After having some successful and (primarily) not-so-successful rendezvous in space, the area around my nascent space-base is full of detritus. Ending the missions responsible for littering didn't remove any of the space junk, so now it's just sitting in orbit complicating maneuvers. This stuff generally doesn't have any docking ports or anything like that, so there doesn't seem to be a way to grab on to it with a ship.
I'd like to make like a sheriff and clean up this space-town, but as far as I can tell the best way to do that is to run over every individual piece of debris with a ship which, although fun, is neither practical nor efficient (it tends to make even bigger messes).
Are there any useful in-game components like grappling hooks or nets or magnets that can grab on to arbitrary components which I've missed, or failing that are there any good mods for playing space janitor?
Best Answer
Another option for removing debris is to limit how much of it you want to keep around. One of the settings allows you to choose anywhere from no debris, to unlimited debris.
This option is available under Settings in the main menu (the menu you see when first starting the game, not the in-game menu), and is called Max Persistent Debris.
Keep in mind this setting only handles debris from not controlled flights; it won't automatically kill everything that gets detached from your current launch. That only happens when you end the flight, or switch to the Space Center.
Not quite what you were asking for, but the only other option, yes, is to intercept each and every piece, and manually de-orbit it.