What planet (or moon) do you have the worst time landing on?

[EdFred]

Well, if that's your favorite engine, that's your favorite engine, I guess.

It's not my favorite engine - in fact I rarely use it. But how am I supposed to fit 6 48-7S engines on a 1.25m tank without it looking, well, stupid?

[turkwinif]

Pol. Out of all of the places, I've yet to conquer Pol without tipping a manned lander. And Tylo, just I haven't tried Tylo yet, so Pol shall stay as the one I have the worst time landing on, mostly because of its oddball terrain.

[Randox]

I find anyplace new to be...interesting. I've mostly just been to Duna and Eve and their moons. I probably do more Kethane mining than anything else, and from that perspective, Ike is probably the biggest pain for me, having the highest gravity of any body I mine on. Too much gravity to only refuel the miner on the surface; makes things less efficient.

Not a super huge fan of Gilly's almost total lack of gravity either. It makes getting an encounter tricky, and landings become very touchy.

[Xannari Ferrows]

I bet you would guess me to say Tylo. But no. In all my time playing, I've gotten used to the feel of Kerbin's gravity. This actually makes Tylo and Laythe relatively easy. Still a bit challenging, but not that bad.

If I had to say one, I'd say Vall. With a bigger equatorial radius than the Mun, but the same gravitational acceleration, Vall is significantly more challenging than the Mun. It took me the longest time to get used to because of it's difference from every other body in the entire Kerbol system.

But nonetheless, over time I conquered it, and now I can land regularly without hassle.

[Renegrade]

It's not my favorite engine - in fact I rarely use it. But how am I supposed to fit 6 48-7S engines on a 1.25m tank without it looking, well, stupid?

Hmm, I've never put SIX under one tank, only about four. It didn't look bad with four. I'd have to whip up some examples to see how six works. Don't forget that you could put 'em on your drop tanks too. My own design used two drop tanks (first stage to drop), then two boosters with two 48-7Ses, and then the core with the 909 (which could/should have been 1-2x48-7s) with returned to orbit as a single stage.

(Part of the problems with clustering in stock KSP is that the engines all have these huge tank-ends attached.. one technique might be to slightly clip 'em into the bottom of the tank to eliminate most of those annoying bits)

[sashan]

Tylo definitely. After ruining the vehicle on a first attempt, I made a fuel tank and command seats style rescue vehicle. And even that had not enough dv to get back into orbit. Had to gain last 250 m/s by kerbal's EVA jetpack. Piloting 3 kerbals at once that way is difficult.

[EdFred]

Hmm, I've never put SIX under one tank, only about four. It didn't look bad with four. I'd have to whip up some examples to see how six works. Don't forget that you could put 'em on your drop tanks too. My own design used two drop tanks (first stage to drop), then two boosters with two 48-7Ses, and then the core with the 909 (which could/should have been 1-2x48-7s) with returned to orbit as a single stage.

(Part of the problems with clustering in stock KSP is that the engines all have these huge tank-ends attached.. one technique might be to slightly clip 'em into the bottom of the tank to eliminate most of those annoying bits)

Decoupler issues with engines on the drop tanks. When I get home I will put up a picture.

[Himynameisjake]

Tylo. My grand tour was almost ruined by lazy planning: "If it can ascend from Eve, it'll be fine to do Tylo..." So many attempts to get it right.

[Bill Phil]

Tylo. My grand tour was almost ruined by lazy planning: "If it can ascend from Eve, it'll be fine to do Tylo..." So many attempts to get it right.

The problem with Tylo is the DESCENT...

[sedativechunk]

I've mastered Tylo. That is a piece of cake. Eve on the other hand...

[Axelord FTW]

I usually either leave the Mun alone or just do a single mission there. Minmus is just so easier to work with.

[Joonatan1998]

-Mun (first landing)

-Tylo (unmanned rover)

-Laythe (spaceplane)

-Duna (large unmanned rover)

[merendel]

For strait up landing tylo. Its a very fine line you have to ballance between keeping your speed under control so you dont lithobreak and burning up too much fuel in landing that you cant return to orbit. You can pick up enough velocity to wreck the lander in only a second or two of freefall.

For a return I have to vote eve. Eve is easy to land on but a cast iron ..... to take back off from. To return to orbit you really want a high landing place but you need a large ship even there to have a chance of makeing orbit and a cragy mountain top is not the most level landing field. Its much easier to land near sea level but it takes a craft an order of magnetude larger to take off from that deep in the soup. It takes a special kind of crazy to split the differance, land at sea level and then rover the whole craft up a mountainside for launch (its been done though)

[magnemoe]

For strait up landing tylo. Its a very fine line you have to ballance between keeping your speed under control so you dont lithobreak and burning up too much fuel in landing that you cant return to orbit. You can pick up enough velocity to wreck the lander in only a second or two of freefall.

For a return I have to vote eve. Eve is easy to land on but a cast iron ..... to take back off from. To return to orbit you really want a high landing place but you need a large ship even there to have a chance of makeing orbit and a cragy mountain top is not the most level landing field. Its much easier to land near sea level but it takes a craft an order of magnetude larger to take off from that deep in the soup. It takes a special kind of crazy to split the differance, land at sea level and then rover the whole craft up a mountainside for launch (its been done though)

However Eve accent is an building challenge, once you landed the rocket accent is not significantly harder than launching an huge rocket with lots of stages from Kerbin.

Anyway, any pure rocket designs on Eve is unrealistic. Balloons or propels works far better for an first stage, 2-3 of the dV from an sea level launch is used to push atmosphere while slowly acceding if you can wait until the pressure is 0.2-0.1 bar things is much easier.

[Nik333]

Let me just thin... No need for thinking, it's Tylo. Nearly gave up whole Ultimate Jool-5 because of it.

[Renegrade]

Pol. Out of all of the places, I've yet to conquer Pol without tipping a manned lander. And Tylo, just I haven't tried Tylo yet, so Pol shall stay as the one I have the worst time landing on, mostly because of its oddball terrain.

There are some invisible walls on Pol - that can actually make it a lot harder to survive than just about anywhere. Kinda hard to avoid things you can't see

(fortunately there aren't many such walls, as I've only encountered 'em once in the half-dozen or so times I've been to POl...)

[eddiew]

I keep underestimating Moho's gravity :/ That's when my orbit doesn't randomly decide to no longer have an encounter.

[aleis]

Eve but it's my fault, not because it's actually hard. Atmo is to deep, I get impatient and inevitably physics warp to far to fast. That or I get mixed up in orbit as to which color is land.

[merendel]

However Eve accent is an building challenge, once you landed the rocket accent is not significantly harder than launching an huge rocket with lots of stages from Kerbin.

Anyway, any pure rocket designs on Eve is unrealistic. Balloons or propels works far better for an first stage, 2-3 of the dV from an sea level launch is used to push atmosphere while slowly acceding if you can wait until the pressure is 0.2-0.1 bar things is much easier.

Sadly stock has neither balloons or engiens that use any atmosphere as reaction mass although my EVE returns are much easier with mods that have either option. BTW squad if your watching I'd love a stock electric turboprop that could use EVE Duna or Jool's atmo for propulsion, not just kerbin/laythe.

I'd still argue that EVE isnt pure building challange unless your designing something that sets down and takes off from the water. You still need to manage to land in a viable location otherwise and do it without significant thrusting past the deorbit burn to save fuel for accent. Land a perfect ship on too much of a slope and your rocket topples or breaks appart. Land at too low elevation and you dont have enough gas to get out.

[Polstar]

For rovers and probes I generally find Eve the easiest to get to and land on. Never tried taking off again, well actually only to get rid of the sky crane I'd built.

The one I've had the most failures on for sudden deceleration into surface has to be Duna.