Worse place to land on, Eve or Tylo??

[theend3r]

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.

Googling "jool plant flag" gives some results. It may be impossible now though, true. Didn't try it in a long time.

[SkyRender]

Landing on Eve is actually very easy. You practically don't even have to try. Getting back off of Eve, on the other hand...

[Whovian]

Definitely Eve. It still takes significantly more delta-v and reentry is a big issue. Tylo you can do a lander which only weighs a few tons. Plus, bigger landers means bigger tugs.

The bigger question is: Thud from PlanetFactory/Sentar Expansion, Tylo from Alternis Kerbol/Alternis Kerbol Reloaded, or Titanus from New Horizons?

[AbacusWizard]

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.

You don't mention the biggest difference, though--Kerbin has a Vehicle Assembly Building and Tylo doesn't. If your launch vehicle doesn't get into orbit from Kerbin you can strap on MOAR BOOSTERZ and try again; if your lander doesn't get into orbit from Tylo you're kinda stuck there.

[waterlubber]

Tylo is harder to land on, but basically my trick to landing is to burn the entire way down, with some letups if you are losing velocity. The hardest part is the final landing 100m above the surface, since you can't see the ship through all the new fancy smoke. Dangit, squad!

[RocketBlam]

Hardest to land on, Tylo. Hardest to return from, Eve. Landing on Eve is pretty easy if you have sufficient heat management.

[Rufledt]

for me, landing on tylo is hardest, unless I have to come back. then it's eve. still never done that successfully! Also my Kerbals are too scared to try! except for the ones that already died...

[WWEdeadman]

In terms of just landing, Eve is the easiest thing to land on. Have enough chutes, and you'll be fine. Heat shield depending on the size/weight of your craft.

Tylo on the other hand is really a challenge to land on.

As for getting back up, Eve is harder.

[Hannu]

Landing on Tylo is practically a large suicide burn from orbit to surface. If you have enough TWR and dv, it is very predictable even with huge ship. Timings are difficult to estimate without quicksaving but if you try couple of times you learn to do it. Eve have complex aerodynamics. Difficulty depends greatly on how large and complex your ship is. It is trivial to drop small probe or rover on Eve, but it you want to come back you need massive and powerful ascent ship. Then aerodynamics gives nasty surprises.

I would say that Tylo is harder for small or medium size craft and Eve is harder for very large crafts.

[Hagen von Tronje]

You don't mention the biggest difference, though--Kerbin has a Vehicle Assembly Building and Tylo doesn't. If your launch vehicle doesn't get into orbit from Kerbin you can strap on MOAR BOOSTERZ and try again; if your lander doesn't get into orbit from Tylo you're kinda stuck there.

Didn't mention it because it goes without saying and is true of everywhere, from Eve to Minmus. I'm simply comparing traits of the celestial bodies, not the assets present at KSC. Obviously the real challenge on any non-Kerbin celestial body is landing something already constructed that can then launch back to return trajectories rather than rolling it down to the pad.

If you land something on Tylo that can't leave, you should have tested it on Kerbin, as Kerbin is indeed harder to exit in absolute terms than Tylo, to say nothing of the fact that you can hold a lower stable orbit around Tylo due to having no atmosphere. I don't know why you wouldn't do that? The main difficulty on Tylo should simply be landing a craft that meets those specs whole and in a state to make that launch - not that that's easy, but at least the exit should be very well in hand if you don't outright refuse a little overengineering (consider it a margin for maneuvers if you like).

By contrast, you could build a lander, put it into Kerbin orbit, land it on Kerbin terrain on the far side of the world from KSC, launch it from that site successfully back into Kerbin orbit, and still that vehicle may prove pitifully inadequate to launch from Eve even if you land it whole and fully fueled. Without using hyperedit (or equivalent) you have no method to reliably test an Eve launcher outside of flat out doing the math.

There's nothing easy about Tylo landings, though the procedure is pretty straightforward with a lot of dV...but Eve is just a tough nut to crack IMO. Maybe it's just me.

[theend3r]

Landing on Tylo is practically a large suicide burn from orbit to surface. If you have enough TWR and dv, it is very predictable even with huge ship. Timings are difficult to estimate without quicksaving but if you try couple of times you learn to do it. Eve have complex aerodynamics. Difficulty depends greatly on how large and complex your ship is. It is trivial to drop small probe or rover on Eve, but it you want to come back you need massive and powerful ascent ship. Then aerodynamics gives nasty surprises.

I would say that Tylo is harder for small or medium size craft and Eve is harder for very large crafts.

There is a neat trick to suicide burns:

1. Do a deorbit burn.
   
2. Put a maneuver node where your trajectory intersects the planet's surface.
   
3. Pull on the retrograde marker on the node until you have zero velocity there.
   
4. Wait until the time to maneuver node is equal to the time expected to execute it. (+ some safety margin)
   
5. Burn at full throttle and you should come to a stop just before you hit the surface.
   

Burning the whole way down is very inefficient.

[Hannu]

There is a neat trick to suicide burns:

1. Do a deorbit burn.
   
2. Put a maneuver node where your trajectory intersects the planet's surface.
   
3. Pull on the retrograde marker on the node until you have zero velocity there.
   
4. Wait until the time to maneuver node is equal to the time expected to execute it. (+ some safety margin)
   
5. Burn at full throttle and you should come to a stop just before you hit the surface.
   

Burning the whole way down is very inefficient.

This needs relatively high TWR. If I land by hand I have less than 1 before deorbit burn. TWR increases slowly during braking but I have to decelerate most of the time. I know that it is easier to do with more TWR but it is fun to do things near limits.

Normally I use MechJeb, because I want to land to the exact point. It also need quite high TWR (1.5 before deorbit).

[carneyvich]

eve is easy to land on but hard to get off of

tylo is hard to land on but easy to get off of

[627]

has anyone ever tried to land on and take off kerbin? Without "refueling" from the space center?

Sure, wouldn't be as hard as eve but still quite a challenge...

[SargeRho]

A mini-SSTO can quite comfortably do that. I think a Laythe-and-back SSTO can do that too.

[DMSP]

Tylo is definitely Harder for landing. On Eve you can use 'chutes.

For returning, Vice Versa.

[Jouni]

has anyone ever tried to land on and take off kerbin? Without "refueling" from the space center?

Sure, wouldn't be as hard as eve but still quite a challenge...

That's the standard procedure for testing Laythe landers before the mission.

[selfish_meme]

There is a neat trick to suicide burns:

1. Do a deorbit burn.
   
2. Put a maneuver node where your trajectory intersects the planet's surface.
   
3. Pull on the retrograde marker on the node until you have zero velocity there.
   
4. Wait until the time to maneuver node is equal to the time expected to execute it. (+ some safety margin)
   
5. Burn at full throttle and you should come to a stop just before you hit the surface.
   

Burning the whole way down is very inefficient.

Unfortunately it doesn't account for acceleration, you end up landing much closer than the node, if the land is higher between you and the node you are in trouble. The node does not know the surface height, and eye-balling it gives a large error margin. You just have to almost come to a halt quite high up, to give yourself some margin and then do a burn again closer to the ground. I think it's called a step burn.

Which is what you meant by safety Margin, I just realised.

[Majorjim!]

That's the standard procedure for testing Laythe landers before the mission.

Hey man. In doing thus you will be left with a massively overengineerd lander. Laythe is so easy to escape from.

[Jouni]

Hey man. In doing thus you will be left with a massively overengineerd lander. Laythe is so easy to escape from.

In practice, Laythe landers need more delta-v in the rocket stage than Kerbin SSTOs going to a low orbit. Reaching the mothership may require another 500-1000 m/s from a low orbit, while the margins should also be higher, when you're far away from home.