New reentry and parachutes.

[MathmoRichard]

I launched a probe to bring back ore from Minmus. My first attempt at reentry made me skip through the atmosphere twice! I did my usual 32km periapsis and then went straight through the atmosphere, came back around 30km Pe, still skipped through, then on my last pass I properly entered but ended up breaking all my parachutes... apparently 300 m/s is too fast for them now (!!!!!).

Ok so fine, drag is less...

Then I reloaded and tried for a perfect reentry, and got it. Periapsis of 26km worked, slowed down through the Pe, went back up to 40km and then came down. But STILL my sea level speed was too fast for the parachutes.

So what the hell am I supposed to do??

Does anyone else think this is a little too difficult?

[Rhomphaia]

Normal parachutes are rather fragile now. You have to deploy them at a lot slower speeds than used to be possible. If you right click them they have a "Safe to deploy?" indicator.

Drogues are much more useful now.

[Landwalker]

I properly entered but ended up breaking all my parachutes... apparently 300 m/s is too fast for them now (!!!!!).

Ok so fine, drag is less...

Then I reloaded and tried for a perfect reentry, and got it. Periapsis of 26km worked, slowed down through the Pe, went back up to 40km and then came down. But STILL my sea level speed was too fast for the parachutes.

So what the hell am I supposed to do??

Does anyone else think this is a little too difficult?

I had the same (unfortunate) realization yesterday when I ripped all my parachutes off at around 230 m/s when they deployed at what had previously been my "standard" deployment altitude (approximately 6.5 km). I was able to get a safe deployment down around 5 km (200 m/s or so), but deploying at that altitude makes me nervous. I'm going to have to make sure I don't reenter above any high-altitude terrain, especially mountains.

And all of that was just reentering from orbital and sub-orbital trajectories around Kerbin. I imagine coming in hot from Minmus is really going to do a number on them. A couple of atmospheric skips might be necessary to kill off some speed before re-entering "for real," at least before you get drogues. I haven't unlocked them yet in my new career game and am looking forward to seeing if they help the situation.

[KerikBalm]

I haven't had time to check out 1.03 yet, do the drogues also have the safe to deploy indicator?

What sort of speeds can you deploy them at in the lower atmosphere?

Previously i had problems with standard chutes being destroyed if I deployed really early on Duna (I forget the pressure setting, but it was close to the limit)... but the drogues were fine, so I had drogues deploying very early and opening at maximum altitude, before deploying the main chutes.

I hope these changes don't cause me problems for reentry at duna...

I'm worried that my eve probes are completely screwed if I patch to 1.03....

[JimmyAgent007]

Ive had to relearn how to do chutes, I actually like the extra challenge now that they dont kill your speed all at once. Though even at 120% and a steep angle of entry, the heat doesnt seem to do much damage to the heatshield.

[Moh1336]

I always aim for about 250m/s before deploying chutes, I have yet to have any issues with re-entry or chutes but I have only done one since updating and that was via an orbit after a rescue mission. However I have noticed a piece of space debris has a periapsis of 28,000km and keeps skipping out of the atmosphere, where as it would previously have re-entered Kerbin.

My next trip is to Minmus for my first manned landing, I guess I will have to be a little more cautious on my return trajectory.

Edit: Well I can honestly say I had no issues returning at all with my parachutes... mostly because I forgot to put any on. Good thing I had plenty of fuel left in the lander!

It may be worth noting that with a periapsis of 40,000km I did end up going through the atmosphere and emerging at the other side on the first pass.

Edited June 23, 2015 by Moh1336

[mrclucks]

Peripasis of 30km makes you skip?! That was always my periapsis for a real reentry unless i was coming ftom interplanetary space. How low do we have to go to not skip from minmus? 5km??

Back on topic, I haven't noticed the safe to deploy Indicator but I've only done a couple test launches. It's good to hear that drogue chutes serve a purpose now

[Moh1336]

I came in at 32km on my last re-entry without issue. The debris must just be travelling too fast at least until I 'terminated' it.

[Sawyer7as]

I had the same (unfortunate) realization yesterday when I ripped all my parachutes off at around 230 m/s when they deployed at what had previously been my "standard" deployment altitude (approximately 6.5 km).

Not to single you out, but I feel there is a pattern here of really high chute openings. I've never pulled above 3K. Unless AGL is under 500M at that point.

[tutike2000]

I believe we now need a "Deploy only when safe" mod for chutes.

[MathmoRichard]

Peripasis of 30km makes you skip?! That was always my periapsis for a real reentry unless i was coming ftom interplanetary space. How low do we have to go to not skip from minmus? 5km??

Back on topic, I haven't noticed the safe to deploy Indicator but I've only done a couple test launches. It's good to hear that drogue chutes serve a purpose now

Worst case 27km now, but 1.0.2 worst case for me was 30km. It seems though that the few km around 30 make an enormous difference. I would expect 35km to always be a skip now for most ships.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, I'm now in trouble because I'm doing my first Duna landing right now and I don't know how many parachutes to use, or if I can even use them!?

[EtherDragon]

The deceleration curve for parachutes has changed once fully opened. I noticed this in testing some saved craft in Sandbox. Make sure you change your parachutes to open at 1000m AGL instead of 500.

[Geschosskopf]

Also, I'm now in trouble because I'm doing my first Duna landing right now and I don't know how many parachutes to use, or if I can even use them!?

Have your engineers un "simulations" like they do in the real world. That is, create a sandbox game and copy your proposed Duna lander into it. In the new game, use HyperEdit to put the lander into Duna orbit at whatever altitude you plan to use. Then de-orbit and see what happens. Tweak lander design and/or descent profile as needed and try again. Once happy, copy the lander back into your career game.

I haven't tried this in 1.0.3 yet but in 1.0.2, Duna was the most pleasant experience of all atmospheric planets. It needed WAY fewer chutes than pre-1.0, you could come in steeply instead of horizontally, and land safely on just chutes at elevations so that that previously chutes did no good at all.

[jwenting]

Tested some. Found what works is getting into a 100km orbit, then lowering periapsis to 50km or so.

Keep pointed retrograde, and you should slow down enough that your orbit doesn't leave the atmosphere.

Reentry heating with that profile ends at 10-15km up, and at 5km or so it's safe to deploy the parachutes.

[Landwalker]

Not to single you out, but I feel there is a pattern here of really high chute openings. I've never pulled above 3K. Unless AGL is under 500M at that point.

This may not impact your (or any else's) experiences, but I just want to clarify something in case there was misunderstanding of terms:

When I say "Deploy", what I really mean is "release the parachute from its container into its non-expanded state as a makeshift drogue", which might be considered "semi-deployed". I don't mean "Completely unfurl the parachute to maximum capacity" or "fully deployed."

I realize from time to time that different people have different ideas about what "deploying a parachute" means, and that that might cause some confusion.

So what I'm really doingâ€â€or rather, what I had been doing in 1.0.2â€â€was to set parachutes to automatically "semi-deploy" at about 0.35 atmospheres, which works out to somewhere in the neighborhood of 6.5 km above sea level and, at least for the types of reentries I was doing at the time, about 230-260 meters/second, and then to "fully deploy" only at either 1,000 meters or 500 meters above ground level.

In 1.0.2, that was never a problem, and the semi-deployment-to-full-deployment approach worked very well. However, I've found in 1.0.3 that the same parameters are no longer consistently safe. For the time being, I'm setting semi-deployment for 0.45 to 0.5 atmospheres (works out to about 4.5-5.0 km above sea level)â€â€I'm still mostly using full deployment at 500 meters above ground level, but may up that to 1,000 meters. That's worked so far for early-career suborbital and low-orbit-return trajectories, but I don't know yet whether or not it will hold up to the higher speeds of things like returns from the Mun or Minmus (let alone more distant venues).

[jwenting]

For a return from the Mun or Minmus, your safe bet is to circularise in LKO, or at worst enter a somewhat elliptical orbit.

Unless you have retro rockets, you're unlikely to get your speed down enough for a soft landing with a faster reentry than that (even the early career reentries can get tricky as you're pretty steep so your vertical velocity on descent is relatively high).

- - - Updated - - -

Drogue chutes work nicely now on Duna...

Needed hardly any retro rockets to land.

OK, 8 drogues and 6 regular chutes. Maybe that helped

[wossname]

I like the new balancing to the reentry and chutes. Took me a few tries just now to get a Jeb + 3 tourist mission back to terra firma without tears and hydrobraking. It's a good realism change.

Nailed it just now and it seems to add a lot of thrills to the final end stages of a prolonged mission. Sweet.

[Mattux355]

Chutes have been a thorn for me. I only like to play in Career and with low tech re-entry is extremely difficult. I finally got it down to where I can open my chute at 2000m at less than 250m/s so I don't rip off the chute. I fear for new players just getting into the game on career getting frustrated with low tech and not having Drogues.

[jwenting]

Chutes have been a thorn for me. I only like to play in Career and with low tech re-entry is extremely difficult. I finally got it down to where I can open my chute at 2000m at less than 250m/s so I don't rip off the chute. I fear for new players just getting into the game on career getting frustrated with low tech and not having Drogues.

Same here. It's I think gotten a tad too difficult for inexperienced players now, unless you really tone down the difficulty settings.

Which is sad, for the hardcore people who want that stuff there's always been deadly reentry. Now we have to fiddle with debug settings to not have the same...

[MathmoRichard]

Have your engineers un "simulations" like they do in the real world. That is, create a sandbox game and copy your proposed Duna lander into it. In the new game, use HyperEdit to put the lander into Duna orbit at whatever altitude you plan to use. Then de-orbit and see what happens. Tweak lander design and/or descent profile as needed and try again. Once happy, copy the lander back into your career game.

I haven't tried this in 1.0.3 yet but in 1.0.2, Duna was the most pleasant experience of all atmospheric planets. It needed WAY fewer chutes than pre-1.0, you could come in steeply instead of horizontally, and land safely on just chutes at elevations so that that previously chutes did no good at all.

Thanks, just did this. It really helped but now I have a bigger reentry problem. On returning to Kerbin, I'm doing 4500 m/s. I overheat and explode before I even get down to 40 km. And I do have a heat shield.

[Grimm]

Abuse the heck out of air brakes, that's what I do. I've reached a point where not a single ship I build, no matter how large it may be, gets off the launch pad without air brakes attached to them. They'll slow behemoths to such speeds they'll softly touch down. I went so far as to build a parachute ship. Granted, that was inspired after accidentally deploying my chutes while detaching depleted fuel tanks off a ship departing from Duna and my engineer, despite being ranked high enough, wouldn't repack them. So I had to construct this to ensure I can land back on Kerbin.

http://i.imgur.com/V0Ubafs.png

This screenshot is from a later contract which called for a ship that orbited Eve to be returned. Since the original transfer craft that took four probes, two to Eve and two to Gilly, was never intended to land I reused this parachute ship, docked with the Eve transfer ship and thanks to air brakes managed to get through the atmosphere without ripping the docking ports. Works like a charm.

Just be careful when aerobraking with air brakes. They tend to work too good and you might find yourself landing sooner than you thought.

[clivman]

This may not impact your (or any else's) experiences, but I just want to clarify something in case there was misunderstanding of terms:

When I say "Deploy", what I really mean is "release the parachute from its container into its non-expanded state as a makeshift drogue", which might be considered "semi-deployed". I don't mean "Completely unfurl the parachute to maximum capacity" or "fully deployed."

I realize from time to time that different people have different ideas about what "deploying a parachute" means, and that that might cause some confusion.

So what I'm really doingâ€â€or rather, what I had been doing in 1.0.2â€â€was to set parachutes to automatically "semi-deploy" at about 0.35 atmospheres, which works out to somewhere in the neighborhood of 6.5 km above sea level and, at least for the types of reentries I was doing at the time, about 230-260 meters/second, and then to "fully deploy" only at either 1,000 meters or 500 meters above ground level.

In 1.0.2, that was never a problem, and the semi-deployment-to-full-deployment approach worked very well. However, I've found in 1.0.3 that the same parameters are no longer consistently safe. For the time being, I'm setting semi-deployment for 0.45 to 0.5 atmospheres (works out to about 4.5-5.0 km above sea level)â€â€I'm still mostly using full deployment at 500 meters above ground level, but may up that to 1,000 meters. That's worked so far for early-career suborbital and low-orbit-return trajectories, but I don't know yet whether or not it will hold up to the higher speeds of things like returns from the Mun or Minmus (let alone more distant venues).

Unless you come in very steep you should be going the same speed by the time you reach 3km

- - - Updated - - -

Abuse the heck out of air brakes, that's what I do. I've reached a point where not a single ship I build, no matter how large it may be, gets off the launch pad without air brakes attached to them. They'll slow behemoths to such speeds they'll softly touch down. I went so far as to build a parachute ship. Granted, that was inspired after accidentally deploying my chutes while detaching depleted fuel tanks off a ship departing from Duna and my engineer, despite being ranked high enough, wouldn't repack them. So I had to construct this to ensure I can land back on Kerbin.

http://i.imgur.com/V0Ubafs.png

This screenshot is from a later contract which called for a ship that orbited Eve to be returned. Since the original transfer craft that took four probes, two to Eve and two to Gilly, was never intended to land I reused this parachute ship, docked with the Eve transfer ship and thanks to air brakes managed to get through the atmosphere without ripping the docking ports. Works like a charm.

Just be careful when aerobraking with air brakes. They tend to work too good and you might find yourself landing sooner than you thought.

They should burn up when in the extended position and be nerfed.

[Warzouz]

At what speed can we open drogue chutes ?

My rocket SSTO stage have not enough drag to slow down now. I barely get to 250m/s before crashing onto water.

The airbrakes seem to be much less efficient and my bluky and heavy stage can't slow down fast enough.

[jwenting]

Thanks, just did this. It really helped but now I have a bigger reentry problem. On returning to Kerbin, I'm doing 4500 m/s. I overheat and explode before I even get down to 40 km. And I do have a heat shield.

orbit Kerbin at 100km or so, then go for a shallow reentry at maybe 2500m/s

[imaspacestation]

You can also try a few aerobraking passes in the upper atmosphere to slow down without burning. You'd have to experiment with just how much you can dip into the upper atmosphere without burning up, but I would say start it safe and increase it if you gauge that you can take more heat until eventually you're slow enough to re-enter completely.