Delay deployment

[Conarr]

Is there a way to delay the deployment of parachutes on expended stages? I'd like the chutes to deploy about 500m above their open altitude?

[astropapi1]

There isn't. :/

[K^2]

Keep in mind that anything that's further than certain distance from your main ship isn't affected by physics. So even if you have parachutes deployed on these stages, unless they are within a few km, they'll smash into ground as if neither parachutes nor even atmosphere are even there.

[DerekL1963]

Keep in mind that anything that's further than certain distance from your main ship isn't affected by physics. So even if you have parachutes deployed on these stages, unless they are within a few km, they'll smash into ground as if neither parachutes nor even atmosphere are even there.

Isn't that only true so long as they don't have a probe core present?

[Jaedinator]

I usually put small fuel tanks and a probe core on stages that are deployed in orbit around kerbin so i can deorbit them later, maybe you could put probe cores and parachutes on the stages you want safely on the ground and switch to them as soon as your main craft is in a stable orbit.

[Francesco]

I think it's a little more complex than that.

launching from Kerbin, if you're below ~23 km and jettison a stage (let's say some SRBs), after you get more than 2.5 km away from that stage, it will disappear, even if you put a probe core on each of the jettisoned boosters.

this is because on Kerbin any object below ~23 km (where atmospheric pressure is 0.01) is deleted if it is not

A) controlled by the player

within ~2.5 km of the ship controlled by the player

Edited May 25, 2013 by Francesco

[Colonel_Panic]

^this is what I would do. Add a probe core, and you can switch to your stage to deploy the parachute manually.

I don't know why you'd want to, though, debris on the ground is a huge pain to try and clean up.

[Colonel_Panic]

I think it's a little more complex than that.

launching from Kerbin, if you're below ~23 km and jettison a stage (let's say some SRBs), after you get more than 2.5 km away from that stage, it will disappear, even if you put a probe core on each of the jettisoned boosters.

this is because on Kerbin any object below ~23 km (where atmospheric pressure is 0.01) is deleted if it is not

A) controlled by the player

within ~2.5 km of the ship controlled by the player

I don't recall it ever working that way for me... I still have crashed ships scattered on the ground on the other side of kerbin, and furthermore I know that debris that doesn't get below 10km in the orbital map won't degrade in its orbit or crash.

[Francesco]

I don't recall it ever working that way for me... I still have crashed ships scattered on the ground on the other side of kerbin, and furthermore I know that debris that doesn't get below 10km in the orbital map won't degrade in its orbit or crash.

debris on the ground is one thing, moving objects are another. don't know where you took that 10 km value from.

[RoboRay]

It's 22km, not 10km.