Crew cabin splashdown survivability not consistent

[JonathanS223]

Hello all!

This might just be me griping after a three hour game that went bad (and I was to focused to remember to save), but I was completing a mission where you rescue a kerbal from orbit of Minmas. Everything went to plan including the landing. The part the really made me mad as I thought it would work is that the Kerbal, which was in a Crew Cabin, hit the water with the rest of my ship and exploded instead of float like the Crew Cabin that was attached to my vessel.

It makes no sense that the crew cabin I put on my ship would survive landing in water while the OTHER one for the mission would blow up instead. Is this a design flaw or have I missed something? Cause if it's a flaw, I highly recommend getting it set that all Crew Cabins can float in the water.

Thanks for your time!

Edited September 24, 2015 by sumghai
Edited thread title for clarity

[DuoDex]

I am not sure what you are asking. If you want to move Kerbals around your ship, there are [thread=62270]several mods for that[/thread]. If your issue is that the buoyancy in KSP is sometimes...wonky, [thread=105094]there's a mod for that[/thread] as well.

If I'm totally missing the point, let me know and I'll try to figure something out.

[Starwhip]

I am not sure what you are asking. If you want to move Kerbals around your ship, there are [thread=62270]several mods for that[/thread]. If your issue is that the buoyancy in KSP is sometimes...wonky, [thread=105094]there's a mod for that[/thread] as well.

If I'm totally missing the point, let me know and I'll try to figure something out.

It seems to me that JonathanS223 simply landed too hard on water for the Stock game to handle. Which is basically anything greater than 3 m/s. :/

[JonathanS223]

I am not sure what you are asking. If you want to move Kerbals around your ship, there are [thread=62270]several mods for that[/thread]. If your issue is that the buoyancy in KSP is sometimes...wonky, [thread=105094]there's a mod for that[/thread] as well.

If I'm totally missing the point, let me know and I'll try to figure something out.

Thanks for your response, let me rephrase it a bit better. The crew Cabin was attached to a Advanced Claw Unit and when I landed in the water, it exploded instead of floating there.

It seems to me that JonathanS223 simply landed too hard on water for the Stock game to handle. Which is basically anything greater than 3 m/s. :/

I landed at 2.5 m/s. I had a lot of chutes to slow me down cause I was expecting something nasty on impact if I was to fast.

[Grumman]

I've modded my game to give the Mk 2 crew cabin an impact tolerance more in line with the other Mk 2 parts instead of its current pitiful 6 m/s, and it would be nice if a similar change came to the stock game.

[DocMoriarty]

I have landing gears on my recover pod vessel and use them even when I land in water. They take the initial shock so that the payload on the claw doesn't get hurt.

[Wjolcz]

The water should've been fixed long time ago. It's deadlier than the solid ground.

[NathanKell]

Are you sure it's impact damage, and not "vessel without a control part hit the ground and thus was destroyed" ?

[JonathanS223]

Are you sure it's impact damage, and not "vessel without a control part hit the ground and thus was destroyed" ?

I'm not sure what damaged destroyed it honestly. I just know that the Crew Cabin was attached to the Grabber unit when it touched down on water, when the ship rolled, anything that wasn't a command module exploded, including the mission generated crew cabin. This landing was in water.

[Capt Snuggler]

this seems to be more of an issue with KSPs random damaging water rather than the crew cabins.

the water needs a bit of a do over in both physics and visuals.

[JonathanS223]

Well, since that incident, i've calmed down enough. LOL I'm glad that this issue has been noticed before. Sorry to sound complaining all and I appreciate the responses.

[sumghai]

[MOD - Renamed thread title for clarity and changed thread prefix to a more appropriate one.]

[XrayLima]

This is a pain of an issue mostly because it tends to be inconsistent when I come up against it.

I had a very interesting occurrence with a low tech level rescue vessel. Basically three small capsules with parachutes and heat shields on an inverted tri-coupler on the top of the rocket, each sat on its own de-coupler, the idea being to separate all three at just prior to re-entry. First time I tried it: separate at 65Km, by the time they splashed down they were about 2km apart. All but the active capsule exploded on contact. Second try: separate at 35km, splash down 1.5km apart (ish), same outcome. Third time: Ride re-entry down to overheat, separate at 15km, splash down 500m apart, all survive..... interesting.

Interesting side note - slight off centre weights make capsules somewhat steerable.

Edited September 25, 2015 by XrayLima

[DocMoriarty]

Actually impact tolerance of parts landing in water should be taken x 1.5 or 2 or so.

@XrayLima

Had a weird experience with a detached lab that landed near me on gras. It should have impacted hard but it was in great shape. It broke off some km above ground including the claw it was connected to (due to another bug) and no parachutes or rcu or kerbal on it. I was glad that it didn't vanish though because it was part of the recovery mission I did.

[Darnok]

Actually impact tolerance of parts landing in water should be taken x 1.5 or 2 or so.

I was going to make thread with that suggestion +1

[RocketBlam]

That's odd... Maybe your using a part I never use (not sure what a crew cabin is, is it that 2.5m 4-man jobbie?). I regularly land in water at 5-8 m/s and I don't think I've ever had a pod explode from it.

If you are talking about that big 4-man cabin, I don't think those are supposed to even reenter, let alone survive splashdown.

Edit: nvm, I see. Well, that sucks! I mean, I don't think the Mk 2 parts are supposed to get wet, but it should survive a splashdown at that velocity, or of course tipping over after splashdown.

I have had parts blow up from tipping over.

Edited September 30, 2015 by RocketBlam

[MalevolentNinja]

I'm not sure what damaged destroyed it honestly. I just know that the Crew Cabin was attached to the Grabber unit when it touched down on water, when the ship rolled, anything that wasn't a command module exploded, including the mission generated crew cabin. This landing was in water.

You landed at < 3m/s so you were fine there. I've never had a problem as long as I hit at < 6m/s.

It sounds to me like you had a tallish vessel (I'm visualizing engine + tank + probe core + claw + captured crew cabin) that hit the water fine, then fell over and exploded. This happens to me all the time. The way i work around it is to design your tall vessels so they hit the water at 30 to 90 degrees. Then they wont explode when they fall over.

Sometimes I use reaction wheels to achieve this, sometimes it's just about parachute placement.

[JonathanS223]

You landed at < 3m/s so you were fine there. I've never had a problem as long as I hit at < 6m/s.

It sounds to me like you had a tallish vessel (I'm visualizing engine + tank + probe core + claw + captured crew cabin) that hit the water fine, then fell over and exploded. This happens to me all the time. The way i work around it is to design your tall vessels so they hit the water at 30 to 90 degrees. Then they wont explode when they fall over.

Sometimes I use reaction wheels to achieve this, sometimes it's just about parachute placement.

I will definitely take this in to consideration. Thank you!