Parachutes breaking my ship

[Ovog]

Basically, when I come back to Kerbin with a ship that is a poodle motor + fuel tank + hithchiker tank + asas + cupola module, and I put parachutes on the hitchiker tank, when they are about to deploy at 500 meters it only seem to affect the hitchiker, and everything else just come appart, the motor going down really fast, and the asas + cupola hitting my hitchiker so hard it all breaks.

Is there a way for this to not happen? I want to know if the parachutes can stop an entire ship and not just a single piece of the ship. (sorry for the english if you don't understand)

Edited October 4, 2013 by Ovog

[cbale2000]

Parachutes can slow/stop an entire ship provided the ship is not too heavy, and that the decent is not too fast. Because of the sudden deceleration caused by a parachute opening, if a ship is not already traveling at a significantly reduced speed, the parachute will likely cause so much force on the ship that it will tear off whatever its attached to.

The best ways to fix this is to either slow your decent by other means (engines or drogue chutes), or use a smaller, lighter decent vehicle. Also keep in mind that deploying the parachutes too low will cause them to fully open immediately on deployment, causing a much stronger jolt than if they partially deploy higher up, and then fully deploy at lower altitudes.

[robogungt8]

I don't know if this is the problem, but don't time warp when chutes deploy. Hope this helps!

[merlinux]

As cbale2000 said you are descending too fast.

The answer is to use a mix of drogue chutes and regular chutes. Or slow urself down with rockets, but it isnt very fuel efficient .

[HeadHunter67]

Also, if you want everything to stay attached when the chute opens, use struts between parts. What's happening is that the rapid deceleration is causing parts to snap off due to the sudden shock.

[Ovog]

Thanks for the quick reply guys! I'll try to add more chutes next time to all the parts, and open them while higher

[Specialist290]

Another option is to use drogue chutes instead of / in addition to your main chutes. They both open and deploy at higher altitudes, and they don't decelerate the craft quite as quickly when they fully deploy.

[Kasuha]

I experienced that as well and more chutes won't help, while just one drogue will.

Drogue opens earlier and while it has much less effect, it will slow you down to about 40 m/s before you reach 500 m. At that speed your ship won't break.

[SRV Ron]

Use chutes that open as drogues to slow you down before the main deploys at 500 meters. Even then, if you are trying to land a lot of weight on several parts, they may snap off from the shock unless properly strutted. So may your parachute if you are coming down too fast.

[Andrew Hansen]

Another thing you can do is open only one parachute at a time. So have your drogue chute open first, then before 500 meters open one normal chute, and after the shock from that is gone, open the rest one-by-one. The shock is a lot less and will be less likely to rip your ship apart.