Worse place to land on, Eve or Tylo??

[Just Jim]

Hey everyone. I just had a horrible experience and now I'm curious about something. The last few days I've been exploring the moons of Jool, and everything was going fine... until I got to Tylo. I suppose it was my own fault for not doing my homework, but once I tried to land my little explorer ship the nightmare began. It quickly became apparent I was not going to be able to slow down fast enough, and I almost burned up my engines getting re-circularized and out of there.

After I was back in orbit I checked the numbers, and even though it's a moon, Tylo is third biggest body in the solar system, with a 0.8 gravity and escape velocity of 3068 m/s. And I'm beginning to think the it's hardest place to land on, even worse than Eve. Eve may have an even greater gravity, but it also has a nice thick atmosphere to add some drag and slow a ship down. The only real issue landing on Eve is not overheating. Tylo has nothing to add drag, it's just you vs. Gravity.

So I'm curious everyone else's opinion... In terms of just landing, Eve may be bad... but is Tylo the real hidden death trap of the solar system??

[selfish_meme]

Yep, that was why i started the T-prize, I realised Tylo was a death trap,

saying: Eve is where Kerbals are stranded, Tylo is where they are buried

[Starhawk]

Eve is hardest to return from.

Tylo is hardest to land on.

Happy landings!

[Jouni]

Tylo is essentially a fast-paced Mun landing. You need a bigger lander, more powerful engines, and some piloting skill, but otherwise it's quite forgiving.

Eve is just as nasty as it has always been. The hardest part is landing in one piece, with something capable of returning back to orbit. 1.0 reduced the size of Eve landers significantly, but compensated it by making the landing harder due to reentry heating and proper aerodynamics.

[cantab]

Eve used to be simple to land on. Not any more now we have re entry heating, since Eve's greater mass makes your approach and orbital speeds the fastest of any place you can land.

Not that Tylo is easy by any means.

[problemecium]

Eve. Even going back up afterward, Tylo requires less than half the delta-V. And rocket engines work at peak efficiency there since it's a vacuum. On Eve, hardly anything works at all near sea level.

[GoSlash27]

Depends on whether you want to come back or not, but my money is still on Eve. Tylo is like any other airless body AFA the process goes. Nothing about it that's stretching the limit of the equipment.

Eve, OTOH... Making something that will land on it isn't bad. Making something that can launch to orbit is a good deal harder. Making something that can do *both* is horrendous.

Best,

-Slashy

[Pecan]

Yep, like the others I'd still give the 'honours' to Eve. You're not alone in finding out that Tylo is not just another step, like the other planets and moons though - the two of them definitely stand out.

[NecroBones]

I still think Eve is probably it. Granted, I haven't been back to it since the aerodynamics changed. But I know Tylo hasn't changed, and aerodynamic heating is a whole new set of variables to deal with on Eve.

Tylo is tricky in that you need to have some piloting skill, because everything happens quickly under a higher gravity acceleration near the surface, compared to most of the other airless worlds. And the lander needs a good amount of dV for the round trip. But otherwise it's not that strange.

Whereas Eve can be downright evil.

[selfish_meme]

I think Eve is a lot easier these days, you can send small ships down empty on airbrakes and parachutes with an ISRU, engine first you don't even need heat sheilds at orbital velocity. Coming up is harder but more so that you don't overheat.

[Sharpy]

To land on? Eve is easier, definitely. Sent a bunch of landers there. If you descend gently enough heating isn't that much of a problem, and you need less parachutes than with Kerbin.

Now, to return from...

[Joonatan1998]

Eve is easy unless you try to land something huge, it mosly requires a good ship design to land there.

Tylo is much harder to land on. Landing there needs more pilotting skills.

[Jett_Quasar]

Put it this way; I've landed on Tylo and returned safely into orbit. I can't say the same for Eve.

JR

[Xannari Ferrows]

Worse as in difficulty? I don't know if I'd consider either of them bad, just difficult. Honestly, I think Tylo is a great place to land, because it is a rewarding experience.

[AbacusWizard]

A few versions ago I sent the Phoenix III expedition to explore Duna, Ike, Dres, and the moons of Jool, first sending a probe lander down to each surface and then, if it was able to land and return to the mothership safely, also sending down a kerbalnaut in a crew lander.

Laythe was a little tricky; I underestimated the difficulty of plowing up through the atmosphere but later returned with a spaceplane that worked fine.

Tylo, on the other hand... the probe lander used ALL of its fuel just slowing down on the descent, ran out completely while still about 10-20 meters above the surface, and slammed into the ground hard enough to break a leg or two. Fortunately the science equipment, the solar panels, and the antenna were all still intact. That was the first and last time I interacted with Tylo.

(Except using it in passing for gravitational slingshots; it's GREAT for that!)

[sedativechunk]

I spanked Tylo a while ago.I build this lander:

I consider this particular vessel the BEST ship I ever designed, period. If I could build it in real life I would be comfortable flying in it. Ignore the science vessel and everything attached above that. The main lander starts at the lander can on the left. It was a ship I put five poodle engines on each controlled by their own reaction wheel. It had 8 landing legs attached. I built and tested this thing to the death, even going as far to figure out the real math behind how I could build an efficient lander. Starting from a 30km orbit in the planet, you could land and return anywhere on Tylo with ease with this lander... (yes, one of the tricks to conquering Tylo is to get extremely close to the planet so you can conserve precious fuel for the landing sequence and knock off some velocity).

It would burn fuel perfectly so that by the time you were about 5-10km above the surface, all the extra tanks were jettisoned and you would just be running the 5 engines each with a single fuel tank and reaction wheel, making it extremely easy to maneuver on the strong gravity of Tylo with fuel to spare. For breaking orbit, you would use up what was remaining in the four surrounding engines and then the single poodle engine in the middle would fire, having enough delta V to get back into orbit. It also had a science Jr. attached with all of the experiments on it, so you could do full science research while orbiting and landing on Tylo. I had a video of it a while ago but lost it. I made Tylo look like Minmus difficulty with this design. I also landed on the moon over 20 times with it. Also the entire vessel for landing was made using stock parts.

I consider Eve the hardest by far. It is like the ultimate boss fight in KSP. I have played almost 1,000 hours and never actually got a ship to return from Eve. I've used other people's designs, built my own. I could never return. Before 1.0, I was working on a design using Hyperedit. I could make Kerbin have the same gravity/atmosphere as Eve and I was testing several designs. One did get to orbit from sea level. But I never took it to Eve because it would take me forever to get there.

[KerikBalm]

Land: Tylo, for sure.

Eve only requires you to stick a lander can/pod behind a heat shield, set SAS to follow retrograde, and deploy parachutes.

Tylo requires judicious use of the throttle, cancelling out horizontal velocity, and a very shallow trajectory and/or suicide burn.

Return from?

Before 1.0 nerfed many of the engines, you could (or could almost) land on and return from Tylo in a single stage...

This was nearly stock:

The main differences: I made the cosmetic (at the time) nose cones into fuel tanks with the same mass ratio as the other 1.25m tanks, and I buffed the thrust/TWR of the aerospikes to 200kn from 175...

I think a KR-2L would have done it SSTO as well (slightly worse Isp, much better TWR).

Also there could be a hybrid engine approach with a LV-N to help the whole way, and contribute more on ascent.

Tylo de-orbit, land, and re-robit may still be doable post 1.0...

It certainly can be done with ISRU...

Eve ascent vehicles.... well, so far I haven't got one down to the surface of eve in one piece, and then back up to orbit, in a craft less than 90 tons...

Sure, you can try and land at a high elevation, but I've been trying from sea-level, or nearly so (so far my landings were at <603[altitude displayed from the craft is higher than altitude of a kerbal standing at the bottom] and 866).

So eve is definitely harder to return from.

I staged like crazy... and from ~90 tons starting, I got 0.96 tons to orbit (a lander can+ spark+ FL-T200 fuel tank and a 350m/s worth of fuel).

I still haven't done the mission fully legit... I edited my way to eve orbit for the deorbit and ascent tests... Last night I got my lander into kerbin orbit... today I'll have a look getting the lander to Eve (may or may not be linked with a Gilly ISRU + fuel depot mission, I could just send it to eve under its own power, and refuel it there before deorbiting)).

Eve is definiely harder.

Tylo is the 5th largest body btw (only 3rd largest with a solid surface).

1) Kerbol (can't get close to)

2) Jool (can't land on, but you can "limbo" to see how low into its atmosphere you can go)

3) Eve

4) Kerbin

5) Tylo

6) Laythe

7) Duna

8) Moho?

9) Mun?

10) Eeloo?

11) Dres?

12) Val?

13) Bop?

14) Minmus?

15) Pol

16) Gilly

[Superfluous J]

In my current career, I've sent 2 landers to eve, yet have 3 things landed there.

IOW Eve's so easy to land on, you can do it by accident!

More seriously, they're both just the same as their similar counterparts, only degrees harder. Tylo is like Mun, only harder. Eve is like Kerbin, only harder. If you have decent TWR and enough dV, Tylo's not really all that hard to land on. Likewise, if you've got heat shields and take care aerobraking, Eve's not that hard to land on either.

Now taking off, that's another story. Eve is second only to Jool in the difficulty scale, and that's only because Jool is impossible to land and take off from.

[Hagen von Tronje]

My completely inexpert opinion would be Eve overall.

Tylo is hard to land on and Eve really isn't, but Tylo landing is the same as the Mun with more dV.

The difference is takeoff. Tylo is hard, sure, but at core it is easier to get into orbit from Tylo than from Kerbin, as there's (slightly) less gravity and no atmosphere, so your engines should work at full effectiveness - better than Kerbin sea level. On Eve, you have greater than Kerbin gravity, and the atmosphere just hates you. I don't think anywhere else can say it is harder at core to liftoff from than Kerbin itself, but Eve can.

[Xyphos]

I've always managed to land on Eve successfully, but I've never returned from it.

I've managed to land on Tylo twice, and returned only once.

However, nothing I've ever sent to Jool has landed, survived or returned; Jool is the real death-trap here.

[Just Jim]

Wow, thanks for responding everyone! Later today, if nothing goes wrong or explodes, I plan on launching my new answer to Tylo.... lol...

[n.b.z.]

I have just spent some time toying around with various different lander designs on Tylo.

My official, highly scientific conclusion is that Tylo is a miserable ******* son of a *********** ****** ****, this ********* filthy *** ***** (being dragged off the podium by security, kicking and screaming)

[627]

This is my Tylo lander:

That was back in the day, aroiund .90 I think. On top of the Crew Cabin is the orbit-return vehicle for one kerbal, everything below that is the "colony" - dropped one of those with two stupid... ahm brave kerbals on every body to harvest flag/science contracts.

On the very end down there is the deorbit stage with a single terrier. This little thing got stuck within the engine clusters on descent, was a nightmare to land and finally exploded on touchdown. Anyway, successfully landed the mission. Ok in the 3. or 4. try but still.

I build this without any mechjeb or ksp redux or so, just plain testing on kerbin and then all the way to tylo. In hindsight, I think this was my greatest achievement in ksp so far. Get to tylo and back just by guessing

And eve... Landing is easy, but that's about it. Never returned from there, actually never even tried.

[theend3r]

Jool is the harderst to land on and return from but it's still possible. You can even plant a flag there.

[Superfluous J]

Jool is the harderst to land on and return from but it's still possible. You can even plant a flag there.

I would like to see proof of that. I have never tried with any real determination, but the few times I've been in the area my ship went from floating sedately to exploding instantly. And I've never seen a picture or video of it. I have vague memories of someone saying you could in the past, but they "fixed" that.