Deep Space Kraken

The Deep Space Kraken was the name given by the community to a bug prior to version 0.17. The name Kraken comes from the legendary deep-sea creature that supposedly attacked and sometimes destroyed ancient sailors' ships, a good analogy for "something" unexplainedly attacking and destroying players' ships. Since the original bug was fixed, "Kraken" has become a symbol for many bugs, which are often not related to the original bug.

The Deep Space Kraken was a famous bug and is namesake of other bugs in Kerbal Space Program. It was removed with version 0.17. The bug could be triggered by moving at high velocities in the game. The cause was that KSP prior to 0.17 would move the ship in space, instead of moving space around the ship. The high velocities caused floating-point errors in the code which caused parts to be slightly misaligned or misplaced on the ship which would in turn cause the physics engine to detect the parts breaking off or colliding.

A fix was implemented in 0.17, involving offsetting velocity to the universe around the vessel meaning that the focused vessel will always be at a low speed. However, this caused a similar bug to appear, called the Deep Space Cthulhu, which can break apart ships when quickly switching out of high time accelerations (as of 0.17). Another side effect of this fix is that the Kraken can strike vessels which are passed closely and at very high speed, because the speed is offloaded to them instead of the active vessel.

Spoiler: A related Easter Egg

One of the Easter Eggs in the game is a dead deep space Kraken that can be found on Bop, the small rocky moon orbiting Jool.

Main Krakens

This is a list of bugs that are attributed to the Kraken bug but are actually the result of physics glitches.

General Kraken

The gyro Kraken strikes a lone kerbal!

General Kraken or The Kraken mainly occurs during interplanetary travel. General Kraken only breaks a few parts of a spacecraft which may then collide and result in explosions. The Kraken may also force parts slowly through each other and result in catastrophic explosions. Unlike the Cthulhu, the Kraken tends to attack when exiting the Map View and IVA mode. This Kraken was largely fixed much earlier in the KSP development, with a system officially named "Krakensbane" which changed the reference point from Kerbin to the current vessel, thus reducing the rounding errors that started the chain reaction. They only effect a few parts and are annoying if you forgot to Quicksave.

Gyro Kraken

Gyro Kraken is when a spacecraft will spin around and vibrate so intensely that the spacecraft will be obliterated. The rate of spinning is so extreme that it is impossible to be replicated manually. This is actually a bug with parts clipping through each other and colliding with each other, causing what is also known as 'ghost forces'. On occasion, it will appear as though something is hitting your craft at high speeds rather than just spinning out of control - as it spins too fast for it to be rendered.

Warp Kraken

Warp Kraken is a bug that attacks Kerbals exiting spacecraft that have just come out of a high time warp. Upon contact with the surface, the bug causes the kerbal to be shot out of the solar system at an insane velocity (possibly exceeding the speed of light) while destroying all spacecraft in the vicinity.

Deep Space Cthulhu

Deep Space Cthulhu is a fan-made term for a version 0.17 bug similar to the Kraken, except it only seems to attack when exiting high time warp speeds. Instead of adding phantom forces, Deep Space Cthulhu instead tends to detach parts from one another. In milder, yet more infuriating forms, Deep Space Cthulhu will instead detach small groups of engines, making it impossible to perform orbital burns. Cthulhu is a cosmic entity from H.P. Lovecraft's novels, and bears a slight resemblance to a Kraken. It has been reported that Cthulhu can attack ships that are still on the launch pad when coming out of a high time warp.

Wormhole Kraken

The Wormhole Kraken has been reported to affect ships as they are leaving Kerbin's atmosphere. If there is a lot of weight below a decoupler (which is most likely also the center of mass), the rocket will clip through itself. While in Kerbin's low atmosphere, the bottom part of the link will start moving faster than the top due to the normal acceleration. Once the top of this broken part passes the actual top of the rocket, the entire rocket will obliterate itself, leaving no two pieces attached.

Hell Kraken

The Hell Kraken

Mun rover loaded again after being affected by the hell Kraken (v. 0.22)

The Hell Kraken is a bug which was discovered during the 0.21 version. It seems to strike when a kerbonaut on EVA hits a celestial body's surface, causing the screen to turn black, with the UI remaining though. The altitude will remain at 2/3 Mm which displays as "666,666 m". As of version 0.23, the altitude GUI will display "666,666", and will change numbers rapidly like so: "666,666"-"555,555"-"444,444", etc. A good example of this is Danny2462's famous "Having Fun in the Solar System(2:43)" video.

The navball also disappears, and when returning to the space center, the screen remains black and the game must be manually closed from the desktop. This Kraken is particularly dangerous because when encountered on the surface of a planet, it causes all craft in the vicinity to be destroyed, and those left are shot out of Kerbol orbit. The log in Debug Toolbar shows "look viewing vector is zero". As of V1.1, the altitude GUI will go blank, and the game will crash. It "seems" to be fixed in V1.6.0

NaN Kraken

The NaN Kraken is a bug which can only be evoked if the orbits of celestial bodies are altered, via a mod or the alteration of the game's code. If a ship is on the surface of a planet, and another planet is suddenly moved so that the craft is within its SoI, the sudden change in gravity will cause the craft to go towards the latter at incredible speeds, and will sometimes even go through a planet to accomplish this. Please note that the gravity of the second planet does not have to be greater as only one gravity source is allowed at any given time.

Kore Kraken

This bug was [1] discovered in KSP version 0.22. This type of Kraken will only occur when parts somehow manage to come to rest below the surface of the sea of Kerbin. When resumed some parts may not make contact with the ground and can actually float through the ground and towards the core of the planet. When the parts get near enough to the core of the planet, they will gain extreme speeds (about 97.8% of the speed of light) and shoot out towards infinity, not actually hitting the far side of Kerbin (likely because tick-based physics at high speeds can easily "miss" collisions) when they shoot out.

6 Death Kraken

The 6 Death Kraken attacks mostly during early launch stages. It strikes craft that is inside of Kerbin's atmosphere. Around 6,000 meters, at random, the craft will accelerate suddenly, blasting out of view. The trajectory will wobble extremely fast. The engine sound will become warped and robotic-sounding. It is impossible to recover from this form of the Kraken, as the craft is out of view and extremely likely to crash. You can save your Kerbal by going on EVA out of the ship and hope you survive. Reverting back to "Launch" or "VAB/SPH" may not fix it, as this Kraken will most likely strike again. The only way to vanquish this Kraken is to re-install the game. The 6 Death Kraken has not been confirmed in .24 or .25. It appears to be caused by the game attempting an extremely high physics warp, which breaks everything.

The 6 Death Kraken has been sighted and confirmed for 1.0.5, as of 12/15/2015.

A similar, less dangerous, Kraken has also been sighted, where physics will accelerate slightly at 6,000 meters, similar to physical warp but less intense. No actual acceleration is observed, but it is similarly relentless.

Ass Kraken

The Ass Kraken - the worst of them all

The Ass Kraken, discovered by forum user Clockwork13, is a rare Kraken that occurs while loading quicksaves. It makes the screen get completely wiped out by red fire particles that can be seen when entering atmospheres. The screen then turns white, and the game needs to be manually closed. Once the game is restarted, all of ships will disappear except for EVAs and Flags. Occasionally debris in orbit around the sun will survive. When reopening the save, it says that the parts to just about all of ships are missing. This doesn't just affect ships but also affects the research. All archives go unharmed, but random parts go missing. The node is still researched, just a lot of parts require another entry fee to gain access to them again. There seem to be varying degrees of Ass Kraken, sometimes deleting parts and ships, and other times leaving them unharmed. This is probably the most devastating, but rarest Kraken. The Ass Kraken has been confirmed in .90, so be careful with quick-loading. The name stems from the discoverer's initial frustration after discovering the Ass Kraken. It is unknown if this bug occurs with recent versions of KSP.

Ass Kraken after unpausing for the first time

Ass Kraken unpaused :note the hud failure

Map Kraken

The Map Kraken - You screwed something up.

Appears in 0.24 only in the map screen when switching directly to it the moment you get on the launch pad. The vessel will be destroyed and blasted through your map screen as you stand by, helpless to say a word. This is an 'Ultra-rare' Kraken and has not been able to be reproduced. (This may be due to the fact that the incident shown to the right occurred in the presence of mods.) This Kraken has been able to be reproduced by Forum user Resident_Crash_Lander without the presence of mods; However the criteria for this occurring are incredibly rare, as you need a launch clamp to detach from the launchpad and collide with a vessel in motion and open the map at the exact time of the collision, This occurred in .24.

Drag Kraken

This is a gigantic mashup of different variable-related effects and may as well be the most complex Kraken ever.

Stage 1: Minus Drag

When you set the drag value to something really high, like 12345678.0, you experience a lot of drag, as usual. In some cases, you glitch into the ground. But, in other cases, you suddenly shoot off at ridiculously high speeds, hundreds of times the speed of light. Those two glitches may be caused by some drag-related variable overflowing, causing massive negative drag and shooting you off at insane speeds. At those speeds, you soon encounter the second stage: Low precision.

Stage 2: Imprecision

Soon, your capsule starts shaking due to reduced precision. This is caused by the extreme distance. Your capsule soon starts shaking violently from low precision, and when you EVA, you get shot off at about 115 quintillion m/s! This extreme speed is enough to cause some serious precision reduction. Once you timewarp to yottameters, the “steps” get truly macroscopic. Now, the moon orbits get bit-crushed, becoming more and more glitchy. The camera also starts to glitch out. At the extreme, all the planets are in the same “step”, and even the sun starts to glitch out! Going back to launch seems to fix it, but things are still glitchy.

Stage 3: Land Glitch and Final Kraken

You try it again, but you glitch into the ground. After that, the land gets completely corrupted, possibly due to other “bit-crushing” effects, and the final Kraken happens in a few seconds. This final Kraken is the same as the Hell Kraken, and is independent of, but caused by, the rest of the weirdness.

Minor/Poorly Documented Krakens

Action Kraken

This Kraken occurs when you open action group editior in flight. you cannot control orientation of your view, and map view is broken. the only way to fix it is to restart the game. tested in 1.11.1

Apocalypse Kraken

The Apocalypse Kraken is a bug of unknown cause and unknown rarity. Little is known about this bug because it has been recorded only once. This report has not been confirmed. It causes the craft to accelerate to ridiculous speeds, exiting the solar system in seconds. After leaving the solar system, the map shows empty space. Reverting the flight will return the craft to Kerbin, but the map will remain empty. No sun or Mun will appear in the sky, and Kerbin experiences an eternal night. This affects all save files, lasting until the game is reinstalled.

Kerbin Kraken

The Kerbin Kraken is a bug found in 0.25 to 1.0 or earlier than 0.25. It is a fairly small glitch that attacks when you are time-warping toward Kerbin and you enter the map screen. When the ship crashes into Kerbin with the map screen open, Kerbin will explode and you will be on an escape velocity out of the solar system.

Ghost Kraken

The Ghost Kraken is a bug when entering a time warp. The ship being controlled will bend until most of the parts have detached. Phantom forces will pull parts down to the planet until they crash into it. It is possible that when you reselect the ship's command pod the ship will duplicate itself and will be okay. It is impossible to time warp while being affected by this Kraken because the parts are under acceleration.

Kerbal Kraken

This Kraken occurs in 0.24 & 0.24.2 when the player attempts to edit save file configuration settings of the original three astronauts--or possibly all active astronauts--at any time, whether the game is running or not. If a player attempts to edit something in the .Persistent file in the save folder, the game will glitch, causing the player to be unable to access the VAB and SPH. The player can access Mission Control, R & D, The Tracking Station, and the Astronaut Complex; However, when attempting to return to the KSC screen, the screen becomes locked and stuck. The player can still click buttons and control some parts of the game, but cannot exit the current building or the save file. The only fix is to delete the affected save file. This Kraken is particularly dangerous because it requires you to delete the entire save file.

In .90, a version of this Kraken can appear when you fire a Kerbal (even one who is MIA) if that Kerbal had completed an achievement (such as first flight, first Mun landing, altitude records, etc.). Editing the save file to add the Kerbal back in with the "Dead" status will allow the game to work normally while still freeing up the slot to hire another Kerbonaut. There is a fix among the Stock Bug Fix Modules that will prevent this bug from happening, but any save already hit by this will still need to be manually edited.

Space Center Kraken

This Kraken occurs rarely when you build a vehicle that extends beyond the VAB or SPH limits, upon leaving either It causes you to zoom in near the VAB and freezes your camera control. It is difficult but not impossible to access the main menu from this state but the game must be restarted in order to access the save file in which it occurred again without this Kraken appearing. This has only been observed in versions .24, and .24.2, and was reported by wiki user TJ McCaustland.

Launchpad Kraken

This Kraken occurs any time an exceptionally large spacecraft is placed on the launchpad in version 0.25. Once the craft has loaded, the weight of the spacecraft triggers the explosion sequence of the launchpad, destroying first the launchpad, and then breaking the craft apart and sending any surviving pieces flying in different directions. The remaining pieces can then destroy other facilities. This can be avoided by using Launch Stability Enhancers to elevate the heavy craft above the launchpad. This may not be an actual Kraken, rather a bug associated with version 0.25. Still, it's something to worry about.

Quicksave Kraken

A new, quite poorly documented Kraken can cause quicksaves to exhibit what is known as "loading teleportation", i.e. when we quicksave close to a ground comms structure, like the one on HarvesteR Massif, the loaded quicksave will contain misplaced vessels and flags, that will levitate in the air indefinitely...

Solar Kraken

This Kraken happens very rarely when switching to a ship in a 180-degree inclination in an orbit. Then, it destroys the entire solar system, removes the orbit indicators, and leaves only your ship, and some random parts flying near you, even if you haven't unlocked them with science left. Reloading the game fixes this.

Phase Kraken

Phase Kraken is when parts of spacecraft will clip inwards through itself when anchored weakly and enough thrust is applied. This phasing happens not vertically, but rotating inwards around an anchor point. Usually happens with boosters, the parts will phase through the craft at time warp and eventually explode, either because you leave time warp or the thrust stops being applied at it whips back and the other ends collide, destroying all parts in the explosion radius. Note: this may fall under another Kraken or not actually be a Kraken, but I consider it to be a Kraken, and its own one. Known to exist in 1.0.4.

Rover Kraken

A possible new Kraken, it occurs frequently when testing rovers on Kerbin. Rovers will hit invisible bumps, coming a few meters off of the ground and will usually land wheels up. Any rover with combustible parts is usually destroyed on impact. It appears to be very common in 1.0.4. The bug is probably caused by spaces in between Kerbin's Terrain Tiles, that act as bumps and cause R.U.D - Random Unplanned Disassembly.

NoMass Kraken

A very interesting Kraken manifests itself when a craft's mass leaves the positives. This can happen by part-editing, for example, let's say we create a part with -20.0 mass value. This object, if launched alone, will float up to around 0.7 meters, then remain stationary and immovable. It can still be destroyed. Now, if an object is attached to our massless part, a spaceplane, for example, we will observe it get unmovable. Upon applying thrust, the affected ship will start shaking rapidly, losing integrity and falling apart. Objects free of the massless piece will behave as expected. This bug was first checked by Alto and has not been proven. It is anticipated that the momentum equation returns a damaged value, that cannot be acted upon by other parts.

Docking Kraken

The Docking Kraken does not actually affect the craft itself, but rather interferes with its instruments, showing a sudden and inexplicable gain of velocity, even if the actual relative velocity is zero. While not damaging, it makes docking nearly impossible, unless the affected player is very good at flying by eye.

Water Kraken

This Kraken may happen when you are landed on water, and you time-warp resulting in your kerbal dropping 1000 meters into the water. It is caused by the physics engine not rendering the surface correctly and allowing the kerbal to fall, can cause minor spaghettification.

Intercontinental Kraken

The Intercontinental Kraken was arguable, the first-ever Kraken. It happens in 0.7.3 (the pre-alpha stage) when you move too far from the KSC. Your craft starts wobbling and possibly completely disassembles itself. (R.U.D)

Launchclamp Kraken

The launchclamp has extreme integrity... Because of that, it can survive a Kraken. Let us have some fun and trigger one! Place a big rocket on the launchpad with one clamp so it bends. Then engage some engines so that the clamp is strained more! Next step... hit the craft on time warp with a different craft and object thrower! Bam! The clamps separate upon touching the runway/launchpad with their top and damage it! Luckily they reenter the atmosphere after a nice hop! Mine ended up on the arctic as well as in water... Have fun! Please also write Your experience to make this important Kraken data more valid!

Spaghetti Kraken

Sometimes, after a Kerbal disembarks from a spacecraft on a slope, the Kerbal begins falling strangely, with its limbs stretching to painful and insane lengths, similar to the effect caused by black holes' "spaghettification". The Kerbal keeps "falling" even after it hits smooth terrain and eventually gets killed from the "impact". This Kraken is found in Version 1.2.1 - 1.6.1. Reported by wiki user RedRapter a.k.a forum user RandomGuy1824.

Distance Kraken

This Kraken was very severe (And funny) when it still existed. It was activated by spinning extremely fast, and doing an EVA after the craft's spinning was slowed by something unknown. The effects were that the Kerbal would move at faster-than-light speeds, causing the game to bug out and glitch map view. If the smallest celestial body, Gilly, had the camera focused on it, all other bodies would appear to overlap, appearing and disappearing rapidly. The Kerbolar System would become completely glitched, as orbit lines and planets blink and distort wildly, sometimes appearing duplicated. This also affected every save file, and you would need to restart KSP to fix it. This is probably caused by KSP having a supermassive number, which then makes KSP completely trash numerical accuracy. This was fixed in 1.2 when the new PhysX rolled in, fixing the Distance Kraken (As of 1.2.2). Not to be confused with the Gyro Kraken. (These videos show this Kraken in action)

Wheel Kraken

The Wheel Kraken is a Kraken that is activated by wheels. The Wheel Kraken can make parts with wheels in them float up in the air, and go out of control. This Kraken is also the culprit of the thing where if Kerbals are hit with wheels, the hit Kerbal stretches before hitting the ground and exploding. The stretched Kerbal can damage spacecraft and also damage the KSC. The outcome is the Spaghetti Kraken's main effect. This is confirmed for KSP 1.1.2.

Lock-Kerbal Kraken

This Kraken is very rare, and if your Kerbal ragdolls after something is triggered, and get up, you will be locked in the position that you were in when rag-dolled.

Compact Kraken

The Compact Kraken is an occurrence when having a large craft go through maximum time warp, and out very quickly, The craft will squeeze together making a glitchy ball or other shape of parts, and immediately explode.

Thermal Cooling System Kraken

This Kraken can be rarely found when after docking a part with Thermal Cooling Systems (doesn't matter how big or small the docking part is) onto a surface base and then exiting the game or going to the Space Center, such part will start spinning and alternating from left to right. This Kraken can destroy entire bases by flipping them completely. A "solution" to this problem is to quickly undock the part, though it will still spin out of control until the Thermal Cooling Systems are destroyed, which is unpractical as because it may also spin towards a base.

SAS Kraken

This is a Kraken that seems to attack in 1.1 and beyond if SAS is left on during flight while a ship is orbiting a celestial body. The SAS Kraken can rip apart a ship and kill the entire crew very easily. It is currently not yet known if this is actually a Kraken or not, but it can do nasty damage to an unsuspecting player by destroying a craft.

Impact Kraken

This Kraken, found in the 1.1.x versions, toys with debris resulting from collisions. Usually, it manifests when something hits a celestial body at high speed, but sometimes it can be caused by internal self-collision (most notably, by using clipping parts). It propels debris away with impossible velocities, sending it to escape trajectories from Kerbol. This video demonstrates the summoning of the Impact Kraken through clipped parts (the effect itself is at 1:35).

Skycrane Kraken

This Kraken, found in 1.2, affects the stock vehicle rover+skycrane. A slightly modified skycrane, if decoupled while the rover is stationary, appears to hit one wheel. It then sends the rover flying, spinning wildly. This Kraken is reproducible with these modifications: remove the solar panels, add Gigantor XL panels on the sides of the command module, add a PB-Nuk generator on top of the command module, and use struts to connect it to the command module. Next, replace the wheels with 4 Rovemax M1 wheels. This Kraken can be alleviated by throttling the skycrane up slightly before releasing it. These modifications included adding an XL parachute to the top of the skycrane.

Launchpad Kraken

This Kraken, reported by steam user Cpt. Bob, is achieved by simultaneously launching your craft and reverting to launch. This causes the craft to have random parts laying sideways on the launchpad, have all engines running, and have no effect by physics. Once the craft is launched, physics starts affecting the craft, and it goes to hell, as the craft is likely unbalanced by the Kraken. This Kraken is only reported in 1.1.2

Vehicle Return Kraken

This Kraken has apparently an unknown cause but has been observed multiple random times. When a Kerbal is returning to a craft from Eva, the camera switches to the vehicle. The Kerbal stays on the ladder and is not inside the vehicle. You are unable to switch to the Kerbal, making it seem they had a heart attack. This Kraken is reported only in 1.1.2 and has only been observed to affect the PPD 12 Cupola Module and the Mk2 Lander Can.

Relativistic Kraken

The Relativistic Kraken emerges when a craft accelerates to a very high speed, like near lightspeed (either legitimately, i.e. through KSP-Interstellar fusion drives, or as a result of another type of Kraken). It begins oscillating the craft along all axes, making it impossible to turn if the SAS or RCS aren't very powerful. This can easily result in missing the retrograde burn and flying by your target at insane speed (if the acceleration was deliberate).

Targeting Kraken

The Targeting Kraken is found when you target an external craft while on the launchpad with a clamp attached to your rocket. If you enable SAS and set it to target, the craft destroys itself, launching parts at near light-speed. The cause may be that the craft is trying to move toward the target, but it can't, so the game tries to force it to face the craft, but the launch clamp prevents it from moving, so it keeps trying to force itself to face it building up a tremendous amount of speed.

Recently discovered/submitted krakens

OrbitKan Kraken

The OrbitKan Kraken is a Kraken that rarely occurs during a polar orbit of Kerbin. It most often occurs after one sends a rocket into orbit with no fuel to return early into the game, jettisoning the fuel tanks leaving only the command module and a heat shield and parachutes behind, give or take a nose cone. The glitch occurs when one EVA's out of the craft, resulting in it spinning at an exponentially increasing rate, resulting in incredible speeds of rotation, making it impossible to let go of the craft without flinging the Kerbal kilometers or worse apart, dooming your Kerbal. This results in Manley maneuvers becoming close to impossible. Note: rotation of the craft and Kerbal can be stopped using time warp, I do not know if this is a glitch or not.

Possible Apocalypse Kraken

I user Xeno'quaza have believe i performed a Apocalypse kraken, while i have no screenshot of the initial part of the bug i do have screen shots of the after affect and the whole thing matches the description provided as best as it can here are some of the screen shots of it (i do have more which will be posted shortly) it happend when i was flying at the corona of the sun at around 3000m/s at a angle nearly parallel to the surface the acceleration was not instantaneous but took place over several seconds accelerating to well past the speed of light, also the permanent night appears randomly when loading a quicksave or a craft, but after restarting the game goes away until the next time it randomly appears. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1999809892 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1999810506 this next one dosent match the description provided but it happend when reverting back to the quicksave when the beleived apocalypse kraken happend https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1999811583

Island Kraken

(note this kraken has since been fixed) This was a kraken that I discovered in ksp 1.5.1 but disappeared in 1.6. This kraken was very simple to achieve by just flying the stock slim shuttle craft straight up and down again and when you reached space and looked down the area surrounding the ksc would be turned into water but nothing else including the surrounding area and the buildings would be left untouched leaving a floating ksc (giving the island appearance) that when you touched down a hill would randomly spawn on top of you and destroy your craft. I am sure other craft work but the slim shuttle was the only thing that worked for me. This glitch would go away when you reverted to the vab or launchpad (although that wouldn't have much use as the glitch would reappear as soon as you reached space) but you couldn't use the affected craft untill 1.6. This glitch is still present in a small form as of 1.9.1 when you exit the atmosphere you can see the ksc floating on an island with a square around it being water but will return to normal as soon as you get below 70,000 meters

Low Altitude Reentry Kraken

This kraken is triggered when you have a parachute that is off centered causing the rocket or capsule to sway and when you speed up to 4x while parachuting on kerbin causes the speed to stay the same but give off reentry heating effects but amplified that destroy everything on the craft

(I found a similar kraken using 1.9 while entering Eve's atmosphere. My craft had a off centered parachute (the biggest one) and it was obliterated during entry, and shot out of the solar system near light speed. This can be fixed by just not using x4 warp with off centered chutes, and does not cause and save data to get corrupted, to my knowledge. (well duh)

Jool Kore Kraken

The Kore Kraken strikes in water or whatever the hell is in Eve's oceans (update: it's probably jet fuel. Don't launch ships from there). But in many situations, a version where the craft is traveling at high velocities towards 'solids' can occur. The most easy-to-replicate example is Jool's 'surface', where even so much as attempting a proper 'landing' (lots of quotation marks in this Kraken's description, huh?) can replicate the Kore Kraken. However, the altimeter will register a static altitude of a few negative dozen meters. It persists as late as 1.81, but does not harm the save file and can be deterred with a simple revert. Or by not trying to land on goddamn Jool. --Ntchdbythkrkn (talk) 03:50, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

The Glitch Device Kraken/Danny2462 Kraken

It is unclear as to whether or not this is actually classifiable as a Kraken, but it is catastrophic nonetheless. Discovered by YouTube user [2] and explored in his videos Kerbal Space Program: The Glitch Device and 100k Sub Special - Destroying the Solar System, if an Advanced Grabbing Unit holding a Kerbal will have its Kerbal also attached to another AGU, this Kraken will glitch the entire celestial body that the contraption sits on, should it even be on the ground at all.

This is what occurs in the moments directly after the original Glitch Device is used.

Designs for said contraptions can vary, but the basic results and principles remain the same. They are as follows:

1. A Kerbal, while affixed to an AGU, is also grabbed by another AGU that is touching the ground of a given celestial body. (The KSC counts.)
2. The terrain will disappear, and the contraption will fall into a void featuring a series of large blue rings. It will hit an invisible surface and begin to explode perpetually.
3. In the map view, the body will still be there, but the light of the Sun will visibly shine through it.
4. Even after a revert, the camera perspective changing system will have been notably altered.

When switching to a vessel that was not on the ground on the first place, the terrain will have disappeared, replaced by ocean. (Note: This particular effect has only been publicly tested on Kerbin. The same occurrence may happen on Eve and Laythe, but testing this on non-oceanic bodies has yet to be shown.) However, the hitboxes will still be present, and so will the KSC, even if the device is tested on its grounds. The visibility of the terrain will also be restored when zooming out to the maximum level, and those parts. Note:' This does not appear to affect game data, and can be deterred through a simple revert. --Ntchdbythkrkn (talk) 07:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Splat-Spazz Kraken

When a Kerbal hits the ground hard, but not hard enough to die they will spaghettify. An easy way to do this is walking off the roof of the VAB.

Altitude Kraken

When warping to really high altitudes above the Sun, the game will crash.

The Altitude Kraken in action.

Censored Kraken

This kraken occurs when you load a quicksave in which a dead kerbal is alive. It's quite rare, I only got it once. The science tree resets itself and all of the rocket parts in the editor turn pitch black, like if they were censored. Some late-science-tree stuff is randomly unlocked, as the tree gets corrupted.

The Censor Kraken messing up the rocket in the editor

This Kraken corrupts the savefile and the tree is permanently corrupted, ruining it. The censored effect only happens within the VAB or the SPH. The effect stays after a restart, however in a different save it doesn't appear unless you have visited the save with the Kraken.

If you visit the save with the Kraken, the game is permanently infected with the censored effect in the VAB/SPH. It's impossible to get rid of it by changing graphics settings. The only way to fully rid your game of this kraken is to reinstall the game (or repair the files) and delete your savefile. Interestingly, visiting a save with the kraken seems to damage a lot of the files of KSP. The Kraken itself is not caused by corruption of data files, as repairing the game files and visiting the save with the Kraken still has the censored effect.

Solar Escape Kraken

This kraken occurs using certain mods. When flying on a Sun escape trajectory at fast speeds, engaging the highest timewarp setting will cause this Kraken. Come out of time warp and go back to the KSC. The entire map is broken after a long loading screen. The buildings of the KSC have spaghettified and are bugging out. Interestingly, the buildings can still be accessed via the left hand corner buttons and are fully functional. The only way to fix this is to terminate the flight of the ship that is on the Kerbol escape.

Console Apocalypse Kraken

This variant of the Apocalypse Kraken is only proven to work on KSP Enhanced Edition. It likely works on PC. This kraken occurs either when travelling at high speeds or when at a far distance from the solar system (It is hard to tell which as it would take an eternity to test this). When returning to the KSC, similar effects to the Apocalypse Kraken are observed. Switching to the map view causes the game to crash. My personal theory on the cause of this kraken is the high distance. It could exceed the integer limit for the map view (the more low-poly version when high above planets) of planets, causing them to deload. This explains the absence of the Sun, Mun and Minmus in the sky and the game crashing when switching to map view.

Speed Kraken

This Kraken can happen by getting a spacecraft to a extremely high surface velocity (e.g, getting into an EXTREMELY high orbit), and then using the Cheat Menu to edit the spacecraft's position to be on a planet (e.g Kerbin). What happens is that the craft completely disappears, you are still at the position you were before changing your position, and also, the Map view, IVA view, and EVA won't work, time is frozen, the apoapsis height and periapsis height may say NaN and the time to Apoapsis might be Infinity, and the time to periapsis might be NaN. Toggling the Interior Overlay reveals the camera is in the center of the command pod. Your only hopes is to load a previous quicksave, go back to the Space Center, or revert to launch or VAB. Upon launching another rocket, many parts in the rocket will explode likely due to the fact for some reason the high surface velocity is still kept. The spacecraft will also start going randomly up and the spacecraft isn't visible. Reverting to launch after that will make it offset from the launchpad by a bit. Each time you revert to launch after this, it will still be offset until you decide to revert to VAB.

The Speed Kraken in effect.

The Speed Kraken's effect after launching a new rocket.

VAB Kraken

This was a glitch that happened while playing the 0.18.3 Demo. I made a rocket and hit the VAB, but tried to save my kerbal by sending him on an EVA, the result was when he hit the VAB he would ragdoll and be flung into a possibly random direction, He also didn't get spaghettified. (If you have more info or can replicate this contact me at [email protected] . Also I misplaced this so I moved it to here.)

Mun Kraken

When landing on the Mun, sometimes the Mun will spontaneously become dark and lights must be used to navigate the surface. During this state it is also possible to fall through the ground and enter the center of the Mun. Not sure if this happens with other celestial bodies.

Highly modded Apocalypse Kraken

An user by the name of Ameoba who has 200+ mods experienced the this rare kind of kraken after removing most of their mods. Some minor errors were seen before but the removal of certain mods lead to ksp booting up with a black screen of death. No meddling was done with the actual game files or mod files and ksp refused to boot up normally. When the screen was clicked the exe crashed. Here is a video of the Kraken https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1242111613990080612/1243866865856417862/2024-05-25_20-00-04.mp4?ex=665308ca&is=6651b74a&hm=437cf0516756f215b1a2b7095b7d595dc07ace2a199dc9dde1b60b9bf0ab763c& Version 1.12.5

Suspicious / Fake Krakens

Editor Kraken

This Kraken can be found by quicksaving and editing a Kerbal. The remainder of the craft (And Kerbin) is destroyed, with only the cockpit remaining. You cannot usually destroy crafts afflicted by this Kraken through conventional means. Craft destruction methods include, but are not limited to, HyperEdit and save file editing. This Kraken has been tested and reproduced multiple times and has been confirmed true, reported in KSP 1.2.2. This Kraken is a nasty one, especially when you need to change a little thing, such as a Kerbal's data. The Kraken may or may not exist in recent versions. It's impossible to know without doing a deep dive in the code, as the quicksaves no longer load and instead are on perpetually black loading screens.

The Editor Kraken in action

Changes

0.17

• (Bug fix) 'Off loading' velocity to the universe alleviated this problem, though it still exists in 'new' form.

Help

See the Kraken Handbook