User:Cubonic/Sandbox/Krakens

Hello. This is where I document research about Kraken bugs.

Some of these get pretty nitty-gritty in the gamedata so hold onto your seatbelt!

Before we begin, note that:

• Kraken names with a ! at the end means the kraken was patched
• Kraken names with a * at the end means the kraken was discovered before I started the numbering scheme
• Kraken names with a + at the end means it's easily replicable and not luck-based
• Kraken names with a - at the end means it's very hard to replicate
• Kraken names with a ^ at the end means it's only replicable by modifying save data
• Kraken names with a # at the end means it's symptoms are staged

With this in mind, we can begin.

Random krakens (Class 1)

These krakens can occur randomly during flight.

Memory Leak

This is less of a kraken and more of a general software bug. As it runs, KSP will use more and more RAM and CPU, until about 7GB or so.

Minor Krakens (Class 2)

These krakens can occur in any way INCLUDING quicksaves, but do not do very much.

General Krakens (Class 3)

These Krakens are generally what people think of when they think of a Kraken. Well-made rockets flopping around during timewarps is a good example.

Laythe Hell Kraken#

SPECIMEN ID: 0003 SEVERITY: Medium This Kraken occurs when you go to laythe. When you arrive, all EVA ports (even the ones that are clearly open) say they are obstructed. Reloading the game fixes that. Or just switching between parts of the ship for a bit.

But then it's impossible to get back in. Whenever you try to get back in the kerbal will instead stabilize itself and stand on nothing (or i guess the very thin ladder) and then be launched away. No matter what you cannot get rid of this Kraken. It's extremely annoying but atleast it's the rocket itself glitching, you could always send another mission

Save-damaging Krakens (Class 4)

These Krakens have the capability to damage or ruin savefiles. They usually cannot delete them, however that isn't completely out of the question.

Science Kraken

SPECIMEN ID: 0002 SEVERITY: NEGATIVE The Science Kraken occurs when you crash a ship near an Eve base with a seismometer, during timewarp.

It will detect the crashed ship and send absurd amounts of science (usually 2.147 billion) to the KSC and one time it even said the impact was at 9.223 quintillion meters a second.

Pillow Kraken#^

SPECIMEN ID: 0001 SEVERITY: Medium/High The Pillow Kraken occurs when you remove a kerbal's name and mess up its trait in the savefile.

It's named the Pillow kraken because I changed the trait of Jebediah from Pilot to Pillow. Don't ask why. Please. The first stage of the Pillow Kraken is for the menu of getting Kerbals in and out of command pods being very difficult to use. You cannot tell who is in the command pod because no matter what it'll be a gray nameless kerbal whose specialty is "XP Trait". It may also complain about no control methods. Apart from that nothing happens, and the true kerbal that was put there stays inside.

Stage 2, unlike Stage 1, isn't purely graphical. Stage 2 begins when you attempt to fire the Kerbal, since it is unkillable. The active, assigned, and lost Kerbal tabs are forever blank, and it always says "10 out of 12 kerbals". On the menu to hire kerbals, it's just the nonamed glitch pillow. What's even worse is that nothing happens if you try to hire it.

Stage 3 occurs when you try to launch a ship after Stage 2. It'll act exactly like Stage 1 for the first flight except for an effect that goes for Stage 3 onwards: Attempting to remove the kerbal duplicates the pillow kerbal. After the first flight, all "sane" kerbals are destroyed. Noone knows where they went, they just disappear.

No manned space craft will be controllable after this, and the game usually stabilizes at 3 seconds per frame on both computers I tried it on whilst attempting to fly.

Whenever you recover the vessel, it will always have a no-named no-specialty orange kerbal appear with 0 stars that supposedly leveled up to Level 5. Mind you I tried this in Science mode.

Quicksave Krakens (Class 5)

These Krakens can ruin saves (if they can't atleast damage saves then they're minor krakens) and are usually caused by something with quicksaving.

Censored Kraken-*

SPECIMEN ID: ????

Severity: Very High/Extreme (Non-quicksave class: 6.5)

This is not a staged Kraken. It's hard to reproduce and I can definitely tell by the fact that I'm the only one who has ever encountered it. The Kraken occured when Jebediah Kerman died and I loaded the quicksave I made at the start of the launch. Nothing is immediately wrong, however you cannot turn no matter what.

After I landed (somehow) I realized my game was messed up. I figured this was the well-known Ass Kraken until I realized the screen would've been White. This is partially where the censored name comes from as I was discussing this kraken with someone who doesn't like swearing when I found it.

Inside of the VAB/SPH, everything but the actual building and side panel menus (even the parts in them aren't safe) are pitch black. No graphics settings can fix this. You have to reinstall the game and it can spread. It seems to mildly corrupt the game too, although I reinstalled the game and the save still did it, so it's not caused by corruption. The weird black thing caused me to name it Censored Kraken because it's like it censors the rocket.

It also has the ability to lock/unlock random tech nodes. The only way to completely get rid of it is to delete all saves containing the kraken (remember: it spreads) and reinstalling.

Game-damaging krakens (Class 6)

These Krakens aren't usually caused by quicksaves, but if they are then they're in Class 5. These Krakens mess up the game and can spread through the corrupted game.

Vaporizer krakens (Class 7)

These Krakens can ruin the game so badly that you need to reinstall it.

Potential kraken-summoning experiments (Class 0)

These are simply a list of experiments I want to currently perform to discover krakens. I will not remove them from the list, however.

• Try changing a quicksave to have multiple of one kerbal in a pod (FAIL)
• Attempt to put a deceased kerbal in a pod using quicksave editing (FAIL)
• Screw around with quicksaves