Career, recovering jettisoned parts

[phemark]

Hi,

I have just restarted playing KSP and getting to know contracts/funds.

After launches, I can successfully recover all the parts that are attached to the main capsule, but all the jettison parts I cannot. I tried putting them down with parachutes, so the dont explode and land close to my main capsule, yet I still dont get funds for their recovery.

Am I missing something, or is this not possible yet?

(Or will I need to put a command module on every jettisoned part?)

Thanks

Edited October 28, 2014 by phemark

[AlexinTokyo]

You can recover funds for any parts which survive to come to rest on Kerbin.

There are two big gotchas, though.

One, you don't get the recovery screen for debris (meaning any collection of parts with no controlling pod or probe). You get the funds, but you have to compare your balance before and after to see it.

Two, any parts discarded during flight will be deleted by the game if they are both under ~23 km altitude ASL, and more than ~2.5 km from your controlled craft (i.e. out of physics range). Because these parts do not land, you cannot recover them in the stock game. This applies whether or not the parts include controllers or parachutes.

There are mods that allow recovery in the second case. DebRefund is one, and I'm sure there are others. However, I don't use them, so I can't tell you anything about them.

[el_coyoto]

Two, any parts discarded during flight will be deleted by the game if they are both under ~23 km altitude ASL, and more than ~2.5 km from your controlled craft (i.e. out of physics range). Because these parts do not land, you cannot recover them in the stock game. This applies whether or not the parts include controllers or parachutes.

^ This

I use Stage Recovery now in 0.25 to recover jettisoned parts, and used DebRefund before (0.24.2).

Stage Recovery even adds a VAB window to check if you have enough parachutes. (if you don't use KSP Parachute Calculator or don't like doing mental calculations )