Landing gear for bouyancy control?

[Geonovast]

Discovered this completely by accident.  This is my very first excusion below the surface built a small probe using EPL metal cans for weight.  Also stuck some landing gear for touchdown on the ocean floor.  I'm not sinking very fast, and when I opened the landing gear, I started ascending!

Sinking:

Ascending:

Was this done intentionally somehow?

[Not Sure]

Maybe the suspension of the gear is perpetually pressing against the water? no clue, this is awesome though.

[Ten Key]

Interesting.

It kind of makes sense, I suppose. The mass of the part doesn't change, but when the legs extend their volume increases, and so you end up displacing more water. 

Nice find.

[Spricigo]

Sorry for not have a link, but i think that was mentioned before.

10 minutes ago, Ten Key said:

Interesting.

It kind of makes sense, I suppose. The mass of the part doesn't change, but when the legs extend their volume increases, and so you end up displacing more water. 

Nice find.

IIRC that is not consistent along different parts, some will go down when extended.  

In any case (since I'm not sure anyway) let's suppose parts that occupy more volume are more boyant. Now think about service/cargo bays.

[Onigato]

I can confirm that service bays can have the same effect. Splashed down after a mission, and my craft was sinking too fast to recover. Open the service bay to try I can't remember what, and I started ascending again. No change in mass, obviously, but it may be that the bounding box of the object isn't based on the skin, but instead based on corners? Also displacement is based on the bounding box? I think !!SCIENCE!! will need to be done by someone with a much beefier system than mine.

[Blaarkies]

36 minutes ago, Onigato said:

I can confirm that service bays can have the same effect. Splashed down after a mission, and my craft was sinking too fast to recover. Open the service bay to try I can't remember what, and I started ascending again. No change in mass, obviously, but it may be that the bounding box of the object isn't based on the skin, but instead based on corners? Also displacement is based on the bounding box? I think !!SCIENCE!! will need to be done by someone with a much beefier system than mine.

That moment when you collect more science on splash down than you did on the Mun's surface...knowledge is power 
Reminds me of Archimedes' Eureka moment, but in a high tech craft this time

[Martian Emigrant]

Hey all.

 

I have used a service bay on a sub to make it rise and sink on command.

I think the open and closed bay are different objects. Like the gears when extended or retracted.

The data for physic is swapped when the object is changed and the densities were made different.

Error or on purpose. Probably both.

In my experimentation one bay was making the sub buoyant the other less. Hit and miss,  never was on the minds of the coders.

 

ME

Edited January 26, 2018 by Martian Emigrant