I suck as a pilot..... (mun landing problems)

[Fraggle]

Wow.

Holy fek do I suck.

I watch others take a Mun lander. Hover over the surface. Drop a rover, then move away and land on the surface.

me?.

Not yet...

When I try to get my lander down to drop my Rover its horrific.

Like watching those old VTOL experiment reels from the 50s.

I have a real issue getting my fingers to co-ordinate properly.

more thrust, less thrust, correct drift, correct angle, no stop ascending now.. Why did you decide to point at the horizon, yes... spinning.. lets do that now.?. (i just realized my previous three attempts were with SAS on, maybe I should kill robo-SAS).

Ill get it though... Now I have the de-orbit properly licked and a good decent speed..

Its those last few meters that are kicking my arse.

[bonyetty]

Possibly try using the retrograde button (if you haven't) then all you need to do is control thrust and watch your surface speed m/s. Might help.

[Fraggle]

Landed it!. Right after this post in fact.

Apparently I just had to vent frustration and go lighter on the controls.

Although the Lander fell over.... But it survived and is continuing is job. So... No big deal.

To Rover, is alive and well and Roaving..

[Corw]

Possibly try using the retrograde button (if you haven't) then all you need to do is control thrust and watch your surface speed m/s. Might help.

And he will end up going everywhere once he cuts too much velocity and starts slightly going up. Been there, done that. For me the key is the RCS. Lock heading on the dot up and control only descent speed with throttle (vertical). For the for horizontal movement corrections (left/tight/forward/backward) use RCS. Also use bursts of RCS to fine tune descent.

[bonyetty]

Nice one! Feels super good ha. Congrats.

[treejoe4]

practice on kerbin

[cicatrix]

Generally, for landing you need to establish a low circular orbit (real low, like below 10 km). Then start killing you horizontal velocity but keeping you vertical velocity at zero (you should aim your nozzle below horizon in the retrograde direction) - just keep that vertical velocity indicator at 0. After you killed substantial portion of your horizontal speed (if not all) just gently lower your craft on the surface.

[bonyetty]

And he will end up going everywhere once he cuts too much velocity and starts slightly going up. Been there, done that. For me the key is the RCS. Lock heading on the dot up and control only descent speed with throttle (vertical). For the for horizontal movement corrections (left/tight/forward/backward) use RCS. Also use bursts of RCS to fine tune descent.

Different ways work for different people. Just don't go below 0m/s. Op said he had too many buttons to deal with hence this suggestion.

Oh and this was changed in 1.0. Game switches to normal sas when velocity is ver low.

Edited May 14, 2015 by bonyetty

[cicatrix]

practice on kerbin

That's your idea of 'practice'? Let's suggest Tylo or Eve then. Actually Mun is a great training ground. It's close, it has low gravity but not so low as on Gilly or Minmus.

[Tex_NL]

Possibly try using the retrograde button (if you haven't) then all you need to do is control thrust and watch your surface speed m/s. Might help.

During descent this is a pretty reasonable suggestion but during touchdown this can be lethal. If you over burn and go up again your retrograde marker will point to the sky. And SAS will flip your lander.

During touchdown use stability assist only.

Edit: Wasn't in a hurry replying. But wow, a sextuple ninja?

Edited May 14, 2015 by Tex_NL

[Corw]

Different ways work for different people. Just don't go below 0m/s. Op said he had too many buttons to deal with hence this suggestion.

Oh and this was changed in 1.0. Game switches to normal sas when velocity is ver low.

Oh, cool, didn't know that. Thanks for the tip! And for me it is less keys because you only use throttle and RCS, you have to mash key less that way then trying to kill horizontal speed.

[uglyduckling81]

Different ways work for different people. Just don't go below 0m/s. Op said he had too many buttons to deal with hence this suggestion.

Oh and this was changed in 1.0. Game switches to normal sas when velocity is ver low.

Are you saying it auto switches out of retrograde heading if you accidentally over burn?

I always use retrograde to land . I haven't ever over burnt but I have watched it on YouTube, hilarious. I think I'm so cautious with my decent I burn too slowly and for way too long wasting heaps of fuel, it's still better than flipping over out of control though.

[bonyetty]

Oh, cool, didn't know that. Thanks for the tip! And for me it is less keys because you only use throttle and RCS, you have to mash key less that way then trying to kill horizontal speed.

Yes I believe so.

- - - Updated - - -

Are you saying it auto switches out of retrograde heading if you accidentally over burn?

I always use retrograde to land . I haven't ever over burnt but I have watched it on YouTube, hilarious. I think I'm so cautious with my decent I burn too slowly and for way too long wasting heaps of fuel, it's still better than flipping over out of control though.

Oops wrong post I replied to above. Sorry ugly.

Yes this is what I believe sas does now. On my phone so can't double check right now.

[martinborgen]

Overcorrections is probably the reason why.you're tensing up and being stressed. As a classical music student, I deal with this a lot. It's as much knowing what to do, as knowing what you don't need to do, that will enable you to keep your cool and drop rovers and dock in gravity and what not.

[T.A.P.O.R.]

Man, if I had the retrograde function when I first got KSP, I'd never have stayed up until 4 am in the dead of winter without the heater on not feeling the cold due to intense concentration.

For context, I usually kip out around 9pm.

[Rickenbacker]

Possibly try using the retrograde button (if you haven't) then all you need to do is control thrust and watch your surface speed m/s. Might help.

Except if you use too much thrust, and start going up again. Your trusty pilot tries to maintain retrograde orientation, and you get a BIG surprise . In general, though, this is a very easy way to land without having to touch the controls (except thrust).

[jarmund]

I think the original issue in this thread is similar to what I first experienced when flying RC helicopters:

It's not about swift reaction, or large inputs. It's a matter of patience so that you are able to see tiny amounts of drift/tilt and correct them with a minimum of control input. The biggest cause of crashing RC helicopters are:

a) Not enough altitude for margin of error (Since you're trying to land, this isn't really something you can do anything about)

Overcorrecting when trying to recover from drift or tilt

To overcome these, make sure you have enough fuel to take your time when landing. To ease into it, try the following procedure:

1) SAS lock on retrograde

2) Trust the SAS while you burn to slow down your descent until you're at a reasonable altitude, and have around -5 meters per second surface speed

3) Keep bringing down the speed until you're at 1 m/s

4) SAS to stability assist

5) Try to hover in a stationary position. Once you have that, tap ctrl, and it should set you down easily

Yes, you can probably go straight to landing from step 3, but if you learn to hover, you are able to do the rover drops later on more easily.

A couple of tips:

* If your craft is very input-sensitive, try to enable fine controls. I don't know about the default key for this, as I have mine mapped to `

* Before your landing legs touch ground, watch your navball, not your craft.

[Daid]

Except if you use too much thrust, and start going up again. Your trusty pilot tries to maintain retrograde orientation, and you get a BIG surprise . In general, though, this is a very easy way to land without having to touch the controls (except thrust).

As said, the 1.0 SAS switches to stability mode when your velocity is below 1m/s (so no more suddenly flipping around when using SAS for retrograde during landing)

What also really helps, is caps-lock, which switches the controls in lower sensitivity mode.

[vixr]

I found that building the lander to do the job I need is the key... A crew delivery lander is going to be different from a rover delivery lander. A bigger, less agile lander to drop a rover. And practice doing small hops, land, take off and move away a few hundred meters, land again, repeat as needed. I also practiced on Kerbin using gravity hack for many hours. (to learn the keys)

Edited May 14, 2015 by vixr

[SRV Ron]

Using cap lock will reduce the response of the WSAD keys. Use only stability assist as you can quickly flip if you start ascending.

Practice first on the seas of Minmus, then graduate to Mun and its uneven surface. See this probe just before touchdown on Minmus.

Took a while to design a probe launcher restricted to the lower tier parts. You learn how to fly all over under the new aerodynamics.

No turn under SRBs, control speed and do the turn under first stage to burnout, second stage insert to orbit and to Minmus or Mun. Probe stage to land. More then enough fuel to return even though not designed to do so. (NovaPunch mods in the liquid fuel tanks and third stage engine but doable under stock.)

Edited May 14, 2015 by SRV Ron

[The Yellow Dart]

I think he just meant you can practice on Kerbin easily without having to take the time of launching a whole Mun mission when it might not succeed.

[Roflcopterkklol]

play more sand box and build a bunch of VTOLs around the space center, master VTOL flight at the space center, master it everywhere.

Building silly things like this and learning to fly them is the only reason why i can land on the mun without SAS.

now i need to re build that VTOL. im thinking 20 engines and smaller. it will be magical.

Edited May 14, 2015 by Roflcopterkklol

[synketa]

quicksave (F5) and quickload (F9) are your best friend while landing

[Soda Popinski]

That's your idea of 'practice'? Let's suggest Tylo or Eve then. Actually Mun is a great training ground. It's close, it has low gravity but not so low as on Gilly or Minmus.

Worked for NASA

Of course, this also happened:

[uglyduckling81]

Well you only need the same power to weight ratio as you will have on the Moon to practice. Of course you have air and wind etc but generally it works.