Parachuting & Related Question

[KerbalAustronaut]

So, I've been playing the demo, and I just got the actual game today, and throughout the tutorials (Which I was just doing for fun), it was talking about the stats of the parachute. And, of course, I understand how it works, but I just don't know what the best setting is, and how to properly adjust the "Min Pressure".

On a sort of related note, when you right click on a part and the little menu shows up with the actions, how do you get rid of it after you are done? Because it crowds up my screen and is quite frankly annoying.

Thanks!

[The Aziz]

1 hour ago, KerbalAustronaut said:

 I just don't know what the best setting is, and how to properly adjust the "Min Pressure".

I mostly keep it at default when I'm on Kerbin, and I open drogues about 6km, regular chutes about 1.5km. I only changed min pressure when I was landing on Duna.

1 hour ago, KerbalAustronaut said:

when you right click on a part and the little menu shows up with the actions, how do you get rid of it after you are done? Because it crowds up my screen and is quite frankly annoying.

Click somewhere else? Or maybe you have the "keep open" button clicked (small gray button on the right top of window IIRC) and that's why it doesn't disappear.

[KerbalAustronaut]

5 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Click somewhere else? Or maybe you have the "keep open" button clicked (small gray button on the right top of window IIRC) and that's why it doesn't disappear.

 

I tried that, and I made sure that wasn't on, but it just wouldn't go away. But I'll keep looking. Thanks anyways.

[Foxster]

2 hours ago, KerbalAustronaut said:

On a sort of related note, when you right click on a part and the little menu shows up with the actions, how do you get rid of it after you are done? Because it crowds up my screen and is quite frankly annoying.

Usually clicking another part makes the right click stickiness go away.  

[KerbalAustronaut]

2 hours ago, Foxster said:

Usually clicking another part makes the right click stickiness go away.  

Yep, just figured it out. Thanks!

[Snark]

4 hours ago, KerbalAustronaut said:

And, of course, I understand how it works, but I just don't know what the best setting is, and how to properly adjust the "Min Pressure".

Generally you'll leave "min pressure" alone.  It used to matter more, because having a parachute that opens too soon could cause it to get ripped away... but since they added a feature that by default parachutes don't open until it's safe, this almost never comes up.

Of greater interest is the meters-above-ground-level for full opening, because that can make a difference.  Open too high, and you're twiddling your thumbs waiting forever for the ship to drift down to ground level.  Open too low, and splat.  What the "right" setting is, though, totally depends on your ship (specifically, what terminal velocity it has as it's falling).

My experience is that the defaults generally work pretty well.  I tend to go for lightweight, low-terminal-velocity reentry vehicles myself, so I usually end up reducing the full-open altitude by a few hundred meters just so I don't spend so much time waiting.  But if you're new to the game, best to leave it set conservatively high, until you get a better "feel" for how to work it.  Better to be impatient than dead. 

(Also, if you're finding that it's too much of a nail-biter wondering whether your chutes will slow you down enough before faceplanting, you can always put on a couple of drogue chutes, the little teeny radial ones.  Even a couple of those will slow down a very massive ship by a lot.  If you've got a couple of those on, you can almost always get away with setting your main chutes to a fairly low altitude.  My experience has been that the drogues usually aren't needed on Kerbin, but they're not very big or heavy, so it's a pretty small "tax" to pay in return for a lot of peace of mind, if you're stressing over this.)

[Loren Pechtel]

On 3/12/2017 at 6:08 PM, Snark said:

(Also, if you're finding that it's too much of a nail-biter wondering whether your chutes will slow you down enough before faceplanting, you can always put on a couple of drogue chutes, the little teeny radial ones.  Even a couple of those will slow down a very massive ship by a lot.  If you've got a couple of those on, you can almost always get away with setting your main chutes to a fairly low altitude.  My experience has been that the drogues usually aren't needed on Kerbin, but they're not very big or heavy, so it's a pretty small "tax" to pay in return for a lot of peace of mind, if you're stressing over this.)

Yes, use drogue chutes as soon as you have them.  Slowing a large rocket to safe deployment speed for your mains is iffy and you'll be able to time your mains much better in any case.  On a small rocket they can sometimes even save you from a lawn dart.  Once I pulled the drogues below 3000m (the instant they went green) and yet safely recovered.

(However, the real answer to longer {passenger modules, not just a capsule} rockets wanting to lawn-dart is the mod that adds Space-X style grid fins.)