Munar landing sites - any tips?

[Esme]

Hello!

I'd welcome any tips for spotting more or less horizontal potential landing sites on the Mun. I've just had the experience of trying to land an automated kethane drill rig, only to find that the seemingly flat bit between a couple of large craters (as seen from orbit) was actually on something like a 30 degree slope; having then hopped away and tried another site almost as untenable, I then managed to come down on a mere 9 degree slope, enabling my reaction wheel and dwindling supply of monopropellant to keep the rig from falling over (it's tall with a centre of mass just above the top of where the landing legs attach) whilst it drilled for kethane to produce enough fuel for a further hop - and then luckily found a patch no more than 3 degrees out of horizontal. Phew!

Thing is, though, anything other than my kethane drill rig wouldn't have made it, so - any tips for locating more or less flat bits of the Mun? Whilst I'm now going to be fine to start a Munar base near my landed drill rig, obviously I'm going to want to visit other sites on the Mun - for Science! - and that's going to be awkward if I can't tell flattish bits from hillsides until I'm close to landing!

Edited June 1, 2014 by Esme

[Superfluous J]

I have two words for you: Prospector Probes. I use them for every Kethane and ELP base.

All they need is landing gear, the smallest probe core you've got, a solar panel or two, the 48-7S engine and enough fuel to get, say, 1000dV (for Mun). And a delivery system to get them into Mun orbit. Land one in your Kethane field and if it's not flat enough, move it. Repeat until you've found a spot or run out of gas. Once you've found a spot, send down your Kethane miner to land near the prospector.

In general, though, aim for the middles of craters. They're generally pretty flat.

[Jimbimbibble]

That pretty much covers it.

[Esme]

Ah. Durn, I was hoping there might be a better way than that. I guess Minmus rather spoiled me! :-} OK, many thanks, mini-recce-probes it is, thank you!

[FleshJeb]

While there's no substitute for a prospector probe, you can have a lot of fun with ScanSat, and have it make slope-maps of the whole planet for you.

[Skorpychan]

Teach yourself to read the terrain, and build wider, lower landers.

[Esme]

Skorpychan, if I could read the terrain well enough to not see that what looks flat is actually a 30 degree slope, I wouldn't have had the problem. I was, in essence, asking if there are any visual clues as to which are the flatter bits. as I was having a much tougher time of it with the Mun than I had had with Minmus. And I'm trying to build at least vaguely realistically, which means that occasionally I need to land what amounts to a tall cylinder on its end (because I'm not inclined to have large amounts of stuff sticking out sideways from my rocket at launch). But even something more Apollo-LEM-like would have problems on 30 degree slopes!

[EpicRootHairCell]

this should do the trick

http://www.kerbalmaps.com/

[RockoDyne]

It is a sad fact that you can't really tell if an area is hilly until you're on the highest LoD distance for mun. Best advice I can give is don't be too conservative on the lander's dV because you might just find that you really want to change your trajectory.

[Claw]

this should do the trick

http://www.kerbalmaps.com/

This is why I love this game. It's amazing the amount of work people in the community put toward this game.

[Pecan]

Unmanned lander probes are pretty indispensable if you want to constuct projects with anything like realism. I second SCANSat as useful, fun and a good incentive for unmanned flights in its own right. Delighted to see the new version is out, I've got out of date recently. (With RT2 or similar: connect ->) Map -> probe -> mission.

[Skorpychan]

Skorpychan, if I could read the terrain well enough to not see that what looks flat is actually a 30 degree slope, I wouldn't have had the problem. I was, in essence, asking if there are any visual clues as to which are the flatter bits. as I was having a much tougher time of it with the Mun than I had had with Minmus. And I'm trying to build at least vaguely realistically, which means that occasionally I need to land what amounts to a tall cylinder on its end (because I'm not inclined to have large amounts of stuff sticking out sideways from my rocket at launch). But even something more Apollo-LEM-like would have problems on 30 degree slopes!

Get down to a low orbit and look at them. Otherwise, try and aim for flat patches around or inside craters?

[davidpsummers]

Note, the crater are not, In my experience, that flat. Except maybe in the middle. If found the broad areas between craters to be good spots (the midlands I think they are called?)

[cantab]

Moving the camera about when landing can help you judge the slopes. Just don't get so distracted you crash!

[munseeker]

This is why I love this game. It's amazing the amount of work people in the community put toward this game.

Same here. And those maps are great! Immediately saw several spots on the Mun I will visit as soon as I get more fuel to my lander there.

[Alephzorg]

Prospector probes and Scansat are great suggestions.

My personal favorite is to use a rover probe. If you have the patience, it can travel great distances and be used to scout more than 1 area.

[CarlosMaximus]

this should do the trick

http://www.kerbalmaps.com/

Oh... My... Good... [insert Deity of Choice Here].

The lengths people will go to for the greater good is part of why I love this community.

[michaelhester07]

I've done it your way... pick a spot and pray it's flat.

If it isn't, and even if it is, try to keep your landing speed below 3 m/s when you're just about to land. Your lander's RCS should be able to stabilize it on the slope.

Mining Kethane on Gilly this is all you can really hope for.

[Esme]

Gilly? What is this 'Gilly' of which you speak? I'm trying to get a base set up on the Mun! :-} And I'm finding the jump in difficulty between Minmus and the Mun quite, well, hard. Having been rather spoiled by how easy it is to get to and do useful/interesting stuff on Minmus, trying to repeat that with the Mun has proven much harder than I expected. I've had to rejig my thinking on ship design somewhat in order to come up with a lander that's also capable of returning to Kerbin. But it's pretty much a one attempt or bail out affair even now (that is, if a piloted ship can't safely land, it has to abort by returning to Kerbin), because the fuel margins are that thin. My drill rig was a special case, in that it landed near empty but was then able to refuel itself a bit, hop to somewhere a bit safer, refuel itself a lot, hop to somewhere within a few degrees of flat. I've now got a manned one-man lander can on the way to set up by the drill rig, to get the base started. Should be easier, as it doesn't need to have enough fuel to return, just needs to land near the drill rig, which is on a fairly flat bit of terrain.

Bit by bit I'm learning - one day I WILL set up a base on Duna, I'm determined!

Anyway, thanks for the advice/tips folks!

Esme

[Skorpychan]

I refer you to the lander in this album: http://imgur.com/gallery/uc1J8

That's my standard design. It goes, it comes back, it can land on and lift off from the Mun and Duna, and land on Kerbin with next to no problem. It's a Rockomax -8 tank with four FL-T200s around it, and the landing legs on those. Four LV-909 engines, fuel lines in the right order, and a two-kerbal lander-can. The rest is all batteries, science gear, and chutes.

[O-Doc]

0N 160E is one of the best landing spots on Mun. You can put any vessel on that very large, flat plateau. Also, very easy to sight from orbit

[Ice King]

The bottom of craters have always been good to me