Landers trying to tip over after landing

[Tyko]

Every once in a while I'll land a lander and instead of sitting with all 4 legs on the ground it wants to tip and kind of wobble, but not fall over entirely - even with SAS on. It seems to happen more if its not landed on entirely level ground - the uphill legs will be on the ground, but the downhill legs will hang in mid-air and it'll keep tilting back and forth on the uphill legs.

Anyone else seen this? Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[Geonovast]

I saw a similar thread awhile back, and one of the suggestions was to change SAS to "Radial Out" just before touchdown.  I'll frequently hold 'N' with RCS on as well to help keep it against the ground until I settles.

[Tyko]

32 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

I saw a similar thread awhile back, and one of the suggestions was to change SAS to "Radial Out" just before touchdown.  I'll frequently hold 'N' with RCS on as well to help keep it against the ground until I settles.

Thanks. I tried radial out after touching down. I'll have to try it prior to touchdown as you suggest.

[Johnny Wishbone]

SAS itself is most likely the culprit. In low gravity environments, SAS will try to hold the last orientation. Best thing would be to turn off SAS as soon as you touch down, let gravity settle you down, and then turn SAS back on once you're stable if you need it.

[septemberWaves]

50 minutes ago, Johnny Wishbone said:

SAS itself is most likely the culprit. In low gravity environments, SAS will try to hold the last orientation. Best thing would be to turn off SAS as soon as you touch down, let gravity settle you down, and then turn SAS back on once you're stable if you need it.

This is exactly the case. The stability assist feature attempts to stop you from rotating in an inertial reference frame, meaning that if you're landed it will attempt to counteract the force of gravity if gravity is trying to rotate your lander (as it would be if your lander is not fully in contact with the ground).

Even after letting the lander settle on the ground, it's generally best to turn SAS off altogether from the moment of touchdown until the point when you're ready to take off, because loading a vehicle after it's been unloaded (or coming out of time warp) can change its orientation relative to the ground (usually by moving it a few meters away from its initial position, or a short distance upward) so you'd end up with the same problem if you leave SAS on. The stability assist feature is usually only useful in-flight anyway so there's little point to having it when you're landed (for the same reason that anything settled on the ground on Earth doesn't need to have special systems in place to keep it from toppling).

[invision]

if you use mods KAS has a wench and a harpoon you can fire into the ground and stake yourself in place, if you run stock you probably just need to switch SAS off and let the craft settle as mentioned already.

[Geonovast]

Just design'm so they're supposed to tip over!

 

[Vanamonde]

Technique question moved to Gameplay Questions. 

[Palaceviking]

On 07/10/2017 at 12:30 AM, invision said:

if you use mods KAS has a wench and a harpoon you can fire into the ground 

Looking through my install for a wench to fire, got community tech tree though,  might nor have unlocked her yet. 

[Kryxal]

I'd be more inclined to leave SAS on and just tap f to let it tip a bit at a time till things settle.