Space tourists always die when landing unless I actively watch the landing

[crawforc3]

I have bunch of contracts to send tourists into orbit around Kerbal. My rocket works fine and the landing is always fine unless I leave and go back to the Space Center.  For some reason, my tourists keep being lost on landing when I'm not actively watching it happen. This also happens when watching the landing from the tracking center. Any ideas on why this keeps happening?

[ForScience6686]

Because it gets deleted.  The game must calculate physics, and will consider it debris if you decide to let it plummet on its own.  I'm wandering why you are leaving it to it's fate or trying to watch from the tracking center?  Why not just watch it descend to the ground?  I also thought it wouldn't allow you to do this while in atmosphere.  So I'm guessing you're doing it while in space...

[Spricigo]

Welcome to the forum. 

If you are not using a mod (stage recovery)  to land the vessel for you then @ForScience6686 is correct.  And the tourist are dieing because for what the game is concerned the craft is not landing,  rather it crashed hard to the ground killing everyone aboard. 

[pincushionman]

For clarification, the game only simulates objects that are the active vessel or within ~2 km of it. Everything else is "on rails," meaning it only moves along Keplerian conic orbits, just as if you engage standard time warp. This reduces processor load.

However, it also means only gravitational accelerations apply to these other objects. No engine thrust is obvious, but also no aerodynamics are applied either.

This isn't a problem with airless bodies; the vessel continues on rails forever unless it impacts the surface. Atmospheres, however, are a problem, because drag and lift are significant forces and have to be actively simulated. So the devs decided that an atmosphere pressure less than 1% Kerbin sea level pressure could be ignored under certain conditions. But anything leaving the simulation "bubble" in an atmosphere greater than that (or entering such an atmosphere) is assumed to experience "significant aerodynamic forces," and burn up, or lose control and crash. The game simply deletes the object to save processor effort.

On Kerbin 1% atmosphere is anything below 23 km. By exiting the flight scene before landing, you're telling the game that you don't care what happens to that vessel, and it can safely assume it will be destroyed. Mods such as StageRecovery can override this behavior, so if you want to recover the vessel you need to either install such a mod or ride it all the way down.

[crawforc3]

On 5/20/2017 at 1:35 PM, ForScience6686 said:

I'm wandering why you are leaving it to it's fate or trying to watch from the tracking center?  Why not just watch it descend to the ground? 

I was trying to do this to get through my contracts faster. It would have been nice to just get tourists into orbit and then get them setup for a good landing, so that I could leave and get started on the next launch. I had ~4 tourist contracts in career mode and didn't have the parts to carry all the tourists in one trip so I was having to launch into kerbal orbit over and over and over.

Edited May 22, 2017 by crawforc3

[Spricigo]

3 hours ago, crawforc3 said:

I was trying to do this to get through my contracts faster. It would have been nice to just get tourists into orbit and then get them setup for a good landing, so that I could leave and get started on the next launch. I had ~4 tourist contracts in career mode and didn't have the parts to carry all the tourists in one trip so I was having to launch into kerbal orbit over and over and over.

welcome to the wonderful world of contract grinding.

If you want some help designing a effective vessel for those tourist ship just let us know what tech is available, the level of VAB and launchpad and how many tourist you are trying to carry at each time. (I have a 8 passenger rocket and a 4 passenger SSTO spaceplane available , but those rely in a rather high tech you may not have)

 

[ForScience6686]

Understandable then.  There are ways to do it, but it involves odd designs early on.  I used to stack many pods together and separate them on descent.

[Loren Pechtel]

On 5/22/2017 at 9:54 AM, crawforc3 said:

I was trying to do this to get through my contracts faster. It would have been nice to just get tourists into orbit and then get them setup for a good landing, so that I could leave and get started on the next launch. I had ~4 tourist contracts in career mode and didn't have the parts to carry all the tourists in one trip so I was having to launch into kerbal orbit over and over and over.

You do have the parts.  If you can get to orbit at all you can get to orbit with any number of Kerbals and it's actually slightly cheaper on a per-Kerbal basis.

Consider my 20-tourist rocket (I edited the average available contracts up a bit) built entirely out of 1.25m parts that would get me lynched if I were ever to set foot at Cape Canaveral:

Central core:  Engine, fuel, decoupler, 2-seat cockpit, capsule, 2-seat cockpit, decoupler, nose cone.  Chutes.

Stacked beside this were 4 more stacks of:  Engine, fuel, decoupler, 2-seat cockpit, 2-seat cockpit, decoupler, nose cone.  Note that these are fixed-mount, no decouplers.

The side stacks do not need a control system, it's one pilot flying 20 tourists and you only need a pair of drogues no matter how big you make this.

The reason for the second set of decouplers is that without them this deisgn lawn darts every time.  However, if I blow off the nose cones I'm left with a structure that's blunt on both ends, it's not possible to lawn dart.  Note, also, the absence of a heat shield.  I orient the craft side on towards the fire, it survives.  After it has been positioned for re-entry I can leave the game running and do something else.

I am completely incapable of flying this rocket but MechJeb can do a good enough job but must be watched very carefully!  As built the engines cut out 28km up and without the engine gymbals this craft is uncontrollable, it tumbles.  MechJeb will go nuts with the engine, the ascent guidance must be switched off the instant the engine shuts down.  Turn on SAS, prograde hold.  As you approach 60km the prograde hold will finally overpower the drag and it will point in the right direction in time to turn the autopilot back on at 65km, it will finish the job.

(As for how I have ascent guidance at this point:  From flying an earlier version of this rocket with less fuel and suborbital tourists.  Half my profit is being redirected to science.  I had all the core science instruments before reaching orbit.)