RocketBlam

I'm surprised to hear more people don't use RCS for landing. I find landing much harder without it.

It is entirely possible to land without RCS, it's just a lot harder to correct for drift. This video is a tutorial for beginners.

It doesn't have docking ports. The point is that it can land on either Kerbal moon and return to Kerbal without docking. It has RCS to deal with drift while landing, as shown in the video. Maybe you should wait to comment until you have seen the full video.

That's a good point. This is for mostly near-equatorial landings on the Mun. On Minmus, you have a lot more leeway, since the gravity is lower and you have more Delta-V to work with.

Have you used it before? Just to make sure it's behaving the way you expect.

I didn't see that. Thanks. If you want to move it there, I am down with that.

It's a good amount of fuel to land, ascend and return to Kerbal, from Mun or Minmus. If you can do it with less, reliably, without being unduly complicated, that's great! I'd love to see it. For the beginner, this gives him/her enough to get back to Kerbal. As for coming in low and fast, I find that pretty challenging. This tutorial is more for a beginner, and having some extra time to make adjustments is useful.

I recorded this to show everyone how to design a lander that could land on Mun and Minmus, and return to Kerbal safely. If you need to know how to design a lander that can land on Mun and Minmus, this will teach you how. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_xu8pF2OTU

Great story! I have had many such stupid moments. The ones that **** me off the most are when I try to use my RCS for the first time and realize only half of them are present because I placed them thinking I was in symmetry mode and I wasn't.

None of the above. Minmus is the most interesting.

Not sure what you mean by this.

There, I said it. Putting the orange tanks on my rockets, it makes them look like they were assembled from junkyard parts. Now, I understand that maybe that's what Squad was going for... to make the rockets all look like haphazard machines built from spare parts and junk lying around. I totally appreciate that idea. It's just that the new 23.5 parts don't look like that. They all follow a nice, black and white 60's NASA kind of design, and they definitely don't look like junkyard parts. They also may be trying to make it look like the external tanks on the space shuttle. Those were all orange because they were basically rusty. NASA painted the external tank for the first shuttle launch but then decided not to paint any of the rest of them because it added too much weight. I think that's actually what Squad was thinking when they designed this. But these tanks are, in my experience, almost never used as simply external tanks, but are always used inline in a booster. Anyone else feel like this? Most of the large parts (well, they were the largest before 23.5) are kind of plain white, except the orange tank. I'm not a fan of how any of them look, but the orange tank just doesn't look like it belongs anywhere.

Here's a thread I created about my mission: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/76012-Eve-Manned-Return-Mission

Yeah, people keep telling me that... I'm not sure why I'm resisting it.

OK, here's mine. Landing weight: 136 tons. Liftoff weight: 123 tons. DV at liftoff is a little over 8800. Both of your designs are a lot simpler than mine. I might have gone overboard with the upper level staging. Also all my science gear adds weight, because I designed it to get science. Even without the science gear I'm sure both of yours would be lighter though. Anyway, great designs. You are both Steely-Eyed Missile Men! I can post the craft file if you like.

Well both of yours are a lot lighter than mine, so definitely no need for anyone to be embarrassed. Except maybe me.

I also edit the ascent profile basically the exact same way - start at 30km, end at 100km.

That's a nice design, Red. What's the Delta-V?

Awesome.

So submit it and see what happens. Maybe you can win both.

For clarification: The weight can be calculated after the gear has been jettisoned, if it can be jettisoned immediately prior to launch (or at launch). Edit: This is a fairly minor detail, but I can see how calculating it with all landing gear attached makes sense. There will be two categories: Lowest weight at landing, and lowest weight at liftoff.

I don't want people to think I am ragging on the game. It's in Alpha, I understand that. I just want to provide some useful input. I'm sure the devs are fully aware of things that need to be fixed. But speaking of that, I'm a graphic designer with 15 years experience who would love to work for Squad.

This is your challenge: Design a lander that can return one Kerbal to orbit from Eve. The lander must include an enclosed landing capsule: No "ride a chair into the hottest planet in the solar system" designs. This includes the Mk 1 Lander Can or Command Pod Mk 1, or any lander that encloses all Kerbals inside a loving, protective shell. The landing can/pod must return to orbit. The lander must have at least 8,700 (vacuum) Delta-V. There are a few places on Eve high enough to get back to orbit with that DV. This can be calculated at the moment of launch. Stock parts only. The only non-stock parts allowed are the MechJeb module or an Engineer module (so you can calculate DV). Using MechJeb landing guidance or ascent guidance are acceptable - the issue is whether your lander is capable of achieving orbit from some point on Eve. Please post craft files so I can confirm your accomplishment. The winner will be the vehicle with the lowest weight at launch from Eve. However you choose to accomplish that is up to you, but whoever can achieve orbit from Eve with the lowest weight (at launch, from Eve) wins. Orbit is considered to be a periapsis and apoapsis of 97,000 meters or more above Eve. I have a craft that can do it, but I will wait to see what you come up with. Control surfaces: Using an excessive number of control surfaces and SAS modules is not allowed, as it exploits the "infiniglide" flaw in the application. No need to include a lifter. All submissions will be considered as long as a lifter can be attached below them. If it is too heavy to lift into Kerbin orbit, well, that design probably doesn't have a chance. Good luck! Clarification: No mods that change Delta-V values of stock parts, or aerodynamic values, or weights, are allowed. To keep it simple, the only mods allowed are MechJeb and Engineer. Submissions Red Iron Crown Mass at Landing: 69.78 tons Mass at Launch: 57.06 tons Gpisic Mass at Landing/Launch: 69.089 tons RocketBlam Mass at Landing: 136 tons Mass at Liftoff: 123 tons sjd64 (pending working .craft file) Mass at Landing: 47.69 tons Mass at Liftoff: 40.56 tons Nedal (pending working .craft file) Mass at Landing/Launch: 30.63 tons GeorgeG (second submission) (pending working .craft file) Mass at Landing: 31.957 tons Mass at Liftoff: 30.407 tons GeorgeG (third submission) (pending working .craft file) Mass at Landing: 29.177 tons Mass at Liftoff: 28.022 tons Immelman (pending .craft file) Mass at Landing: 24 tons Mass at Liftoff: 21.2 tons Tavert Mass at Landing: 19.755 Mass at Liftoff: 19.228 (8659 D/V - below limit) Metaphor (pending testing) Mass at Landing/Launch: 14.2 tons

I realize there are other planet idea threads, but they didn't invite others to post their own, so I didn't know if mine was welcome there.

That would be giving it away.