Contract: Testing "poodle" engine while splashed down

[bcbarnes]

Having a hard time with this one, as it seems that once a vessel splashes down, all the staging and all parts except the mk1 pod are "removed". Anyone have any suggestions for a design that might work for this contract?

[Geonovast]

Hello, @bcbarnes and welcome to the forum!

I've moved your question on how to play the game over to our Gameplay Questions subforum.

 

The problem you're having is likely due not to splashing down specifically, but because you're splashing down too fast.  Even with parachutes, it can be tricky to land in the water sometimes.  Frequently it will help to apply a little bit of throttle (assuming your engine is pointing down) right before touchdown to get it so you're only moving a few m/s when you hit the water.

[adsii1970]

14 minutes ago, bcbarnes said:

Having a hard time with this one, as it seems that once a vessel splashes down, all the staging and all parts except the mk1 pod are "removed". Anyone have any suggestions for a design that might work for this contract?

Reserve enough fuel to do a retro-burn, beginning about 300 m from the surface. Make sure you have parachutes (when I play a career game, I will add two drogue chutes along with the main chute) and by using the engine at 1/2 throttle, you can slow your rate of decent to seven meters per second or slower. This way, when you do make contact with the ocean's water, you don't end up with the engine blown to pieces from impact.

I hope this helps you.

[drpunk]

Could probably put wheels on it and drive it into the water.

[Laie]

51 minutes ago, bcbarnes said:

Anyone have any suggestions for a design that might work for this contract?

Everybody knows that splashing into the water is safer than slamming into the ground. Except in KSP, where it isn't.

Short explainer: If you land on solid ground, only the parts that actually hit the ground need to survive the impact, then everything else will survive as well. Even if the lowermost part(s) blows up, the explosion may at least slow the fall of everything that's on top of them. This doesn't always work, but often provides a kind of crumple zone that protects at least part of your vessel.

Whereas if you splash into the water, every part that's too fast when crossing the waterline will simply vanish. No crash, no explosion, nothing whatsover that would help to slow the impact for the remainder of the vessel. That's why your command pod, which is pretty tough, is stripped of all or most parts that are more fragile.

Back to the problem at hand: If you mouse-over the Poodle in the part list, some data comes up. Among other things, it says "Tolerance: 7.0 m/s Impact". This means that if you come down slower than 7m/s, it will probably survive. Therefore, you somehow need to slow down your vessel so it splashes down at 7m/s or less. MOAR parachutes might already be enough.

[machine1760]

Why not try putting the engine and small fuel tank on the nose of the capsule instead?

[catonthekbd]

You don't actually need the fuel tank.  Just stage the engine - it does not need to fire up

[Sitting Duck]

There are obviously a lot of things you could try, as anything listed above.

The game isn't thinking logically (heh, obviously). It just cares that the specific requirements are met—literally. It doesn't matter how, aside from those parameters.

Maybe place a test engine on top of the vessel, so that it's there no matter what happens to the rest of the craft.

Or fire up from the space center, angle over, and try to land softly enough in the water a short distance off.

It's a crazy test, so do something crazy.

[bcbarnes]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. Finally got through the contract using a combination of the tips given here - using lots of parachutes, and using the main engine like a lander to slow descent.