Parachute settings modification?

[strider3]

{landing on Duna again}. I use LOTS of parachutes on my Duna science lander...it seems much cheaper than the required DV for landing without them. One problem I have is that the parachute settings seem to be designed for a Kerbin landing only. For Duna I increase the minimum altitude to 10,000 meters and minimum pressure to less than 0.01. This works relatively well but it's a huge, involved and time consuming process...especially when you have 8 drogues and 16 full sized chutes! Currently I build my lander, save it and go into my saved ships, open the "craft" file and hunt for every instance of "parachute" to change the above mentioned settings...for each and every one (24 instances, in this case!). Is it possible for me to change the actual stock part config to have a greater range on the minimum pressure and minimum altitude sliders? That way I have the ability to change the parachute settings "in game" while building the craft and can base it on the celestial body I'm landing on.

2 more questions. What determines "safe" "risky" and "unsafe" for parachute deployment. I'm guessing it's based on speed? When looking at the "staging" tree, on lower left, what do the various colors mean? I "get" red...LOL!

Thanks for any info, gang.

[bewing]

Most of the parachute colors are described carefully in the "Basic Flight" tutorial in the game. Just start it and skip to that screen, and quit once you've read it.

 

[Tokoshoran]

You can't change the stock part, but you can copy the existing part and its settings by holding ALT while clicking it. This way you just set the one regular and one drogue, set them up, and then copy them into the other places.

[Streetwind]

6 hours ago, Victor3 said:

Currently I build my lander, save it and go into my saved ships, open the "craft" file and hunt for every instance of "parachute" to change the above mentioned settings...for each and every one (24 instances, in this case!). Is it possible for me to change the actual stock part config to have a greater range on the minimum pressure and minimum altitude sliders?

Yes... sort of. You can set the default air pressure and deploy altitude values that are set when you pull the part out of the parts list and place it on a craft. Additionally, you can change the lower end of the slider range for air pressure. Not the upper end, and neither of the ends for deploy altitude, I'm afraid. However, you can specify a default value that's outside the slider range IIRC. So as long as you never touch the sliders, just setting the defaults to your liking may be enough for your purposes.

You're going to need Module Manager. If you run any mods at all, chances are you have it already; but if not, you can also download it separately. Then, put the following text into a text file somewhere in your GameData folder, and change the file extension to .cfg.

+PART[parachuteRadial]:FINAL
{
	@name = parachuteRadial-Duna
	@title = Mk2-R Radial-Mount Parachute (Duna Variant)
	@MODULE[ModuleParachute]
	{
		@minAirPressureToOpen = 0.001
		@clampMinAirPressure = 0.001
		@deployAltitude = 10000
	}
}

This will clone the standard radial parachute, giving you a new part that is identical in all aspects except for its name, and the settings defined above.

You can do the same for all other parachutes you want to use.

Edited March 22, 2018 by Streetwind

[strider3]

Excellent! Thanks gang!