Water landing gear!

[hazarada]

I hate water landings, unless i get really lucky or the craft I'm landing is extra light, it always breaks my science-return vessels. I can land on solid ground all day long but when I land in the ocean, its like its made out of acid!

I propose landing gear especially designed for water, also semi-functional on ground:

[Capt Snuggler]

yes agree. I would also like a few other aquatic parts. various inflatable, impact resistant air bags that operate similar to parachutes. repackable, pressure tweekable, inline or radial mounted, various sizes.

also little electric propeller would be great!

aquatic rovers and floating bases yay!

[bartekkru99]

Do it with stock parts structural fuselages will do just fine. But it would be nice to see parrts designed to it.

[comham]

Needs improved water physics first. Right now the water doesn't feel like water.

[Panzerbeard]

Needs improved water physics first. Right now the water doesn't feel like water.

In all fairness, the air doesn't feel like air either

[Kasuha]

I'll just leave this here.

[hazarada]

last i checked, structural fuselages don't have a deploy function

[M3tal_Warrior]

Landing in water is quite OK, for small parts. The biggest problem is the parachutes that magically vanish once a part of the vessel is touching ground/water. While I land my Kerbiane 40 main stages (depending on the superstructure 80-100 m high) I am able to slow them down to 6.3 m/s, which is totally OK for the KR-2L main engine, but unsuitable for the tanks, especially since after splashdown it accelerates (due to the parachutes being magicked away) instead of decelerating as it would due to the engine pushing water away.

So instead of water landing gear I'd really like to see steady parachutes that are only deleted after the vessel has come to a halt for a complete second or so (or never, I mean, they could also like float down with 0.1 m/s).

[pellinor]

Have you tried RealChutes? They still work while moving over the surface, allowing drag chutes for landing planes. Haven't used them in water landings though.

[Kasuha]

last i checked, structural fuselages don't have a deploy function

They don't but OP is not asking for animations, he needs a gear on which he can land on water. And that fits the purpose as they have decent impact tolerance (40 m/s) and enough buoyancy to hold some serious mass.

Of course there are even better options - girders and radial intakes. Better but look ridiculous.

The matter with water landing is that each part must touch water below its impact resistance limit speed or it breaks. If you put some floats with high impact resistance at the bottom, they can stop you before any sensitive parts touch water.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Kasuha

[Capt Snuggler]

last i checked, structural fuselages don't have a deploy function

They don't but OP is not asking for animations, he needs a gear on which he can land on water.

but hazarada is the OP.

they way I interpret the post from looking at the picture provided was as a request for inflatable floatation devices.

The uses for such inflatable parts are there. the structural fuselage, while serving this function, was not meant for this purpose.

Spamming radial intakes also does the job very well but its a kludge.

[EnderSpace]

YES! YES!

i hate landing in water i lose parts that mean funds and hatch is not opening , Also when i have tons of science and i land on water i tell them bad bye in 1 second

[Kasuha]

A good landing gear for splash landing is modular girder - the one available in starting tech, or the long one. It looks funny but it does the job. Impact tolerance 80 m/s plus great buoyancy.

Here's a splash-landing-proof rocket using starter tech. It touches surface at 12.5 m/s and still the SRB does not even touch the water (or it would explode as its crash tolerance is only 7 m/s)

In conclusion, there's plenty of tools available for splash landings in the game with its current physics implementation. They look ridiculous and don't have fancy animations but from pure gameplay point of view I don't think we need deployable floats until physics is changed.

Edited August 31, 2014 by Kasuha

[M3tal_Warrior]

Have you tried RealChutes? They still work while moving over the surface, allowing drag chutes for landing planes. Haven't used them in water landings though.

Since you mentioned I gave it a shot - and I like it. Although it breaks all designs I atm have flying about (just about 400k bucks of refunds), initial tests with adapted Kerbiane designs worked out quite well. Even a stress test was astonishing. Thanks, I have a new mod...

[Mecripp]

Think your looking for something like this ? this is the plugin there using http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/84224-Klockheed-Martian-Special-Parts-27-June-2014-Development-thread There are a couple of mods but think just LLL and the one Link posted have parts to use.

[ac30fspad35]

why not just try to land it manually like you would on the mun to slow your m/s down?

just put on some small thrusters and parachutes and that should slow down your m/s for your recovery vehicle.

[Capt Snuggler]

why not just try to land it manually like you would on the mun to slow your m/s down?

just put on some small thrusters and parachutes and that should slow down your m/s for your recovery vehicle.

But thats not the point. hes asking for a floatation device for a softer touchdown and judging by the picture provided, an inflatable one.

Inflatable air bags are used in space exploration (see pictures in my earlier post). The Mars rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, both used inflatable soft-touchdown air bag systems.

I think it a perfectly reasonable part request. I wouldn't expect it in .25 or even .29, but I think there is room for a whole host of inflatable parts in KSP. and not just for soft landings or floatation. inflatable living spaces are being developed, docking fenders for bumpy docking procedures