Bigger landing legs

[mikey117]

Just wondering if there is any plans to add bigger landing legs to the stock game?

(I'm on xbox so would need to be stock to get access/dlc)

I personally feel there should be bigger /space x style/size landing legs. 

Currently having to make ugly girder extended landing legs for anything bigger than 2.5m parts.

I know mods will not be on console however I would definitely pay for a DLC which includes kerbal engineer/mechjeb(one with dv readouts),also can't see this being hard to implement on console, its just a calculator after all. bigger landing legs and a few surface base parts.

Also stock pc players might be interested In bigger landing legs.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

In my opinion landing legs are really only for something under a certain size. Anything past that point should need to land on a dedicated structural piece.

Y'know how you can't just up size an ant to be larger; because at a certain point it can't support it's own weight? I guess what I'm saying here is that there is prolly an upper limit on how big you can make a telescoping/unfolding leg. Ie. Maybe you could land a small house on retractable landing legs, but you're never gonna land a skyscraper like that.

Larger landing legs certainly wouldn't hurt my feelings though. Just thought it was an interesting point to discuss.

Edited February 9, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Geonovast]

1 minute ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

In my opinion landing legs are really only for something under a certain size. Anything past that point should need to land on a dedicated structural piece.

Y'know how you can't just up size an ant to be larger; because at a certain point it can't support it's own weight? I guess what I'm saying here is that there is prolly an upper limit on how big you can make a telescoping/unfolding leg.

Ie. Maybe you could land a small house on retractable landing legs, but you're never gonna land a skyscraper like that.

That's probably true, but the largest stock landing leg is still pretty small.  I think they could go up to a larger falcon style aerodynamic leg without being too ridiculous on size.

[swjr-swis]

On 2/9/2018 at 2:09 PM, mikey117 said:

I personally feel there should be bigger /space x style/size landing legs.

I would welcome SpaceX style/size folding legs to give 3.5m (and the upcoming 5m) diameter stacks a stable landing capability. I don't think it's an unreasonable request, as even the largest current legs have trouble keeping even a medium-length 3.5m stage from toppling over. Falcon 9s have proven the feasibility, let's have a set in-game too.

(silently hoping it's already between the 75 parts to be added with the upcoming release)

Edited February 11, 2018 by swjr-swis

[Snark]

+1 to this idea.  Would love to have some bigger legs as part of the game.

3 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

In my opinion landing legs are really only for something under a certain size. Anything past that point should need to land on a dedicated structural piece.

I agree... except I think that the "certain size" (above which legs aren't appropriate) is considerably larger than the effective size limit that KSP currently imposes.  The biggest-size stock landing legs simply aren't large enough.  Do I think we should have legs that are big enough to land a Manhattan skyscraper?  No.  But I think the game would do well to add at least one size step up from the current maximum.

I've seen several mods that add bigger legs, and I've liked them a lot.  SpaceY has some SpaceX-style folding legs that look and work great.  Karbonite adds a different style of bigger leg that's completely different from the SpaceY ones, but which also work well and look great, too.  And I've seen some others.

When I look at areas of the stock game that have what I consider to be "part holes" (i.e. glaring omissions that would greatly improve playability if they added some stock parts), I can really only think of three things that have seriously bugged me, over the years:

• Bigger legs
• A decent selection of LF-only fuel tanks for rockets (not spaceplanes)
• Interstage thrust plates (so one can add, for example, a 1.25m engine in the middle of a 2.5m stack without screwing everything up)

I have high hopes for the upcoming KSP 1.4 release and Making History expansion.  Squad has announced that between them, they're adding 75 new parts.  They haven't listed what they all will be, but I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for bigger legs and switchable fuel tanks.  I note that it looks like they are solving the "interstage thrust plates" problem-- they've shown some really cool screen shots of that. 

Anyway, here's hoping!

[Gargamel]

13 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

In my opinion landing legs are really only for something under a certain size. Anything past that point should need to land on a dedicated structural piece.

Y'know how you can't just up size an ant to be larger; because at a certain point it can't support it's own weight? I guess what I'm saying here is that there is prolly an upper limit on how big you can make a telescoping/unfolding leg. Ie. Maybe you could land a small house on retractable landing legs, but you're never gonna land a skyscraper like that.

Larger landing legs certainly wouldn't hurt my feelings though. Just thought it was an interesting point to discuss.

I really don't see there being a limit to how much legs could hold, it's more of a question of how heavy they themselves would be to hold a given weight.  For the sake of argument, the Bagger 293 is the worlds heaviest vehicle at 14,200 tons.  Meaning, there are 'legs' that can hold that much weight.   It's seems to be the bigger issue is getting that mass to fly, and land gently enough to not break the legs. 

And given the fact that the leg mass would have to scale up faster (educated guess) than the mass of a vehicle, your point of a fixed base then comes into play.  At some point, legs would be less efficient than a structural base to support the vehicle.    The goal of legs is to 1) Raise the vehicle off the surface to protect components, usually engines; and 2) Spread out the foot print of the vehicle to keep the COM more within the footprint, making it more stable on the surface.    At some point, legs would become unnecessary, the structure itself would have a large enough footprint to maintain stability. 

I would like to see some stock folding legs for the bigger sized diameters though. 

[SnailsAttack]

i too would like to see more bee-yoo-tee-full leggies to stare at with unrestrained lust

[sevenperforce]

They should make bigger landing legs but require an engineer onboard in order to refold them.

[Gargamel]

14 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

They should make bigger landing legs but require an engineer onboard in order to refold them.

I don't think pushing a button that says "UP" would be that difficult.   Of course, knowing Kerbals, there would be at least 6 of these buttons, one of which would start the ascent stage.   

[qzgy]

On 2/12/2018 at 9:33 AM, sevenperforce said:

They should make bigger landing legs but require an engineer onboard in order to refold them.

Or maybe two versions - one refoldable and the other not, with a mass/cost penalty for the refoldable variety.

[sevenperforce]

A general solution for the parts they have now is to allow landing legs to "break" without actually breaking off. Currently, rover wheels can be "broken" when they impact the ground at too great a speed, but their impact resistance remains high and so they can be "fixed" by an engineer.

The same solution should be implemented for landing legs. If you touch down at under 8 m/s, great; if you touch down between 8 m/s and, say, 20 m/s, the legs become "broken" and can no longer automatically refold until they are "fixed" by an engineer, but they will still support the weight of the craft.

On 2/13/2018 at 12:43 PM, qzgy said:

Or maybe two versions - one refoldable and the other not, with a mass/cost penalty for the refoldable variety.

Non-refoldable legs that look like the ones on Falcon 9; heavier foldable legs that look like the ones on BFS/New Glenn/New Shepard.

[Blaarkies]

I have seen this topic before, maybe there is some ancient wisdom in old threads 

[dreadanaught]

On 2/9/2018 at 7:03 AM, swjr-swis said:

(silently hoping it's already between the 75 parts to be added with the upcoming release)

1

Which release are you talking about exactly? I have heard nothing about a new release, unless it is the making history expansion pack.

[Snark]

36 minutes ago, dreadanaught said:

Which release are you talking about exactly? I have heard nothing about a new release, unless it is the making history expansion pack.

They will be releasing KSP 1.4 and the Making History pack soon.  It's been publicly announced that between the two of them, there are 75 new parts.  I don't believe it's been announced how many of those are in 1.4 and how many of them are in MH.