The Grand KSP 1.2 Discussion Thread

[Kermanzooming]

Do you have electric power? Without it you will not be able to arm and deploy the parachutes...

[moogoob]

11 hours ago, Allocthonous said:

Seriously increased for blunt ones. I managed to drop a basic capsule with heatshield from minmus orbit straight to a 45 degree re-entry on kerbin without lowering the apoapsis at all, and it came in safely. Was going something like 3000m/s hitting atmosphere, and it still decelerated in time. I don't think that would have worked in the last version.

I noticed this too. Mine was only a suborbital hop but the G-forces at the steep angle I was at was certainly surprising.

[stibbles1000]

Good question, I'll have to check. I was able to still maneuver the craft around so I'm assuming there is still power. Just one capsule with a kerbal in it. 

When you deploy, should you not get the "whoosh" sound right away? They basically never try opening. When I crash it doesn't have any record of chutes burning or snapping either.

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Just now, Kermanzooming said:

Do you have electric power? Without it you will not be able to arm and deploy the parachutes...

Are you sure? Is that just on probes? I had a manned capsule run out of electricity, but manually activating chutes worked.

 

Also, don't activate parachutes in the upper atmosphere. It'll say they're safe, but that's just because there isn't much air resistance. Wait until you get through reentry heating. Most likely, the chutes are getting destroyed by aero forces the instant they come out, because they won't deploy until you reach a certain air pressure.

[technicalfool]

Hi.

When was the last time you played? There's been a few reworkings to aero and parachutes (and probes, and electrics, and...) since 0.90 and 1.0, and if you come in at too high an angle you can very easily still be doing many times the safe deploy limit when you hit the ground. There's a setting to deploy anyway, but then you'll probably rip the parachutes off instead.

3 chutes and 3 drogues I'd probably use for a reasonably heavy 2.5m lander - it's really quite a lot of chutes. I suspect you're not going sideways enough after launch once you're above the lower atmosphere though. At 200km target apoapsis (I assume), you're going to need to do a significant burn sideways just to throw your landing point forward far enough that you slow down before you hit the ground at the other end.

Have you got a screenshot of your usual trajectory on the map view?

 

[Cmdr Hawkeyez]

hi

 

Edited June 4, 2018 by Cmdr Hawkeyez

[septemberWaves]

1.2 introduced deployment settings on parachutes. I think by default they're set to deploy when safe, which means that you can stage them (or activate them by action group) even whilst still in space, and they will only deploy once pressure is high enough and speed is low enough so that they are not destroyed. Perhaps you need to consider your descent angle, because they will not deploy at all if your vessel has not been sufficiently slowed by the atmosphere. I've found that for a simple crew pod, 20km is about the lowest periapsis which can safely slow a command pod (with a heat shield) into a safe landing approach (though this can vary for larger and more complex vehicles).

Alternatively, if you want to use steeper re-entry angles, it's usually best to put some sepratrons on your capsule to use as retrorockets. I've gotten into the habit of clipping some sepratrons behind the heat shield and setting them to fire at the same time as decoupling the shield (which is a setting that can be turned on if you want heat shield decoupling to be staged). I activate them when surface speed is about 1km/s and they slow down the pod enough for drogues. Anything larger than a command pod usually requires a bit more thought about how you want to land it with regards to the use of parachutes and/or retrorockets.

[Alshain]

1 hour ago, moogoob said:

It is - there was a huge discussion a while ago regarding whether aero drag or gravity drag was worse in the Kerbin system, and it turns out that high TWR (on launch, that it) is actually more efficient  than a lower one.

Sounds like that discussion didn't take all of the factors into account.  Being able to turn appropriately is the biggest factor.  If you end up launching relatively straight up and then do a long burn to circularize you will be expending a massive amount of fuel.  The most efficient launch is one that is very flat and results in a very wide arc with a short circularization burn.  The problem is if you are going too fast the aerodynamic forces prevent turning at all.

Now, prior to 1.0 this was not true.  If your discussion took place back in 0.90 or earlier you need to re-learn what you learned then.

Edited October 13, 2016 by Alshain

[stibbles1000]

Must have been my speeds going through. I've played around a little more and they do seem to be working when I slow down far enough. Basically have to eject everything but the pod - but they do then deploy. 

[moogoob]

21 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Sounds like that discussion didn't take all of the factors into account.  Being able to turn appropriately is the biggest factor.  If you end up launching relatively straight up and then do a long burn to circularize you will be expending a massive amount of fuel.  The most efficient launch is one that is very flat and results in a very wide arc with a short circularization burn.  The problem is if you are going too fast the aerodynamic forces prevent turning at all.

Now, prior to 1.0 this was not true.  If your discussion took place back in 0.90 or earlier you need to re-learn what you learned then.

True. However in my case, the booster burns out long before you're out of the stratosphere, and there's a coasting phase before the second stage (which is slightly lower TWR than I'd be usually comfy with) fires. The second stage acts more like an in-between stage than an upper one. Heck, works for me.

[gilflo]

What's the meaning of "Advanced Tweakable" in the settings ?

Gears are not tweakable at all, so some big aircrafts from 1.1.3 with tweak gears have now ridiculous landing gears....

 

[Red Iron Crown]

1 hour ago, Cmdr Zen said:

Probly not the best place to ask but are all the squad parts 'exactly' the same in both 32- and 64- bit versions? I am talking about the cfg files; everything in the folders. Thank you ! I want to be able to make modifications in one set then just be able to copy them all over to the other version.

Yes, the parts are identical. Previously 64-bit and 32-bit were bundled together and shared the same Gamedata folder, they've been split now to reduce download size.

1 hour ago, Cmdr Zen said:

Am wondering about performance issues only in the sense of RAM useage and length of gameplay until memory leak assuming it still exists, with say about 15 or so MODS the same in each version.

Way, way less memory leakage now. Session length is more determined by my available playtime than memory limits. You could still get bitten by a mod that leaks, though.

1 hour ago, Cmdr Zen said:

With the addition of Comms an such does this replace the Modded version of Remote Antennas?

Sort of. It's a system that falls between the mods AntennaRange and RemoteTech in terms of complexity, seems to be in a good place to me.

3 minutes ago, gilflo said:

What's the meaning of "Advanced Tweakable" in the settings ?

Gears are not tweakable at all, so some big aircrafts from 1.1.3 with tweak gears have now ridiculous landing gears....

"Advanced Tweakables" makes additional options visible in the tweakable menus (autostruts and fuel flow priority are some of them). All landing gear should have tweakables available, you might need to remove and replace ones from 1.1.3 craft to make them visible.

[flatbear]

heads up, ksp's on sale right now on steam for 40% off.

Edited October 13, 2016 by Red Iron Crown

[RoboRay]

If reentry flames are happening after you're deploying the parachutes, you're simply deploying them way way too early.  Wait until you're down at 2-3 km altitude, when drag has slowed you back down to safe speeds.

Edited October 13, 2016 by RoboRay

[Shpaget]

Speaking of chutes, what's the "spread angle" on drogues?

[Ripper2900]

The spread is so the individual chutes will offset to the side instead of clipping into each other, as they did in 1.1. Looks much better when you use 2 or 3 (or more) chutes. 

I personally find that keeping my reentry stage light and not coming in too steep gives me the best results with the new drag and heating values. Set the chutes to deploy "when safe", and they'll pop out as soon as they're ready. Even if you activate them in the midst of flaming, they'll wait. 

[kokospl]

So how is 1.2 bug-wise?

I've been thinking about coming back, but last time I did we couldn't use wheels. Any similar mines in 1.2 I might be stepping into?

 

[pandaman]

1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

Speaking of chutes, what's the "spread angle" on drogues?

As @Ripper2900 said above. 

Also the amount of drag parachutes produce increases slightly with increased spread angle too.

[pandaman]

5 minutes ago, kokospl said:

So how is 1.2 bug-wise?

I've been thinking about coming back, but last time I did we couldn't use wheels. Any similar mines in 1.2 I might be stepping into?

 

1.2 is a whole lot better in many ways, wheels included.  IMO your best option is just give it a whirl and see how it feels to you.  What have you got to lose?

[kokospl]

Just now, pandaman said:

1.2 is a whole lot better in many ways, wheels included.  IMO your best option is just give it a whirl and see how it feels to you.  What have you got to lose?

Mostly just time (updating and setting up mods), but that is a rare commodity nowdays.

OK then, I'll wait for 1.2 compatibile mods and give it a try. Thanks.

[pandaman]

@kokospl

Why wait for mods to check it out?

You can still get familiar with the new features in stock ready for when your favourite mods are updated. 

[Kerbal101]

5 hours ago, moogoob said:

It is - there was a huge discussion a while ago regarding whether aero drag or gravity drag was worse in the Kerbin system, and it turns out that high TWR (on launch, that it) is actually more efficient  than a lower one.

Measured 1st stage here (1.1.3).

[Higgs]

i am putting this question everywhere i can. I have KSP on Steam. Have had it since .21. and until 1.2 every single update went off w/out a hitch. Steam claims to have updated it, but, no matter where or how i launch it, its 1.1.3. what in the heck is going on.

[gilflo]

5 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

 

"Advanced Tweakables" makes additional options visible in the tweakable menus (autostruts and fuel flow priority are some of them). All landing gear should have tweakables available, you might need to remove and replace ones from 1.1.3 craft to make them visible.

Tweak able landing gears are not working for me, even on the stock planes. Removed them and put new ones, still not tweak able....

[Higgs]

update: removed old ksp from the steam folder. redownloaded. now, it refuses to bloody load past 50%.