Landing Leg Catapult?!

[Speeding Mullet]

I was testing a lander for a planet that I've never been to in KSP just now and noticed that whenever my jolly little space-vegetable got near a landing leg they would very suddenly shoot off in an unpredictable direction.  Usually up, but every now and then sideways either straight through or into the nearest object, usually with disastrous consequences:

 

I did a little more experimentation and tried to create something of a landing leg trampoline which didn't work, other than to accelerate the poor fool sideways to nearly three hundred and sixty Kilometers per hour:

 

So I'm thinking that this must be either well known issue with landing legs (which I haven't found while searching) or there's some massive landing leg catapult party thread that I wasn't invited to?  My question is: has anyone else noticed this, and has anyone used it to create something that puts the fear of Kraken into the Kerbals?

Note:  This is not a bug report, more of a conversation starter!

 

SM

P.S. - What is Kermit the Frog doing in the game:

[Cairol]

Known bug. I thought they would have fixed this in 1.1.3. But it seems it's not.

[Nathaniel411]

Danny2462 

is proud.

[The Aziz]

^this

I wonder what he's going to do in his next video, I vote for gear catapult

[klgraham1013]

Help us, 1.2.4.  You're our only hope.

[Majorjim!]

Yeah Squad said this bug was fixed in 1.1.3.. Having said that they also said the decaying orbit bug was fixed too ans some say they still get decaying orbits.

Edited June 26, 2016 by Majorjim

[Speeding Mullet]

On 6/26/2016 at 5:37 PM, Cairol said:

Known bug. I thought they would have fixed this in 1.1.3. But it seems it's not.

Good to know!  It's quite remarkable that I've never ever seen, heard or discovered it before now, despite playing KSP since zero point one something!!

Thought I was genuinely onto something new there 

 

On 6/26/2016 at 9:34 PM, Majorjim said:

Having said that they also said the decaying orbit bug was fixed

I tested quite a large and complex payload yesterday and it was stable on orbit as long as I launched it up there myself.  Trying it with hyper-edit produced an odd effect where if I left the LES on and then detached it once I HE'd it to orbit it would wobble severely and the orbit line would disappear, but if I decoupled the LES and then HE'd to orbit it was absolutely fine.  That's just reminded me I need to reproduce and report to the HE thread!

 

On 6/26/2016 at 7:10 PM, Nathaniel411 said:

Danny2462 

is proud.

Haha I'm pretty sure if Danny checked in to this thread he would identify my efforts as sub par and proceed to use the landing legs 25 other ways than how they were intended for comedy effect!

 

SM

[klgraham1013]

1 hour ago, Speeding Mullet said:

Good to know!  It's quite remarkable that I've never ever seen, heard or discovered it before now, despite playing KSP since zero point one something!

That's because it was introduced in 1.1.

[The Aziz]

2 hours ago, Speeding Mullet said:

Haha I'm pretty sure if Danny checked in to this thread he would identify my efforts as sub par and proceed to use the landing legs 25 other ways than how they were intended for comedy effect!

Soon, introducing: 25 things to do with your landers

[Geschosskopf]

On 6/26/2016 at 2:19 AM, Speeding Mullet said:

Note:  This is not a bug report, more of a conversation starter!

Well, from what I can tell, there's little or no change between 1.1 and 1.1.3 as regards the baneful effects on Kerbals of legs and wheels.  Wheels are still poison to Kerbals, making them go ragdoll on contact and sometimes flinging them to their deaths (or always doing so if you design a torture device correctly).  The effects of lander legs are more varied.  The big ones backhand the Kerbals quite forcefully, not infrequently killing them.  The medium ones don't hit the Kerbals quite as hard and sometimes explode themselves in the process.  The small ones gently tap the Kerbals, not hard enough to knock them down, and usually explode themselves in the process.

Landed ships on legs also slide uphill on even the slightest slopes.  The medium legs seem to slide slower than the others but they still do it.  The steeper the slope, the faster they slide.  Meanwhile, Kerbals and anything on the ground that isn't on a leg slides downhill at a rate proportional to the slope.  And if the hill is steep enough, Kerbals sliding into flags will knock them over and any flags left standing will fall over by themselves upon physics load.

So basically, putting anything on the ground has been problematic since 1.1.  Nothing remains in place unless anchored to the ground via KAS/KIS.  And I haven't used lander legs since 1.1 because they make everything worse plus are a genuine safety hazard to the crews.  Wheels are slightly safer and necessary for rovers so I use them when I have to.

 

[Geschosskopf]

BTW, the lander leg sliding thing was reported back in 1.1.0.  Feel free to post your observations and vote it up so hopefully it gets fixed someday

Bug #9557

 

[OHara]

35 minutes ago, Geschosskopf said:

I haven't used lander legs since 1.1 because they make everything worse plus are a genuine safety hazard to the crews.  Wheels are slightly safer and necessary for rovers so I use them when I have to.

I also noticed that landing legs are more likely to explode when the gas struts are extended, when the weight is off of them.

Some LT-05 struts that seem safe to bump into at the launchpad were deadly on the Mun.  (Even those smallest ones killed my kerbals.)  Experimenting at the launch pad with 'hack gravity', and by putting the lander on blocks so weight is off the struts, confirmed that explosion danger is greater when legs are unloaded.

The structural frames (like the 'octagonal strut') gripped an 8° slope on Minmus well enough, and are probably wisest to use as landing legs

[Gordon Fecyk]

Hmph. When I bring this up, I just get told off.

[Geschosskopf]

4 minutes ago, OHara said:

I also noticed that landing legs are more likely to explode when the gas struts are extended, when the weight is off of them.

I concur.

 

4 minutes ago, Gordon Fecyk said:

Hmph. When I bring this up, I just get told off.

Well, the bug report for explody legs (#9749) has been around for a while.  Still, it hadn't been updated stating this was still happening in 1.1.3 until just now.  There's another one to vote up.

[Brownhair2]

8 hours ago, Geschosskopf said:

Well, from what I can tell, there's little or no change between 1.1 and 1.1.3 as regards the baneful effects on Kerbals of legs and wheels.  Wheels are still poison to Kerbals, making them go ragdoll on contact and sometimes flinging them to their deaths (or always doing so if you design a torture device correctly).

Eh, I've noticed the flinging only happens when I step on the edge of a wheel. Standing on top of the wheel seems mostly fine. Also, don't forget the rover goes flying too ("No! My million-dollar rover! Oh what's that? Jeb? I'm sure he'll be fine)

Edited June 28, 2016 by Brownhair2

[Geschosskopf]

33 minutes ago, Brownhair2 said:

Eh, I've noticed the flinging only happens when I step on the edge of a wheel. Standing on top of the wheel seems mostly fine. Also, don't forget the rover goes flying too ("No! My million-dollar rover! Oh what's that? Jeb? I'm sure he'll be fine)

I don't see any movement of the rover when I walk into the side of a wheel.  Just the Kerbal falls down KO'd in his tracks.

[AviosAdku]

Well, from what I remember of the old Kraken drive discussions (and my own experiments), the landing legs were a key component of these mechanisms and Kerbals... well there's a reason they feature so prominently in Danny2462 videos. Not complaining to clarify, just noting the history of these components. Probably something to do with the complex physics involved, I'm no software developer but making anything react in a complex way is a hard job I would guess.

Edited July 5, 2016 by AkuAerospace
Removed "sign off"