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Accidentally activated parachutes in orbit, can I unactivate them?


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Well I accidentally pressed the spacebar to active my chutes while still in a large orbit. So now the icon turned "blue" (not actually activated though).

I don't really wish to return to an old save for this: is it possible to edit the persistent save file so I can put them back into the deactivated state again?

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Well I accidentally pressed the spacebar to active my chutes while still in a large orbit. So now the icon turned "blue" (not actually activated though).

I don't really wish to return to an old save for this: is it possible to edit the persistent save file so I can put them back into the deactivated state again?

paul23,

I don't know how to edit the save file, but you have a couple options if that doesn't pan out:

1) Send a kerbal mechanic on EVA to repack the chutes

2) set the minimum pressure to .5 ATM.

Option 2 won't repack the chute, but it should keep the pyros disabled long enough for safe deployment.

Best,

-Slashy

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Well it's a very "tight" mission: I'm out of fuel (safe for a few, 10ish, m/s burn I need to do to get to a speed of 250 m/s) and perapsis is at 62km while apoapsis is at 3 Mm (megameter), so can't intercept it. My testing shows that I can probably only deploy them around 1000 meter above ground.

I've already done 20+ aerobrakes to slow down...

Edited by paul23
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Hmm, this happened to me once. I actually kinda ditched the craft. It was unmanned, and using aero braking, what little fuel was left, and RCS-ing like crazy the entire way down, I managed to save the important science parts for a recovery.

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What I do in these situations is to pull the slider all the way up. Then, as you're coming down as soon as you get below 250m/s slide them back down. It even works when you have more than 1 parachute, as the first ones you trigger will slow down the craft enough to trigger the others one by one, and each one buys you more time.

You can even pull them at about 275-300m/s. You may lose the first parachute but it'll slow you down under 250 first so the others will be safe. It's not ideal, but it's better than slamming into a mountain without ever having pulled the chutes at all.

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What I do in these situations is to pull the slider all the way up. Then, as you're coming down as soon as you get below 250m/s slide them back down. It even works when you have more than 1 parachute, as the first ones you trigger will slow down the craft enough to trigger the others one by one, and each one buys you more time.

You can even pull them at about 275-300m/s. You may lose the first parachute but it'll slow you down under 250 first so the others will be safe. It's not ideal, but it's better than slamming into a mountain without ever having pulled the chutes at all.

Hmm I could do that: but I have just exactly enough parachutes to drop to 12 m/s (2 m/s spare when landing in sea). Yes my goal in KSP is to make rockets as efficiently as possible and actually succeed using only 10% money gain.

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Well I accidentally pressed the spacebar to active my chutes while still in a large orbit. So now the icon turned "blue" (not actually activated though).

I don't really wish to return to an old save for this: is it possible to edit the persistent save file so I can put them back into the deactivated state again?

Interesting idea.

I'm not going to test this, and I'm concerned that you should already know how to modify such files if you wish to do so.

Just the same, I checked the stowed, and deployed differences of the Mk16-XL parachute in the save file. here is what probably needs to be changed:

MODULE

{

name = ModuleParachute

isEnabled = True

persistentState = STOWED // show "ACTIVE" on the deployed chute

minAirPressureToOpen = 0.04

deployAltitude = 1000

minAirPressureToOpen_UIFlight

{

controlEnabled = True

minValue = 0.01

maxValue = 0.75

stepIncrement = 0.01

}

deployAltitude_UIFlight

{

controlEnabled = True

minValue = 50

maxValue = 5000

stepIncrement = 50

}

EVENTS

{

Deploy

{

active = True // deployed shute is listed as "FALSE" here

guiActive = True

guiIcon = Deploy Chute

guiName = Deploy Chute

category = Deploy Chute

guiActiveUnfocused = True

unfocusedRange = 4

externalToEVAOnly = True

}

CutParachute

{

active = False

guiActive = True

guiIcon = Cut Parachute

guiName = Cut Parachute

category = Cut Parachute

guiActiveUnfocused = True

unfocusedRange = 4

externalToEVAOnly = True

}

Repack

{

active = False

guiActive = False

guiIcon = Repack Chute

guiName = Repack Chute

category = Repack Chute

guiActiveUnfocused = True

unfocusedRange = 4

externalToEVAOnly = True

Now I didn't test it. I suggest you copy the file, find the chute for your craft, and change those two lines.

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Hmm I could do that: but I have just exactly enough parachutes to drop to 12 m/s (2 m/s spare when landing in sea). Yes my goal in KSP is to make rockets as efficiently as possible and actually succeed using only 10% money gain.

There is a saying: Lack of planning on your part does not denote an emergency on my part. You designed the ship to not be able to recover from any problems, and then came across a problem.

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There is a saying: Lack of planning on your part does not denote an emergency on my part. You designed the ship to not be able to recover from any problems, and then came across a problem.

Well, there's that... but then again, a big part of the fun in KSP is figuring out how to weasel one's way out of disaster when faced with very narrow technical constraints. :)

To the OP: What sort of shape is your craft? Any chance you can use aerodynamic lift to slow down more while entering?

I've found that even for "traditional" rockets that have no "aero" parts on them at all (e.g. cylindrical craft with a pod at one end and an engine at the other), re-entering at an angle so that the body of the craft deflects the airstream downwards can generate a surprising amount of lift.

This, in turn, can mean a longer, shallower entry, and the altitude at which you slow to safe parachute speed can be quite a bit higher. Could make the difference between being able to trigger chutes and getting them ripped off.

May or may not be an option, depending on the ship design.

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Whilst piloting that ship, right click on each chute in turn and deactivate it.

Now make 2 new empty stages. Add the chutes to the topmost stage, leave the lower one empty.

Trigger the lower (empty) stage, NOT the one after that with the chute.

There you go: all ready to stage your chutes.

(keep in mind that this only works if the chutes have been activated but not deployed or destroyed - i.e. they're blue on the staging bar).

I'm not 100% sure if the activate/deactivate button on the chute dialog whilst on flight is 100% core, if not then it's probably from KIS or KAS.

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