Flat lands on Duna? Is there such a thing?

[tyrant264]

Hello everyone, I have just reinstalled KSP after finishing up school and I was wondering something.

1. Why is it that no where on Duna seems to be flat or just flat enough to start up colonies?

2. Since I usually use glider like shuttle craft to bring in colonists I need some kind of flat area that is semi large to land craft. I am not the best pilot so landing up and down hills would not be advised. lol.

3. Does any body know of areas that are good places for a landing strip along with flat space for a colony?

Thanks for the help guys!

[Anquietas314]

1: Many of the wide-open areas in the map view are almost completely flat.

2: On Duna, I don't think piloting skill is much of a factor for landing on hills - remember the atmosphere's almost non-existent

3: There's a long snake-shaped valley that goes from just south of the north pole to the equator. About 90 degrees west of that (at the equator) there's a huge open area that's mostly flat. Like I said above, lots of the big open areas are flat

[Wanderfound]

There's nothing as smooth as the KSC runway or Minmus iceflats, but there are plenty of areas smooth enough to land on. See http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/101944-Kerboduna-Part-1 for a demonstration.

[FlyingPete]

Sounds like a good excuse to send a probe into a low polar orbit so you can survey the terrain for a suitable landing site

[Anquietas314]

Sounds like a good excuse to send a probe into a low polar orbit so you can survey the terrain for a suitable landing site

Yep , better yet, send a surface probe or ten . An orbital one won't tell you much more than the map view - unless you use scansat or something.

[tyrant264]

Dear god, I just laughed so hard at your kerbals faces!!!

[Overfloater]

Landing plane-style on Duna is hard, if you never did it before.

- U need a plane that glides well: with control surfaces on the tail and on the nose. 1st make sure your plane flies well on Kerbin.

- Land in a valley. I used www.kerbalmaps.com to find low terrain.

- I also recommend using a vertical engine.

- spread the landing gear wide.

Edited December 20, 2014 by Overfloater

[Wanderfound]

Dear god, I just laughed so hard at your kerbals faces!!!

I usually try to take a crew with a wide range of courage and stupidity ratings; makes for good screenshots.

[Vanamonde]

There's the big valley on Duna which is the analog of the Mariner Trench. The bottom is as flat as the seas of Minmus.

[Anquietas314]

There's the big valley on Duna which is the analog of the Mariner Trench. The bottom is as flat as the seas of Minmus.

The problem there though is that the valley's quite narrow and not quite straight - which is particularly a problem if you're coming in from orbit.

Edited December 21, 2014 by armagheddonsgw

[Geschosskopf]

1. Why is it that no where on Duna seems to be flat or just flat enough to start up colonies?

Only in the bottoms on depressions. The other 80% of the planet is very hilly dune fields. However, scattered amongst the dunes mesa-like dunes that might have flat areas on top about 500m square. There's usually one such place every few clicks.

2. Since I usually use glider like shuttle craft to bring in colonists I need some kind of flat area that is semi large to land craft. I am not the best pilot so landing up and down hills would not be advised. lol.

Flying on Duna is not at all an easy thing. Especially if you want to OWN Duna, with colonies and bases everywhere, as opposed to being confined to the relative few and isolated depressions. I mean, what's the point of being able to fly there if you can't land anywhere but in a canyon? That means you'll have to drive for hours to get anywhere. But being able to land out in the dune fields is complicated not only by their hilliness but also because that terrain averages about 2500-3000m elevation, which is about equivalent to 16km on Kerbin in terms of air density. Yet you have to sustain controllable flight out there at no more than about 35m/s to land safely in the dunes. This requires an obscenely huge amount of wing for very little weight/payload, and that in turn makes the plane difficult to get off of Kerbin to start with. It's all difficult enough to be worth a challenge thread (see my sig for the link).

3. Does any body know of areas that are good places for a landing strip along with flat space for a colony?

You can usually land rockets anywhere except the mountains. Put wheels on your colony modules so you can then drive them to the nearest mesa dune. So that's not really a big deal. The challenge landing planes in such areas. Given the wing-loading constraints, it's hard to make a plane that can carry much of a load.

[Wanderfound]

A bit of VTOL helps a great deal, and the 1/3 gravity on Duna means that a handful of ventral Vernors will do the job.