Radar Altitude Shenanigans?

[egnio98]

So recently I was playing career mode and tried landing on minmus on the dark side (oh the horror) and since I had yet to unlock lights I thought, maybe the radar altitude in the lander cans could tell me how far I was from the ground. So, I tried the realism mode and made my descent in IVA, by panning between radar altitude, navball and speedometer(?). When I was sure I was approximately 10m from the ground (from radar altitude) I hit the ground. Thankfully I was only at 7 m/s, hence the ship survived. Which brings me the question;

Does the Radar Altitude in IVA show the vertical distance from the pod to the ground, or from the BASE of the ship to the ground?

Thanks in advance!

[Kasuha]

I am pretty sure it's from the pod to the ground.

And the best way is to switch to pod momentarily, fix the camera on the altimeter, then whenever you want to look at the altitude, press C and then press C again to exit to see the rest of data. Below certain altitude you don't really need to know your exact altitude, you can just keep your vertical speed around 6 m/s and wait till it lands.

The only problem is with slopes. It's pretty hard to see the slope below you before you touchdown.

[Taki117]

I am also pretty sure it's from the pod to the ground, but if you are landing on one of the lakes of minmus as long as you stay below about 10m/s you should be fine.

[egnio98]

So if I build an exceptionally tall lander, the radar altitude would be wrong?

Well, that's a bummer. Thanks as always!

Also, I was running a minimalistic lander; landing itself took about more than half the fuel it had, so I had to suicide burn or risk getting stuck on mun.

[mjukis]

Sorry to reawaken zombie thread, but the easy way to calibrate your radar altimeter is to put it on the surface of Kerbin during construction, read off the radar altimeter reading and write it down.