Landing gear can't wait for 1.2, needs bandaid.

[herbal space program]

7 hours ago, Val said:

In pre-1.1 that was definitely true, but since 1.1, landing gear position relative to CoM has become much more important.

I have not had that happen to my craft, either on or off runway.

Not at all? That's strange. Perhaps it had to do with the way I set the dampers and springs, but I had planes that literally would not stop dancing around after landing unless I retracted the gear out from under them.  No matter how poorly I may have designed them, that just shouldn't happen. The brakes also did nothing at all as far as I could tell, which I gather is why so many people are now using parachutes to stop. I must add though that I haven't actually pulled out a lot of older planes and looked at how they behaved , and that  this one was using only 4 medium gears for a 160 ton vessel (although it was only 45t or so landing). The  nature of the challenge I was  working on also made optimal gear placement impossible. If I put too much weight on my rear gear,  it would always explode as I came off the end of the runway. Maybe it's also because they're off-kilter mounted to the wet wings in the back, but they sure looked pretty straight to me. Moving to bigger gear would probably have solved these problems as well, but the large gear really seemed to add a lot of drag to the vessel which made it a non-starter for this. In any case, that plane took off just fine the way it was, so long as I didn't have too much weight on the rear gear and/or started retracting it right before hitting the end of the runway. I think I'll pull out an older plane with less overloaded gear and see if it also misbehaves.

[Corona688]

I've found that deleting and re-adding landing gear can help.  Sometimes its bugged, sometimes its not.

[Znath]

You can see some improvement in reliability re-adding them I've noticed as well.

Like my pre-1.1 craft out in the world is fairly brittle now  and breaks at fairly low speeds. 

But if I take another that's produced today, it seems to hold up slightly better.  Far from perfect, but better.  On impact I've even noticed some landing gear being dislodged and moved to another location and yet still functional.  It's pretty darn buggy, but over time they'll figure it out I guess.  I'll just leave the "send annonymous data" thing on and crash over and over and over and over and over.

[DarkGravity]

Since the new entry-level landing gear are made out of toothpicks, the description should say something like "be sure to use several on any craft that weighs more than a helium balloon." It is frustrating to have unrealistic expectations. The gear are actually useable, but you have to use more than one up front, and people get angry when they are expecting something else. So change the description.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

Funnily enough, after my 3rd or so attempt at using them when they first came out , I never had any problems with the fixed gear blowing up. What I have had problems with is the "fix" that replaced the suspension with marshmallow and makes it so the tires visibly clip through their fairings, even with full 2.0 spring and damper settings... I mean, seriously?

Edited June 29, 2016 by EpicSpaceTroll139

[Empress Neptune]

On 6/23/2016 at 0:00 PM, herbal space program said:

Not at all? That's strange. Perhaps it had to do with the way I set the dampers and springs, but I had planes that literally would not stop dancing around after landing unless I retracted the gear out from under them.  No matter how poorly I may have designed them, that just shouldn't happen. The brakes also did nothing at all as far as I could tell, which I gather is why so many people are now using parachutes to stop.

I had an issue where a plane would bounce itself apart upon loading on the runway. It was most likely a file corruption issue as it went away when I reinstalled the game. I didn't adjust suspension settings, this happened when I loaded a few 1.0.5 aircraft into the new patch.

 

Brakes are weaker now, but they still do something. I found it helpful to force the plane into making downforce, you would see an improvement in deceleration for sure. Parachutes work too.

 

My biggest gripes right now with gear are the fixed sizes and lack of universal steering.

[herbal space program]

1 hour ago, Empress Neptune said:

I had an issue where a plane would bounce itself apart upon loading on the runway. It was most likely a file corruption issue as it went away when I reinstalled the game. I didn't adjust suspension settings, this happened when I loaded a few 1.0.5 aircraft into the new patch.

Maybe it did have to do with some kind of file corruption, as I have since had other planes that were similarly constructed not behave in this bizarre manner.

[Maltman]

I never use the Tier1 landing strip. It always gets me killed way too bumpy. I like to take the plane off road and usually the offroad is much smoother than the landing strip.  I've found that you've got to give your plane like 5m/s downward velocity to land without blowing it up. So far I haven't had much of a problem except for the first dozen or so landings.

But I agree that the landing gear is hilariously deadly.

[epigeios]

Wait wait wait wait wait.

Has anyone else tried uninstalling and reinstalling the game?

It always really confused me that some people are getting this problem, and others aren't.  Then some people are getting a minor version of this problem that's still usable.

 

I made planes in 1.1.2.  I've found that if everything is attached to the center body, I don't get much bounce and can actually take off and land (Landing is insanely difficult, but possible).  But if I try attaching things one or two pieces away from the center body, I get game-breaking bounce.

I just tried loading those planes in 1.1.3 and found that nothing changed.

 

So I came on the forum to see if anyone is talking about it.  I at least hope Squad is looking into it.

But the thing that's weird is that Squad has said that they aren't experiencing the problem (last I checked).  So is it just an update issue?  Did Steam's update feature cause the problem?  Did the update miss something or not delete something it needed to?

I have a slow internet, but I'll try deleting my game and reinstalling it.  I'll get back to you in a few days....  Has anyone else tried uninstalling and reinstalling?

Edited July 9, 2016 by epigeios

[epigeios]

Nope.  Uninstalling and reinstalling didn't fix it.  Also, I forgot that KSP is only 1 GB (I thought it was 4GB), so I was able to download it in a day.

My next guess is DX11.  My graphics card doesn't support DX11.  I'll try it out on another computer that does support DX11. 

[Kosmognome]

On 5.6.2016 at 3:19 AM, cephalo said:

but career mode is greatly diminished by the state of things right now. If it can't be fixed then don't fix it, just make landing gear invincible for now. At least then we can progress through career mode!

I've played through career mode multiple times, and landed on all bodies. not once did I use landing gear. You are exxagerating quite a bit. Yes, planes are somewhat in a bad position, but they are bad for getting science and funds anyways (exception are SSTOS, which are viable only in the endgame).

[Majorjim!]

Gentlemen.. It is well known that Wheels and legs are totally broken now but will hopefully be fixed in the next patch. Any strange wheel or leg behavior you see is due to that fact.

[Corona688]

11 hours ago, epigeios said:

It always really confused me that some people are getting this problem, and others aren't.  Then some people are getting a minor version of this problem that's still usable.

This behaves very differently on different computers, I think.  Certainly my laptop behaves far worse than my desktop in respect to KSP crashes and general misbehavior.  I'd only be wild-guessing as to why, but if you want a wild guess, interaction of unity and video drivers?  Laptop has cheap internal video, while the desktop has a decent-ish card.

Edited July 9, 2016 by Corona688

[Der Anfang]

On 6/4/2016 at 9:36 PM, Snark said:

^ This.  A simple snippet of about three lines of ModuleManager config would fix it right up.

If the OP is contending that "I shouldn't have to mod my game to make them work, they should just be indestructible":  I would disagree with that.  Not everyone is having landing gear problems.  I'm pretty much a fumblethumbs at airplanes myself (I'm mainly a rocket guy), but I can take off and land planes just fine, including on bumpy non-runway surfaces.  Lots of other players I've talked with are also doing just fine.

It's true that I did have a taken-aback moment when "why do my wheels keep exploding whenever I land?" and had trouble figuring it out... until I asked someone about it and got the answer.  Wheels can only take a certain amount of stress, and I was ridiculously overloading mine without realizing it because I didn't get the memo about the stress-loading thing.  As soon as I found out that's what it was, and also that "size matters" and "bigger gear = stronger", I just put bigger gear on the plane.  Problem solved, haven't had the slightest issue with 'em since.

This is not to downplay your difficulties.  I totally get that it must be infuriating to have a situation where you're trying to do something that seems perfectly reasonable to you and the game keeps going off the rails.  Nor am I telling you "it's fine and you're just doing it wrong".  Of course, that's a possibility ... but I wouldn't presume to assume that.  Different players, different play styles, and all that-- I can easily believe there's some bug case that I'm missing because I happen not to use planes in that situation.

But the fact is... I like the new gear.  I like the fact that I have to use actual engineering when designing a plane, and that it's not just magically indestructible.  I've been flying rockets and dealing with engineering limitations for a couple of years-- planes always felt kinda "coddled" to me, and it bugged me to see folks designing dorky-looking Eve landers that come down for a landing on tiny landing gear instead of legs, because the gear is infinitely strong.  Adding that feature to the game makes that feature richer for me-- and I'd wager for a fair number of other players, too.

If you simply applied a global band-aid to everyone, you'd be taking that game feature away from them.  Some folks would undoubtedly love such a solution (e.g. you, since you proposed it)... others wouldn't (e.g. me).

Thus... a simple patch seems like the answer, if the game's behavior bothers you that much.  A couple of minutes with a text editor and you're done.

I wasn't having any landing gear problems myself. Well, not in particular, but I did notice that the rear small gears of my planes always (comically) disintegrate, hah. They didnt seem to do that quite as often before. But regardless, I never really had an issue, unless the planes prematurely veering have something to do with the problems with the landing gears? Actually, I'm really confused. What is the problem with landing gears? Is it the fact that half the time they cause a plane to veer on the runway? I haven't had much of an issue in that in 1.0.5...

Now, the real problem is the landing legs. My god, they just slide all over the place.

[Megadeath]

I've had issues with the fixed gear and the reinforcing oscillation, but not other issues. Look forward to the future fix, though I play on a laptop that hardly handles it anyway. 

[gilflo]

I used adjustable landing gears in 1.1.2.

now in 1.1.3 i loaded my 1.1.2 planes without gears and tried to use stock gears on some very big ones, like 200T Mark IV.

First times i tried i had issues, gears collapsing, exploding, not supporting aircraft, aircraft not steerable......

Now i use Hangar grid mod to have all gears perfectly aligned and tweakable to have all gears big enough to support weight and every plane works fine. You must also take care of weight repartition when you place your gears. Big planes must have gears big enough under the wings but also gears under the belly.

[The_Rocketeer]

3 hours ago, gilflo said:

You must also take care of weight repartition when you place your gears. Big planes must have gears big enough under the wings but also gears under the belly.

This. Bouncy gears that 'dance' the plane apart are overloaded and stressed out of alignment. Add a 2nd pair to support the same part of the plane and witness the improvement.

[epigeios]

alright.  DX11 vs DX10 is not the answer.  However, I tested some plane designs with a friend, and found something very interesting.

 

This plane breakdances (bounces around on the ground after loading in on runway without pressing any buttons)

 

This plane does not breakdance (this one can take off and land)

 

The only difference between these two planes is the location of tail fin(s).

So.  It seems to have something to do with the tail fin in addition to the wheels.

Another important note is that if the outer wheels' Damper Strength is reduced to 0.5, it does not breakdance.  All of this is true with or without the inner wheels.  Those are just there for added strength when landing.

 

Last, my friend tried these with the FAR mod.  They both breakdanced with that mod, although the one with the middle fin breakdanced significantly more.  And likewise, they both stopped breakdancing with Damper Strength at 0.5

[Rocket Farmer]

 "I think you're seriously underestimating new players. The fact that they can't slam a plane into the ground with a 10m/s vertical speed, or have to move the plane over a few meters is certainly within the grasp of most minds, particularly the kind that pick up KSP. "

Personally I have logged a couple hours on KSP.  I have made SSTOs that could land a small payload and return from Minmas or land on Ike without refuelling.  I got good enough that I used SSTOs fairly regularly and had no issue landing on the runway from orbit.

That said last night I couldn't get a basic level airplane off the basic level runway last night.  I reverted to my old standby from pre 1.0x when you didn't get landing gear for quite awhile in the tech tree.  I used gantries for takeoff and parachutes for landing and didn't even bother with landing gear.

The basic landing gear are very difficult to use.

 

[epigeios]

The spin out problem seems new to me in 1.1.3.  I don't remember that being nearly as bad in 1.1.2.

Not too bad as long as I can make a plane that can take off before it starts spinning out.  And I also have to land it at a speed under the spinout speed, otherwise the landing gears explode on contact.  And on landing, it's guaranteed to spin out.  Still, at least it's usable.

[Alshain]

2 hours ago, epigeios said:

The spin out problem seems new to me in 1.1.3.  I don't remember that being nearly as bad in 1.1.2.

Not too bad as long as I can make a plane that can take off before it starts spinning out.  And I also have to land it at a speed under the spinout speed, otherwise the landing gears explode on contact.  And on landing, it's guaranteed to spin out.  Still, at least it's usable.

It was introduced in 1.1.1.  They put a patch in to fix some other issue that some players were having and that just broke the game for others.  It was definitely better in 1.1.0 (IMO)

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

On ‎7‎/‎10‎/‎2016 at 8:21 PM, Rocket Farmer said:

That said last night I couldn't get a basic level airplane off the basic level runway last night.  I reverted to my old standby from pre 1.0x when you didn't get landing gear for quite awhile in the tech tree.  I used gantries for takeoff and parachutes for landing and didn't even bother with landing gear.

The basic landing gear are very difficult to use.

 

Found your problem. The 1st tier runway will wreck planes with better than basic gear. It's the real problem here, with its bumps that appear to made of loose dirt, but actually are hard as rock and will break many a plane. The gear here are simply a victim. Taxi your planes off the dirt runway to the silky smooth grass, and they will probably takeoff and land just fine.

[foamyesque]

Pretty much every trouble I've ever had with gears comes as a result of:

 

1. Bad balancing, generally with respect to the center of lift for the tail gear. In a trike layout, if the wings are set up in such a fashion as to lift the rear gears before the nose ones, you get a rocking wobble and bad steering. If you're designing a tail-dragger, the reverse applies.

2. Crooked gear, generally the result of placing them on angled surfaces (tilted wings or curved parts like pods or adapters). This generally results in poor steering or other odd effects.

3. Gears jamming into the ground. This is a suspension and loading issue and usually solvable by tweaking spring settings, adding more gears or increasing their size.

 

EDIT:

 

The Tier 1 runway is trash, though, and should be redone.

 

 

Edited July 12, 2016 by foamyesque

[Alshain]

32 minutes ago, EpicSpaceTroll139 said:

Found your problem. The 1st tier runway will wreck planes with better than basic gear. It's the real problem here, with its bumps that appear to made of loose dirt, but actually are hard as rock and will break many a plane. The gear here are simply a victim. Taxi your planes off the dirt runway to the silky smooth grass, and they will probably takeoff and land just fine.

That's not true.  Like in the real world, larger planes need better runways, but when the wheels are not slipperier than a greased pig a basic plane can easily take off and land from the dirt runway.  It's actually very easy if you design a conventional taildragger.  Tricycle gear can be done but it is a bit harder.

[EpicSpaceTroll139]

5 minutes ago, Alshain said:

That's not true.  Like in the real world, larger planes need better runways, but when the wheels are not slipperier than a greased pig a basic plane can easily take off and land from the dirt runway.  It's actually very easy if you design a conventional taildragger.  Tricycle gear can be done but it is a bit harder.

Sure planes can take off from dirt runways, and yes taildraggers work great for that. It's just the 1st tier runway might as well be made of concrete. Without soft body physics, it simply does not behave like it's made of dirt. It's just bumpy and has a texture to make it look like dirt. It's completely silly to have a runway that is less flat than the surrounding grass. I'd buy it if the dirt was flat and everything had more friction, but it's just ridiculous for the runway to be harder to land on than the outside area. It's pointless to compare it to real life.  

Also, when did I say anything about bigger planes?