[1.4] StageRecovery - Recover Funds+ from Dropped Stages - v1.8.0 (March 11, 2018)

[oversoul]

I updated to v1.5.5 last night and it doesn't appear to work at all.

I'm using the same procedure I used to, which is just putting chutes on spent stages. It doesn't even look like they deploy. Has the functionality changed in some way? It used to be pretty fire and forget, or at least add chutes and forgot. Not so anymore, it would seem.

[billkerbinsky]

I updated to v1.5.5 last night and it doesn't appear to work at all.

I'm using the same procedure I used to, which is just putting chutes on spent stages. It doesn't even look like they deploy. Has the functionality changed in some way? It used to be pretty fire and forget, or at least add chutes and forgot. Not so anymore, it would seem.

this seems to be a faq.

what works for me is to stage the chutes to activate when the stage separates, but also set their deployment pressure fairly high so they don't actually open until low altitude.

ksp 1.0.x has a much larger physics radius. lower stages tend to hit the ground before leaving physics range. stage recovery takes over when a stage leaves physics radius; if the stage hits the ground before leaving physics range of the main vessel, SR doesn't get a chance to take over the stage.

[oversoul]

Physics range would explain my SRBs, but not my big first stage. I'll try the staging deployment with the high pressure trigger and see if that works. Thanks.

-EDIT-

It didn't work. Oh well.

Edited May 9, 2015 by oversoul

[scribbleheli]

I upgraded to 1.5.5. And finally got my stages recovered.

But now I'm on to bigger rockets. And am de orbiting lifters for clean sky's. They burn up on reentry.

I'm used to the engines being both heavy and fireproof (used FAR and DE before).

Do I need a heat shield just on the stage someplace so that the game/plug-in can see it's got heat shielding. So it's not automatically destroyed when it hits atmo going 2km/s

I think that if I was watching the stage it would survive fine.

[Shalashalska]

Occasionally KSP reports completely false positions for either the vessel or the KSC. I'm looking into it more, but it seems to be more likely to happen if you do non-physical timewarp or use a planet altering mod. I just work with what values KSP gives me, it's a bug within KSP itself.

Probably because I'm using the Outer Planets pack. Thanks for letting me know. Since it uses the values given by KSP, perhaps it will work if I use Kerbinside.

[magico13]

Physics range would explain my SRBs, but not my big first stage. I'll try the staging deployment with the high pressure trigger and see if that works. Thanks.

-EDIT-

It didn't work. Oh well.

I wonder if it's somehow specific to that mix of parts. I'll try it out next time I start KSP now that I know what the stage is. Are you using any parachute mods (RealChute for example, or FAR which now includes RealChute Lite)?

I upgraded to 1.5.5. And finally got my stages recovered.

But now I'm on to bigger rockets. And am de orbiting lifters for clean sky's. They burn up on reentry.

I'm used to the engines being both heavy and fireproof (used FAR and DE before).

Do I need a heat shield just on the stage someplace so that the game/plug-in can see it's got heat shielding. So it's not automatically destroyed when it hits atmo going 2km/s

I think that if I was watching the stage it would survive fine.

You can increase the DR Velocity setting if you feel things are burning up too easily, or you can add a heatshield. Both are options. You can set the DR Velocity to 0 or a negative number to disable reentry heating estimates altogether if you'd prefer.

Probably because I'm using the Outer Planets pack. Thanks for letting me know. Since it uses the values given by KSP, perhaps it will work if I use Kerbinside.

Unfortunately how Kerbinside works with recovery is that it manually moves the SpaceCenter position when something is being recovered, then moves it back afterward. I recently added some things to the StageRecovery API so that they can do the same thing with stages being recovered by StageRecovery, but that change isn't in the official release yet and it will require a small change on their side. If it's consistently showing up wrong (which sounds like it's the case) I added a hidden setting in the development builds that lets you override the distance calculation. You make the change through the settings file rather than the in-game settings. Setting it to 0.95 would be more than fair for a majority of stages.

[TheDog]

Just installed the newest FAR, and now indeed stage recovery does not recover the stages anymore.

As a background: the latest FAR comes with its own parchute implementation, based on realchutes ("realchuteslite").

In StageRecovery however, in the results message, I can see it says "using stock module".

I guess something is not working well together - maybe installing the full realchutes solves the problem, I gotta try...

[Polaras]

I agree, there is definitely an incompatibility problem with the nuFAR implementation of chutes. The stages ejected from the test vehicle had the same terminal with and without the chutes staged on decouple. Without FAR, it recovered fine.

Following the stages down when running far showed no damage on the booster.

[magico13]

Just installed the newest FAR, and now indeed stage recovery does not recover the stages anymore.

As a background: the latest FAR comes with its own parchute implementation, based on realchutes ("realchuteslite").

In StageRecovery however, in the results message, I can see it says "using stock module".

I guess something is not working well together - maybe installing the full realchutes solves the problem, I gotta try...

I agree, there is definitely an incompatibility problem with the nuFAR implementation of chutes. The stages ejected from the test vehicle had the same terminal with and without the chutes staged on decouple. Without FAR, it recovered fine.

Following the stages down when running far showed no damage on the booster.

The implementation of RealChute Lite in nuFAR likely doesn't work properly with StageRecovery (which you guys have figured out). Most likely, StageRecovery doesn't detect RealChutes (it isn't actually installed, so the method of checking for it won't work in the case of nuFAR) but it also isn't using Stock chutes. So no parachutes will be detected at all. I'll have to write a new set of code for nuFAR, but I won't have a chance to do that for a few days. Using full RealChutes should get around the issue.

[Smurfalot]

I am using Real Chutes with stock physics and it seems like I very rarely get a stage to recover. As in, I cannot remember the last time it actually worked and that may have been with a stock chute. They are hitting at max terminal velocity allowed by SR 200 m/s as if I do not have any parachutes on them at all.

Does this mean they are hitting the ground before leaving physics range? Do I need to set the chutes to deploy immediately? How do I do that? Is that what the "arm" option does on Real Chutes?

- - - Updated - - -

I updated to v1.5.5 last night and it doesn't appear to work at all.

I'm using the same procedure I used to, which is just putting chutes on spent stages. It doesn't even look like they deploy. Has the functionality changed in some way? It used to be pretty fire and forget, or at least add chutes and forgot. Not so anymore, it would seem.

http://i.imgur.com/YbrjhjA.jpg

Your terminal velocity is under 200. I am just guessing, but it looks like you do not have enough chutes for the mass of the stage.

[magico13]

I am using Real Chutes with stock physics and it seems like I very rarely get a stage to recover. As in, I cannot remember the last time it actually worked and that may have been with a stock chute. They are hitting at max terminal velocity allowed by SR 200 m/s as if I do not have any parachutes on them at all.

Does this mean they are hitting the ground before leaving physics range? Do I need to set the chutes to deploy immediately? How do I do that? Is that what the "arm" option does on Real Chutes?

- - - Updated - - -

Your terminal velocity is under 200. I am just guessing, but it looks like you do not have enough chutes for the mass of the stage.

I had a really stupid issue with nested if statements where it was essentially requiring you to use Stock chutes in order to use RealChutes, meaning RealChutes wasn't working at all. Should be fixed in the latest dev version (couldn't test, made the change on GitHub)

If oversoul wasn't on the dev version then the calculation for terminal velocity is a bit different and even without chutes you could get less than 200. When finals are over I'll work out that issue. I'm pretty sure that should be recovering, but I need to test with those parts specifically.

[BudgetHedgehog]

I'll have to write a new set of code for nuFAR, but I won't have a chance to do that for a few days. Using full RealChutes should get around the issue.

Jolly good luck, I look forward to it. I miss muh refunds >_<

[Wintersdark]

Jolly good luck, I look forward to it. I miss muh refunds >_<

In all honesty, SR is absolutely required for Career mode to be playable. It allows you to mitigate launch costs through design - though at an engineering cost, which is what KSP is all about.

[Smurfalot]

I had a really stupid issue with nested if statements where it was essentially requiring you to use Stock chutes in order to use RealChutes, meaning RealChutes wasn't working at all. Should be fixed in the latest dev version (couldn't test, made the change on GitHub)

If oversoul wasn't on the dev version then the calculation for terminal velocity is a bit different and even without chutes you could get less than 200. When finals are over I'll work out that issue. I'm pretty sure that should be recovering, but I need to test with those parts specifically.

I cannot go look right now, but I will grab the dev version and test it out this evening. Did you compile it or just post source?

- - - Updated - - -

To be more clear, if you post something I can test on Git and/or send me a link, I will test it for you tonight.

[icedown]

Don't quite think it's supposed to work like this. I know I was a little late detaching the clamps but the rocket wasn't quite that powerful.

[magico13]

I cannot go look right now, but I will grab the dev version and test it out this evening. Did you compile it or just post source?

- - - Updated - - -

To be more clear, if you post something I can test on Git and/or send me a link, I will test it for you tonight.

Any commits I make get built automatically by my build server. Links are at the bottom of the first post (links to the Dev thread which links to the build server)

Don't quite think it's supposed to work like this. I know I was a little late detaching the clamps but the rocket wasn't quite that powerful.

KSP does weird things sometimes Clamps are supposed to be in the ignore list, but I might have to adjust their entry.

[icedown]

KSP does weird things sometimes Clamps are supposed to be in the ignore list, but I might have to adjust their entry.

KSP isn't the only one that does weird things regularly

- - - Updated - - -

It did it again with the same vessel(just renamed). Here is the craft file if it helps

http://www.icedown.net/MinimusLander.craft

MJ, KER, RT2, and SmartParts are the only non-stock parts on it.

Edited May 11, 2015 by icedown

[Smurfalot]

Any commits I make get built automatically by my build server. Links are at the bottom of the first post (links to the Dev thread which links to the build server)

From what I can tell the dev version seems to be working at least on the chutes, I did not test the powered recovery or combination of chutes and power.

[The Destroyer]

So, in 1.0 chute recovery is completley broken? I don't have FAR/Near/NuFAR/Realchute, and it dosent matter if its a high up stage, if I have 20 parachutes or two, or if I mess with the chute deployement alt- it never works.

[magico13]

Are you running 1.5.5? 1.5.4 doesn't work in 1.0.1 or later. Have you tried the development version? If that's not the problem, could you send screenshots of an example stage and its failed recovery? I just finished my last final so I'll be able to take care of these sorts of issues again

[The Destroyer]

Aha! 1.5.4! Whoops, didn't know the mod updated, will report back, thanks.

EDIT: Confirmed, it works.

Edited May 14, 2015 by The Destroyer

[sedativechunk]

This is a great mod, thanks. As of 1.0 I am trying to be a 100% vanilla player on hard career mode difficulty but I'm getting tired of parts I set up to recover disappearing and losing all those hard-earned funds. Squad should already have something like this and they don't.

[magico13]

Finally done with finals, so here's a quick bugfix update. It should fix issues with powered recovery (now requires 300m/s of dV [if you aren't using parachutes as well]), should now support RealChute Lite in FAR without requiring the full RealChute mod, and should hopefully eliminate the issues with huge distances from KSC being reported. I also added some things to the API that should make KerbalKonstruct support super easy, but it will require a change on their side.

CKAN usually takes up to an hour to update, Curse has a bit of a delay as well, but KerbalStuff and Mediafire are updated (alternatively, you can always get them from the build server).

Changelog:

1.5.6 - (05/15/2015)

- Non-parachuted stages now have a fixed Vt of 200 m/s

- Powered recovery should work properly now. Requires 300m/s of dV to work.

- Added OnRecoveryProcessingStart and OnRecoveryProcessingFinish events to API, for Kerbal Konstructs support. Fire when first starting recovery code (after determining viability for recovery, but before Vt calculations) and at the end of recovery code (doesn't include information about recovery, just for cleaning up)

- Support for RealChuteLite in FAR

- Hopefully fixed issues with ridiculous distances from KSC. If not, now logging lat/lon of stage and KSC, to help debug.

Edit: Also, @oversoul, I tested the same parts in this update (without RealChute or FAR) and everything worked (parachute pre-deployed or not), so hopefully whatever issues there are resolved.

Edited May 16, 2015 by magico13

[BudgetHedgehog]

First KWR gets updated, now SR.. I don't wanna go to work! Cheers for the update!

[politas]

I haven't updated to the latest version yet, but I've been getting a few stages that the SR dialog tells me are recovered without any notifications popping up for the recovered funds. The last one was a stage I separated from in atmo, after aerobraking below 2000m/s. It had sufficient parachutes to land safely, but stayed in physics bubble until I landed the capsule, and then just disappeared.