why can't I recover stages?

[ray.mcdonough]

I haven't played for awhile, but I was always able to use the side-mounted chutes to recover separated stages at lower altitudes. I'm pretty sure the 'chutes were configured correctly.

How do you switch between vies of your capsule and the separated stages?

[ray.mcdonough]

Originally posted by kbmodigity:

A probe core is like the first piece you need for an unmanned rocket. You can also add em later in your design so in this case it doesnt have to be the first piece. In any rocket though the first piece has to be either a cockpit or a probe core. Also, dont forget to put a battery on each piece you want to recover if your going to deloy chutes after separation or you might not have enough power to do so. The probe cores hold a little, but not much.

Ok, the probe core is like the first capsule you get in career mode.

I have advanced a career mode game to the 3rd tier of science, and I don't have anything in electricity yet. Maybe I need to push whatever path you need to do to get electric parts, and hold off on others.

Understand I have only played on the training and career game, with no extra mods. Since I last played, I think they added the 'science' path, but I might just have forgot about it.

[kbmodigity]

Originally posted by caesar_andy:

It is absolutely possible to recover booster stages in Stock game without mods, but not quite usefull. You may have experienced this in early game during contracts that requires the test of a decoupler in landed or splashed state. in this cases, all decoupled parts can later be retrived, not yust the command pod.

The difficulty is:
The booster MUST be landed before your rocket is out of reach (aprox 20 Km). As soon as you are, the debris will be deleted. If you are still in range the moment, the booster hits ground-level, the booster will be recognized as landed and can be retrived like any other vessel. No probe cores are needed.
The problem is the distance and the time. I think, it's highly unlikely, that a thumper or Kickback will made it to ground, before your rocket reaches 20.000 Meters. Maybe a MK1 "Flea" will work while you are flying a very slow ascendig rocket, but even this may be difficult.

So i would indeed recomend the use of a stage recovery mod to safe boosters even from higher stages. You are theoretically right. you can rescue boosters. you can put chutes on it and you may be able to deploy them. but the booster will destroyed even than, as soon as you are to far away.

If they have probe cores they can be as far away as he wants. Also, without probe cores and they want to open the chutes after separation there would be no way to do so as it would have no command piece.

[kbmodigity]

Originally posted by ray.mcdonough:

Originally posted by kbmodigity:

A probe core is like the first piece you need for an unmanned rocket. You can also add em later in your design so in this case it doesnt have to be the first piece. In any rocket though the first piece has to be either a cockpit or a probe core. Also, dont forget to put a battery on each piece you want to recover if your going to deloy chutes after separation or you might not have enough power to do so. The probe cores hold a little, but not much.

Ok, the probe core is like the first capsule you get in career mode.

I have advanced a career mode game to the 3rd tier of science, and I don't have anything in electricity yet. Maybe I need to push whatever path you need to do to get electric parts, and hold off on others.

Understand I have only played on the training and career game, with no extra mods. Since I last played, I think they added the 'science' path, but I might just have forgot about it.

You can just start a sandbox game quick and see the parts that are there as they are all unlocked. Then you can get an idea of what path you want to take research wise in your regular game. But yeah, they are a little ways down the line.

[kbmodigity]

and yes, in career the first things you start with are a cockpit (basically a manned probe core), a solid rocket booster, and a parachute. (been a while since I played last but im pretty sure thats what you get)

[ray.mcdonough]

Originally posted by caesar_andy:

It is absolutely possible to recover booster stages in Stock game without mods, but not quite usefull. You may have experienced this in early game during contracts that requires the test of a decoupler in landed or splashed state. in this cases, all decoupled parts can later be retrived, not yust the command pod.

The difficulty is:
The booster MUST be landed before your rocket is out of reach (aprox 20 Km). As soon as you are, the debris will be deleted. If you are still in range the moment, the booster hits ground-level, the booster will be recognized as landed and can be retrived like any other vessel. No probe cores are needed.
The problem is the distance and the time. I think, it's highly unlikely, that a thumper or Kickback will made it to ground, before your rocket reaches 20.000 Meters. Maybe a MK1 "Flea" will work while you are flying a very slow ascendig rocket, but even this may be difficult.

So i would indeed recomend the use of a stage recovery mod to safe boosters even from higher stages. You are theoretically right. you can rescue boosters. you can put chutes on it and you may be able to deploy them. but the booster will destroyed even than, as soon as you are to far away.

Thank you.

I learned last time that there were low altitude limits on using those side-mounted parachutes to recover booster stages. I did it to save a few funds on the lower stages.

I had as many as four on a stage, and succeeded in recovering some pretty big and expensive lower-stage boosters.

I remember that things were different a couple of years ago. For one, they didn't have the drouge chute, but I have been using it on flights to success. Someone mentioned that they tightened the realism a bit, and made it harder, which is fine with me. As long as I have a chance of advancing a career game.

I don't think I saw this mod when I looked. Can any one help with a link?

[ray.mcdonough]

Originally posted by kbmodigity:

and yes, in career the first things you start with are a cockpit (basically a manned probe core), a solid rocket booster, and a parachute. (been a while since I played last but im pretty sure thats what you get)

Yes, and thanks. I was hoping 'probe core' wasn't some kind of raz.

[ray.mcdonough]

OK, I think I know what happened. They changed things with a patch since I last played. And you used to be able to watch your stages falling, even if they were being destroyed. I remember doing that. Once they burned up or crashed, you couldn't switch to that view anymore. Now, you can't switch to them even a second after you decoupled them, though you could do that ALL THE TIME before whatever patch or patches I missed.

[kbmodigity]

Originally posted by ray.mcdonough:

OK, I think I know what happened. They changed things with a patch since I last played. And you used to be able to watch your stages falling, even if they were being destroyed. I remember doing that. Once they burned up or crashed, you couldn't switch to that view anymore. Now, you can't switch to them even a second after you decoupled them, though you could do that ALL THE TIME before whatever patch or patches I missed.

Unless theres something with them being in the atmosphere you should be able to if they have a probe core. Well and your in the range to switch to the next vehicle with [ ] like you can in space. Used to be like 2.3 KM, not sure if its still that.

[kbmodigity]

Just did a test. Started a new sandbox game and made a simple rocket with 3 SRB's that had probe cores, chutes, and a battery on them. Staged them so that the chutes would go off on a stage after decoupling.

The SRB's burnt out at around 10K and I decoupled them. Waited a good 10 seconds and hit [. Yup it took me to the first falling SRB. saw that the speed wasnt too bad so I tried to deploy the chutes. THen noticed it had all the previous stages still unfired on it. Hit space bar a few times and it deployed the chutes.

Hit [ again and it went to the next one. Hit space a few times and same thing. Repeated with the last.

Hit [ again and took me back to the main ship which i basically left hovering around 15K up.

Was able to hit [ to cycle through and watch the SRB's safely land.

So yeah, no mods needed although that is another option. All depends on how you personally want to do it.

[ray.mcdonough]

Maybe I didn't make it clear, but I'm only talking about career mode. Sorry about that.

[caesar_andy]

Originally posted by kbmodigity:

If they have probe cores they can be as far away as he wants. Also, without probe cores and they want to open the chutes after separation there would be no way to do so as it would have no command piece.

This is not entirely true, i think. As far as i know, a probe core will not protect the decoupled object from being destroyed. Because all objects will automatically destroyed if they are left allone during descent.
Probe-core and paracutes won't help, as long as the player is flying away. KSP just thinks, that a non-player-controlled vessel can't successfully land, and will be destroyed. Figure it out. Send an Orbiter with Parachutes and probe-core into descent and then go somewhere else. This thing will immidieatly be blown up, even if reentry were absolutely possible for this vessel.

Originally posted by kbmodigity:

Was able to hit [ to cycle through and watch the SRB's safely land.

So yeah, no mods needed although that is another option. All depends on how you personally want to do it.

I'm not really sure, if an unpiloted rocket on 5.000 Meters of gravity-turn, just to rescue a few boosters, is quite a good idea. ;)
I would still suggest, using a mod. Don't see any reason for not to. If the rocket messes up the gravity-turn and don't reaches orbit, the player will lose much more than just a couple of boosters. At least the playtime, neccessary for replaying the launch.


This page is about the topic. there is even mentioned the recoveryMod.
http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:_Recovering_Rocket_Stages

[Jabroni Slayr]

I think it was mentioned in here somewhere but once you go beyond a certain range the game stops rendering physics on the part and it becomes unrecoverable if it's in the atmopshere still.

The only way you were recovering parts before is if they made it into an orbit of some form - doesn't matter if the PE was below 70km because physics doesn't act on it again until you manually switch back to it from tracking station - or you never got beyond the actual physics distance bubble during flight.

Either way there is a mod for this called StageRecovery. Not sure if it has an official 1.2.2 release but I can report that the 1.2.1 build works just fine.

[kbmodigity]

Originally posted by caesar_andy:

Originally posted by kbmodigity:

If they have probe cores they can be as far away as he wants. Also, without probe cores and they want to open the chutes after separation there would be no way to do so as it would have no command piece.

This is not entirely true, i think. As far as i know, a probe core will not protect the decoupled object from being destroyed. Because all objects will automatically destroyed if they are left allone during descent.
Probe-core and paracutes won't help, as long as the player is flying away. KSP just thinks, that a non-player-controlled vessel can't successfully land, and will be destroyed. Figure it out. Send an Orbiter with Parachutes and probe-core into descent and then go somewhere else. This thing will immidieatly be blown up, even if reentry were absolutely possible for this vessel.

Originally posted by kbmodigity:

Was able to hit [ to cycle through and watch the SRB's safely land.

So yeah, no mods needed although that is another option. All depends on how you personally want to do it.

I'm not really sure, if an unpiloted rocket on 5.000 Meters of gravity-turn, just to rescue a few boosters, is quite a good idea. ;)
I would still suggest, using a mod. Don't see any reason for not to. If the rocket messes up the gravity-turn and don't reaches orbit, the player will lose much more than just a couple of boosters. At least the playtime, neccessary for replaying the launch.


This page is about the topic. there is even mentioned the recoveryMod.
http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:_Recovering_Rocket_Stages

Yeah I honestly dont care either way, just thought I would do the experiment. And to be honest, I didnt wait for the boosters to land, i stopped caring when the chutes were fully deployed and they were dropping from like 1.2 Km up at a rate of 4-5 m/s.

My point of the experimentt was that it is possible with probe cores to be able to switch between objects and interact (do staging and all) with things that would otherwise be debris.

As far as them landing safly at those speeds I would imagine them landing fine and recovery would be no problem. No I did not personally witness this. If youd like I will run the test again.

Oh and i dont mean to sound rude with all the "I dont cares" but when i launch I let the stages fall away and be non recoverable, thats the part I dont personally care about in my own gameplay. Too much hassel to worry about to me. I just thought it would be a fun experiment.

[Washell]

Originally posted by kbmodigity:

As far as them landing safly at those speeds I would imagine them landing fine and recovery would be no problem. No I did not personally witness this. If youd like I will run the test again.

Imagine all you want, but the game engine just deletes them once your ship is ~20km away from them, physics stops effecting them and their orbit shows them on a suborbital path, regardless of their speed. If you hang around to watch them land, the only reason you'd need boosters would be to be able to hang around and watch them land.

[AlexMBrennan]

Unless theres something with them being in the atmosphere you should be able to if they have a probe core

You do not need probe cores to switch to parts - for example, I tend to place stage separators between docking ports because docking ports set to decouple confuse Kerbal Engineer, and as a result the [ and ] keys tend to switch me to the lonely separator floating in space. If you are not close enough to switch to them using the [ ] keys then you need to enable the display of debries in the map view but you can still switch to them to see them fall, and as long as you armed the parachutes with the correct settings you should be able to touch down safely (of course they may still fall over and explode).

If you cannot do this (e.g. if pressing [ ] right after dropping a stage doesn't work) then you have found a bug. You do not need probe cores to switch to debries but you obviously will not be able to control the craft.