90VG

Here is 10 FL800's and a mainsail. https://youtu.be/EvBYkHPE5ow No problem getting way into orbit with that, although I wasn't using the throttle on J/S so it was a little wild.

6. Launch your rocket, and note the speed where it flips. Try launching your rocket straight up, did it flip? If it didn't, you are turning too steeply, try very gradual turns so the angle of attack isn't large. You can also throttle down before the flip and kinda carefully get up higher where the air resistance won't turn you around. Typically, in my craft, I notice it likes to flip around mach 1.3. So I throttle down, lock prograde (no steering through it) and wait till you either get above the altitude where it flips, or above the speed. Here is an example launch of bad rocket design, safely into orbit. https://youtu.be/1-bkyk2UC2U 5 FL800 tanks, 1 Swivel and 4 MK-55's. It takes about 3300 dv to get that up in orbit, without flipping. With just 2 FL800s, it takes a bit less, but I wanted the extra height. No fins either. Just don't turn too fast when you are still in the thick air.

Bump, I'd like to be able to do this also.

Avoid time warp while in range. Turn off SAS on both vehicles.

Of course, you won't know where AN and DN is, but you can still time warp and see how much your heading changes.

You might be able to adjust the tension and spring on the legs also. Usually, if I'm sliding, I just take back off, head downhill a little (somewhere flatter) and put back down.

Just approach, circularize, and quick save. Practice.

@MPDerksen Tools used for the video: OBS - Open Broadcaster Studio - Free Blender - For video editing, Free SaveFrom.net - for stealing videos from youtube. Note that within 3-4 minutes after processing, I got a copyright violation for that upload. I just make those unlisted to start with and it's not a big deal, they don't give a darn other than spam emails. I could have done better by fading into the landing and still having the music playing. Next time. As far as landing, yeah, you just set your intersect with the surface (not PE) just beyond your target, maybe 10-20% from current location. Then you can burn retro a little, but you gotta wait until you think you can stop all horizontal movement about on time before hitting the surface. It's like driving, separate the events so you don't do it all at once. Brake then turn, don't brake and turn.

@MPDerksen I can tell when people actually watch the video, especially when I troll like I did in that one. If you watch the first video I posted, you will see the vector in navball hit the horizon when I zero horizontal speed. That means horizontal speed is basically zero. Then if you burn retrograde till zero (and stop in space), you will be totally zeroed. I've done this a few times, so I can tell if I'm about zero just by looking at the terrain. You have to watch those navball indicators. This is the rule of those markers: (I'll skip prograde and retrograde) Take your hand, close it like you are going to punch someone. Stick up your thumb. Rotate hand so it goes in same direction of orbit (from palm to finger tips) (rotate view also). Your thumb points to Normal, opposite is anti-normal. That's how you kinda turn to adjust where you will land. With radial out and radial in, that's just away from the center of orbit, or to it. In the case of the 1st video, you'll see the the radial (cyan colored) hit the horizon line on navball. Now you know that your orbit is heading straight down, hence to radial out would be horizontal. Get that? You orbit includes the center of the Mun, and you are close to it, therefore to orbit "out" from the center of your orbit is horizontal. Once you are close to that crossing, just aim retrograde and put it down. Also, if you can get close to zero on "ORBIT" mode, then switch to surface and burn retrograde until velocity is zero. Then you will fall straight down. Keeping aiming at retro, paying attention to altitude and shadow, you'll be on the ground no problem. When you are falling to the ground, and you have your landing spot targeted, when you burn, it will push the retrograde marker away from where you are pointing to. Once they line up on top, just adjust and keep moving that retrograde mark over the anti-target. That is really easy way up high, but it gets a little high paced as you get about 500m out. The video was a joke, but in reality, I landed 117m from the craft. I don't know the exact numbers, but I think for most operations you only need to be within 2.5km. That's very easily done. 5m is done via computers, it's just too fast paced for me to do that manually with a keyboard (for me). But honestly, I have a few beers while playing, except for this morning when I made the first video, I was sucking down coffee before work.

I put another rocket down, right next to the first one, no landing gear:

I used to have a heck of a time landing on the Mun. I've got it down now where I can pretty much land where I want without tools (MechJeb) on the Mun. A couple things I didn't see listed here: 1. Use the move tool to push your engine up or tank down so that the lander engine doesn't stick out so much. You can hit the ground harder and not bust the engine. 2. If you are using a PC/MAC, get a joystick with a throttle. I only hooked up the throttle to the game, could care less about the stick. I've done quite a few landings without gear that way, as you can touchdown at 0.2-1 m/s. Gives very accurate throttle control. I have a Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, $40 USD. I'd say practice landing without gear, land on the engine. I just made a video for you. Landing on the Mun with an OKTO, FL400 tank, OKTO, Battery, Reaction Wheel (important for control speed), Solar Panel, Antennas, 60KN engine, no gear. I had audio recording, so you can hear me clicking away on the keyboard, but you can kinda see how I approached it. I hid Kerbal Engineer but still had the altitude displayed top right. If there was a flag around on the lit side of Mun, I would have landed on it, or close, but you'll get the idea. Depending on when viewed, it may have my mistake of throttling the wrong way, then I did a quick load. I edited that out, but it's still processing.

Well, you need to decouple from the bigger parts and just put the lander down. 3 parachutes can land a MK1 and (1/2) person module. You don't want to land the whole craft yet. As far as recovery of stages, you can use "Stage Recovery Mod" I guess, I've never used it. Google: "stage recovery ksp mod" If you want fancy landings, you have a few options. (That I know of) 1. MechJeb (for primary vessel) 2. KOS (Kerbal Operating System) (and your own code) 3. KRPC and your own program to control the landing. (I use this with bigger craft to land on Kerbin, works well.) There is lots of stuff on YouTube about this. Check out Scott Manley or Marcus House videos. If you are just starting the game, you won't save that much money recovering anyways as the stuff is cheap. Do more contracts and get some $$$ maybe. I've never bothered recovering any stages, always been pretty flush with cash in the game. Science is another issue. The way I have things set up, KRPC is hooked up to a program I wrote. I descend and try to get to about where I'm going to land, then I press the trigger on the joystick. That turns on the auto land which will slow me down and hover 10m above the ground. From there you can steer with the joystick tophat and lower elevation by 1/2 (or double) by pressing other buttons on the joystick. Cheating? No, because I wrote the program. It's just helpful for landing on a specific spot that you want, but you still have to guide it. One of my bigger landers can't really do a retrograde entry (on Kerbin), so you have to dive down head first, hit the engines, pull up towards target then trigger landing. It works, whatever. It's mainly for fun, I could add parachutes.

@Streetwind Well I flew a flew contracts with my normal vessels, and I used the technique you described and made a video of. It was amusing because I was still carrying the orbit booster during the burn to get to the Mun. I had 400 dv more than before. So I did my mission (dock 2 craft, tourist flyby, plant flag) and put it away for the evening. I came back just a little while ago and tried the "trainer" rocket you described. Yeah, no problem at all making orbit, and no problem at all doing re-entry burn with a little to spare. Thanks! (This was the first attempt this evening, I forgot the decoupler) 2nd time I made it up and back. Thanks again! Had 30 less dv that time, but I still get 'er down.

@Streetwind Thanks for the simple "proof" video. I'll give a shot later and see how I do.

I just tried that MK1, Coupler, 2 FL800 tanks and a swivel. Gives me 3790 d/v. I did a nice climb to 80km, tried to circularize and the PE stopped at 44km. That isn't enough. I don't have MechJeb ascent on this playthrough, but I doubt it could make it to 80km. When I get to the launch pad, Kerbal Engineer says 2900 d/v. That doesn't really seem like enough to make it to me. I kept it below 250 m/s until 10k, then tilted over to 45. I left power at 2/3rds, once about 30k I opened up the throttle. I got my AP to 72K on 2nd attempt, but that just made more time in the air and I was not able to get to orbit. This is version 1.3.1, and I have gone to the moon and mun, landed, came back, but with KE showing 3K d/v on the launch pad??? Screenshot of it sitting on the pad: @Streetwind