landing strut question

[BSNB]

For Mun landing. Is there a better setting for your struts than the normal 1 and 1 for spring and dampening?

[Operation40]

I never mess with those settings but seems like it would depend on the mass of your craft --
are you bouncing off the surface? just get it under 10m/s.. sometimes I also use rcs and hold "n" on impact to make me stick like glue

[BSNB]

I land at 2m/s but still bounces a little. I'm more worried about my craft tipping over.

[Synavix]

I've never used those settings either but a slightly higher dampening should make it less bouncy I assume. A small bounce is pretty normal on all moon landings, but at only 2m/s you shouldn't ever tip unless you have a really tall, top-heavy lander. Just have SAS on and be ready to make slight adjustments during the bounce if you have a narrow lander. Wider landers (with a low center of mass) shouldn't ever have an issue. Also, make sure you have your SAS switched to normal stability assist (instead of hold retrograde) right before the landing, otherwise if you come down too fast it'll try to flip your craft over when you bounce (since retrograde will flip to the other direction). Also try to avoid using too many or too few legs. Some people like using only 3 lander legs, but that increases the chance you'll tip over...while using too many (like going overboard and making a leg stick out in every possible direction) will usually mess up the game physics and you'll get weird results like sliding along the surface or crazy bouncing.


edit: Also, make sure if you're using SAS you have it set to "surface" instead of "orbit". You want to make sure you're not moving horizontally at all, because that will make it very difficult to land without bouncing.

[RoofCat]

spring and dampening are more important for plane wheels. Landing on legs is just a question of practice. My most landings are below 2m/s which shouldn't start any crazy behaviour. And often I don't even use legs.


Squad recommends not to touch those settings, which is bullshet.


Springs will make everything more or less jumpy. Directly - higher value is more jumpy. Reducing it will also lower the craft with the same mass and increasing spring value will make ship higher above the ground. Which may be most important for rovers.
There is nothing wrong with reducing spring value a lot (like =0.2) if you have plenty of ground clearance below you. But it isn't really needed by default when using right gear for right mass.
Increasing springs is more risky approach and even less needed!


Dampeners again make springs more or less jumpy. Reverse - higher is less jumpy. Higher slows down springs and lower makes them more sensitive. Keep in mind they not just slow down springs as such and make the construction more stable. They also make your ship react slower to ground differences. Increase inertia in a way. Driving fast on uneven surface may punish high dampener settings since your wheels won't be able to follow the surface fast enough.


One of the most common cases to have 0.2 springs or (and) 1.8 dampener is when your plane is too heavy for the wheels and those are rather close together. Which will make plane swing on its own harder and harder when placed on the runway. Often you can solve that also putting wheels further apart (and thus increasing leverage). But changing springs and dampeners is completely legit too.

While I know no case where you would like to have 1.8 springs and 0.2 dampeners.


So Squad is 50% right. You may not want to go too far in one direction (high springs&low dampeners). But you are perfectly fine using the other one occasionaly (adding stiffness with low springs and high dampeners).

So in case you jump on Mun, you may reduce springs first, as Mun has less G. You could also increase dampeners, but that may make you hit the ground harder for the rest of the construction. Shouldn't kill you, but I guess the first solution is better in your case. Just keep in mind, that lowering spring settings will make your landing legs "shorter" and you may hit the ground with parts that aren't meant to do that.

[washu73]

Originally posted by BSNB:

I land at 2m/s but still bounces a little. I'm more worried about my craft tipping over.

0.5 m/s is my target landing speed, it uses a bit more fuel but the landing is much smoother and the craft bounces much less unless you are in low gravity on an asteroid or minor moon. (and then a grabbing unit would be used in the case of an asteroid.)