Parachute failure

[quantumpion]

What is the point, since the last patch, of making parachutes fail above a certain speed when activated? Why allow the chute to be activated if it will immediately fail? This breaks the ability to activate parachutes while still in space, e.g. for unmanned probes. Why not just make activated parachutes not deploy until they are able to function?

[justidutch]

Cuz exploderisms be fun!

[Epthelyn]

Adjust the minimum pressure required to deploy the parachute.

The default 0.04 means that parachutes will deploy fairly high up in the atmosphere (~17km if the wiki is correct: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Parachute#Deployment) where the terminal velocity is still far beyond the safe limit. Increase the pressure and the chute will deploy lower in the atmosphere giving drag more time to slow it down before deployment.

I can't say what a safe value actually is because I don't tend to drop entirely unmanned vehicles onto the surface except when they're to be destroyed (everything I safely return is probe-controlled) - perhaps someone can provide that information

EDIT: This is also partially solved by using drogue chutes to slow things down before the main parachutes.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Epthelyn

[maceemiller]

Adjust the minimum pressure required to deploy the parachute.

The default 0.04 means that parachutes will deploy fairly high up in the atmosphere (~17km if the wiki is correct: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Parachute#Deployment) where the terminal velocity is still far beyond the safe limit. Increase the pressure and the chute will deploy lower in the atmosphere giving drag more time to slow it down before deployment.

I can't say what a safe value actually is because I don't tend to drop entirely unmanned vehicles onto the surface except when they're to be destroyed (everything I safely return is probe-controlled) - perhaps someone can provide that information

EDIT: This is also partially solved by using drogue chutes to slow things down before the main parachutes.

Thanks....ive had this problem before with parachutes but never adjusted pressure. Man this forum and its members surpass any ive encountered before. I love it here

- - - Updated - - -

Adjust the minimum pressure required to deploy the parachute.

The default 0.04 means that parachutes will deploy fairly high up in the atmosphere (~17km if the wiki is correct: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Parachute#Deployment) where the terminal velocity is still far beyond the safe limit. Increase the pressure and the chute will deploy lower in the atmosphere giving drag more time to slow it down before deployment.

I can't say what a safe value actually is because I don't tend to drop entirely unmanned vehicles onto the surface except when they're to be destroyed (everything I safely return is probe-controlled) - perhaps someone can provide that information

EDIT: This is also partially solved by using drogue chutes to slow things down before the main parachutes.

Thanks....ive had this problem before with parachutes but never adjusted pressure. Man this forum and its members surpass any ive encountered before. I love it here in fact, I get as much enjoyment trawling through this forum as I do playkng KSP.

[mellojoe]

EDIT: This is also partially solved by using drogue chutes to slow things down before the main parachutes.

Be cautious with this solution, though, as the drogues can also be destroyed by speed and temperature. Learned that the hard way ... the kerbal way, i guess you could say.

[problemecium]

A: The point is realism. As occurred recently in a test of NASA's Low-Density Supersonic Decelerator, high-speed deployment is very stressful for a parachute and can easily shred it.

B: This does not actually break the ability to deploy parachutes in space. I still do it. You simply need to adjust the parachutes' settings in the tweakable menu (either in the VAB or individually in flight). For the average ship, it'll slow down to a safe speed by around 3 km or 0.6 atmospheres (just try not to land on a mountain); if not, add drogue chutes (which can take much higher speeds up to around 650 m/s). In fact this mechanic gives drogue chutes an actual point now.

[AbacusWizard]

These days I usually go with aerobrakes that I deploy as soon as I hit the atmosphere (if built correctly, torque from the drag also seems to help keep the craft oriented the right way), then drogue chutes that I deploy when the speed decreases to a safe level, then main chutes that I deploy when I'm close enough to the ground that I don't have to wait forever.

[samstarman5]

Because it is meant to be hands-on. To give us a feel for what works where and when without always needing to look at numbers and displays. That's the way KSP has been since the get-go, and always will be. There is no fail safe in KSP but your own experience and decisions.

[moogoob]

Duna landings are now more of a challenge. While you can descend a lander probe without a heat shield, getting slow enough to pop chutes before you smash is now an issue. My last probe lander had a few separatrons designed for a retro burn to get to this point.

It was fun! But I agree - rather than a pressure deploy slider, an air speed slider would be much easier and I'd have to babysit the chutes a heck of a lot less.

[T-Bouw]

Do you also want the game to deny you trying to EVA during a re-entry?

Or deny you to launch if KSP considers your rocket to be unfit for space?

Perhaps you are right and they should limit it in the way you said.

But if this is done with every case like this one then I'm sure we'll get a very different KSP than we have now.

[sal_vager]

Pilot error.

KSP doesn't have random failures by design, it's something the devs want to avoid, it's no fun if your mission was ruined by some random event that you had no means of predicting and no means to prevent.

But if there's no risks there's no fun.

So the possibility exists for the player to make mistakes, to stage at the worst time, to forget landing legs or install them upside down, to burn their parachutes.

Yes there's the engineers report, it's not going to tell you everything though and many players ignore it, yes there's a warning in the chute menu that deploying them might be a bad idea while you're at mach3 and on fire.

But you can do it if you want to, or by accident, you're free to be as careful and efficient or as dangerous, trusting fate and luck, as you want to be.

Sometimes you will risk opening your chutes early, and you'll lose speed just in time that they won't burn through, you'll live, you'll have had a wild ride and a lot of fun, fun that you'd never have if everything had a failsafe and you were not permitted to take a chance.

The choice is yours.

[quantumpion]

The area where a mistake can be made is in making the descent too steep so that the craft cannot slow down fast enough before hitting the surface. While I know what I am doing for the most part, and this failure mechanism is simply something I have to work around using mods or whatever, for a new player it is hugely unforgiving. There is nothing anywhere stating parachutes work in this way, you only find out at the very end of whatever mission you were flying.

I'm not opposed to parachutes having limits to their speed and temperature. My complaint is in how the staging/activation functions. The parachute should not instantly die on activating if deployed too soon - it should just not deploy until it can do so within the limits. That way you can activate booster recovery parachutes or unmanned probe parachutes on staging. However, the parachute limits should be made more clear in the UI somewhere so that you can at least wild guess what kind of reentry is survivable beforehand.

[sal_vager]

Parachutes have a heat tolerance, they do not instantly die on activating if deployed too soon, they build up heat and then are destroyed if their heat tolerance is exceeded, so chutes can survive brief use outside their safe range.

[Arronicus]

Parachutes have a heat tolerance, they do not instantly die on activating if deployed too soon, they build up heat and then are destroyed if their heat tolerance is exceeded, so chutes can survive brief use outside their safe range.

From personal experience, this seems to be no longer the case. I have had many parachute failures, and many successes, but I have yet to lose a single parachute where it did not fail the exact moment I tried to deploy it. They either fail the instant they are deployed, or not at all.

[Jason Patterson]

Parachutes have always failed if deployed under too high a load; it's not new behavior. The recent patch made the behavior more common.

[KSK]

The area where a mistake can be made is in making the descent too steep so that the craft cannot slow down fast enough before hitting the surface. While I know what I am doing for the most part, and this failure mechanism is simply something I have to work around using mods or whatever, for a new player it is hugely unforgiving. There is nothing anywhere stating parachutes work in this way, you only find out at the very end of whatever mission you were flying.

I'm not opposed to parachutes having limits to their speed and temperature. My complaint is in how the staging/activation functions. The parachute should not instantly die on activating if deployed too soon - it should just not deploy until it can do so within the limits. That way you can activate booster recovery parachutes or unmanned probe parachutes on staging. However, the parachute limits should be made more clear in the UI somewhere so that you can at least wild guess what kind of reentry is survivable beforehand.

They're no more unforgiving than anything else in KSP really. They're also something a new player can (and will need to) learn to deal with whilst they're still flying sub-orbital or basic orbital missions - which are pretty short and allow for a nice fast learn-rebuild-and-try-again cycle. It's not like a new player is going to be flying out to Duna and only then discovering that they've borked the parachutes. (That's a trick for experienced players only. )