PSA: Don't set your chutes to open at 50m. I just lost Val this way.

[Kuu Lightwing]

Yeah, I learned it the hard way in my hard (with respawn, though) career. Val was bringing back some science from the first Mun landing (of this save). I decided to open chute at 50m to save some time... The chute did not have enough time to deploy fully - she hit the surface at 99 m/s.

[Beowolf]

Doesn't even have to be 50m. I got distracted and didn't stage the chutes until 300m once and killed my pilot. He'd slowed to maybe 15 m/s when he hit. They're much slower to deploy than before. But, on the bright side, opening chutes while physics-accelerating doesn't break the cords anymore.

[Destroyer713]

Honestly, the chutes open slowly enough now that it's really not safe to have them open much below 500 meters.

[PB666]

Honestly, the chutes open slowly enough now that it's really not safe to have them open much below 500 meters.

actually if you are landing in the highlands or mountanous regions, or you are relying on landing struts to absorb part of the landing force your prolly need to open a few hundred meter higher. I set my chutes to open 1000 meters

[katateochi]

Doesn't even have to be 50m. I got distracted and didn't stage the chutes until 300m once and killed my pilot. He'd slowed to maybe 15 m/s when he hit. They're much slower to deploy than before. But, on the bright side, opening chutes while physics-accelerating doesn't break the cords anymore.

Yesterday I was aggressively de-orbiting an ascent stage and I wasn't too fussed if it survived or not (I'd brought it in very steep in the hope of something exploding). Nothing exploded from the heat, but I did a late deploy of the chutes (I think below 100m) while at 4x physics warp and....something happened. Next thing I know I was focused on the large SAS module from it that was now careering back up into space and actually on a solar escape trajectory. Clearly the cords are now very elastic!

[RocketPilot573]

I also figured this out the hard way, I think mine where set to like 250 meters.. Boom.

[LordCurlyton]

I used to always set my chutes to deploy at 250, then it wouldn't let me anymore in 1.0 but if I tried REALLLLLLY hard I could get the 50m choice (which I guess is useful only on Eve, if at all). tried it once on a probe, saw the results, learned quickly. FYI, 500 m is fine for anything, apparently the chutes have a built in surface radar that detects how far it is from the surface, not the sea level altimeter like we get.

[Captain Sierra]

Yall are aware you can tweak the deploy time, which shortens the time it takes them to reach full deployment. If you wanna do aggressive parachuting, you'll need to adjust that value too.

[Leszek]

I used to always set my chutes to deploy at 250, then it wouldn't let me anymore in 1.0 but if I tried REALLLLLLY hard I could get the 50m choice (which I guess is useful only on Eve, if at all). tried it once on a probe, saw the results, learned quickly. FYI, 500 m is fine for anything, apparently the chutes have a built in surface radar that detects how far it is from the surface, not the sea level altimeter like we get.

The stock IVA's all have radar altimeters installed. Err, they did before I think they still do.

[SpaceChipmunk]

I have lost a few returns to Kerbin with the default 500m. Just going too damn fast!

[Scarecrow88]

Just be aware that if you are going to use a chute at Duna to help slow your descent, the default deployment height of 500m isn't high enough due to Duna having a much thinner atmosphere than Kerbin.

[problemecium]

I noted this a few days ago in the Helpful Observations thread.

Also, it's still perfectly useful to have some of the chutes open at 50m if there are multiple "stages" of chutes. They won't be able to stop a ship going at 100m/s, but if you've already slowed down to ten or so, there's no harm in leaving additional parachutes to the last minute. In fact this can still be put to good use as shown in my water landing tutorial.

[LostOblivion]

Pictures!

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I love the new chutes and the way they deploy

[elpollodiablo]

From my personal experience, 300m is about the lowest you can go.

It was my standart height when not using RealChutes, and responsible for one of the most exciting moments in 1.0: A perfect "suicide-chute"-landing

[FatboyTim]

actually if you are landing in the highlands or mountanous regions, or you are relying on landing struts to absorb part of the landing force your prolly need to open a few hundred meter higher. I set my chutes to open 1000 meters

I agree.

I had my chute set to open at the default height as I came screaming in over mountains with a full load of science from Minmus.

The Mk1 Pod ran into the side of the mountain while still travelling at over 50m/s but luckily for Bob (and the R&D team) the resulting explosion destroyed only the ablative shield. Phew!

[magnemoe]

Just be aware that if you are going to use a chute at Duna to help slow your descent, the default deployment height of 500m isn't high enough due to Duna having a much thinner atmosphere than Kerbin.

This was true in 0.90 too, however more because even then fully opened they would need time slowing anything down.

500 meters works well enough for me in 1.02, I pop parachute 10-3 km up and it opens and slow down at 500, this includes an 15 ton ship. That had two radial parachutes, the new braking shute and airbrakes.

[TheMoonRover]

I always used to go as low as possible without deploying the parachutes. I remember several times deploying them 20-30m and still having a safe splashdown. Not any more. More like 200-300m now. The parachutes haven't been this realistic since the very early free versions of KSP (I think...)

[lazarus1024]

What is everyone doing with Duna? I am a ways away from going there, but that thought did just occur to me. Pre-1.02 back in .90, I had been setting them to 1,000 meters and things were good.

What about now? Should I be going 2-3k? I rarely rely on parachutes on Duna to actually get all the way down, but I do tend to rely on them scrubbing a few hundred m/s of velocity as well as letting me float slowish to within a few dozen meters of the surface and then turn the engines back on. Great for making multiple hops. Parachutes, brief engine burst, land. Repack, take off, parachutes, brief engine burst, land again. Rinse and repeat.

[Scarecrow88]

On my relatively modest Duna lander I have a drogue chute set to pop at 2500m and a Mk16 set to open at 2000m. It's probably a bit on the conservative side but it gives me enough time to juggle the engine for the last few metres to ensure a safe touch down.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Scarecrow88

[LordCurlyton]

Eh for Duna I used to just have one big chute to do a good chunk of the slowing and then used an engine to control the descent and land softly. Probably will do the same when I get back there in 1.0.x

[sj176]

First time that happened to me I was mostly happy they fixed the parachutes from being overpowered.

[ajburges]

I stage my chutes. Problem is I have yet to do more than 2 stages.

M16 at .3 atm and 700 m, 2 radials at .4 atm and 50 m for my orbital ops pods. Can stage then in orbit to!