Things to do while waiting for your rocket to patachute down to Kerbin

[Venusgate]

Now that parachuting hella early is almost mandatory in career mode prior to getting heat shields, and while the new chute drag numbers make it so you might be doing 200 m/s@ 20km up, I've noticed a spike in descent wait time where I can do nothing, except wait....

OR CAN'T I?!

Things I've been doing in the new meantime:

-Doing the dishes

-Sewing a button back onto my jeans that have been resting on the back of the chair for a few weeks.

-Brushing the dog

-Writing a letter to family members

-Taking out the trash

...

Anyone else find the new heat/aero/chute model conducive to productivity?

[klgraham1013]

- Pick up my Kindle and read a book.

- Sing to myself.

- Ponder humanity.

- Eat a sandwich.

[Endersmens]

time warp all the way down......

Since parachutes open slowly, you can blow through deployment at 4x warp just fine.

[Robotengineer]

Browse the forums.

[falloutaddict]

I have been deploying chutes around 6-8k around 400m/s and then i just warp to the about 100m above ground so not too much to wait for. Heat shield is not even really neccessary unless you are coming in at 3000/ms, just from orbit and you should be fine with just the pod. Just my two cents

[Starwhip]

Given that a correct reentry trajectory slows you down plenty, I wait until 1 or 2 kilometers before deploying, making the 4x timewarp trip about 45 seconds or less.

[justidutch]

[Orange_Slime_]

Steam overlay and youtube, and commenting on threads listing things you do when you are parachuting down.

[MacroNova]

I wait until I'm subsonic to deploy my chutes.

[vixr]

^^this^^ I wait until I'm under 250 m/s to deploy

[malkuth]

I just wait to 500 Meters... Seems to work.

[Fearlessjames118]

Wait....

[ArchGaden]

You get the first heat shield very quick. It is probably quicker to just do one mission first for science before shooting into high orbit. Otherwise, a long wait is the penalty people get to pay for cheesing parachutes. As for me, I ride it out to 1-2km high where I'm going maybe 220 m/s before opening the parachutes. Then I'll crank up warp to x4 for the rest of the trip. I try to drop warp right before impact, but even when I fail that, I haven't had any warp krakens hit in 1.0.

For long burns and cruising to 70km, I just alt-tab to reddit... or whip out a phone or tablet if I want to keep a glancing watch.

Anyone know if there is a way to bypass the x4 warp limit? I feel like the physics are stable enough in most situations to push it higher.

[monstah]

Pay attention to wife.

[luizopiloto]

Nsfw

[Joonatan1998]

I usually have some other game runing in an other window.

Usually Minecraft,a game where AFKing is very productive.

Having multiple games running at the same time makes many games more playable, especially some turn based strategy games. (where computer turns can take more time than human players would be likely to take...)

[Aerindel]

^^this^^ I wait until I'm under 250 m/s to deploy

Yes, but you just arbitrarily making the game harder since you can open your chute at 30,000 meters going 2km/s and just dift down without having to worry about heat at all, ie, the broken reentry system.

What do I while waiting? I com the forum and complain about the broken re-entry system.

[ExavierMacbeth]

I get impatient and just add an extra chute to my rocket. Use one as a poor mans drogue and cut it after I am slow enough to not burn up. Then deploy the real chutes later on

[Frybert]

Reminisce about pre-1.0 loading.

[WanderingKid]

If you aim your Periapsis at 18-22k and burn in nearly horizontal for a while, you'll kill off most of your speed without having to pop a high chute on a pod and without self-destructing. It takes a bit, but it's not too bad.

[AmpsterMan]

I have the parachute semi deploy at 0.5 atm and full deploy at 50. Haven't died since

[KSK]

If you aim your Periapsis at 18-22k and burn in nearly horizontal for a while, you'll kill off most of your speed without having to pop a high chute on a pod and without self-destructing. It takes a bit, but it's not too bad.

30-32k periapsis seems to be the sweet spot for me, at least for coming back from Kerbin orbit. Nice and stable, gives me plenty of time to deploy the chutes once I've gone sub-sonic. Still figuring out exactly how far east of KSC I need to put my periapsis for a precision landing but I'm getting there.

Still tuning my Munar returns - at the moment they tend to be too cautious and I end up doing one aerobraking pass and coming round again.

[Enorats]

Tell my Kerbal to go eva. Wonder about the outside of the ship and all that. Once KAS updates maybe I'll have them eva, grab a radial chute from the box and paradrop to the ground.

[Brotoro]

Write up your mission report.

[AbacusWizard]

What wait? You mean you folks don't come screaming into the atmosphere in a supersonic spacecraft covered in heatshields and then pop all parachutes within 100 m of the ground? Seriously, it's the only way to fly.