Parachutes not working on probes [VIDEO]

[Ottomic]

Hi everyone. I'm trying to "bomb" Kerbin from atmospheric flight with probes in order to efficiently gather data on 3-4 biomes per flight. First I had the problem of the game despawning probes that get farther than 2.5 Km; solved it with TouhouTorpedo's NeverUnload, but probes still get destroyed on touchdown. The game does not seem to emulate parachutes on probes.

On this video you can see me dropping two probes, one with NeverUnload enabled and one with it disabled. This flight was run in conjunction with DontUnload, which doesn't seem to do anything, as probes keep despawning at 2.5 Ks and crashing on terrain even with it enabled. The probe that "splashes down" was actually destroyed, but the core survived, on ground they invariably explode.

I will try to do the same from space and deorbit them one by one, but if anyone knows anything that could help me I'd be very thankful. These probes carry a lot of weight and drag, and I would really prefer to be able to drop 6 of them from 20 K altitude, instead of 3 of them from a 8000 m/s Delta-v rocket.

Thanks.

[Taki117]

I am unsure what exactly is happening, but you could always try more parachutes (As well as sticking with the probe all the way down)

[Ottomic]

I am unsure what exactly is happening, but you could always try more parachutes (As well as sticking with the probe all the way down)

Focusing on the probe and following it all the way down works, but afterwards I'm unable to change focus since the game doesn't let you do that in atmosphere, so I end up with pretty much the same results as launching one single probe.

From what I've read, it looks like the game crashes anything that goes suborbital, I guess because simulating physics would choke up the system. DontUnload is supposed to prevent that, but it doesn't, it seems.

[Godot]

That´s not a bug but a feature ...

physics are only simulated in vicinity of the active ship ...

for all ships (or parts) that aren´t in vicinity physics are disabled and the parts are put "on Rails".

In former versions this would lead to parts on collision course with planets to happily fly through the planets surface (and reemerge again to continue their orbit).

But a few versions ago Squad solved this by deleting parts that leave the vicinity of the active craft and are about to crash into the surface.

Therefore you will only be able to assist execute one parachute descent at a time

[Lions]

weird i just done this and it is working 100% did you manage to come right?

[Kerbart]

Focusing on the probe and following it all the way down works, but afterwards I'm unable to change focus since the game doesn't let you do that in atmosphere, so I end up with pretty much the same results as launching one single probe.

From what I've read, it looks like the game crashes anything that goes suborbital, I guess because simulating physics would choke up the system. DontUnload is supposed to prevent that, but it doesn't, it seems.

Not true. You can switch focus just fine in the atmpsphere, as long as the vessels are close. I do it all the time. You can shift focus by using the [ and ] keys (the square brackets). Just make sure your probes don't drift apart too far.

[aven17]

Stabilize your orbit and launch/land the probes individually. No mods needed.