My rocket falls from the sky

[DragonflyBog]

I finished my first rocket. Pumped gas engine. I get it into orbit. When I send it back to launch site, it pretty much falls out of the sky and blows up.

Kind of funny really. But I don't understand why. I still have fuel, which is being consumed.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[Nargon]

Do you have enough fuel? Because without fuel the rocket will crash down like a stone.

[Yascherrica]

1. enough fuel. Pumped gas rocket needs minimum 1000 mol (that's volume, not pressure) of oxygen to land on mars...
2. right fuel mix (66/34 Vol/o2)
3. If u use fuel mixer with 2 tanks then mixer can't keep up with the engine so before you go down make sure to have enough pressure in your engine feed pipe after mixer
3. Battery. Yeah you still need some power to control the auto land feature.
4. Mass. Engine just can't keep up with all the load.
5. Entry speed. I'ts better to get to the orbit and wait while your speed come's to zero, only then set your landing pad as target and fire engine at like 1-5% thrust. the system will automatically adjust it while auto landing procidure.

I more thing I noticed. On my second rocket I had an IC controller that changed destination to my landing pad the moment I had used half of my fuell. And that happened during take off from mars (i screw up and forgot to refuell my rocket). So destination was auto changed but the rocket bugged and made it to the orbit much higher than the one before. something around 110 000 km. instead of 25-30km. Engines shut but the distance to planet kept increasing as the rockets speed. Had to manually override engine, change a few destinations and made it back to the planet. So try not to mess with avionics and destination points while on the go.

[DragonflyBog]

Thanks so much. I'll try the entry speed thing. Seems like the most likely culprit. My speed coming down is so fast.

[Yascherrica]

Originally posted by DragonflyBog:

Thanks so much. I'll try the entry speed thing. Seems like the most likely culprit. My speed coming down is so fast.

IOne more thing. Check your gas temp, at lower temps your gas may start condense and damage pipes.

Also try different altitudes for autoLand depending on your current altitude right after you start landing.