count23 Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 Hi everyone, first post Now that\'s out of the way, here\'s my problem.I\'ve gotten ONE of 7 launches successfully to land on the mun, granted the one sucess was more of an accident then anything else, I ended up tipping over and blowing my command module free of its engines and RCS but since my crew survived, I count it as a win.Anyway, one things I\'ve noticed is doing the orbital transfer I always end up on the darker side of the moon. But I was wondering how people are actually landing their craft within a few kms on the mun surface, is it simply a case of orbiting until you\'re close and do a deorbit burn? Or am i making mistakes with my transfer orbit? I\'m not waiting for munrise, I just hit the AP to 11.4 and wait until the mun captures me, takes a few orbits but *shrugs* I got time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duckunlimited2 Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 First order of business: welcome to the forums!Second, if your trying to land on the mun, you should, once captured by the mun\'s gravity, create a stable orbit. I like 30-40 thousand meters above the surface. Then, retrograde until your orbital path takes you straight down. Another way to know if your going straight down is if you look on the north pole of your navball, your retrograde marker should be on the north pole. When your sure your going straight down, point your engines down and and thrust periodically to control your fall speed. (100m/s for my preference, when i reach 5000 meters, i slow to 50m/s.) right before you land, slow yourself to 10 or below m/s for a safe landing.I Hope that,s what your looking for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VincentMcConnell Posted June 21, 2012 Share Posted June 21, 2012 I\'m not waiting for munrise, I just hit the AP to 11.4 and wait until the mun captures me, takes a few orbits but *shrugs* I got time.Why are you doing that? You realize you could time warp and in 3.3 minutes, you\'ll be ready to make a nominal Trans-Munar Injection, right?Anyway.........Orbit at 10KM over the Mun. Make sure your orbit crosses over your desired landing site. Then, before you cross over it, retro burn until you de-orbit and your trajectory takes you onto a landing site... This is fairly advanced stuff, I suggest you practice with easier things first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
count23 Posted June 21, 2012 Author Share Posted June 21, 2012 Thanks for the tips guys, my approach was never getting into orbit originally, i\'d wait until i was snagged by the mun gravity and retro in, i guess that\'s why I kept ending up on the dark side all the time (when i didnt explode). It sounds like the normal approach should be to enter orbit first rather then just go for a direct decent post capture.In regards to why i didnt wait for munrise, just couldn\'t bo bothered really, I\'d just do my half circuit and timeshift until I got mun captured. It always seemed to work *shrugs*. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Knyght Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 I\'m going to chip in here and say that it takes less time to wait for Munrise than it takes (generally) to just burn and wait. If you don\'t like waiting around without time acceleration, just make your orbit over 120K so you can use a higher amount. You can do 240KM orbit for max time compression but then you might need to time your burn slightly differently (though I think Munrise is still fine at this alt). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markus Reese Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 Hi there, I have gotten pretty good at clustering my structures. I have a few tips that can help. To show what I mean:My first and foremost tip, have some way of identifying the 'Top' of your ship or dorsal side if flying horizontal. This will help you keep track of which way you will need to bank in relation to the ground. The horizontal landed ones in the pics were the easiest because I could pitch forward/back/side for thrust much easier since I could better reference to the ground. Easiest way is to use of the spaceplane cockpits, an extra rcs or something that won\'t throw off the mass/thrust bad on launch.second, capture a nice and round orbit with plenty of fuel. This will allow you to get a good alignment to where you want to land.Lastly, it can be difficult to get a perfect close landing. If you have to, land a little away, then can make some hops a bit closer to where you want it to be. This is good when it is say only a couple hundred meters tops to move. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOC Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 Always land in day light, though I suppose night-time landing IS more of a challenge...Other than that, I haven\'t anything useful to really add. I tend to orbit at 100- 120kms (120 for the higher time warp, as previously mentioned) and burn at Munrise. Get into a >50km orbit, then de-orbit to bring your trajectory down into a crater that\'s in daylight. It seems optimal, and fun!Good luck with your future flights, and may I recommend logging them here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chewie Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 How do you guys kill your horizontal speed? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOC Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 How do you guys kill your horizontal speed?Burn retrograde when de-orbiting and landing.Retrograde (for those who don\'t yet know) is marked by the yellow counter with the \'X\' through the middle of it and means the ship is pointing opposite to the direction it is moving. Thus, burning retrograde will remove your horizontal movement, Chewie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts