Auto Deploying Parachutes After Decouple

[DaveyJay1984]

I will apologise if my search of this thread missed this being suggested already.

I am thinking ahead a little here.

I assume that in campaign mode we will have a limited budget. Therefore being able to recover decoupled items would be beneficial as they can be reused rather than having to purchase replacements all the time. So I want my parts to stop being destroyed whenever I decouple them in launch. I have tried having parachutes attached that deploy at the time of decouple. Within the atmosphere this works most of the time, also helps keep the parts out of the way. Sometimes though, the parachutes don't survive for whatever reason.

My idea is that it would be great to be able to attach a parachute that will auto deploy at under 15000m or something after the part has be decoupled. This should allow for parts decoupled outside of the atmosphere to reenter before chute deployment and allow the parts to make a soft landing and be recovered for reuse. I would think that they work similarly to now. Part deploy at preset level and then fully deploy at 500m from ground level.

I hope this is clear.

Thoughts are welcome.

[goldenpeach]

Good idea,but the problem come from game limitation(the 2.5km physic sphere).

However,I hope that the dev do something to allow that(like,all the parts coming from the rocket have physic enabled)!

[carlorizzante]

Old thread but... might this help?

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64227-1-0-2-Smart-Parts-v1-6-5-Proximity-Sensor-Bug-Fixes-May-17

Altimeter

-------------------

Capable of detecting when the craft hits a specified altitude, and if it's ascending, descending, or either, and then firing an action group or staging. Useful for auto-jettisoning fairings on ascent, or activating parachutes on landing.

[Grumman]

It's possible to set triggered parachutes to only start deploying at a sufficiently high pressure (i.e. low altitude) that they only start opening once your rocket has slowed down enough to not destroy them. IIRC, I set mine to around 0.3 atmospheres. You still need to watch it fall, but you don't need a probe core to delay the opening.

[Murph]

To be honest, unless it's extremely marginal on chutes, set the pressure to 0.5 (max), to minimise the time to landing/splash (and set the full opening altitude to 50m if you can get away with it, or 300m if you can't, those are always altitude above terrain, so safe anywhere).