Debris auto-removal won't allow me to salvage expensive parts

[ISmokeThis]

Hi,

I have a custom booster that uses jet engines to efficiently to lift rockets during takeoff, however, because of the costs to build it, I attached parachutes to it so it gently lands on the ground once I jettison the piece. This should allow me to salvage all of the booster parts (the one I use now cost over 30,000) back in the tracking station. Unfortunately, the part is automatically removed (not salvaged) every time I go back to the space center. Is this just a problem with the game that hasn't been looked over yet or am I doing something wrong? Should I attach control modules to parts I want to not be removed?

[maltesh]

Over Kerbin, any object that is flying or falling through the atmosphere, is below an altitude of about 21 km, and more than approximately 2.5 km from your currently-active vessel, is going to be autodeleted by the game. In the stock game, this means that an ascending spacecraft will almost never be in a situation where dropped stages will be able to safely reach the ground before being deleted.

There are a number of mods that find ways around this; the one I use is Stage Recovery, which calculates whether or not a dropped stage would have survived if you'd chosen to ride it to the surface, and recovers funds based on the value of the dropped stage and the calculated eventual impact point.

[Alshain]

It's a necessity in the game because trying to track many objects ever changing trajectories would kill your computer. All objects go "on rails" when you are more than 2.2km from them. Any object on rails that enters the atmosphere is removed.

Use the StageRecovery or Debrefund mods to simulate your salvage.

[DeMatt]

I have a custom booster that uses jet engines to efficiently to lift rockets during takeoff, however, because of the costs to build it, I attached parachutes to it so it gently lands on the ground once I jettison the piece. This should allow me to salvage all of the booster parts (the one I use now cost over 30,000) back in the tracking station. Unfortunately, the part is automatically removed (not salvaged) every time I go back to the space center. Is this just a problem with the game that hasn't been looked over yet or am I doing something wrong?

If you are piloting your booster down to a safe landing, then you can click the green "Recover" button to directly recover the booster instead of having to visit the Tracking Station to do it. The button is located above the altimeter at the top center of the screen; hover your mouse over the altimeter for it to pop out.

If you are not piloting your booster down, then KSP is assuming your booster crashes, and removes it accordingly. You'll need to add a mod like DebRefund or StageRecovery to get KSP to check for parachutes and soft-landing capabilities.

[ISmokeThis]

Thank you for the replies guys. I guess I will just have to forego my custom booster until the capability is added to stock KSP. Using mods to circumvent this would be cheating for me.

They really need to officially add something like this.

[Belphegor]

it's possible but you have to place a probe core onto the stage you want to recover, and you need to drop it while it's in a sub-orbital but almost complete orbit so you can compete the orbit with your ship before the lifting stage dissapears. then switch to the lifting stage, land it, and switch back to the ship in orbit. depending on the weight of the payload i just add boosters untill the lifter has enough power to get that wide sub-orbital orbit. as you can see the probe core is off-center in the picture but it works fine with parachute-only landings

mainsail engine exploded tho but more parachutes or some landing legs should fix that

[Taki117]

Thank you for the replies guys. I guess I will just have to forego my custom booster until the capability is added to stock KSP. Using mods to circumvent this would be cheating for me.

They really need to officially add something like this.

How would using a mod for this functionality (which you obviously desire/plan for and will probanly be stock at some point) cheating? If you already take recovery into account why not have a mod give you back the funds you deserve.

[Zylark]

Mods isn't cheating - it is adding features and assets to customize the game to your own taste and preferences. Quite a few mods are actually just jumping the gun a bit and add stuff that is scheduled to be implemented by the devs at some point, at the appropriate junction, in due time.

The short of it being: mods are great!

And as others have said, to recover parts reliably - get Stage Recovery or DebRefund. Both do much the same thing, and both will save you a fortune in career mode, allowing you to spend your hard earned funds on more important stuff. Like going to Minmus and see if it really is made out of pistachio icecream or if it is just a silly rumour by Jeb...

[magico13]

I would like to point out that DebRefund is not officially updated to 0.25 and WILL cause game crashes if you use it with 0.25 (since 0.25 changed how funds are accessed by mods).

Like others have mentioned, if you want to do this in stock you need to follow the parts down manually (a probe core is not actually required but is HIGHLY recommended). Best way is to take them with you as long as possible, then drop them as you go to circularize. Once the main ship is in a stable orbit switch to the sub-orbital stage and follow it down until it lands. The magic cutoff is around 22 km, above that stages that are on rails won't get deleted by KSP but below that they will (even if they have crew on them).

Two working mods that get around this limitation (through very different methods) are StageRecovery (link in my signature) and FMRS (Flight Manager for Reusable Stages).

Mods aren't evil or cheating (if you think mods like Real Solar System are cheating then you have a weird definition of cheating), but I can respect wanting to play the vanilla game. Just keep in mind that KSP is still in heavy development and many mods are simply improvements on the base game that the developers haven't gotten to yet (some of which get pulled into the base game by the developers, like Space Plane Plus and FinePrint). When KMP came out Squad reversed their decision on Multiplayer features. When the 64 bit community hack came out they reversed their decision on releasing a 64 bit Windows client (which was as bad or worse than they warned, so I'm glad they didn't do it earlier).

[ISmokeThis]

I don't mean to say that if you use mods, you aren't playing the game properly or something in that context. All I mean is, I want to be able to tell people that I have an account that has done such and such without using mods. I am happy to hear they will probably add a change like this in the near future.

[Crown]

[...]Stage Recovery, which calculates whether or not a dropped stage would have survived if you'd chosen to ride it to the surface, and recovers funds based on the value of the dropped stage and the calculated eventual impact point.

Thanks! I was looking for something like this. I hope the general though of this mod is put into the game eventually.

[Dispatcher]

Recovery of stage(s) in the stock game is challenging. I've succeeded in recovering a single launch stage which is jettisoned after attaining orbit; it has a control module. I save the game after jettisoning. Then before sending the payload on its mission, I deorbit the launch stage, deploy chutes and recover it.