Veteran players reminisce: What was your first Munar landing like?

[Tex]

Hey all! I was just curious from reading a couple of mission reports and thinking back on the good ol' days of pre-1.0 when things were simpler and we had plenty of experiences learning how to play this fantastic game we have here. So I got to thinking: What were everybody's most important experiences like? How are their stories different than mine?

To be sure, there are many, many important milestones that KSP players blow through. Making a successful airplane, getting your first orbit, docking for the first time. I've decided, though, to talk about Munar landings first because that is one of the biggest thrills for a newbie rocket engineer, I would think!

So go on, share your stories! I want to know how your first landing went down! Crash and burn or stylish touchdown?

- - - - - - - -

My first ever Munar landing went much better than I expected. Being the space nerd that I was almost two years ago (and don't you think for a second that I've changed since then!), I named my first designated Munar lander the Armstrong Munar Lander, an unmanned probe (gotta do it safely). By this point orbital mechanics were easy enough to understand for me, and once I figured out how SOIs work and roughly how to do it I decided to go for it.

Big overbuilt rocket ahoy, and I went to the Mun. I don't recall whether or not I'd sent flybys or impactors before, but I think the beauty of the place still captured my imagination. I eventually picked a flat-ish landing site and burned to slow myself.

Boy, what a rush that burn was... I was scared out of my wits that I'd run out of fuel on the way down, and indeed I think I came close. My lander consisted of the medium landing gear, two unfoldable 2x3 solar panels, a Stayputnik core (back in the days when it had SAS control) and two extendable communotrons.

After minutes of terror and burning, I finally got my speed down to a safe-is level and touched down. Then it was a frenzy of making sure the accursed thing was stable before I clapped my hands and grinned from the achievement. That was one of the best days of my KSP experience!

Well, the landing was bittersweet. After I had landed I had forgotten to take pictures, but the place I had landed in prevented me from taking good ones. I forgot whether or not it was before or after my second Munar landing (appropriately with the Aldrin Munar Lander), but I needed to move my probe into the light to get a good angle.

Long story short, I over-corrected and smashed my beautiful lander into the Mun, destroying it in true Kerbal fashion.

[longcat]

I landed, realized I forgot to add a ladder, and decided to take off. Since this was my first launch from anywhere other than the launch pad, I instinctively hit the space bar. The pod decoupled and pathetically fell off the rocket.

It wasn't my finest hour.

Edited to add: this was before multi-person pods, so my rescue mission was the same rocket as before with a ye olde tricoupler on top; this had Bill's pod, an empty pod, and a lot of ASAS to keep the stupid think controllable.

Edited May 12, 2015 by longcat

[CptRichardson]

"AaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHH-" *Splut*

[Kryten 2X4B 523P]

Terrain Induced Spontaneous Disassembly sums up mine.

[TimePeriod]

Brimstone...

Fire...

Pain...

Sulphur..

Panic...

Whackjob...

And, oddly, camion.

[LostOblivion]

I managed to land, but it was a mixed feeling since I knew Jeb didn't have enough fuel for even half a re-orbit once he had landed, so he had to stay there for a while until I unlocked enough probe parts to rescue him.

[Grover]

Mine was well before the advent of luxuries like manoeuver nodes, ladders and these fancy landing legs, the way to land back in those days was to use aero fins on sticks, and EVERYTHINH was eyeballed, no mollycoddling, no hand-holding, just a kick in the general direction and a bit of guesswork

[zarakon]

I think it was 0.12, first version where the Mun existed. There were no landing legs yet and I hadn't thought to use fins, so I was trying to just land on the bell of an LV-T30. Touched down softly enough, but of course it tipped over and the command pod rolled off. There was also no EVA yet, so there wasn't much to do after that but roll around with the pod.

longcat - you don't need ladders on the Mun! Kerbal jetpacks are strong enough for them to fly anywhere with Duna's gravity or less.

[Frozen_Heart]

First attempt was a success back in 0.17. It was a crude rocket with a very simple combined lander/spacecraft but it did the job.

[federicoaa]

Mine was on the demo. I told myself that if I could land on the demo I'd buy the game, and here I am.

[Randazzo]

"AaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHH-" *Splut*

LOL! +1

Followed by "Ok..ok...think I've got this... @%$!@#$!@!!"

[radonek]

I went through some Kerbin-Mun transfer tutorial, which after successful left me with empty transfer stage and some simple lander in munar orbit. So I googled some simple landing instructions and went for it. After disassembling lander I realized I forgot to quicksave so I went through that transfer tutorial again. Its not like more practice could hurt, right?

[UmbralRaptor]

Well, back in 0.13...

(albeit with mod parts for landing legs. And no, I never succeeded in 0.12. There was an intentional orbit then impact, but meh...)

Edited May 12, 2015 by UmbralRaptor

[StormKat]

It went just like this:

[spinomonkey]

I have no idea how this even landed.

[NeMeSiS]

Mine was well before the advent of luxuries like manoeuver nodes, ladders and these fancy landing legs, the way to land back in those days was to use aero fins on sticks, and EVERYTHINH was eyeballed, no mollycoddling, no hand-holding, just a kick in the general direction and a bit of guesswork

This. During my first Munlanding i landed directly on the Moon without orbiting it first, too dangerous with the lack of information back then. Looking up the proper orbital speed at certain heights in a chart was definitely interesting, and somewhat blindly flying at the Mun (The old 'When the Mun rises over the horizon, speed up until speed x' technique) did add to the 'seat of your pants' feeling and at times i kinda miss it.

Unfortunately i have no pictures of that era anymore.

[Sky_walker]

My was in overegineered rocket.

Got all the nose cones, decouplers, proper chute, etc. etc. as a real rocket should have, while in fact it was by far more optimal to dump all that dead weight and launch simple pancake, stage it, land, and reenter in a big rocket instead of stripping it down to the capsule with a single chute.

Anyway.... I ended up quickly crashing in my first two attempts, but 3rd one worked... it was all nice and great until I realized that after climbing to the orbit I had very little fuel left (mind you - overengineering - so my lander got far more fuel than a display was suggesting, I just had plenty of empty tanks)... so with that in mind I designed quite nice return trajectory with gravity assist and pushed my rocked down to the last drop of fuel... just to realize that my trajectory was going directly in a dead center of the planet... wow, I was totally disappointed... all that effort went for nothing, my poor Kerbal was going to burn in the atmosphere... oh well... I accelerated time to 70km, decoupled my all the tanks end engine to the side, and decided to accompany my brave astronaut through his last moments of life... imagine my surprise to find out that there is no reentry heat in the game, so nothing happened - I went through the atmosphere and made a perfect, clear splashdown.

Well... that was the moment when bubble burst and I stopped thinking that KSP got some advanced physics simulation.

[Chris_2]

Single stage to the mun with warp and nuclear engines from some parts packs. And cannons of course.

December 2011, so must have been .12 or .13.

[Wanderfound]

After many, many "landings" that were actually high-speed impacts (some misjudgements of altitude, plus a whole bunch of "run out of fuel while still a few km up"), I finally made a safe landing with plenty of fuel in reserve.

However, as I touched down, the lander legs flexed just enough to tap the engine bell on the ground, detonating it. Apart from the engine, the lander was fine.

The next one up had a bit more ground clearance and a spare seat for a rescue. That one touched down perfectly...then fell over sideways and rolled down a hill before exploding.

I think I had about twenty Kerbals stranded on the Mun by the time I finally got one back to Kerbin alive.

[Linear]

A long time ago, around a week after i started playing and i think it went well. Surprising, as everything i'd done up to that point was one large failure!

[Zephram Kerman]

I think it was 0.12, first version where the Mun existed. There were no landing legs yet and I hadn't thought to use fins, so I was trying to just land on the bell of an LV-T30. Touched down softly enough, but of course it tipped over and the command pod rolled off. There was also no EVA yet, so there wasn't much to do after that but roll around with the pod.

Sounds familiar, much like my first "landing"... Seems to me that's a classic KSP moment. Did your rescuers need rescue?

[Demon_82]

My first Mun landing was after a number of attempts, using the Kerbal X. And it required some after-landing manuevers to get it standing and not laying sideways xD And up to three failed rescue missions that became my first Mun base in the end xD

[SkyRender]

Challenging.

Back then, there were no landing legs, and any speed faster than about 1m/s would knock the engine bell off when landing on it. Obviously there was no return from that trip either, though it was before persistence existed, so that wasn't such a big deal.

[Deadpangod3]

well um, i built my rocket like a giant towering behemoth, and it barely made it to the mun, then i started heading down through a constant unending thought of "am i gunna make it am i gunna make it am i gunna make it?" then as i got close and the ground was rushing at me i just gunned the throttle, and then had to cut it again as i had started going back up again, then i slowly throttled up every now and then to keep my velocity low, 10 m, 5 m, 2, 1, annnnd, touchdown! yesss- umm, why is it leaning? crapcrap OH CRAP!!! TIMBER!!! my lander was very tall so it fell over , and nearly every part was disconnected from each other, except the command pod (i had the guts to make my first landing manned) parachute, and advanced SAS, but jeb had survived!i got him out and walked (and face-slid) around a bit.

i THINK i sent a rescue mission eventually, i dont remember for sure, i may have left poor Jeb #1 there.

[Dichotomy]

It went just like this:

http://i.imgur.com/SWNYS14.gif

Sorry, but that was glorious. I am still laughing.

Thankyou for making my day.