Parachutes Disappearing When Landing

[blackbandit501]

This might just be an oversight up until now, but when I recover my boosters from orbit, I land them in the ocean near KSC, but once they enter the water the parachutes disappear and then it bobs up and falls over and breaks up anyways. Why do the parachutes disappear? This is very frustrating to take the time and effort to recover these boosters and bring them to splashdown at less than 5 m/s only to have parachutes disappear and the thing get destroyed by tipping over. Can this be fixed?

[One Eye Jack]

Parachutes always disappear after landing. Place your parachutes where the booster lands sideways and then it won’t be able to tip over.

[Kilo_60]

Originally posted by Shawn:

This might just be an oversight up until now, but when I recover my boosters from orbit, I land them in the ocean near KSC, but once they enter the water the parachutes disappear and then it bobs up and falls over and breaks up anyways. Why do the parachutes disappear? This is very frustrating to take the time and effort to recover these boosters and bring them to splashdown at less than 5 m/s only to have parachutes disappear and the thing get destroyed by tipping over. Can this be fixed?

Let me get this correct...?

You are complaining about parachutes not working for an object that is motionless? It doeesnt matter if the chutes disappear as they would hang motionless or worse yet drag you in whatever way the wind is blowing once you hit the ocean surface!

How would you expect a parachute to prevent something from tipping over when it's a Zero speed? I think you need a basic lesson in physics?

[blackbandit501]

I actually have a degree in physics thank you. Perhaps you didn't understand the situation. When landing under parachutes in water the vehicle sinks into the water about half way, coming to a complete stop before being buoyed back upwards. At the precise moment that the bobbing is at its lowest point the velocity is zero and the simulator registers this zero velocity and removes the parachutes. The vehicle is then buoyed back up and tips over in the water. The top end of the vehicle gains enough velocity in tipping over without the parachutes that it destroys the top sections of said vehicle. To my knowledge there is no actual wind in the game aside from aerodynamic drag. My question is why do they remove the parachutes at zero velocity even in a situation where there will be subsequent motion, as in the case of an object bobbing in water under damped simple harmonic motion where the velocity is zero at the extremes of motion. Why not just leave the parachutes on the vehicle until recovery? Occasionally I can get enough tilt in the landing vehicle so that when it sinks into the water it never actually achieves zero velocity as it starts tipping over as it is sinking. In such cases the parachutes are indeed sufficient to keep the velocity of the uppermost portion of the vehicle slow enough to not cause any damage. In the case of landing on land (which I rarely do because of this apparent oversight) there are many times that my vehicle will land vertically and stay essentially motionless for a split second, long enough for the parachutes to disappear, before tipping over resulting in damage to the uppermost portions of the vehicle. Leaving the parachutes on until recovery would solve all of this as I have had many successful landings mainly in water where I was able to maintain nonzero velocity. I see no logical reason, given the parameters of the game and there being no actual wind, to remove the parachutes before recovering the vehicle.

[Enorats]

This always annoyed me. As Jack pointed out though, placing the chutes so that the object falls horizontally more or less solves the problem.

I think the reason they vanish as soon as you "land" is because otherwise we'd expect them to fall realistically and drape over the vehicle. That sort of animation would require a lot of work, and simply "cutting" the chutes free and making them vanish was easier.

[MechBFP]

Originally posted by Kilo_60:

Originally posted by Shawn:

This might just be an oversight up until now, but when I recover my boosters from orbit, I land them in the ocean near KSC, but once they enter the water the parachutes disappear and then it bobs up and falls over and breaks up anyways. Why do the parachutes disappear? This is very frustrating to take the time and effort to recover these boosters and bring them to splashdown at less than 5 m/s only to have parachutes disappear and the thing get destroyed by tipping over. Can this be fixed?

Let me get this correct...?

You are complaining about parachutes not working for an object that is motionless? It doeesnt matter if the chutes disappear as they would hang motionless or worse yet drag you in whatever way the wind is blowing once you hit the ocean surface!

How would you expect a parachute to prevent something from tipping over when it's a Zero speed? I think you need a basic lesson in physics?

Please mark this as the correct answer.

[Washell]

I spam click recover vehicle which (usually) works to recover it for the same reason the parachutes disappears.

[Kilo_60]

Originally posted by Enorats:

This always annoyed me. As Jack pointed out though, placing the chutes so that the object falls horizontally more or less solves the problem.

I think the reason they vanish as soon as you "land" is because otherwise we'd expect them to fall realistically and drape over the vehicle. That sort of animation would require a lot of work, and simply "cutting" the chutes free and making them vanish was easier.

This ^^^^

[X-SR71]

Originally posted by Washell:

I spam click recover vehicle which (usually) works to recover it for the same reason the parachutes disappears.

[blackbandit501]

I have tried placing parachutes right below command module (4) and just above the engine (4) as well as four interstitial drogues at the top. The load I am recovering varies greatly and most of the time the splashdown winds up being nose down anyways. I would settle for any graphics, like just leaving the parachutes pointed up the whole time, just to get the drag benefits until recovery. I have also tried the recovery spam but that is minimally effective for me. Really all that would be needed is a short timer of about a couple seconds of zero velocity before removing the parachutes to solve this problem nearly completely. I've had moderate success using the reaction wheels in combination with thrust to give a slight angle to maintain minimal motion to prevent the parachutes from going away. I'll just have to keep struggling.

[Kilo_60]

You now there are buoyancy mods to make ship parts more or less buoyant and mods that add inflatable floats you can add to your craft...

Similar to what the Apollo capsule deployed upon splashdown!