The Grand Parachute Discussion Thread

[robson85]

On 09.03.2018 at 11:00 AM, KerikBalm said:

Just tried it out on Duna, landed at 626 meters elevation, wasn't tricky, I think my touchdown velocity was <15 m/s, brand new elitefield dog crate like around 10 (I did flare it).

So, these chutes work fine for at least the lowlands of Duna.

Good to know!

Edited March 11, 2018 by robson85

[Yargnit]

21 hours ago, MaverickSawyer said:

How did you get that much range out of your chute? I couldn't get that far. 

 

19 hours ago, Jarin said:

Gonna hazard a guess that picking up speed in dives and then climbing can play !!Fun!! with aerodynamics and you're getting limited infiniglide effects.

Actually all you need to do is  bind the kerbal movement to a joystick/controller then pitch up slightly consistantly. You can glide at 18-19m/s at roughly twice the default glide slope. If you pitch up too much you'll start to stall and will need to pitch down to gather speed, but ~18.5m/s is sustainable and massively extends your range. Just prepare for a slow ride. It took me nearly 45 minutes to land...

[Gargamel]

7 hours ago, Dark Lion said:

Anybody else want the chutes to be deployable while in a command seat? Don't ask me why I think this is a good idea.

Because of powered paragliding?

[Ultimate Steve]

Okay, I tried on Eve. You can land at <2m/s at sea level, but the prograde marker jitters around, and at physics warp you have a significant danger of being shot off at the speed of light.

[luizopiloto]

The mountain close to KSC have a really nice base jump spot...

[Cydonian Monk]

18 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

And at physics warp you have a significant danger of being shot off at the speed of light.

Oooh! Sounds familiar!

22 hours ago, Cydonian Monk said:

It would occasionally eject parachuting kerbals out of the solar system.... 

Guess I’m not the only one that fights against the wacko KSP/Unity physics engine.... 

[Cunjo Carl]

 "It had to happen eventually..."

 

        

 

Spoiler

I really liked the clean low-text look, but I didn't want to mislead anyone. The three top pictures are various parachute glitchstates I've found, and sadly not much practical use besides making good pictures. The bottom one was quite tricky, involving staging kerbals while in their chairs, exploding their chairs, and letting them fall from the craft without touching/ragdolling on anything. I originally had them inside the jump plane, and while this worked for 2 or 3 kerbals I found I had much better luck putting them out on the wings for the big group shot. Why are they all parachuting at once from low altitude? 'Cause they crazy!

 

[Gargamel]

Do the chutes auto open with certain parameters (freefall?) or did you have to click all of those guys to open the chutes? @Cunjo Carl

[MaverickSawyer]

I suspect he set them to auto-deploy. Tweak the deployment pressure setting and the full deployment altitude to achieve the desired results.

 

I'm usually using standard-issue pressure and 5km altitude, myself, but that's just because I'm still playing around with the parachutes. 

[Cunjo Carl]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

Do the chutes auto open with certain parameters (freefall?) or did you have to click all of those guys to open the chutes? @Cunjo Carl

@MaverickSawyer is right that I had them set to autodeploy. Happily (I think) when you put a kerbal into a command chair, their parachute shows up in your rocket staging, which makes it quite easy to set a dozen kerbals to autodeploy all at once. The alternative is to right click each kerbal in a command chair and click deploy on each individually. In either case, the kerbals will pull their chutes as soon as they get out of their seats, but in order to have them all get out of their seats at once you need to resort to some.... pyrotechnic encouragement.

If you drop them above their deploy altitude, they'll all drop to precisely that altitude and open their chutes in unison. From here, if they were initially dropped going above ~50m/s they'll then glide in unison traveling the same direction, which would make for some nice looking video. Because you're not there to flare them all for landing, they'll tend to pop and spaghettify if they hit ground, but you can get them all to survive by aiming them at water. Just don't think about what happens to the parachutes!

Lastly, that glitch state I showed will occur if they have too much wind shear when they pop out, and can sometimes even just afflict specific kerbals on saving and reloading. It causes the parachute to not function properly, so those kerbals will drop like rocks. I've been finding that ~70-100m/s is a good speed for dropping them, and that if a kerbal winds up askew in their seat after a quickload they're done for! Best of luck parachuting your kerbals!

[TheSystem]

On 3/7/2018 at 6:13 AM, fourfa said:

Just putting this here in case anyone else is really dumb and missed it in the changelog...  The chute option only appears on Level 3+ kerbals.

1

Can confirm, EVA'd out of a jet expecting a chute option...  There was none.

[Dimas152]

just really hope command pods, seats and cockpits had eject option in the action group tab
btw there's no keyboard key to deploy EVA chutes ?

[Pit_2]

12 minutes ago, [INDO]dimas_1502 said:

just really hope command pods, seats and cockpits had eject option in the action group tab

Seconded.  I used to just pack in radial mount parachutes and a bunch of decouplers to physically lop off pieces of my plane so when things went south I'd just let the cockpit parachute to a landing.

[MaverickSawyer]

1 hour ago, [INDO]dimas_1502 said:

just really hope command pods, seats and cockpits had eject option in the action group tab
btw there's no keyboard key to deploy EVA chutes ?

Not that I've seen on either count, no.

[fourfa]

2 hours ago, [INDO]dimas_1502 said:

just really hope command pods, seats and cockpits had eject option in the action group tab
btw there's no keyboard key to deploy EVA chutes ?

Try 'P'

[RealKerbal3x]

I *need* to try this with the new parachutes:

[Sirius360]

you can board on a seat with the parachute. someone made a video about it:

 

[Kerbital]

Can they be re-packed for repeated use like normal chutes?

[MaverickSawyer]

54 minutes ago, Kerbital said:

Can they be re-packed for repeated use like normal chutes?

Yes, they can... but only on the ground while not moving, so make sure you're SURE you want to cut that parachute loose before you do so.  

[Dobelong]

On 3/10/2018 at 7:54 AM, Sirius360 said:

you can board on a seat with the parachute. someone made a video about it:

(SNIP)

Good, now we just need this to be a stock feature without requiring glitchiness to use.

Paragliders will become commonplace, and don't even get me started on when MULTIPLE KERBALS GET ON THE SAME CRAFT.

Edited April 4, 2018 by Dobelong

[DatBoi]

On 3/9/2018 at 1:36 AM, Dark Lion said:

good idea.

Para Motors. We can make gosh dang Paramotors. *Preceeds to fanboy uncontrollably*

Edited April 5, 2018 by DatBoi

[ExperimentalKerbals]

These parachutes are so fun!  Useful for testing my rocketsled boosted glider, or at least useful when the glider disintegrates so that my Kerbal can bail out and survive. :-)

[EnderKid2]

PARAMOTORS!

[MaverickSawyer]

Agreed. PARAMOTORS!

 

 

Credit goes to Hazard-ish for the video, btw.

Edited April 5, 2018 by MaverickSawyer

[dr.phees]

Im my opinion Kerbals of lower rank should have dumb chutes (non-stearable).