How do we land accurately

[Coo]

As we know, In the original game, it is very difficult to land accurately, especially for VAB. If you want to land on the launch pad accurately, you often need some codding mod(like KRPC/KOS, MJ is not accurate enough on a planet with atmosphere).

But in KSP2, like the trailer shows, we well often land on a launch pad in a colony. Do you think will KSP2 provide any tool for landing, or what do you think about landing?

 

[jastrone]

i think like a higher level pilot or multiple often would have an sas option that makes it easier to land would make sense 

[MechBFP]

4 hours ago, Coo said:

As we know, In the original game, it is very difficult to land accurately, especially for VAB. If you want to land on the launch pad accurately, you often need some codding mod(like KRPC/KOS, MJ is not accurate enough on a planet with atmosphere).

But in KSP2, like the trailer shows, we well often land on a launch pad in a colony. Do you think will KSP2 provide any tool for landing, or what do you think about landing?

 

Certainly a good question, and I think it will have to without a doubt have some sort of tools to assist the player for the reasons you mentioned. 

[The Aziz]

Showing predicted trajectory and ground contact marker should be enough. Features that are provided by at least two mods now, so it shouldn't be too hard to implement similar mechanic. No need for coding, just fine tuning once you are on more or less accurate trajectory towards the target. Yes I have returned my first stages several times to ksc, once nearly landing on sph. More fuel and I could easily stand back on the lanchpad.

[shdwlrd]

2 hours ago, The Aziz said:

Showing predicted trajectory and ground contact marker should be enough.

You would think that's enough. In my experience, I also need to be told when to start the deorbit and suicide burns and which way I'm drifting horizontally. If I don't have that info, I'll either crash, miss my target by a huge margin, or use more than 3x the DV than is actually required.

[The Aziz]

1 hour ago, shdwlrd said:

I also need to be told when to start the deorbit and suicide burns

That's what maneuver nodes are for, no? I usually drag them around the orbit until the predicted landing point is as close to the target as possible, then execute it. Suicide burns, again, provided today by few mods, tell how many time until ground there is and how long the burn would be until 0m/s. If we get all these, we can do pinpoint landings with only a bit of practice.

Plus, with atmospheric bodies, you can always take a risk and use parachutes on final few hundred meters of descent, hoping the landing zone won't escape from you going straight down with no control.

EDIT:

Spoiler

Just did that. 1.8m rocket designed only to push this thing into orbit. Reentry and langing using only that single engine. And mostly due to my own errors I haven't made it to the launchpad but I think that's pretty close for first attempt. Only mods? Trajectories to see exact trajectory (heh) and MJ for performing deorbit burn.

Edited August 30, 2021 by The Aziz

[shdwlrd]

9 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

That's what maneuver nodes are for, no?

They don't account for the wanted angle of your descent nor the rotation of the body you're landing on, nor if there is an atmosphere present. There's too many variables that you have to account for manually before you even do the burn. That's the point I'm trying to get to. 

It would be easier to select a target and descent profile, then have the maneuver setup automatically based on that. When you're descending, you're given a track you have to maintain. When you're close to landing, all the info you need is easily displayed.

[Bej Kerman]

11 hours ago, Coo said:

As we know, In the original game, it is very difficult to land accurately, especially for VAB. If you want to land on the launch pad accurately, you often need some codding mod(like KRPC/KOS, MJ is not accurate enough on a planet with atmosphere).

Skill? Practise? You really don't need anything special to land on target - you just need to put as much effort into learning to land your rocket as you did when you were first learning to get into orbit. Trajectories accounting for atmospheric interaction would be handy but it really isn't too necessary. Recalling my previous attempts at recreating the Falcon 9, it was quite fun actually trying to land the boosters anyway despite the difficulty. It helps we have quicksaving and quickloading.

[MKI]

On 8/30/2021 at 2:43 AM, Coo said:

But in KSP2, like the trailer shows, we well often land on a launch pad in a colony. Do you think will KSP2 provide any tool for landing, or what do you think about landing?

My guess is this is just a "trailer thing" to look cool and might not make it to the game at all.

 

Accurate propulsive landing is one of the hardest things to accomplish through manual flight. I'd say its either an "all or nothing" approach when it comes to automating the task. Which means  you either have some autopilot land it for your, or you don't. I'm not sure if any amount of tools/information will help the average person land more accurately without spending incredible amounts of time practicing, and that's for a single rocket. 

 

I know colony launch pads are a thing, but re-using them for a landing pad might be a little different. If there was a middle ground, once you setup some re-supply routes to your colonies through your own flights, some "Kerbal automation" takes over and performs the task(s) for you. So at your colony you can see a fully autonomous mission executed by the Kerbals themselves. 

 

 

Edited August 31, 2021 by MKI

[Bej Kerman]

31 minutes ago, MKI said:

My guess is this is just a "trailer thing" to look cool and might not make it to the game at all.

That's definitely false; cargo runs are gonna be massive part of the game, and reusing/scrapping rockets will probably be one of the ways players try to conserve resources as they run colonies.

32 minutes ago, MKI said:

Accurate propulsive landing is one of the hardest things to accomplish through manual flight.

It's just as difficult as orbiting Kerbin or landing on the Mun for the first time - it's identical. It's something that comes to you over time and eventually you forget that there was ever any difficulty to it in the first place. I see lots of posts about how difficult landing rockets will be, but that's only because previously we weren't pushed to develop new skills like that. We just got settled into the routine of launching rockets and landing landers and forgot that in the beginning these seemed like monumental tasks to pull off, but now with booster landings being more prominent we are having to do something new with our rockets that previously we didn't know how to do. It seems like a monumental task now but landing boosters is going to become easier in the same manner as all the other skills you developed in KSP.

[shdwlrd]

@Bej Kermando you land at your target first try every time? Eventhough I've been playing since KSP was released on Steam, it still takes me a few reloads to manually land a rocket where I want it. Even the streamers admit it can take them multiple reloads to land where they want. So no, landing isn't easy nor as intuitive as getting to orbit.

[AtomicTech]

Fellow Kerbonauts, I have the solution to end all solutions.....

 

BIG LANDING PADS

 

that give football fields a run for their money.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Atomic Engineer
Added a space

[Pthigrivi]

55 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

@Bej Kermando you land at your target first try every time? Eventhough I've been playing since KSP was released on Steam, it still takes me a few reloads to manually land a rocket where I want it. Even the streamers admit it can take them multiple reloads to land where they want. So no, landing isn't easy nor as intuitive as getting to orbit.

Yeah Im pretty damn good in vacuum, usually right on top of a flag I use as a marker next to bases, but in atmo its legit difficult. I can usually get within a kilometer or so but getting really precise takes multiple reloads. Given how much this game opens up for us--building colonies, going interstellar, etc.--I couldn't expect it to ask casual players to land on a 30m pad manually. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[AtomicTech]

17 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah Im pretty damn good in vacuum, usually right on top of a flag I use as a marker next to bases, but in atmo its legit difficult. I can usually get within a kilometer or so but getting really precise takes multiple reloads. Given how much this game opens up for us--building colonies, going interstellar, etc.--I couldn't expect it to ask casual players to land on a 30m pad manually. 

Yes, precise (non-plane) atmospheric landings are really hard and tend to have sucky results especially coming in from orbit. Boostback Burns from Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy, and Starship tend to be easier.

[shdwlrd]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

I couldn't expect it to ask casual players to land on a 30m pad manually. 

This. Not everyone has the time or patience to perfect landings. 

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

Im pretty damn good in vacuum, usually right on top of a flag I use as a marker next to bases, but in atmo its legit difficult.

In vacuum I consider it good being at least 250m away if landing manually. If I need to be closer, I use TCA. In atmosphere, forget it. I'll just pop chutes and land wherever I land.

[Pthigrivi]

11 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

This. Not everyone has the time or patience to perfect landings. 

In vacuum I consider it good being at least 250m away if landing manually. If I need to be closer, I use TCA. In atmosphere, forget it. I'll just pop chutes and land wherever I land.

I think the only reason I got any better than that is cause I got used to KIS/KAS fuel lines and wanted to hook right up to my landers.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[Bej Kerman]

2 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

@Bej Kermando you land at your target first try every time?

Nope but I'm sure if I tried as hard as I did when I was first starting out - when I had to try as hard as possible to do anything in this game - then I could get it down fairly consistently. Either way, quickloads are a thing.

9 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

I couldn't expect it to ask casual players to land on a 30m pad manually. 

This. Not everyone has the time or patience to perfect landings. 

Nor does everyone have the patience or time to perfect their ability to rendezvous with objects in a far different orbit, but that happens to be the minority KSP panders to; KSP is literally about time and patience. Moot points all round.

Edited August 31, 2021 by Bej Kerman

[Pthigrivi]

17 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

KSP is literally about time and patience. 

This is a subjective thing, but I would personally dispute that. I think its a game that asks for a tremendous amount of time and patience, but not always for the right reasons. Take the science system for example. It takes quite a bit of time and patience to toggle through all those right click menus and screens but most players don't find that to be very fun. Most avoid it entirely by playing sandbox or put up with it because at least it's something. In the same vein landing on the mun, dodging craters, even landing somewhat precisely where you intended is a great part of the game that a lot of people enjoy. But if all players had to reload every time they missed a 30m pad a lot of people would find that a grindy waste of their time. SpaceX doesn't have some poor sod manually land those boosters either. I think especially given how much more time we'll hopefully be investing in building colonies and stations and interstellar cruisers its not a good use of player time to require them to get as good as Scott Manley just to progress. KSP is about building rockets and flying them, and hopefully about having fun doing it. Im happy to see them serve that goal. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[Bej Kerman]

5 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

This is a subjective thing, but I would personally dispute that. I think its a game that asks for a tremendous amount of time and patience, but not always for the right reasons. Take the science system for example. It takes quite a bit of time and patience to toggle through all those right click menus and screens but most players don't find that to be very fun. Most avoid it entirely by playing sandbox or put up with it because at least it's something.

That's not the point.

6 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

In the same vein landing on the mun, dodging craters, even landing somewhat precisely where you intended is a great part of the game that a lot of people enjoy.

And how many hours and reloads did you pour into being able to do those things? Exactly - a lot. I'd imagine you put a lot more hours into starting out in KSP than you did trying to land boosters. Landing boosters is no different as trying to thread the Mun arch or establish a Tylo base. The difficulty of landing a booster is something you must accept to have fun, equally as much as learning interplanetary transfers and the aerodynamics on a spaceplane depending on the amount of stuff in its fuel tanks. 

12 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

SpaceX doesn't have some poor sod manually land those boosters either.

Nor does NASA have some poor sod take their rockets to orbit every time they need a satellite in space. But obviously launching rockets and getting them to orbit is a part of KSP - equally as much as returning boosters.

12 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

KSP is about building rockets and flying them, and hopefully about having fun doing it.

Yep. That includes flying them back to base.

 

[Pthigrivi]

14 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

That's not the point.

And how many hours and reloads did you pour into being able to do those things? Exactly - a lot. I'd imagine you put a lot more hours into starting out in KSP than you did trying to land boosters. Landing boosters is no different as trying to thread the Mun arch or establish a Tylo base. The difficulty of landing a booster is something you must accept to have fun, equally as much as learning interplanetary transfers and the aerodynamics on a spaceplane depending on the amount of stuff in its fuel tanks. 

Like I said, it's a subjective question. Everyone has a different threshold for how many times they're willing to reload a given activity before it stops being fun. With docking most players require very few if any. First moon landing? or landing within .5km of your target on Minus? between a few and several. Landing a plane on the runway? Maybe 8 or 10? But when you get into tasks like landing a space plane from orbit or landing a booster on a barge you can get into dozens of attempts from different distances and with different fine-tuned reentry burns. If you've gotten so good at those things that they're easy for you I take my hat off to you! But still, the reality is only a very tiny fraction of players are going to find that fun after 20 or 30 reloads. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[Bej Kerman]

9 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

But still, the reality is only a very tiny fraction of players are going to find that fun after 20 or 30 reloads. 

Unfortunately the people who give up in that scenario won't have fun attempting to escape Rask and Rusk with little stable orbital configurations nor getting their interstellar burn right without falling several hundred billion kilometers to the side of the system. The scope of KSP is expanding and you'll find yourself at the beginning of the learning curve again, and it'll seem like everything is too difficult to do. Propulsive landings will be a part of that, and while automated milk runs will help alleviate repetitiveness, it's a skill that'll become just as important as getting to orbit.

[Pthigrivi]

17 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Unfortunately the people who give up in that scenario won't have fun attempting to escape Rask and Rusk with little stable orbital configurations nor getting their interstellar burn right without falling several hundred billion kilometers to the side of the system. The scope of KSP is expanding and you'll find yourself at the beginning of the learning curve again, and it'll seem like everything is too difficult to do. Propulsive landings will be a part of that, and while automated milk runs will help alleviate repetitiveness, it's a skill that'll become just as important as getting to orbit.

I totally agree! And I look forward to those things. Im just saying the reality is there’s a threshold for how much time and frustration most players are willing to put up with for a given payoff. KSP1 has been out for a decade and we have a pretty good idea at this point where that threshold is for many of these tasks. And don’t forget, its not just about learning the first time. There are also repetitive tasks like landing kerbin lift vehicles and that just plain get old, and take time away from more interesting things. I don’t see any reason not to offer mech-jebby functions as a mid to late game reward to players who have already proved themselves capable of it. You can even make it contingent on placing a beacon on the surface so players could only autoland in a place they’d previously landed manually. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[Bej Kerman]

11 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I totally agree! And I look forward to those things. Im just saying the reality is there’s a threshold for how much time and frustration most players are willing to put up with for a given payoff. KSP1 has been out for a decade and we have a pretty good idea at this point where that threshold is for many of these tasks. And don’t forget, its not just about learning the first time. There are also repetitive tasks like landing kerbin lift vehicles and that just plain get old, and take time away from more interesting things. I don’t see any reason not to offer mech-jebby functions as a mid to late game reward to players who have already proved themselves capable of it. You can even make it contingent on placing a beacon on the surface so players could only autoland in a place they’d previously landed manually. 

Automated milk runs will be a thing so repeated propulsive landings to a single colony are ruled out.

[Pthigrivi]

21 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Automated milk runs will be a thing so repeated propulsive landings to a single colony are ruled out.

And what about landing standardized lifters for the nth time? Or repeat module deliveries to surface bases in the set-up phase before you can build in-situ? Or any other tug mission with a unique payload in one direction but identical configuration on the return? All repetition gets old eventually. I don’t see any reason not to offer some relief to the many players who would appreciate it. And the nice thing is if you or anyone didn’t want to use it nothing would force them to. I just don’t think its up to you or I to dictate to anyone else what they should or shouldn’t find fun. 

Edited August 31, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[The Aziz]

You guys really overestimate how difficult atmospheric landings are with little help. I am no expert in pinpoint landings, I don't really do it when I normally play. But, above was first, here's my second attempt at landing from orbit.

Spoiler

 

On the screen, two tools that helped me. Nothing else. I think if I wasn't coming too hot I'd probably hit the launchpad (should've used airbrakes).