[WIP][PART] Deployable airbags for landing

[RoverDude]

With the new bounciness of the world cup soccer balls, I decided now is as good a time as any to knock out this part

This will be a stock-alike replica of the landing system used by Sprit (video goodness for reference), with some plugin goodness to handle animations and dynamically turning on the bounciness.

Working on the model now, going to see if I can get a link up today

[Mecripp]

You do know there is a mod like this you can look at think it was CT-AirBags.

Edit- But all in all can't wait to see what you come up with.

[R0d1n]

Lack Luster Labs has something very similar as well.

[RoverDude]

You do know there is a mod like this you can look at think it was CT-AirBags.

Edit- But all in all can't wait to see what you come up with.

Saw that one too, looks like the original developer is AWOL, plus no more spaceport link :/

[Mecripp]

Saw that one too, looks like the original developer is AWOL, plus no more spaceport link :/

Some 1 picked it up, and posted it on forums with a link but a hate the forums search don't think it works that good it as it's times lol rare.

[RoverDude]

Done and releases - have fun

[Starstrider42]

I guess it's true that kerbals can't get dizzy.

I assume we need to download the kerbin cup mod first?

[The Destroyer]

I guess it's true that kerbals can't get dizzy.

I assume we need to download the kerbin cup mod first?

Errr? No? That dosen't make sense.

[Camacha]

Hurray, I have been wanting a good and pretty version of this for a long time. Existing version were... lacking.

[RoverDude]

I guess it's true that kerbals can't get dizzy.

I assume we need to download the kerbin cup mod first?

Correct - I take a dependency on their bounciness module

[helaeon]

First, thanks for taking these up and making them. I was so excited when I saw you were going to use the soccer ball bounce to make some proper air bags.

I've been fiddling with these for about the last hour or two. If I connect the airbags to something like the 3 kerbal command pod like you did in the video - no explosions. As soon as other parts become involved... problems. So many explosions.

Like, the airbags aren't even there explosions. Works fine if I land at 8 m/s or less but that kind of defeats the point.

Is there a way to get the air-bags to cause the game to ignore the impact tolerance and breaking forces of the parts they are connected to while the air bags are deployed? Or, multiply them by something, or set it to something new (like 100 m/s)? Or, is it necessary to use structural girders (with 80 m/s impact tolerance) and attach the air bags to those? Though that girder thing doesn't seem to work either, as they snap off of what they are attached to.

I observe the airbag that is striking the ground bend at the mount, then the explosions start. Is there a way to stop that bending? I've been trying to modify breaking torque and force in the config and that's not doing anything.

Maybe a way to use suspension from modulelandinglegs? I might fiddle with that a bit.

I've been wanting to make a landing system involving air bags for quite some time. These are so very close to being exactly what is needed.

I do have the worldcup2014.dll installed.

[lodestar]

Those are awesome. Now all we need is a tetrahedron shaped transport pod like the one from NASA, with the petal shaped openings that guarantees the right side is always up.

[Camacha]

Now all we need is a tetrahedron shaped transport pod like the one from NASA, with the petal shaped openings that guarantees the right side is always up.

I cube will do just fine, I built plenty of those

[RoverDude]

First, thanks for taking these up and making them. I was so excited when I saw you were going to use the soccer ball bounce to make some proper air bags.

I've been fiddling with these for about the last hour or two. If I connect the airbags to something like the 3 kerbal command pod like you did in the video - no explosions. As soon as other parts become involved... problems. So many explosions.

Like, the airbags aren't even there explosions. Works fine if I land at 8 m/s or less but that kind of defeats the point.

Is there a way to get the air-bags to cause the game to ignore the impact tolerance and breaking forces of the parts they are connected to while the air bags are deployed? Or, multiply them by something, or set it to something new (like 100 m/s)? Or, is it necessary to use structural girders (with 80 m/s impact tolerance) and attach the air bags to those? Though that girder thing doesn't seem to work either, as they snap off of what they are attached to.

I observe the airbag that is striking the ground bend at the mount, then the explosions start. Is there a way to stop that bending? I've been trying to modify breaking torque and force in the config and that's not doing anything.

Maybe a way to use suspension from modulelandinglegs? I might fiddle with that a bit.

I've been wanting to make a landing system involving air bags for quite some time. These are so very close to being exactly what is needed.

I do have the worldcup2014.dll installed.

I've been doing a lot of experiments with the soccer bags trying to optimize this to take care of the issue you're seeing. The end result will likely be some serious tweaking of the next parts in line to help counter the forces, possibly combined with additional mounting point parts to help absorb the impact. Have to roll out the new MKS release, but plan on returning to this immediately after (i.e. as in this week).

[helaeon]

WOO HOO! Thanks again for the work on this.

I did fiddle with the config files and tried adding some other modules and tweaking their values and it didn't work out very well. I think you're right with the approach of tweaking the next part in line or making a special mounting point part or something. Pretty sure though that my inability to make any effectual changes has more to do with not knowing what I'm doing and shooting in the dark.

I tried strutting to the bag cases pretty severely and that didn't work either. I'm not using Joint Reinforcement so not sure if some of the tweaks ferram was doing there might help or if that could be used to make all the joints on the ship more rigid when the bags are deployed kind of like KJR does when physics is loaded. I used to use it but once 23.5 came out I stopped.

[RoverDude]

Another thing I am currently looking at is to actually change this into a landing gear / bouncy ball hybrid with the colliders and see what impact that has.

[helaeon]

When I was messing with adding the landing leg module to the config that did seem like it wanted to work, but I was missing the proper collider on the bag I bet and that's why it didn't work completely.

What would happen is the bag would start to absorb the hit but then engines, legs, structure, etc would slam into the ground because there was nothing pushing back as the legs do. That would probably work well as long as the orientation of the suspension was correct and would support such a wide area of collider and shock absorption. I was using config values about triple the big landing legs but with only the parameters from the probe landing legs.

Another thing I noticed was the bags tended to wiggle in their mount much like the AIES landing legs do.

I wonder if maybe one of the wheel modules might work? Then if you hit too hard you could pop a bag using the broken wheel condition, but I suppose maybe you could do that with the broken leg condition as well. The way the suspension works on wheels as you traverse and strike terrain maybe that would work well for the bag? And you could probably set those broken conditions whenever the bag is deflated if you wanted a Kerbal to have to fix it on EVA so it will re-inflate?

[RoverDude]

When I was messing with adding the landing leg module to the config that did seem like it wanted to work, but I was missing the proper collider on the bag I bet and that's why it didn't work completely.

What would happen is the bag would start to absorb the hit but then engines, legs, structure, etc would slam into the ground because there was nothing pushing back as the legs do. That would probably work well as long as the orientation of the suspension was correct and would support such a wide area of collider and shock absorption. I was using config values about triple the big landing legs but with only the parameters from the probe landing legs.

Another thing I noticed was the bags tended to wiggle in their mount much like the AIES landing legs do.

I wonder if maybe one of the wheel modules might work? Then if you hit too hard you could pop a bag using the broken wheel condition, but I suppose maybe you could do that with the broken leg condition as well. The way the suspension works on wheels as you traverse and strike terrain maybe that would work well for the bag? And you could probably set those broken conditions whenever the bag is deflated if you wanted a Kerbal to have to fix it on EVA so it will re-inflate?

Needless to say I'm doing a lot of collider tests and goodness Was fiddling with the model this morning, plan on doing more this week, just juggling this with an MKS update that is also almost out the door.