Landing Strut Specs and what they can handle?

[Vorg]

So struts now have a number of specs and some VERY high impact numbers (450/ms for one of them). But what can a given strut really take and how much mass per strut can a given type handle? I tried googling and asked in IRC. Is there any data on mass range per strut for a strut type or realistic impact numbers? I really don't think your craft would survive a 400m/s landing just because it has those struts under them. The craft would rip apart at the very least.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Vorg

[Reactordrone]

I don't know what they can handle but I know I have a damaged strut on a Mun lander that I've kept in Munar orbit and that's only suffered from one slightly hard landing so the threshold for damage isn't that high.

[Pecan]

A very good question. Do you know, I've never even looked at those stats until now!

I think I've been taking too much as 'obvious' from my previous experience and reading, in particular assuming that the right-click 'more information' for parts didn't tell me much I didn't know.

Now I think I'll have to do some more research and include a section, or whole chapter, in 'Induction To Construction' on what all those things mean.

At a guess, because I haven't tried it yet:

Crash Tolerance (in the main information window) is the speed at which you can land without damaging things. 10m/s for the micros, 12m/s for the other two.

Impact Tolerance, I'm guessing, is the force needed to destroy the part.

Suspension Spring: The mass one leg can support ???

Suspension Damper: Amount landing-force is reduced for the part to which leg is connected ???

As for 'Align Foot Up', only false for LT-2, can't think of the words to explain it (need more coffee) and 'Suspension Upper Limit' I have NO idea!

Off to work ...

[Vorg]

That "Suspension Spring: The mass one leg can support ???" might be what I'm looking for. I think this new data was added around .25? Not sure. I know it is fairly new.

The Align Foot Up might be the one that just swings the foot up instead of retracting.

[Mahnarch]

At 450 m/s I'm sure the landing strut would survive.

The craft won't. But, the strut would!

[Vorg]

Can any devs answer this? They came up with the specs. No one seems to know what they mean.

[Vorg]

Bumping this for any updates

[Foxster]

I really, if ever, use the landing strut parts. The aircraft landing gear or just some girders seem to do a better job.

[DeMatt]

The impression I get, from a couple quick experiments, is that "Suspension Spring" roughly equates to the tonnage (on Kerbin) the leg can support without sagging. "Damper" is presumably how well the leg resists bouncing. "Impact Tolerance", I would assume, is how much instantaneous force the leg can possibly exert without it breaking, whereas "Crash Tolerance" applies when the ground is hitting the leg from some other direction rather than on its foot.

[TheXRuler]

I would assume that the 450m/s are the impact tolerance befre the leg itself explodes. However I think that if you have something attached to the leg and impact at 450/ms/s the connection to the other part will break. I can say from experience that either the heaviest or the second heaviest can survive a ~250m/s impact (with an impact angle of about 10°) on the mun. I could no longer retract it but it survived and it saved my craft. Yay for lithobraking

[n0xiety]

I use 4 of those biggest landing struts for my 950ton ship which can land quite easily even on duna. Landing struts takes the first hit then sink into ground placing the engines gently onto ground. Well the ship must weight about 600 tons at the start of landing since the fuel got used and 400 when touchdown on duna. Still it just proves that those biggest struts can take quite alot of weight. There was a time where i landed the ship a bit too fast. While struts and engines survived the hit the upper parts of the ship like crew compartments and fuel tanks got separated and everything exploded falling onto ground. After all the commotion stopped the struts and engines were still on the ground as good as new.

Edited May 12, 2015 by n0xiety

[TheXRuler]

A 400 ton lander? Oô Could I please have a screenshot? I love crazy things

[n0xiety]

A 400 ton lander? Oô Could I please have a screenshot? I love crazy things

Here you go mate

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I takeoff from kerbing and then head towards minmus. Single stage nothing gets ejected. I refuel there and go for duna land refuel takeoff go for ike for refueling then go either for another planet or return back to kerbin. Those mechjeb dv are wrong since i use mamooths for atmosphere while using the rhino engine at the middle for space which makes it alot more efficient.

Edited May 12, 2015 by n0xiety

[TheXRuler]

T_T that is even bigger than what I had expected. Definetly one of the more impressive designs I have seen, you just posted this in another thread I noticed

[n0xiety]

Yeah that thread was about reusable heavy ssto so seemed right place for this monster. And the best part is this thing is like 70 parts super light on performance. Ah and i posted there first then posted here after you asked me to .)

[Warzouz]

It's not a SSTO but a SSTM ! "single stage to minmus"

Yep, those mamoth are great for athmo flight. Heavy but high thrust and decent ISP (atm).