How to test landers at KSC by hacking gravity

[John FX]

I would like to test my Mun lander at KSP to speed up development but if I bring up the cheat menu all i get is a `hack gravity` option with no way of telling it I want Mun gravity.

Is there a way of making the gravity at KSC the same as that on Mun (ideally without hyperedit, I`m trying to keep my mod numbers down)

I`m expecting to be told it`s hyperedit.

Edited March 11, 2014 by John FX

[Sirrobert]

There is no such function in the cheat menu I'm afraid.

If not hyperedit it'll have to be another mod

[John FX]

OK, I`ll try hyperedit. I`ve resisted it up to now but I don`t want to have to do full mun missions for each new tweak of a leg design...

[Xiphos]

I would send a probe to the mun with some science equipment to find out what the gravity is relative to kerbin. Then design your lander accordingly. I believe the 'hack gravity' option sets the gravity to null.

[Tank Buddy]

Why not just calculate the Trust-to-Weight ratio?

Thrust/(mass*surface gravity of planet)

On Kerbin, a TWR of 1 means you accelerate at 9.815 m/s, a net gain of 0 since that is Kerbin's surface gravity. You will not take off. A TWR of 2 makes you accelerate at 9.815 m/s, since you have enough thrust to hold your ship (net gain of 0) plus an extra 9.815 to accelerate onward. On the Mun the surface gravity is 1.63 m/s, so plan accordingly.

[Red Iron Crown]

Or use Kerbal Engineer Redux, which will calculate TWR for you on any celestial body.

[cantab]

The Apollo program used a craft where 5/6 of the weight was held up by jets, to simulate lunar gravity. You could try something similar, if there's a way to disconnect an engine from the throttle, or else use solid boosters tweaked to the right thrust and infinite fuel so they don't run out.

[Nathair]

The Apollo program used a craft where 5/6 of the weight was held up by jets, to simulate lunar gravity.

Now that is just cool. Have you got any links or references to the details?

Edit:Nevermind.

Edited March 11, 2014 by Nathair

[Vanamonde]

If you're going to do this, the best way would be to hypedit the craft to the Mun. I must confess that while I dislike using mods as a rule, I do use hyperedit for testing like this. I have one save in which cheats are okay and I don't care if Kerbals die because I consider it my real program's computer simulations, and once I have a design fully tested, I copy it over to my "real" game save.

[FenrirWolf]

Just look at the TWR in kerbal engineer redux.

[John FX]

The problem was not TWR. I have landed it many many times. I needed to see if the rover would be able to get out from under the lander in this version. At KSC the landing legs compacted too much due to gravity. Also the self righting mechanism on the rover acted differently. I was going through a few rover designs and fittings and needed to do a full mun mission for each test. It is now much faster to just launch the lander/rover combo, hack gravity to be the same as the mun and test the lander.