The landing gear of my craft are really messing me up, is there a setting that doesn't do this?

[Bej Kerman]

Here's my craft: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1924757455

I've had to add a bunch of annoyingly ugly parachutes to keep the thing from exploding, but not even that prevents the thing from exploding. I've tried an array of settings on the gear, but each time I touch down with a vertical velocity faster than 0.5m/s, the thing snaps apart. Is anyone here able to adjust the gear to not do this?

[FleshJeb]

I spent 10 minutes trying to get that into KSP. I can see every other craft on Steam, but not the ONE I'm subscribed to. Sorry, can't help you.

[UncleManuel]

I'm just looking at the gear layout and it's screaming "MOAR AUTOSTRUTS!!!" 

Seriously, without any struts it's no wonder the wings fold on light impact. Use the option "autostrut: grandparent part" to give wings and engines some stability. Autostrut is also the holy grail for stable boosters on rockets... 

[Snark]

On 12/31/2019 at 2:36 PM, Bej Kerman said:

Here's my craft:

I see this screenshot on the page link,

...but could you post a larger screenshot?  It's easier to work with, doesn't require starting up KSP and allows diagnosing a lot of problems.

Some questions:

• What's the mass of your craft when you're trying to land?
• How many landing gear, of what type, are you using?
• What exactly do you mean when you say "the thing snaps apart"?  The landing gear explodes? The wings snap off the fuselage?  Something else?

[Bej Kerman]

5 minutes ago, Snark said:

What's the mass of your craft when you're trying to land?

I'm not sure, but I think the wet mass of the craft is 300-400 tons. I estimate the mass on touchdown to be 100-150 tons.

6 minutes ago, Snark said:

How many landing gear, of what type, are you using?

One gear on the cockpit, 2 for each of the wings. I can't remember again, but they should be the second to largest or the largest gear.

7 minutes ago, Snark said:

What exactly do you mean when you say "the thing snaps apart"?  The landing gear explodes? The wings snap off the fuselage?  Something else?

The wings come off the side tanks, the side tanks come off the core and the core turns into a dart.

9 minutes ago, Snark said:

...but could you post a larger screenshot?  It's easier to work with, doesn't require starting up KSP and allows diagnosing a lot of problems.

That's just what Steam generated, and there's an entire craft file there for people better at the game than me to experiment with. I also don't know how to post images here.

[Snark]

51 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

The wings come off the side tanks, the side tanks come off the core and the core turns into a dart.

Ah, okay.  You may want to re-title your thread, since this is causing a lot of confusion.  "The landing gear is messing me up" makes it sound like you have a problem with the landing gear, whereas what you actually have is a problem with the structural integrity of the craft, which is nothing to do with landing gear at all.

Anyway.  If you've got big flimsy wings made of multiple parts, and the landing gear are located way out on the wingtips, that puts a lot of mechanical strain on the wings and involves a lot of potential joints to break.

How's the craft put together?  Do you use any autostruts on the wings?  (If not, you should).  Have you turned on "rigid attachment" anywhere in the wing assembly?  (If you have... don't; it'll make 'em more brittle.)

The closer to the center-line of the craft you can make the landing gear, the less bending torque they'll apply to the wings.  The ideal case (from a mechanical-strength standpoint) would be to have the gear mounted directly to the fuselage, underneath it.

Of course, that would give the craft a narrower "stance", and make it easy to tip over left or right when landing... but you could always put some "outrigger" gear farther out to prevent a tip-over, and mount it ever-so-slightly higher than the ones under the fuselage.  That way, on landing, the brunt of the shock would be transmitted directly to the central fuselage of the plane, so less likely to snap apart.  And if you accidentally start to tip, then the outrigger gear will have you covered.

51 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

second to largest or the largest gear.

I'd suggest checking that, and if it's not the largest gear, make it the largest gear.  100-150 tons is a pretty heavy craft, and KSP landing gear can be pretty finicky about the amount of load they can handle.  And the amount of load the handle on landing is generally considerably lower than they can handle just sitting on the runway, so it's possible to have a craft that launches and takes off just fine but blows up the gear upon landing.

51 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

That's just what Steam generated, and there's an entire craft file there for people better at the game than me to experiment with.

There's nothing wrong with posting a craft file-- if you can do that, great.    But suppose some potentially helpful person is skimming through the Gameplay Questions forum, and they glance at your post.  If all you give them is a craft file... that's a hassle.  They gotta download it, and install it into their game, and start up KSP, and so forth.  It's inconvenient... and it's also impossible unless they happen to be sitting at the computer where they play KSP.

Whereas a well-taken screenshot is super helpful, reveals a lot of categories of problems at a glance, carries no "inconvenience" burden, and works on any device anywhere.

In short, there's a bigger pool of available people inclined to help you if you provide a screenshot.  So, when you run into problems, my advice would be:

• Always post a screenshot
• Also post a craft file, too, if you feel like it, but it's not absolutely necessary

51 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

I also don't know how to post images here.

Just post 'em to some image-sharing site such as imgur (anywhere public will work, but imgur tends to be the most popular here since it doesn't require you to have an account in order to post stuff).  Once you've posted it to imgur-or-wherever, just right-click on the image and choose "Copy image location", then paste that URL here.  It'll get automagically converted into an in-line image.