landing legs bouncing?

[Cannon]

I started playing again after a long time and I whenever I land somewhere ship bounces off the ground 20 times like a ball until it stops.
I'm using lt-2 landing struts, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't like this when I last played. Is there a way to preven this from happening?
Thanks in advance!

[Guest]

Yeah, wheels, landing gear, and landing legs are super bouncy in 1.5. 

You can mitigate/fix it by manually tuning the springs. The good news is that now you can do this outside the VAB/SPH. Right-click on the leg/wheel/gear, look for Spring Strength and Damper Strength. They're "auto" by default, override them and tweak the values. 

[AVaughan]

Related threads https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/178593-the-landing-legs-gears-is-killing-me/ and some posts in the 1.5 discussion thread eg https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/178890-kerbal-space-program-update-15-grand-discussion-thread/&page=12&tab=comments#comment-3472345.

 

 

[Atkara]

In addition to what has been posted so far, maxing dampers gets rid of the bouncing in most (if not all) cases.

[AVaughan]

Even with max dampers I still saw more bounces in 1.5 than I remember from 1.4.x at default settings.  Eg check the video I posted in https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/178890-kerbal-space-program-update-15-grand-discussion-thread/&page=12&tab=comments#comment-3472345

 

 

[Cannon]

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Yeah, wheels, landing gear, and landing legs are super bouncy in 1.5. 

You can mitigate/fix it by manually tuning the springs. The good news is that now you can do this outside the VAB/SPH. Right-click on the leg/wheel/gear, look for Spring Strength and Damper Strength. They're "auto" by default, override them and tweak the values. 

I don't have those options when I right click it https://imgur.com/a/szcg8l3

[AVaughan]

@Cannon Not sure, but you might need to have advanced tweakables enabled.   (It is in settings somewhere.  It's defaults to off in new installs, but I always turn it on).

[Cannon]

8 minutes ago, AVaughan said:

@Cannon Not sure, but you might need to have advanced tweakables enabled.   (It is in settings somewhere.  It's defaults to off in new installs, but I always turn it on).

Thanks mate!

[Tyko]

it's still a problem. As I increase dampers the bounces become shorter, but don't entirely go away. When I set dampers at maximum the bounces become very short but the frequency increases so the craft appears to be vibrating and slowly vibrates down even a gentle slope or in a circle if it's on flat ground.

This is really annoying. This wasn't a problem for me in 1.3.x and it's been a problem ever since. Landers working should be table stakes for a space game and needs to work right.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Tyko

[Rocket In My Pocket]

I thought the last patch fixed this via the "auto" setting?

Never encountered it myself besides the starter plane gear, even before that. My advice about the settings would be to lower strength and raise damper. Was always how I fixed the bouncy fixed plane gear. Although the new auto setting has fixed that particular problem, at least on my end. Even an overloaded starter plane doesn't bounce after 1.5.

Anyone have an example craft/situation? I'm always interested in trying to nail the cause of bugs down.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Cannon]

39 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I thought the last patch fixed this via the "auto" setting?

Never encountered it myself besides the starter plane gear, even before that. My advice about the settings would be to lower strength and raise damper. Was always how I fixed the bouncy fixed plane gear. Although the new auto setting has fixed that particular problem, at least on my end. Even an overloaded starter plane doesn't bounce after 1.5.

Anyone have an example craft/situation? I'm always interested in trying to nail the cause of bugs down.

This is the lander I used https://imgur.com/a/lXMQTAb
Happened to me when landing on duna and ike, smaller landers on mun and minmus were fine, though I was using lt-1 landing legs on them.
I usually land at about 3 m/s.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

Hmm...well it looks pretty heavy for only 4 landing legs to me.

Really at a certain point; even the largest retractable landing gear are only for "lighter" craft. Anything heavy should be landing on static structural pieces.

Could you give me the tonnage? Building a dummy weight on 4 legs will be a lot easier than trying to recreate every nuance of your lander lol. Or a craft file would work too.

[Cannon]

45 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Hmm...well it looks pretty heavy for only 4 landing legs to me.

Really at a certain point; even the largest retractable landing gear are only for "lighter" craft. Anything heavy should be landing on static structural pieces.

Could you give me the tonnage? Building a dummy weight on 4 legs will be a lot easier than trying to recreate every nuance of your lander lol. Or a craft file would work too.

It's 66.016t

[Rocket In My Pocket]

24 minutes ago, Cannon said:

It's 66.016t

Made a 70 ton test lander for Ike, I definitely got some bouncing trying to land around 3 m/s. A much gentler touch down at 0.1 m/s worked, and it was fairly stable once landed.

Retracting my landing gear and landing on the engine bell proved better, and there was no bounce at 3 m/s.

You could try doubling the gear, or just landing slower. I think heavier landers exacerbate the issues with the springs. Like I said, at a certain point of "heaviness" you may want to switch over to something non retractable to land on.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Cannon]

13 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Made a 70 ton test lander for Ike, I definitely got some bouncing trying to land around 3 m/s. A much gentler touch down at 0.1 m/s worked, and it was fairly stable once landed.

Retracting my landing gear and landing on the engine bell proved better, and there was no bounce at 3 m/s.

You could try doubling the gear, or just landing slower. I think heavier landers exacerbate the issues with the springs. Like I said, at a certain point of "heaviness" you may want to switch over to something non retractable to land on.

Will do, thanks!

[Tyko]

I encountered it on really light landers = < 1000Kg. They're little probes