We need decent ladders and landing gear overhaul.

[Vaporized Steel]

Read thread reply.

Behold, my creation for eve. Album
Pictures not in the right order, sorry.

Now pay attention to this picture.

I put the old opening posts content into code. It's content are no longer of importance because I found a workaround and I nailed down the issues at hand in specific in the reply to my own thread.
But just in case you want to read the original thread, it's still visible. My constructive criticism still stands, so please read the reply to the thread.

All the ladders leading up to the top where the capsule is work and the Kerbal can get up, except for the one nearest to the ground. My estimation is that it required about 90 minutes of using the "Move : Tool" in the VAB just to get the ladders right. "Right" meaning as far as I could get them right. And with 90 minutes I mean extensive testing under eves gravity and hyperediting. It's quite a bit more time then I needed to build the rocket itself (excluding landing system etc)
That says something, don't you think?
In the picture the Kerbal is actually falling (visible by the surface speed reading 5.3m/s on the altimeter). It got up 2 more steps. As far as the top of his helmet touching the height of the ladders casing and then falls down.
"Move Tooling" the ladder forward, backward, or rotating it in the VAB does not work.
You might think it's because the lander is on a slope. I already rotated the ladder in several directions, and it's leaning forward against gravity despite the slope, because as you can see the ladder itself is angled.

Now, this thread is a little bit of a ask for help kind off thing. Anybody knows about a way to deal with this?
Before you make suggestions about reworking the whole landing design. It must land on Extra large landing gears. In the full picture album you see theres a small glider attached to the underside. Only the length of the extra large landing gear allows it to fit underneath. I can't lower the landing gear after releasing the glider from the underside, because in KSP when you retract the gear the wheel brake and friction just cease and the rocket starts to move over the slope.

This thread is about a ladder bug, the other one is why friction and brake effects cease when you retract your gear. Does the rubber of the gear wheels just turn into yelly or something? The result is that the lander picks up speed as the gear retracts and then tumbles over when it is fully retracted and anchors itself to the ground. Gear turns into yelly when your press to retract them, no matter your gear friction or brake power settings. So the gear must remain extended. Meaning there is some height to be gained from the ground and a ladder is needed to get there.

The lander is intended to land on some kind of slope, because it's supposed to land on eves 7500m peak. So I can't retract them, meaning I need a ladder system. I can't make a ladder to the fairing base where the gear is attached to, because that would get in the way of the fairing, causing alot of explosions when I jettison the lower fairing that houses the glider, so that to is not a option. This is not the main fairing but the lower one, you see it being jetissoned on the 7th (7/8) picture in the album (see link above)
I can't remove the fairing, it's not just for aesthetics, because it is supplying actual construction strength necessary to fit a rocket underneath without the whole shebang flexing into pieces.

The only option I can think off is the ladder to and from one of the landing gears, but no matter how I position it, the kerbal falls off it 3/4 way to the top.

I hope Squad sees importance in fixing landing gears that become banana peels when retracting and ladders you fall off and must be placed with pixel accuracy especially under greater gravity. I hope Squad does this and further ensures their game is actually working in perfect order. Programming is not my profession, I have no idea how difficult it is to fix bugs. Also I'm sure alot of bugs have been fixed already, it just seems that the ladder bug is a very old one and never got really fixed. But in contrast to adding a new Unity 5 engine, adding a heating and aerodynamic system makes fixing a ladder bug look like peanuts.

I hope I made myself clear. I put hours into this lander "HOURS", and I'm optimistic about finding a workaround in the time being, I just wished I didn't had to.
If anyone is willing to advice me on getting to make my ladder workaround I'd be really glad to hear him/her out.

EDIT: You could suggest landing legs instead of gears. They're not tall enough to hold the glider underneath. And I would need 16 of them because less means they would brake on landing impact. And then there would be no room for the glider to manoeuvre from it's jettison position. I could launch the glider seperately to that location, but that defeats my wish of landing them both together. I already tried attaching the glider to the sides with some intuitive collection of girders and beams, but that also leads to instable aerodynamic disasters.
I'm not saying there is no alternative to attaching the ladder to the landing gear. I'm just explaining the critical challenge, summing up what I already thought about and tried to implement, so you may be better able to look for the right thing to suggest. If I can't get help with this design because nothing may eventually allow a solution then this thread is basically a big RANT.

It's kinda imbecilic to play a game that fails so that you lose not just hours but I'd guess a full day of your life building and testing to find out you can throw your creation into the trash because the game suffers from a bug that has never been fixed since V0.21 or lower. Sorry for using the word "failed" I'm just angry. KSP is the best thing that happened for wnthusiasts like you and me. But these are things that remind me how punishing this game can be, and it shouldn't be.

The glitchyness of ladders is as old as their introduction. Possibly because of the few places you'll need them.
Enough is enough squad! This deserves priority attention.

 

 

Edited June 20, 2016 by Vaporized Steel

[Vaporized Steel]

Let's start by saying that my critique still stands, I think there should be a better interactive system between a ladder and a kerbal so you don't need to get into pixel accuracy to get them in the right place and that a kerbal knows it has to turn 30-45 degrees to get to a new ladder piece, or a platform to which it is attached and doesn't fall off if you don't place the ladder under a very precise angle.

That said, I found a workaround. A piece of radiator extends the surface where a ladder can be attached to and this enables me to jettison the fairing without explosion that houses the glider (vehicle on the right)
This workaround even saved me parts.

But as for ladders in KSP. I don't think I would need a pegasus one mobility enhancer (the small ladder pieces) on the radiator as seen on the picture to prevent the kerbal from falling because there is no intuitive game mechanism that tells the kerbal to climb on the surface the main ladder is attached to.

I did some more testing. While there are things to say about the ladders in KSP, the issue as it is written in the OP is more about the landing gear then the ladder.
It seems that Kerbals don't like landing gear.
No matter what surface you attach to a landing gear, a kerbal is repelled from it. You can't actually stand on a landing gear without falling off of it. And as a consequence you will fall of a ladder if you climb one nearing a landing gear.
This probably has something to do with the slipperiness of landing gears.
The other problem portrayed in the OP which was obviously and specifically a landing gear problem is that when you retract the gear it becomes slippery, like banana peels. If you are on a slope, like where I try to land at it starts sliding down the surface. It takes several seconds to retract the gear. Once the retraction animation starts the vehicle starts sliding. By the time they are retracted and they become anchors you'll have picked up decent speed. Because of this it hinges and faceplants into the ground.
You might think how much use there is to attaching things to landing gears or even willing to walk on one. Well, clearly there is reason to do so, even if it is only applicable to this design exclusively.

But I don't understand why each and every part isn't modelled like the same kind of solid matter. Why does every part have grip, except landing gears?
Please squad, remove the slipperiness of retracted landing gears by giving the same values of any other part to the landing gears base texture, "because" you might just want to walk on it for whatever silly reason or design imaginable.

Thank you very much.

I will update the OP title and content since it's no longer accurate. I hope I have contributed in any way whatsoever.

Edited June 20, 2016 by Vaporized Steel

[bewing]

Basically, the answer is that they can't, I think. Wheels have to roll on the ground. So they need special code. And in the new Unity 5 physics package, that means the landing gear have to work the way they do now.

Squad would like to make the landing gear nice, but Unity places strict limits on how some things work.