Bouncing when retract (or: what are the settings on landing gear?)

[Jestersage]

To begin with: No mods.

So right now I am trying to use landing gears as a pseudo elevator to raise and lower the payload. On Kerbin, it works as intended. On mun, it at best launch the payload up but with an okay orientation, and at worst it sommersault and proceed to ruin my payload.

So refering to some of the older threads, I noticed the following:

According to https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/173583-landing-gear-weight-limits/&page=0#comment-3347698

 

* Spring rate is what it sounds like. A higher number for spring rate will compress less for a given load, and will oscillate at a higher frequency. Perversely, this means you can have too much landing gear and will have to reduce the spring rate under light loads.
* The damper rate, OTOH, is the percentage of criticality. 0% is undamped; oscillations will carry on forever. 100% is critically damped; oscillations will be eliminated by the end of the first cycle. A typical rough terrain suspension is damped around 30%, whereas a 60% damping is used for a smooth surface. Going beyond 100% damping tends to make it difficult for the wheels to maintain contact with the ground, jacking down the suspension over rough surfaces.

But also, according to https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/175866-cant-tame-bouncing-landing-gear/&page=0#comment-3398427

 

* Did you set friction control override? That thing also bounces and wobble. 

However, I am uncertain how the friction control affect it.

So I guess what I want to know is:

* Is there anyway to minimize the bounce/catapulting?
* In addition, how does friction control affect the bounce?
* And anythign else affect the bounce?

[bewing]

3 hours ago, Jestersage said:

* Is there anyway to minimize the bounce/catapulting?
* In addition, how does friction control affect the bounce?
* And anythign else affect the bounce?

First, since you are playing stock, I assume you are on the current version of the game? There is a known bug in the current version that causes a small amount of bouncing for landing gears on low-G CBs, by reducing or eliminating the effect of the suspension damper.

Friction control has almost nothing to do with bouncing in the current version.

Does your payload have any fuel or other transferrable resources in it? Pumping fuel around to change the weight distribution can have a major effect on bouncing.

The rigidity of your craft can also affect bouncing. Springy joints between parts can amplify bouncing.

The only real method for minimizing any bounce is to tweak those damper and spring settings, and see if you can find a sweet spot. 

[Rocket In My Pocket]

For the purposes of an elevator, the airbrakes would work better most likely.

Just use the max deployment slider to slowly raise them up and down.

[Jestersage]

Thanks for both answers. I will also experiment with airbrakes.