Parachutes not deploying

[Alpheratz]

Hi,

I'll post this as a question, but it could also be a bug. I was playing in hard career mode my Duna Lander was entering the atmosphere. All parachutes were set to deploy at 1000m from the ground. To my surprise, I crashed at 750 m/s on the surface at 5 500 m altitude, with the parachutes being only partially deployed. Too bad for my best pilot

Is there something about parachutes that prevent them to open at high speeds? Or is it the game's new aerodynamic model changing the usual periapsis height for a Duna aerocapture?

Thanks,

Alpheratz

[Alpheratz]

In the second attempt I chose a better periapsis for aerocapture, but I still got this:

Does this mean that the altitude parameter for the parachutes has changed from "from the ground" to "from sea level"?

[Claw]

Hmm. Nothing intentionally changed that I know of. Do you have a save file from before the crash that you can upload?

Thanks,

~Claw

[thereaverofdarkness]

IIRC you have to set the deploy altitude a lot higher to get it to work properly on Duna. Drogues should work fine by default, to give you hints on where to start, but you shouldn't be using drogues for your final product because they have far too little drag. Perhaps also the parachute must partially deploy and remain partially deployed for a long enough time before fully deploying, so you might lower the minimum deployment pressure.

I'd just set the deploy altitude to the max for Duna. If it deploys really early, you'll still be plummeting down so fast it won't be much of a wait.

It's still "from ground" as confirmed on Kerbin highlands.

[Alpheratz]

Sadly, I don't. I played in hard mode, so I didn't bother to quicksave frequently. The file persistent.sfs has been overwritten after the crash.

thereaverofdarkness: I'll try that, thanks

Edited December 17, 2014 by Alpheratz

[thereaverofdarkness]

I'll go do a test run if I can figure out how to do infinite fuel.

Did test run with parachutes primes to open at 5000m above ground. They opened at about 5500m and I landed at 512m.

Perhaps just set them to open at at least 1500m above ground, and try to come in at a shallow angle.

Edited December 17, 2014 by thereaverofdarkness

[Claw]

if I can figure out how to do infinite fuel.

Press MOD+F12 (Alt in windows) to bring up the debug menu. In the cheats tab there's an infinite fuel checkbox.

[Alpheratz]

Tested a third time. Altitude for parachutes are calculated from sea level on Duna. I had 2 sets of parachutes. They deployed at exactly 5000 m and 4000 m altitude as configured.

Savefile before aerocapture: (parachutes set at 1000 m) https://www.dropbox.com/s/wr6xnjrgnz6foi1/quicksave.sfs?dl=0

[The_Rocketeer]

Look at the little guy's face! I feel your pain, Hadbus!!!

[thereaverofdarkness]

Hadbus is named in the past tense. Should have been a dead giveaway. XD