has seriously suggested that. Most of the posts have been suggestions on how to work around the problem. However, there have already been numerous (e.g. more than 10) threads about this subject in various sections of this forum, it is already in the public bug tracker and has also been forwarded on to Squad's internal bug tracker. These are much more compelling reasons not to post about it (again) here on the forum.

There have been plenty of replies in this very thread that tried to put the blame on poor vessel design by the player as opposed to it being a buggy artifact of the simulation in need of fixing.

I'm glad to find out that SQUAD doesn't agree with those replies and does correctly consider it a bug.

[Shtirliz72]

Part Angle Display is your friend there. You can adjust the rotation increments however you want; I think the fine adjustment bottoms out at 0.1° per step.

Yes, it might be workaround, but masochistic one. I don't think many people would always do this before start after every change in editor. It's far more easy just to turn off "destructable buildings".

Edited October 27, 2014 by Shtirliz72

[Wanderfound]

Yes, it might be workaround, but masochistic one. I don't think many people would always do this before start after every change in editor. It's far more easy just to turn off "destructable buildings".

Yup; it's a workaround that is only required if you insist on both maintaining destructible buildings and launching oversized craft. Personally, I just build sensible ships; a 100t fuel tanker will launch just fine and deliver more than a Rockomax 64 into orbit in a single flight.

Regardless, it's an issue that's likely to be sorted in a few months when 0.90 drops.

[Shtirliz72]

So... Should I report this bug to official bugtracker?

P.S. And I want to ask, when Squad will fix that annoying bug with clearing all actions on paired symmetrical parts, when you delete-return/move them?

And, strange to see rhis, I don't see this epic bug in bugtracker ether. Anyone see him? Should I report this one too?

[Alshain]

Yup; it's a workaround that is only required if you insist on both maintaining destructible buildings and launching oversized craft. Personally, I just build sensible ships; a 100t fuel tanker will launch just fine and deliver more than a Rockomax 64 into orbit in a single flight.

Regardless, it's an issue that's likely to be sorted in a few months when 0.90 drops.

Define sensible. I like big planes. It's not about what they can do it's about what you can build, which is what Kerbal Space Program used to be, once upon a time.

My definition of sensible is not constructing a runway out of Nitroglycerin.

[Padishar]

So... Should I report this bug to official bugtracker?

Please see my post #18 on page 2 of this thread...

The public bug number is #3351. Feel free to add more information to this bug (and/or vote the bug up if you think it needs to be fixed).

Define sensible. I like big planes. It's not about what they can do it's about what you can build, which is what Kerbal Space Program used to be, once upon a time.

My definition of sensible is not constructing a runway out of Nitroglycerin.

He's not saying you can't build ridiculously large planes, just that, if you want to, then you will have to use one (or more) of the mentioned workarounds until the problem is fixed.

[Wanderfound]

Define sensible. I like big planes. It's not about what they can do it's about what you can build, which is what Kerbal Space Program used to be, once upon a time.

My definition of sensible is not constructing a runway out of Nitroglycerin.

For me? Sensible is sized appropriately to do the job. I haven't found anything to do that requires an aircraft big enough to trash the runway on takeoff. Even my bulk fuel tankers and heavy cargo lifters tend to top out at about 125 ton.

But that's just me; plenty of other folks like to build huge things, and that's all cool. There is no one true way.

Sure, Squad messed up a bit [1] by not smoothing out the initial physics drop and setting the destruction thresholds of the runway and launchpad too low, but I don't think that the basic concept of destructible launchpads/runways is a bad idea.

If I stuff up a landing and slam a large aircraft into the runway at crash speeds, it ​should take the runway temporarily out of commission. If a design stuffup on my part means that my rocket slams into the ground the moment I try to launch, it should damage the launchpad in the process. That's what happens in reality, and I see it as something that adds to the challenge and immersion of the game if done right. The implementation just needs a little fine tuning.

The nature of KSP is changing, from a pure sandbox toolkit to a tycoon game with strong sandbox elements. This is going to happen; it's been the stated goal from the beginning, and it's a direction that a lot of players are happy with. But Squad are maintaining science and sandbox mode, and pretty much all of the new elements are optional or avoidable. If you want to continue playing ye olde style KSP, you can. Nobody has to do a testing contract or watch a building explode unless they choose to.

I play in the sandbox, and I also play career. Sometimes I enjoy the freedom of sandbox mode, but often I find that working within constraints is more interesting. It's a free verse vs haiku sorta deal; formal constraints can limit creativity, but they can also inspire it. They've both got their place, and there is no good reason to say that one is better than the other except in terms of personal preference.

[1] Actually, a lot of the glitches in .25 make me wonder what the Experimentals team were doing for the few weeks they had the game. Did no-one try to launch a huge rocket? Why didn't anyone notice how OP'd Outsourced R&D is? Etc.