Nobody Moves... Nobody Dies...

[Red Shirt]

See the flag? It is Vertical. This has to be the most stable lander I have ever built. This was taken within waking distance of the North pole on Mun... well assuming you could walk. This brave little Kerbol took one step off the ladder, planted the flag, and decided close enough.

[Wallygator]

Hmmm...  Not good, not good at all.

Me thinks that too much time in space has affected this kerbel's inner ear and/or eye socket.

Take him/her/it back to base immediately for debrief and/or cocktails. (check that... make that debrief AND cocktails)

[Firemetal]

How the heck?

Fire

[foamyesque]

I declare shenanigans

 

[magnemoe]

Mun polar landings are scary. 
My best was however on the canyon wall at Dress, poor kerbal stepped out and rolled all the way to the bottom. 
I had to move the lander for him to get back in. 

 

[Red Shirt]

12 minutes ago, Wallygator said:

make that debrief AND cocktails

Looks like cocktails have already been involved.

I was certain this would turn over or slide to the bottom. I kicked on SAS an it stuck. Pretty amazed.

[foamyesque]

7 minutes ago, Red Shirt said:

Looks like cocktails have already been involved.

I was certain this would turn over or slide to the bottom. I kicked on SAS an it stuck. Pretty amazed.

 The CoM is still within its footprint, so tipping over not happening isn't super surprising. I'm boggled it had the traction to not slide, though.

[steuben]

"Hang on a minute, lads. I've got a great idea," Kroker. As played by Micheal Kaine.

 

[DocMoriarty]

There is nothing that can't be fixed with a couple snacks.

[Guest]

Spider lander, spider lander, does whatever a spider lander does. ♫

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, foamyesque said:

 The CoM is still within its footprint, so tipping over not happening isn't super surprising. I'm boggled it had the traction to not slide, though.

Yes, after 1.1 and its traction issues where all ground was oiled glass. they turned it back to the old setting where you never slide.
Weirdly most of my small landers tend to be wider than this, mostly an hangover from the old days I had problems killing horizontal speed. 

[Sharpy]

1 hour ago, magnemoe said:

Yes, after 1.1 and its traction issues where all ground was oiled glass. they turned it back to the old setting where you never slide.

Munar gravity at play, and a rather light craft. I did some experimenting with friction on slopes of mountains west of ksc. Landing legs are somewhere around, IIRC friction value 1.6 of wheels. Set wheels friction to 5 and you're practically guaranteed not to slide. Just bounce or roll over

I wonder if you could use the shenanigans with COM below the ground with jet engines, to stick a craft to a vertical wall like a fly.

BTW, powered adhesion is always an option.

 

Edited December 12, 2016 by Sharpy

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

Munar gravity at play, and a rather light craft. I did some experimenting with friction on slopes of mountains west of ksc. Landing legs are somewhere around, IIRC friction value 1.6 of wheels. Set wheels friction to 5 and you're practically guaranteed not to slide. Just bounce or roll over

I wonder if you could use the shenanigans with COM below the ground with jet engines, to stick a craft to a vertical wall like a fly.

BTW, powered adhesion is always an option.

 

Lower gravity should also give less friction but lower weight is more important.
And yes downforce helps, its very useful to use rcs to push down then landing on Gilly. 
Remember trying for an land speed record back in 0.9, wanted to do it on Minmus, no friction and the flats the low gravity was an issue, as speed went up the small diameter of it became more of an problem as I was in an forced orbit at zero attitude doing over 1 km/s. To brake you still needed the downforce. 
 

[Dman979]

2 hours ago, Sharpy said:

I wonder if you could use the shenanigans with COM below the ground with jet engines, to stick a craft to a vertical wall like a fly.

No, you couldn't, because the COM would be outside the footprint.

 

The footprint is all the area in contact with the ground normal to the planet's COM. With a vertical wall, you have no footprint, because the wall itself is normal to the planet's COM. The only way to stick to a truly vertical wall is through adhesion, powered or otherwise.

[Sharpy]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Lower gravity should also give less friction but lower weight is more important.
 

In KSP physics, friction seems to disregard the pressure force. As long as there's ground contact, friction operates at full strength

I can tell - my Gilly base has a couple rovers, and since refilling monoprop is a bother, I'm rather conservative in RCS usage, trying to depend on wheels whenever viable. And as the rover goes less than 0.05m/s downwards, the acceleration goes from zero to max regardless of how deeply the suspension gets depressed, as soon as the wheel makes contact.

1 hour ago, Dman979 said:

 The only way to stick to a truly vertical wall is through adhesion, powered or otherwise.

KSP's friction works pretty much like zero-strength adhesion: as long as there is contact, it acts at full strength. It doesn't actively pull you towards the wall like real adhesion would, but unlike normal friction it doesn't really need any normal force (which would then push you away according to 3rd law of mechanics), just the right position of the contact surfaces.

[Dman979]

4 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

KSP's friction works pretty much like zero-strength adhesion: as long as there is contact, it acts at full strength. It doesn't actively pull you towards the wall like real adhesion would, but unlike normal friction it doesn't really need any normal force (which would then push you away according to 3rd law of mechanics), just the right position of the contact surfaces.

Then the only way to stay on a vertical wall is through powered adhesion.

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

14 hours ago, Red Shirt said:

See the flag? It is Vertical. This has to be the most stable lander I have ever built. This was taken within waking distance of the North pole on Mun... well assuming you could walk. This brave little Kerbol took one step off the ladder, planted the flag, and decided close enough.

Where'd you get the fuel tank caps? All my low grav landers look like yours, but I've been using .625 cones for caps. Extra fuel would be nice, especially if it's that cool looking. 

Edited December 12, 2016 by Val
Edited inappropriate word!

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

In KSP physics, friction seems to disregard the pressure force. As long as there's ground contact, friction operates at full strength

I can tell - my Gilly base has a couple rovers, and since refilling monoprop is a bother, I'm rather conservative in RCS usage, trying to depend on wheels whenever viable. And as the rover goes less than 0.05m/s downwards, the acceleration goes from zero to max regardless of how deeply the suspension gets depressed, as soon as the wheel makes contact.

KSP's friction works pretty much like zero-strength adhesion: as long as there is contact, it acts at full strength. It doesn't actively pull you towards the wall like real adhesion would, but unlike normal friction it doesn't really need any normal force (which would then push you away according to 3rd law of mechanics), just the right position of the contact surfaces.

Makes sense.
I have however opperated tiny probe rovers on Gilly as KAS pipe extenders. Rover has two KAS winches connectors and let me land 100 meter from base. 
They work well fro driving as long as you take it slow. If an kerbal bump it while trying to connect the pipe the rover will go ballistic. 
 

[suicidejunkie]

6 hours ago, Dman979 said:

Then the only way to stay on a vertical wall is through powered adhesion.

Given physically possible materials I'd agree.

In this case, the center of mass is outside the footprint so the lander will try to tip.  However the CoM is inside the wall due to the jet engine trick, so the lander will tip towards the wall and maintain contact instead of falling off.

And since friction doesn't care about normal force, it should hold if the gravity is not too high.

[Red Shirt]

6 hours ago, DrunkenKerbalnaut said:

Where'd you get the fuel tank caps?

I am still using this in 1.2.1 with no issues AFAIK:

I can land twice and reorbit if I am careful with the destinations before needing to dock with the refuel station

The only other non-stock parts I am using are some surface mount lights around the orbiter docking port and the bottom of the end caps.

For the next generation station, I would use half an orange tank and add a science lab, maybe a green house and crew quarters.  . 

 

[DoctorDavinci]

20 hours ago, Red Shirt said:

I was certain this would turn over or slide to the bottom. I kicked on SAS an it stuck. Pretty amazed.

Flags with SAS? ... It's not a bug, it's a feature 

[wumpus]

You do realize that you don't *have* to play up to your username.  The kerbals can simply be kerbals.

[Overland]

12 hours ago, wumpus said:

You do realize that you don't *have* to play up to your username.  The kerbals can simply be kerbals.

Indeed, but putting the Kerbalised K infront of yours isnt exactly pretty either no?

Adding Kerbal to everything is a beautiful thing..

reminds me Kerballand is just as awesome as Kerbaliner Trains

the very essence of this thread is very "Kerbal" in the way that "kerbal" means awesome +1, also death, horrible explosions, dust clouds of the afterlife and all that wonderful things the real world missed out on

 

Kerbal is beautiful, adding it to everything makes happy, just like Removing ones nose also makes you very kerbal and have no use for Vicks Vapor Rub

[DrunkenKerbalnaut]

1 minute ago, Overland said:

Indeed, but putting the Kerbalised K infront of yours isnt exactly pretty either no?

Adding Kerbal to everything is a beautiful thing..

reminds me Kerballand is just as awesome as Kerbaliner Trains

the very essence of this thread is very "Kerbal" in the way that "kerbal" means awesome +1, also death, horrible explosions, dust clouds of the afterlife and all that wonderful things the real world missed out on

 

Kerbal is beautiful, adding it to everything makes happy, just like Removing ones nose also makes you very kerbal and have no use for Vicks Vapor Rub

Overland... You cray cray.

[Red Shirt]

16 hours ago, DoctorDavinci said:

Flags with SAS? ... It's not a bug, it's a feature 

The lander SAS held the lander in place. The flag staying vertical was just a bonus.

15 hours ago, wumpus said:

You do realize that you don't *have* to play up to your username.  The kerbals can simply be kerbals

As it turns out, kerbals are hardwired to be red shirts. After landing at both poles, all the arches, and a green monolith, Trauki landed next at the memorial. Actually just over the next crater from it. After successfully planting the flag, the orange-suited adventurer found herself a couple steps from reentering the lander when she started sliding. The terrain didn't look that steep. All attempts to walk to the craft ended with sliding. So a rescue was sent:

The idea was to take the rover and park next to the lander waaaaay up at the top of the hill. Sounded like a plan. It failed repeatedly. Finally abandoned the lander and climbed aboard the rescue ship. One monolith remained to be flagged. Bill agreed to turn over control to Trauki to nail it. Bad landing info (from me) caused the landing to be 2.5 km from the target. With the rover abandoned at the last site, the jet pack seemed the quickest option. Monolith flagged. Return to lander was going so well... until the terrain jumped up quicker than expected and smacked Trauki into oblivion. I was devastated. In memorial I am promoting her to an official red shirt. 

Story doesn't end there. Bill rendezvoused with Jeb and the CSM in orbit.When burning to return home, the CSM collided with the rescue lander. It destroyed the docking port and the parachutes. So Jeb and Bill are sitting in Kerbin orbit waiting for a rescue the rescue mission.  

So now, someone tell me why I can stick a lander nearly sideways on a wall but a sweet innocent kerbalnaut can't walk on a slope half as steep. Excuse me, its just the sadness in me trying to understand why. WHY?