Parachute mod requested

[Alpha 360]

I am tired of trying to guess how many parachutes you need on a return capsule. It is simple for command pods but for anything else, its trial and error. One time in a career mode game I built a re-usable booster stage. I had no idea of how many parachutes I would need so I put on twelve chutes. When the booster was returning from space, half of the parachutes burned off in reentry heating. Lucky I put on twice the number of parachutes I needed so I still recovered the stage. But imagine that I had not enough chutes? 

[Sir_Fanch]

I would suggest both RealChute and StageRecovery, AFAIK they are both currently working, but I haven't loaded up my KSP in a couple of weeks. RealChute will give you modifiable parachutes and far more options of deployment, and StageRecovery will tell you roughly the touchdown speed of a stage if the parachutes are deployed correctly (NOTE: If you're burning your parachutes up it is most likely you are deploying them too early, when the air density is too little for them too work, but high enough that friction with the air molecules causes the re-entry burning). Hope I've been able to help

Edit: Also maybe for future reference I would hazard a guess that this isn't the perfect place for your question, this section is for Add-on Releases, you may want to try Add-on Discussion or the reddit page instead  

Edit2: Should also be noted that StageRecovery has other functionality to it that you may want to fully read before trying it out. (auto recovering stages, etc)

Edited September 9, 2016 by Sir_Fanch
spelling

[hraban]

It's simple to calculate the number of standard big radial chutes. Take the empty weight in tonns of your booster and divide it by 3 tonns per parachute. So you become a safe landing speed.

[steve_v]

1 hour ago, Sir_Fanch said:

AFAIK they are both currently working, but I haven't loaded up my KSP in a couple of weeks.

They both work perfectly, though technically StageRecovery hasn't been updated for 1.1.3.
Both should be part of the stock game, IMO.

[mhoram]

Recently I made some tests about the efficiency of the different parachutes:

I came to the conclusion that masswise the Mk2-R works better than the other parachutes.

 

For the calculation I personally use a massratio in the ballpark of 1:10.
~91% mass: parts that I want to land on Kerbins surface
~9% mass: 0-2 drogue chutes (depends on situation) and as many Mk2-R as needed to get the 1:10 massratio

So for example if I want to land a ship that has a mass of 6 ton, I put around 0.6 ton of parachutes on it. (1 Mk12-R plus 5-6 Mk2-R). In this configuration I get a touchdown speed of about 5m/s. It was also sufficient to land on highlands and mountains, although the touchdown speed was higher there.

[Ser]

Why all that approximate calculations when RealChute provides a GUI based setup for your chutes? Just set the number of chutes used, desired landing speed, material etc. And it automatically chooses the appropriate size of a dome.

It's nice to play a clean game without mods but KSP isn't the case, IMHO.

[Snark]

Moving to Add-on Discussions, which is a better place for this sort of thing.  ("Add-on Releases" is generally just for announcements from mod authors when they've released a new mod, or an update to an existing mod.)