Leveling Craft with new Shock Absorbers

[Whitecold]

Hi, I'm testing my new base modules on Kerbin, and have encountered a significant problem. Asymmetric landing craft push squeeze the Landing gear not uniformly, resulting in tilted modules, even with landings as gentle as I could simulate (suspended with clamps directly above ground.). I have found no way to level them afterwards, which is necessary for docking the different modules on the ground. Anyone has advice how to cope with the problem?

[Dogface]

you should probably post a picture of the craft, for a question like that.

obviously, the craft will react differently in the gravity of the Mun. Have you put big crafts on the Mun before? I spent a long time testing my base in Kerbin gravity, only to find the problem didnt exist on the Mun

Edited October 22, 2013 by Dogface

[running]

I've got 2 solutions 1 that I used on duna and a different oen I'm now using on Dres.

For duna I have a rover to pickup and move the modules. It would drive to the module and dock, then the module would retrackt it's legs and de rover woudl rive off. De module would stay more or less at the same hight. Although it's weigt might pull it down a bit. To compensate for that I had 2 fuel tanks on the rover around the pivoting point. I would pump fuel from one tank to the other to cancel out the tilt. Then drive to the base and dock the module with the docking port on it's other side. then extend it's legs and undock the rover...

it worked most of the time. I'll make a video of that base when I have the time.

On Dres.... all my modules are on top of a small rover. Modules are docked while everything is on wheels.

Once completed the entire base will extend the legs, de rovers will decouple and I'll wind up with a base and a very large number of small rovers.

It works well on Kerbin and the low gravity on Dres makes it even easier.

[katateochi]

Which legs are you using and how heavy is the craft? Maybe the craft is too heavy for the chosen legs (pic would help).

I think (worked for me with a small craft) that raising the legs (so the craft rested on its landing engine for a mo) and re-deploying them got them to reset.

tbh I've not tried docking on land yet in 0.22 but in previous versions if I couldn't get ports lined up I found raising the legs and then lowering them would move the ports past each other and they'd dock, thou that can be a bit fiddly.

Dropping a craft from clamps may still exert quite a force. What speed are you landing at? A gentle landing in my books is under 1ms and on Mun unless your craft is really heavy that shouldn't compress the legs.

[The_Rocketeer]

Two things to try:

First of all, when placing the legs on your craft, use the centre of mass to distribute the legs fairly evenly so they have a balanced load. If you want to get precise, you can find the best places to mount ur struts using the centre of thrust and VTOL engines. Find good balanced mounting points before swapping your VTOL engines for the landing struts (if you're using engines on the craft, you can use the centre of lift to represent the centre of mass while you do this - PM me if u need help with this).

The second tip is a bit more Kerbal/less clever. I had a weird glitch like this in my lander, which was almost completely symmetrical. During a launch pad test the struts got all lop-sided and I couldn't take off without shooting off sideways. My solution? Activate the reaction wheel and gyro myself upright, then use the SAS to keep it there during take-off. Note in this case the problem was actually caused by the lander being too light for the legs, not too heavy. Perhaps not applicable to your situation, but you never know!