Landing Legs without suspension?

[MikeO89]

Is it possible to take out all the suspension of the landing legs in ksp and just make them rigid? I'm talking about LT-1, LT-2 landing legs (as I don't see any other landing legs in this game for space craft). I do not like the bounce on landing. I want the landing legs to just stay put at landing like the FASA LEM legs. Not try to simulate any kind of suspension.

[Reactordrone]

You used to be able to lock the suspension but I don't think there's an option for that in the current stock game.

[Xd the great]

Messing with the spring strength?

Or use structural elements. I used to do that when ksp v 1.4.2 has a bug whick make landing legs explode.

[Daniel Prates]

On 7/4/2018 at 8:17 AM, Xd the great said:

Messing with the spring strength?

Or use structural elements. I used to do that when ksp v 1.4.2 has a bug whick make landing legs explode.

 Right-o!  Struts make good solid landing legs,  if that'a what you need.

And indeed,  afaik vanilla (unmodded) KSP has a "spring rating" info in the part's context menu. Remove all of the "green bar" and it will be like a completelly solid leg. If you set it in the VAB,  all legs will be affected,  but if you do it in-flight,  only the selected leg will be affected.

[blakemw]

Some interesting alternative landing gear include decouplers / hard points and radiators. Radiators have an especially odd interaction with the terrain, they aren't exactly bouncy, but they will slide up on impact helping to absorb the shock. Service and Cargo Bay doors can also be used as landing gears particularly if you adjust how far they open. Doors are rigid, indestructible and deployable.

[MikeO89]

1 hour ago, Daniel Prates said:

 Right-o!  Struts make good solid landing legs,  if that'a what you need.

And indeed,  afaik vanilla (unmodded) KSP has a "spring rating" info in the part's context menu. Remove all of the "green bar" and it will be like a completelly solid leg. If you set it in the VAB,  all legs will be affected,  but if you do it in-flight,  only the selected leg will be affected.

Wow is it as simple as that? I never checked the parts before. Just checked the legs on a built landing craft and saw spring strength and damper strength which were both maxed. So just change them both to 0 will make them rigid legs? I will try it and if it works I will be very happy. Always hated the suspension in the legs making the craft bounce on landing (made the craft look and feel like it had no weight). Thought it looked just totally all wrong. I guess I could see what Squad was trying to do but the effect just wasn't right and ruined any realism for me. I had a name for the L1 and L2 legs. I called them pogo stick legs. I always tried to use the FASA LEM legs on every craft that I could get them to fit on just because I liked the solid no bounce landings (the way a landing is supposed to be). Choices for landing legs in this game is pretty limited. Wish someone would make a mod with a lot of different creative landing legs. Having a lot of options is a good thing.

Edited July 5, 2018 by MikeO89

[Xd the great]

47 minutes ago, MikeO89 said:

Wish someone would make a mod with a lot of different creative landing legs. Having a lot of options is a good thing.

There is a reuseability mod which adds a lot of large rigid landing legs. Not sure if you like it. I think its called kerbal reuseability expansion. 

[Daniel Prates]

2 hours ago, MikeO89 said:

Wow is it as simple as that? I never checked the parts before. Just checked the legs on a built landing craft and saw spring strength and damper strength which were both maxed. So just change them both to 0 will make them rigid legs? I will try it and if it works I will be very happy. Always hated the suspension in the legs making the craft bounce on landing (made the craft look and feel like it had no weight). Thought it looked just totally all wrong. I guess I could see what Squad was trying to do but the effect just wasn't right and ruined any realism for me. I had a name for the L1 and L2 legs. I called them pogo stick legs. I always tried to use the FASA LEM legs on every craft that I could get them to fit on just because I liked the solid no bounce landings (the way a landing is supposed to be). Choices for landing legs in this game is pretty limited. Wish someone would make a mod with a lot of different creative landing legs. Having a lot of options is a good thing.

Oh yeah. It will take some experimenting though. No spring rating at all may make your landing legs more susceptible to breaking under stress. But if in the current setting it is too bouncy,  do reduce them a bit.

All those parts with the green bar are tweakeable. I always tamper with wheel brakes for instance. Thrusters can have their max thrust reduced,  cargo bays can be set not to open all the way... the possibilities are limitless. Fiddle with them,  go nuts!

Edited July 6, 2018 by Daniel Prates

[MikeO89]

Well just tried to change the spring and damper strength of the LT2 legs to 0 and that just made things worse. Legs just collapsed on landing. Seems the spring strength needs to be increased, not decreased to stiffen the suspension up to be rigid like but 2 is the max. I think maybe the .cfg is going to need to be tweaked but I don't know what to change in there. It says the suspension travel is .95 meters. I need to kill that to 0 so there is no suspension.

 

I see these values in the LT-2 cfg.

MODULE
    {
        name = ModuleWheelSuspension
        baseModuleIndex = 0
        suspensionTransformName = piston
        suspensionColliderName = piston_collider
       
        suspensionDistance = 0.95
        suspensionOffset = -0.95       
       
        targetPosition = 1.0           
        springRatio = 6
        damperRatio = 1.0
        boostRatio = 0.6
    }
    MODULE

 

Now the tricky part is knowing what changes are going to do what.

 

For me the suspension effects are so bad in these legs that even launching an ascent stage from the Mun from a two stage lander, the bottom decent stage bounces off the ground a few times looking like a cat being hit with a stick. A wonkyness I can't stand. A shock is supposed to dampen the landing a bit, not spring back up and take a craft that weighs tons with it off the ground a couple of times before it finally settles down. Just a poor implementation on Squads part as far as I'm concerned. A rigid leg like the FASA LEM rigid landing legs doesn't do any of that nonsense. I actually still use those legs on anything I can fit them on for that reason. Problem is you can't put them on very many craft as they are pretty specific on how they are attached.

Edited July 6, 2018 by MikeO89

[Xd the great]

Suspension difference and suspension offset. Set them to 0.01. Works for me.

Or - 0.01 for suspension offset.

[MikeO89]

I'll try that today.

 

Nope that doesn't work either. With that setting now landing legs clip halfway into the planet. Thanks for the suggestion anyway. Back to the drawing board.

Edited July 12, 2018 by MikeO89