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

[WuphonsReach]

Does SR have a MM patch to reduce the cost of parachutes?  

Sometimes I think I spend more on chutes then on the actual SRB... (maybe I should stop trying to save them, but it's a habit from when KCT had a parts inventory).

[Loren Pechtel]

2 hours ago, WuphonsReach said:

Does SR have a MM patch to reduce the cost of parachutes?  

Sometimes I think I spend more on chutes then on the actual SRB... (maybe I should stop trying to save them, but it's a habit from when KCT had a parts inventory).

SR already alters the game balance.  I see no reason there should also be cheaper chutes.

[Alex38]

Hi guys !

So here are the pics for my issue! the first one is the vessel without chutes on just to see the m/s final speed in comparison with the second and third pics : 

http://imgur.com/a/3j7M2

 

I don't understand, this is a KW decoupler, tank and engine.. and a stock lander capsule with Vens stock revamp 

 

Edited February 1, 2017 by Alex38

[Loren Pechtel]

17 minutes ago, Alex38 said:

Hi guys !

So here are the pics for my issue! the first one is the vessel without chutes on just to see the m/s final speed in comparison with the second and third pics : 

http://imgur.com/a/3j7M2

 

I don't understand, this is a KW decoupler, tank and engine.. and a stock lander capsule with Vens stock revamp 

 

Very, very strange.  I can't see how adding those chutes changed the mass of stage 0 at all, yet it's impact velocity went up.

Other than that I can't see anything that could explain it other than somehow SR not considering the objects to be parachutes and I've sure never seen anything like that.  Perhaps a mod conflict.

[Alex38]

12 minutes ago, Loren Pechtel said:

Very, very strange.  I can't see how adding those chutes changed the mass of stage 0 at all, yet it's impact velocity went up.

Other than that I can't see anything that could explain it other than somehow SR not considering the objects to be parachutes and I've sure never seen anything like that.  Perhaps a mod conflict.

Yeah that's quite strange ^^ actually i'm very unlucky (in life in general) so that doesn't affect me anymore ahah

But yes i don't understand, the chutes are working because i've just made a first stage recoverable (like a space x one)

I added some chutes, and no need to fire the engines on the touch down, because i was already at 4,5 m/s ...  

Edited February 1, 2017 by Alex38

[Loren Pechtel]

Looks like it's working on fast stuff now.

I actually recovered a stage that was jettisoned *in orbit*.  It was one of the 3.75m stages that has a beefy staging motor in it (why??)  The jettisoned stage hit halfway around Kerbin but it recovered.  Now I need to mark KSC so I can aim the stage at it.

[NISSKEPCSIM]

Cool looking mod! I'm going to check it out once I complete my station contract. I'm thinking about making a Falcon 9 inspired fully reusable 1.875m modded rocket using MOLE, due to my pressing need to make an extremely cheap ship for orbital rendezvous and docking.

[magico13]

On 1/31/2017 at 4:43 PM, Alex38 said:

Okay thanks, so here is my log from the /unity/player : https://www.dropbox.com/s/u6lgx5hwit0virv/ksp log.log?dl=0

and yes I use it with modded decoupler, but i don't remember their name, i think they are KW decoupler that's a thin white decoupler and there is a black line on it, I'll try to take pictures when i can 

I can't try right now but thanks for the help i really appreciate  

I finally got a chance to take a look at that log. Unfortunately it's not pointing me toward anything useful I'm guessing it's a mod interaction but I can't tell with what from here. I'm really sorry I can't be of more help. If I get a chance I'll see if I can test the parts visible in the screenshot.

[Alex38]

On 05/02/2017 at 10:30 PM, magico13 said:

I finally got a chance to take a look at that log. Unfortunately it's not pointing me toward anything useful I'm guessing it's a mod interaction but I can't tell with what from here. I'm really sorry I can't be of more help. If I get a chance I'll see if I can test the parts visible in the screenshot.

Thank you no problem  I'm gonna test the new version of SR released some days ago to see if the previous version wasn't bugged with my install  

Also, I never take care of it but when i was launching the game, the module manager log was logging everything in my gamedata every time i launched the game, there was no cache data or so.. so i removed SR two days ago and now MM is loading from cache ! that's quite strange i have to say ^^

 

EDIT : okay so that's finally working now  problem solved ! just by downloading the latest release on github, i guess the previous was just not working on my install  thank for the help anyway that's very cool ! 

Edited February 7, 2017 by Alex38

[Crimor]

http://pastebin.com/gaNkkn7H

 

Getting this error when stagerecovery is trying to grab a stage, no stages show up in either recovery, or destroyed.

 

After like several hours of brute force testing, it seems to have been because of alternis kerbol for some reason. Seems to also be affected by some other planet pack, probably galileo or kerbol origins.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Crimor

[Bornholio]

What if anything should i change the Settings to if I'm using Real solar system. (earth, ie x10 kerbin size 7500+ Orbital velocity). Generally my upper stage is coming back in the ~7k range and my main ascent stage is in the mid 4k range.

I've slipped some small heat shields in to see if they make any difference but have not seen any. Need Moar? Either way I've rode stages back into earth at up to 6500m/s with some features burned off if they are faced wrong. then i get a nice clean descent and terminal in the 110-150 range.  With a full size heat shield at 0-10% Ablative used I've found no orbital speed I don't survive.

[magico13]

4 hours ago, Bornholio said:

What if anything should i change the Settings to if I'm using Real solar system. (earth, ie x10 kerbin size 7500+ Orbital velocity). Generally my upper stage is coming back in the ~7k range and my main ascent stage is in the mid 4k range.

I've slipped some small heat shields in to see if they make any difference but have not seen any. Need Moar? Either way I've rode stages back into earth at up to 6500m/s with some features burned off if they are faced wrong. then i get a nice clean descent and terminal in the 110-150 range.  With a full size heat shield at 0-10% Ablative used I've found no orbital speed I don't survive.

The whole system is just a very rough approximation, but I'd set the DRMaxVelocity setting to the point where you think stages would start to have a chance of burning up (that's all the setting is). Keep in mind that no atmospheric drag is modelled on ships outside of physics range, but speed increases due to gravity still happen, so it's fair to boost it a bit. For stock it's 2000 m/s, which is just under orbital velocity. Since stages are processed in stock at 24km altitude (about a third of the way into the atmosphere), a nearly orbital stage will come in at around 2200 m/s and have a chance of failure, but anything dropped in atmosphere should be fine. Something dropped in from a Munar orbit would be closer to 3 or 4 km/s and would either need heatshields (they only add protection up to an additional 50% of the DRMaxVelocity, so 3km/s for stock) or manual aerobraking passes to drop them to a lower speed.

You mention that 6500 m/s is about a tipping point, so either that or maybe 7000 (since no atmospheric drag is applied) is a good value to raise that setting to.

As always, if it's something you truly care about recovering, do it manually.

[danielboro]

i think the formulas need som adjustments

this is the same ship

1 is (not)recovers by SR

2 i looked at it until landed at sea

thers a 30% difference in speed calc. thats alot of extra parachutes

 

[Loren Pechtel]

23 minutes ago, danielboro said:

i think the formulas need som adjustments

this is the same ship

1 is (not)recovers by SR

2 i looked at it until landed at sea

thers a 30% difference in speed calc. thats alot of extra parachutes

 

 

I can't address the speed issue but SR uses a probability system to decide if a stage survives the fire--which does not take into account how it is flying.  I have found that with a bit of care I can often recover stages that have a substantial chance of burning by it's calculations.  I put the periapsis higher than the capsule needs and hold onto the stage until either it gets into the red (on it's own it slows faster) or I get below the safety limit (no reason to hold it) or I get too low (If the booster is still there when I pass 20k I'm almost certain to lawn dart.)

I do note one thing about your images, though--the stage that was destroyed was over the poles, while the one that is landing is over the water.  That means the ground surface is higher.  I have no idea if SR looks at sea level or the current terrain in figuring terminal velocity.

I do know that SR is confused by RealChutes and underrates their performance at least in the VAB, I've never checked it in flight.

[danielboro]

@Loren Pechtel the ship in the background has no connection to the recovered ship
its orbiting duna

i only use stok Chutes

im mainly stating that real landing was 3.2 m/s
wily recovered calc landing was 4.7m/s

its the same ship
i did an F9 after landing it on the water and then let SR do the  recovering

 

edit

good lord that 50% no 30%

Edited February 21, 2017 by danielboro

[magico13]

Yeah, the approximation that SR does is based on the drag cubes but is for whatever reason really off. It hasn't been right since 1.1.0 when I could still use the old aerodynamics for calculations. All calculations are done at sea level. I adapted the new one from RCS Build Aid so if they have their parachute calculator working in 1.2.2 then I'll have to look back at it to see where I'm going wrong.

 

I don't know why real chute is off since I use the equation that I got from their code. They may have changed it recently, it used to be exact. 

[Fobok]

I'm not really one to look at the numbers and do my own calculations, so it's very possible that I'm over parachuting, but I haven't had any trouble with RealChute and Stage Recovery working together. They seem to be working just fine.

[Loren Pechtel]

6 minutes ago, Fobok said:

I'm not really one to look at the numbers and do my own calculations, so it's very possible that I'm over parachuting, but I haven't had any trouble with RealChute and Stage Recovery working together. They seem to be working just fine.

If you chute to make SR happy it works fine.  It's just if you actually land on those chutes you find yourself going slower than SR predicted.

[brygun]

Even in Science game mode I use Stage Recovery. Proving its possible. Thanks for the mod.

Full career mode I find that mid-game economics aren't needed. I can make very recoverable or SSTO launchers that would make funding very different. For example space tourism flights could bring in regular money but I'd have to fly all those missions.

[drhay53]

I ended up turning the velocity requirement as easy as possible in SR. The way I see it, yes, I could add 35 parachutes to my 5m space-y launcher, but really at some point all that matters to me is that it's something I have to account for when building my rockets, and it gets rid of debris for free. 

I use lithobrake exploration technology for the added parachutes, which helps avoid the radial parachute extravaganza that still occurs with big stages.

 

 

[brygun]

On 2/17/2017 at 11:24 PM, magico13 said:

The whole system is just a very rough approximation, but I'd set the DRMaxVelocity setting to the point where you think stages would start to have a chance of burning up (that's all the setting is) <snip>

You mention that 6500 m/s is about a tipping point, so either that or maybe 7000 (since no atmospheric drag is applied) is a good value to raise that setting to.

Thanks for this earlier answer for the Real Solar System. I've been going a bit bonkers trying to deal with the launcher stage recovery. During launch you get well beyond the original 2,000 m/s yet no thermal bars appear during take off. That is during a launch so going up into super thin atmosphere. Changing the DRMaxVelocity really addresses the issue for this.

1) The other option would be to include a comparison not just of the speed but the air pressure at the time stage recovery absorbs the part. 7,000 m/s at super thin isn't a thermal problem at 90,000 m but it certainly would be at 9,000. By checking air pressure there would be some accounting for different planets.

2) Allow me to suggest the DRMaxVelocity being added to the thread's original post as a suggestion for those using the Real Solar System.

3) My other thought is on the ablator math currently using % abalator remaining. It is possible to put on a .625 m ablator with minimal weight and only a few ablator points that would of course be seen as 100%. Perhaps instead the % ablator help is based on 1 ablator point giving X % success per 1 ton mass. 

Math for a suggestion of ablator/mass ratio as follows

mid sized 1.25 m dia ablator disc has 100 points.

Assume mounted in nose cone 1.25 m, ablator 1.25m then adaptor to 2.5 m. (This aero shape does wonders for bleeding heat when run in physics. The front nose cone gets hot enough to transfer heat to the ablator which burns tiny bits off and still passing heat for relatively passive radiating to the second adaptor.)

Sample fuel tank 3/4 jumbo 4 tons empty. More than one can be stacked behind a nose cone with that construct. So perhaps 10 tons.

Assume 100% max aide for this situation.

That means 1 point ablator = 10 % success for 1 ton. In this scheme The smaller 0.625 m with 25 ablator can provide +100% to a 2.5 ton mass which is possibly a small crewed section or empty lighter tanks.

You could provide us with a slider and people fiddle with setting during tests.

 

Edited March 3, 2017 by brygun

[Bornholio]

7 hours ago, brygun said:

3) My other thought is on the ablator math currently using % abalator remaining. It is possible to put on a .625 m ablator with minimal weight and only a few ablator points that would of course be seen as 100%. Perhaps instead the % ablator help is based on 1 ablator point giving X % success per 1 ton mass.

Right now the SR system looks for parts and has ablator as one value so maybe your idea would work. 

Like a lot of things in the game if someone is "cheating" they can take advantage of the system. The user really is the one who should tune the DRMaxVel since they may have re-entry heating turned up, a heating mod, modded thermal parts.  Like you say proper placement of the heat shield and aero can make a big difference also. Without too much analysis the SR system can only assume the user built the craft in a legal way and didn't tuck a heat shield inside the tank, but even this can just represent adding mass to the tank with a cork/epoxy ablative coating.

What that leads to is his comment to me. " As always, if it's something you truly care about recovering, do it manually." 

For first missions on my rockets, save at launchpad and follow spent stages into the surface.  Settings are based on the facts of using airbrakes/gridfins, parachutes, properly placed heat shields, good aero, probe cores, rcs, batteries, communications, sometimes landing gear.  Once this is done for each recovered stage, ignoring ground level solid boosters since they don't go high enough normally, if the stage is recovered by SR then I accept it.  I'm running a career that has a personal requirement of recoverable stages and have set my DRMaxVel to 7000. But it would not be appropriate to do this unless I'm sure they actually survive. The base 2000m/s number is actually a pretty good number all things considered. 

Shuttle SRB's one of the fastest and highest boosters reach a max speed of 1400m/s and needed significant mass fraction devoted to recovery (Aero, Parachutes(3t), Drogues (.5t), transponders, landing reinforcement, junk removal, gyros, computers, sensors).  They are an example of a time when landing velocity should be turned up (23m/s) or better yet add a engine and fuel, probe core, sas, and let SR use it to reduce velocity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Solid_Rocket_Booster

 

[Avarax]

I have problem with this addon he don't work and i don't know where is problem look on my video.

 

[Mikeloeven]

Has anyone been having issues with heat shielded stages being reported as burning up on reentry? I was experimenting with a launch vehicle designed to allow 100% recovery or the upper stages the last stage is jettisoned at a periapsis of 0 and has fins for atmospheric stability as well as heat shields. This stage is constantly being reported as destroyed on reentry however if I focus on this stage and follow it down manually the heat shield survives and the stage lands properly any ideas ?

[magico13]

5 hours ago, Avarax said:

I have problem with this addon he don't work and i don't know where is problem look on my video.

StageRecovery only activates on stages that are about to be destroyed by KSP because they're outside of physics range. That means it won't do anything on stages that are still loaded (within 22.5km of the active stage). In your video you don't go far enough away from the dropped stage for it to unload, so you'd have to have those parachutes deploy on their own and you'd have to recover that manually. Instead try a craft that has two stages of boosters (preferably the next size up so you can get definitely get far enough away) and you should see that the first stage is recovered by StageRecovery.

Let me know if you're still having problems. For stages like that where they're close to the ground and might hit before being unloaded, try setting the deployment pressure to 0.4 or 0.5 on the parachutes and staging them when you drop the stage so that they'll deploy on their way down.

5 hours ago, Mikeloeven said:

Has anyone been having issues with heat shielded stages being reported as burning up on reentry? I was experimenting with a launch vehicle designed to allow 100% recovery or the upper stages the last stage is jettisoned at a periapsis of 0 and has fins for atmospheric stability as well as heat shields. This stage is constantly being reported as destroyed on reentry however if I focus on this stage and follow it down manually the heat shield survives and the stage lands properly any ideas ?

If you've got one (or can get one easily) I'd like to see a log of this. As mentioned a little higher up on this page, StageRecovery's method of using heat shields is very, very approximated and pretty arbitrary.