Anyone know how hard an asteroid can "land"?

[Anquietas314]

So this is one of my available contracts:

Anyone happen to know the exact figure for "gently"?

I was pretty disappointed with the payouts from these missions, but landing one should be straightforward

While I'm at it, anyone know what counts as newly discovered? i.e. is it one you've not been to, or one that has to be brand new from the tracking station, or just any old asteroid?

Edited December 28, 2014 by armagheddonsgw

[xcorps]

Gently meaning not hard enough to break it. Which is pretty fast.

And yeah, the payout ain't worth the trouble.

[Anquietas314]

Gently meaning not hard enough to break it. Which is pretty fast.

And yeah, the payout ain't worth the trouble.

I've "landed" an asteroid on Kerbin before, back in oh... 0.23? It wasn't intentional; I just let it go while descending at >100m/s to see what would happen. It bounced lol

I should add: I already have a class C asteroid on a collision course for Kerbin (it spawned like that), but it was found long before the contract showed up. If it's usable, then all I need to do is rendezvous with it (easy) with a whole bunch of parachutes to survive the landing

Edited December 28, 2014 by armagheddonsgw

[RexKramer]

I managed to land a class E asteroid, in one piece.

I entered the atmosphere with the tug attached, via a Claw. Had lots of parachutes for the tug to land safely, just not with the asteroid attached. So, I decoupled the asteroid at a height of about 1km agl. So essentially, the asteroid free-fell from 1km, and wasn't destroyed.

I'm not sure how the game handles this, but other vessels are deleted if they get farther than 2.5km away from your ship, while in atmosphere. If that's the case with asteroids, you won't be able to release the asteroid until fairly close to the ground, to ensure you don't get more than 2.5km from it.

[Anquietas314]

I'm not sure how the game handles this, but other vessels are deleted if they get farther than 2.5km away from your ship, while in atmosphere. If that's the case with asteroids, you won't be able to release the asteroid until fairly close to the ground, to ensure you don't get more than 2.5km from it.

Yeah I was already aware of that. One thing that has occurred to me: If I let the asteroid smash into the ground at full speed, and then go and grab it.... what happens? Note to self: test thoroughly when asteroid shows up....

[Claw]

There are quite a few videos around from when 0.23.5 first came out, and again when destructible buildings were introduced (you can guess why).

I don't know if there's a max speed, but I think given the stock aero, it's probably pretty hard to hit the ground going fast enough to actually destroy the asteroid. You do, however, have to watch it all the way. Otherwise, yes, it will auto-delete at greater than 0.1 atm (~23km on Kerbin) when outside of physics range.

Cheers,

~Claw

[Mister Kerman]

Asteroids spawn on collision courses with Kerbin?? That's so freaking awesome!

[FlyingPete]

They tend to spawn on random 'near-Kerbin' orbits. They range from not quite encountering Kerbin to catastrophic rocks of doom. I've had one that captured itself after a Mun encounter. Part of the fun is in doing your own version of Deep Impact and nudging them away from Kerbin to avert disaster. You can't blow them up yet though

[RainDreamer]

According to this thread which a person somehow glitched things and can see the stats of an asteroid, the crash tolerance of asteroids are 80 m/s. So go lower than that, I guess.

That said, due to the stat showing its mass only to be 150, I am thinking it maybe showing the stats of a class E asteroid. No idea if asteroids of other classes has the same crash tolerance.

[Anquietas314]

According to this thread which a person somehow glitched things and can see the stats of an asteroid, the crash tolerance of asteroids are 80 m/s. So go lower than that, I guess.

That said, due to the stat showing its mass only to be 150, I am thinking it maybe showing the stats of a class E asteroid. No idea if asteroids of other classes has the same crash tolerance.

Ah, great. That'll do nicely thanks (btw, you slightly botched the URL; there's two http://'s)

[Norpo]

Hm, now this gets me wondering..

How buoyant are asteroids? Are they basically giant floatation devices, or do they sink like a rock? If they do sink like a rock, maybe it's a way to make an underwater base...

sink like a rock i'm so funny, get it? cause they're asteroids? ahahaha....

[Anquietas314]

Hm, now this gets me wondering..

How buoyant are asteroids? Are they basically giant floatation devices, or do they sink like a rock? If they do sink like a rock, maybe it's a way to make an underwater base...

sink like a rock i'm so funny, get it? cause they're asteroids? ahahaha....

Protip: do not crash an asteroid into the ocean. EVER. I tried that with the asteroid I smashed into Kerbin back in 0.23.5 They just go boom. Of course, if you can get one into the water after landing it on land, it'll probably float.

[Norpo]

Protip: do not crash an asteroid into the ocean. EVER. I tried that with the asteroid I smashed into Kerbin back in 0.23.5 They just go boom. Of course, if you can get one into the water after landing it on land, it'll probably float.

Well, now I know what i'm doing next time I capture an asteroid.

*adds "put asteroid in ocean" on to-do list*.

Artificial rocky islands; anyone?