Mun Lander Review

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Spoiler

I built a 2-man Mun lander... Is this an alright design? What kind of adjustments might I need to make?
Edit: I'm sorry, I didn't give anything to go off except the pictures. The lander is a two-stage one, with all engines firing and the outer ones feeding into the inner one. On takeoff, the outer ones are ejected, leaving inner one with full fuel. Service bay holds batteries and a science package, top of ship has antenna, solar panels, and a parachute.

I rarely build multi-kerbal landers, so I'm inexperienced, Sorry

Edited February 8, 2016 by Choctofliatrio2.0

[Nich]

What body? Make sure you can use your science Junior it looks tough to access

Edited February 8, 2016 by Nich

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Just now, Nich said:

What body?

The Mun

[Fearless Son]

Design looks good.  As @Nich said, the Science Jr. might be hard to access the way you have it position, but not too hard, it would just require some RCSing to get a scientist to for data collection/scrubbing.  I might recommend turning the service bay ninety degrees, and if you have a deployable mobility enhancer, have that extend a ladder over the opening.  That way you can access the Science Jr. (and any other experimental apparatus you care to add) without having to let go or use EVA packs.  

The only other concern I had was that on the way back to Kerbin, you will not have landing gear anymore (they get jettisoned with the extra tanks.)  Since engines like the 909 can be delicate, you might lose it on touchdown.  However, since it is relatively cheap this might not be a big concern for you, and is more like a nitpick.  Aim for the ocean just to be on the safe side, and make sure you keep the craft facing retrograde as it enters the atmosphere.  The engine and fuel tank can absorb a lot more heat than the lander can and its antenna/panels/parachute, and they are more expendable by that stage of the mission anyway.  

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

24 minutes ago, Fearless Son said:

Design looks good.  As @Nich said, the Science Jr. might be hard to access the way you have it position, but not too hard, it would just require some RCSing to get a scientist to for data collection/scrubbing.  I might recommend turning the service bay ninety degrees, and if you have a deployable mobility enhancer, have that extend a ladder over the opening.  That way you can access the Science Jr. (and any other experimental apparatus you care to add) without having to let go or use EVA packs.  

The only other concern I had was that on the way back to Kerbin, you will not have landing gear anymore (they get jettisoned with the extra tanks.)  Since engines like the 909 can be delicate, you might lose it on touchdown.  However, since it is relatively cheap this might not be a big concern for you, and is more like a nitpick.  Aim for the ocean just to be on the safe side, and make sure you keep the craft facing retrograde as it enters the atmosphere.  The engine and fuel tank can absorb a lot more heat than the lander can and its antenna/panels/parachute, and they are more expendable by that stage of the mission anyway.  

Thanks. I'm planning to not grab science from the service bay. I might have to, but I'm hoping to keep it, since the science kit is actually one of the more expensive parts of it XD

As for the engine, I'm planning to jettison it before Kerbin reentry. I have a heatshield just above the decoupler

[Zebulonious Kerman]

I think your design is a great step towards a two-kerbal lander.  Some points:

1.  Lower the landing gear to their lowest possible extent.  If you come in hard, you will want the gear to have as much travel as possible to absorb impact.  You run the risk of damaging (destroying) your engines if you come in hard.  You are handicaping your gear's ability to save your craft from bottoming out.

2.  You need RCS thruster blocks and fuel.  They will help in attitude control when you go in to land.

3.  I notice you don't have docking ports, so you likely don't have any stations.  These are good to have early on, as they give you more options down the road.  Things like rescue missions and refueling operations require them.

4.  You can never have too many parachutes.  Put four drogue chutes on, and stage them first.  If you replace your center chute with a docking port, put four radial mount chutes to stage last, otherwise put two more radials on.  It sucks to come in to fast after a long mission and blow everything up on impact.

5.  Action group your solar panels.  I assign them to one with my radiators.  Two deploys drills, three starts/stops the drills, and four runs all my science, to include crew reports.  This will save you time and aggravation down the road as well.

6.  Your science jr is fine; I had mine in a similar location.  You can EVA your scientist into there, and do resets and such.  Just make sure you always retract your panels when on an EVA!

7.  consider adding a few lights.  I have some pointed up, to help with docking, and a few pointed down, do help with depth perception when landing.  I put some low power service lights to illuminate hatches and ladders, and your science jr could use some illumination inside the bay.

Things to consider:

A. Set up a station network.  They don't have to be special, just hold fuel and have a docking port.  Radial ports are ok, but lineal ports allow for expandability.  KSP will be upset that you have a docking port for a decoupler, but strutted up properly, they are way more useful, and have no rigidity issues.  Just make sure you put docking ports on the right way!

B.  Mechjeb.  I swear by it.  Landings become point and click.  Docking becomes manageable.  There are tons of mechjeb tutorials.  My craft look naked without the MJ module attached.

Zeb

[The Optimist]

38 minutes ago, Zebulonious Kerman said:

 

B.  Mechjeb.  I swear by it.  Landings become point and click.  Docking becomes manageable.  There are tons of mechjeb tutorials.  My craft look naked without the MJ module attached.

 

Shhhhhh, tovarisch. Don't go saying that in public.

[pTrevTrevs]

I'm not really sure you need that much fuel for the 909, especially if you have more feeding into that tank. I would use a quarter size tank, because you don't really need too much fuel to escape the Mun's SOI unless you want to go into orbit around it first. I might also replace those small engines on the radial tanks with 909s just to give you some extra braking power when landing. If you have the 2.5 meter separator, use that instead of the decoupler, it looks better and is more compact. Actually, you could even remove the decoupler altogether, you don't really need it if you add enough parachutes.

[Snark]

A few suggestions:

• The Mk2 lander can is really heavy.  If you replace it by a Mk1 lander can atop a Mk1 crew cabin, you'll save yourself a full ton of dead weight.  (And be able to carry 3 kerbals instead of 2, if you want.)
• You can save yourself another 400 kilograms if you drop the stack decoupler.  Just mount the 8-ton fuel tank directly to the heat shield.  You can let the stuff below the heat shield burn off on reentry, you don't need to decouple it.
• You can get rid of the service bay and save yourself another 300 kg of dead weight.  Move the stuff inside it to be mounted on top of the lander can.  During reentry, the lander can will shield the stuff on top of it, as long as you stick to retrograde.  (This will also have the benefit of lowering your CoM, by moving the heavy lander can down.)
• Asparagus.  Right now, you have all four radial tanks feeding to the center, and you jettison them all at once.  Instead of that:  have one pair feeding to the center, and the other pair feeding to the first pair, and the decouplers set up to jettison the latter pair first.  That way, as soon as two of your radial tanks are empty, you can jettison them.  Will save you a bit of dV.

 

[Nich]

 No no-no no-no no-no no no other than the suggestion to move the landing gear down most of the other people here are trying to optimize your design. Also don't asparagus stage it looks like this is set up to  Deorbit and you need all four gear to land so there  no benefit to ditching two tanks halfway through the burn. Lights facing down are nice if you plan on doing a Darkside of the moon landing but in that case you might need a little more battery too.  RCS is completely unnecessary for a  lander so make sure you remove it out of the two-man pod. I don't know what you have your heat shield set it but I would suspect a quarter or less is all that's needed

[Snark]

3 hours ago, Nich said:

 No no-no no-no no-no no no

Just saying "no" nine times in a row is neither helpful to the OP nor respectful to the other posters who have kindly lent their expertise to try to help someone who's relatively inexperienced.

There are a lot of good suggestions in this thread.  All of them are thoughtful, all of them are well-meant, all of them are from experienced KSP players with valid viewpoints, and none of them are stupid.

That doesn't mean you have to agree with them.  For example, @Zebulonious Kerman advised several things that I wouldn't have done, myself (e.g. putting on a docking port, and RCS thrusters, and drogue chutes, and MechJeb).  I have good reasons why I would not have advised any of those things... but none of his points are bad suggestions, they have a purpose and a use, they reflect a thoughtful approach to KSP.  It's just that they're reflective of a different play style than my own.  Therefore, I chose not to mention any of them, because I felt that I'd just be adding too many words to a complex discussion and didn't want to confuse the OP unnecessarily.  But if I had decided to speak up:  I wouldn't have just dismissively said "no no no" without giving any rationale why not.

If you disagree with somebody's advice in the forums, there are constructive (and respectful) ways to do it.  You can acknowledge the poster's point of view, mention that you wouldn't advise that yourself, and then give specific reasons why you think it might cause a problem, or why & how a different approach would be better in some way.  Simply saying "no" a lot is unhelpful.

 

3 hours ago, Nich said:

most of the other people here are trying to optimize your design.

Why, yes.  Yes we are.  Because that's why the OP made his post here in the first place.  It's what he asked for.  So we're helping him.  As he asked.

Does that seem... wrong to you, somehow?

 

3 hours ago, Nich said:

Also don't asparagus stage it looks like this is set up to  Deorbit and you need all four gear to land so there  no benefit to ditching two tanks halfway through the burn.

Regarding the asparagus staging:  I meant on the way up, as ought to be clear from the context if you would read the thread carefully.

The OP made it clear that the center tank is full on ascent, which means there must still be some fuel left in the radial tanks, which means he doesn't ditch them immediately on liftoff, but only after their fuel is exhausted.  So my asparagus suggestion is to ditch two of those four tanks right away (instead of waiting until all four are empty), to save mass sooner.  It's a good suggestion and will, in fact, save him some dV.  Just how much dV it would save will depend on how much fuel he has remaining in his radial tanks upon liftoff, but in any case it certainly can't hurt (doesn't increase ship mass or part count).

So unless you're prepared to show some math demonstrating why you think it would be a bad idea, it wouldn't hurt to be a bit more thoughtful and constructive when dismissing someone's suggestion.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Snark

[AlextheBodacious]

All this stuff is trying to get you to go one way, while the others want you to go against the first one. If you want a cheap lander, use this link to download the Munar Lander. It's a great ship, and if you just take out the stuff you haven't researched, you'll have a fine Mun lander, guaranteed to work! You can put the science on the sides, and the Science Jr. under the docking port on the lander! If you can dock, you can fly this!

[Nich]

I apologize I assumed that the OP wanted to use the two mainlander Can and the parts that he did. I also assumed that the op was happy with his mods.  I also assumed that the OP wanted to go to the moon and come straight back without having to visit a station. In that case my suggestions would be to lose the two mainlander can all the fuel tanks the engines landing gear and use a one man can and a lawnchair strap a rhino  to the back and an Oscar b tank. Turn on  infinite fuel in the cheat menu . Target the moon and burn until you're halfway there then point away from the moon and burn until you're at a slow enough speed you're not worried about crashing. Another option  is To install hyperedit and just teleport your lander to the surface of the moon.or rather than sending to kerbals you could send one kerbal and a probe core so you don't need a pilot then just send the scientist. Or you should just make an SSTO Space plane that can go to the moon and come back you should also put ISRU equipment on So you return for a net profit.

 The reason I suggest you not using asparagus staging is because it creates different moment of inertia is around different axis this can do things that can make landing quite challenging for example if you're 45° to the different moment of  inertia and you tip forward  The craft will tip left or right which can be very difficult to fight on a landing at a critical moment. In addition this craft has enough extra DV that it doesn't need asparagus staging to get that last little bit of efficiency

[Heckspress]

1 hour ago, Nich said:

 strap a rhino  to the back and an Oscar b tank. Turn on  infinite fuel in the cheat menu . .. Another option  is To install hyperedit and just teleport your lander to the surface of the moon... Or you should just make an SSTO Space plane that can go to the moon and come back you should also put ISRU equipment on So you return for a net profit.

 

Dude, OP is a (No offense) newb, and he's looking for ways to do this without cheating and within stock boundaries.

I think you may be missing the point of the post.

[Fearless Son]

18 hours ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

Thanks. I'm planning to not grab science from the service bay. I might have to, but I'm hoping to keep it, since the science kit is actually one of the more expensive parts of it XD

As for the engine, I'm planning to jettison it before Kerbin reentry. I have a heatshield just above the decoupler

Oh, the grabbing science and keeping the experimental module is hardly exclusive.  The advantage of taking data from it with a scientist is that a scientist can reset the unit and allow it to gather data again, in different conditions.  You could, for example, gather data in high Munar orbit, then clear it, then gather data again while making your landing approach, then land, then clear it, then gather data again while landed, then clear it, etc.  What would be a once-per-mission experiment turns into a several-times-per-mission experiment, and you will return with much more science in one go than you would otherwise.  

Having room for a scientist can lead to very cost-effective missions!  

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

Thanks for the advice all.

@Zebulonious Kerman I'll fix the gear. I generally don't use RCS for landers, but I'll consider it if I remove the service bay and decoupler like some have suggested. As for the docking port, I have built several stations, but none in Mun orbit yet. I may do that some time. I'll add the chutes, and lights as well. Normally I don't use them, and when I do, I really don't need them, but better safe than sorry  

@pTrevTrevs Good suggestions, I'll use the smaller fuel tank and 909s, but I don't think I have the separator yet.

@Snark Interesting... I might do the cabin thing, more Kerbals never hurt  I'll probably take off the decoupler, and possibly the service bay (I'll see where I can stick everything)

@Heckspress No offense taken I've landed on the Mun many times, but this is one of the first attempts at a two-man lander.

@Fearless Son That's probably what I'm going to do.

Thanks again to all the help from everybody I'm going to attempt the landing today, if I have the time.

 

 

[Nich]

 I don't know if I would call the OP a newbie with 6 million funds and enough science to have the surface scanner he probably has at least five landings on the mun and minimus. 

Also when people are looking for advice they generally don't want a redesign. They generally have a specific mission plan or astatic look that they're going for.

 To be fair though I really should've asked  The OP the mission and what he wanted to include in the design before I picked apart other people's suggestion 

 On an interesting sidenote while lowering the gear does allow more impact tolerance it does sacrifice on slope because it raises the CG this craft does look nice and wide so it should be able to handle most of the slopes on the mun

 

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

41 minutes ago, Nich said:

 I don't know if I would call the OP a newbie with 6 million funds and enough science to have the surface scanner he probably has at least five landings on the mun and minimus. 

Also when people are looking for advice they generally don't want a redesign. They generally have a specific mission plan or astatic look that they're going for.

 To be fair though I really should've asked  The OP the mission and what he wanted to include in the design before I picked apart other people's suggestion 

 On an interesting sidenote while lowering the gear does allow more impact tolerance it does sacrifice on slope because it raises the CG this craft does look nice and wide so it should be able to handle most of the slopes on the mun

 

Thanks. I mean, I've been playing since early 2015, but I haven't really gone to other planets except for a couple probes.
And yeah, the landings sound about right. In that career, I think I landed on the Mun 3 times, and Minmus 4. 

As for the design, I wasn't really looking for any specific suggestions, just potential alerts to anything I'm doing wrong, or something I could change to improve it.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Choctofliatrio2.0

[Fearless Son]

2 hours ago, Choctofliatrio2.0 said:

I'll fix the gear. I generally don't use RCS for landers, but I'll consider it if I remove the service bay and decoupler like some have suggested. As for the docking port, I have built several stations, but none in Mun orbit yet. I may do that some time. I'll add the chutes, and lights as well. Normally I don't use them, and when I do, I really don't need them, but better safe than sorry  

I think that RCS is an often overlooked but useful thing to have in landers.  Assuming you have the ports balanced across the center of mass, they are excellent for helping to cancel the minute lateral velocity you almost always end up with when going down on main engines alone, as well as making minor adjustments on final approach without having to tip the entire ship and risk screwing up your landing angle at a critical time.  

[Nich]

 There must be something slightly different with our versions of KSP or our computer set ups because as long as I'm locked on retrograde hold I have never had any horizontal velocity when I touch down . I do have to concede though that if you're flying by hand RCS might be useful but my problem would be getting it to only work in direction and not rotation. I am also probably just as likely to increase horizontal velocity rather than stop it 

[Snark]

17 hours ago, Fearless Son said:

I think that RCS is an often overlooked but useful thing to have in landers.  Assuming you have the ports balanced across the center of mass, they are excellent for helping to cancel the minute lateral velocity you almost always end up with when going down on main engines alone, as well as making minor adjustments on final approach without having to tip the entire ship and risk screwing up your landing angle at a critical time.  

(Really getting away from the OP's question now, since that was about a specific lander design and this is more a general-philosophy thing about landers, but since the topic is open...) 

Personally, I never use RCS on landers.  For one thing, landers generally need to keep weight to a minimum, and for a small, lightweight lander, the extra mass of an RCS system is significant-- it can actually be heavier than the engine!

But even in cases where I have RCS thrusters on the lander (because it needs docking capability with an orbiting station)... I don't use them while landing, only while docking in orbit.  The reason I don't use them is that they are neither necessary nor sufficient for helping with landing (at least, the way that I design and fly my landers); and the way that I land would tend to preclude me from actually trying to use them, anyway.

Regarding "not necessary":

These days, I almost always have at least level-1 SAS ability on my lander (i.e. a level-1-or-better pilot, or a HECS-or-better probe core).  To land, I just put the navball into "surface" mode, and set SAS to "hold retrograde."  As Nich points out above, doing that will just naturally bring your lander into a smooth, perfectly vertical descent; it automatically corrects for any horizontal drift.  So lateral thrust simply isn't needed.  The only exception to this is, sometimes in very early career I'll "shoot for the moon" and want to send a scientist instead of a pilot, and don't have HECS yet, and I'll need to do a controlled descent with only level-0 SAS.  But that typically happens, at most, once in a career game.  And even there, I can land the craft OK without having lateral thrust, whereas what I'm really constrained by is low dV due to limitations on part count, ship mass, and tech level in early career, so I need to save every kilogram I can.  (And frankly, at that point in my career I probably don't have RCS unlocked yet anyway).

Furthermore:  The reason why anyone would care about having a little bit of lateral velocity left upon touchdown is tipping over.  I would say that that's the biggest design challenge for landers, especially in early career when part selection is limited:  keeping them low enough and squat enough that they're naturally tip-resistant.  Yes, tipping is a problem... but the solution to that isn't to try to keep horizontal velocity to zero, it's to make the lander low and squat.  I find that when I have tipping problems, it's generally because I landed on a slope, not because I was moving sideways at touchdown.  And RCS can't really help you if the problem is sloping ground.  So by keeping the design low and squat, I solve both the "horizontal velocity" and the "sloping ground" problem at once, and RCS simply isn't needed.

Regarding "not sufficient":

RCS is a very low-thrust system.  It's terrible for doing high-muscle, major trajectory adjustments; that's what the primary engine is for.  RCS is for fine-tuning, where the dV amounts involved are a few m/s, or even centimeters per second.

On the other hand:  an efficient landing on a vacuum world has very little fine-tuning involved.  It's brute force.  The ideal vacuum landing means that you fall out of the sky at hundreds of meters per second, as a dead weight with all the grace of a concrete falcon.  Then at the very last possible instant, you slam on your main engines at full thrust, and brake to a halt just in time to kiss the ground at a near stand-still.

That's a very touchy process.  The entire time the landing sequence is happening, you're pulling high acceleration, and you have to keep an eagle eye on two and only two things:  1. how much ground clearance do I have?, and 2. how fast am I falling?  Make the slightest judgment error or get distracted for a moment and you'll find out first-hand why this landing technique is called a "suicide burn."

So RCS is really unhelpful there.  First, because continuous high acceleration is involved, and the tiny fine-tuning nudges of RCS would just get lost in the huge surge of thrust from the main engines.  Also, I can only concentrate on just so many things at once.  My attention is completely taken up by watching my ground clearance and my fall speed, and I have absolutely no attention to spare for anything else, such as RCS.  Landing's hard enough as it is.  Maybe you can concentrate on more things at once than I can, but I know that if I tried to monkey around with RCS in the middle of a landing, I'd be painting a wide swath of Munscape green-and-whatever-color-Kerbals-are-inside.

The one time in my entire KSP career that I used RCS on landers a lot was way back when I was new to the game.  I used it then for a few reasons.  First, that was back before all this new-fangled SAS autopilot stuff was around, so there was no such thing as "hold retrograde."  Second, I was a noob at lander design, so my landers were tall and tip-prone.  Third, my landing technique was very slow and wasteful-- I was approaching the ground very slowly and carefully in a kind of sustained hover-- which meant I had plenty of time to think about RCS and try to nudge my lateral velocity to zero manually.  So I did it then.    However, as soon as I got the hang of low, squat lander designs, as well as faster and more efficient vacuum landings, then I stopped with the RCS and never looked back.

Anyway, I know that lots of folks have different KSP techniques, so YMMV... just my two cents. 

[Vim Razz]

On 2/9/2016 at 4:02 AM, Nich said:

 No no-no no-no no-no no no other than the suggestion to move the landing gear down most of the other people here are trying to optimize your design.

So much this.  Awesome Space Rabbit is awesome.  I  whipped up a copy and took it for a spin from 80k LKO to a quick equatorial Mun landing and came back to Kerbin with ~50 fuel to spare.  If you package it with a dedicated transfer stage then it should be able to hit any biome on the Mun and return home safely.

I do have some technical concerns that I'll get to in a moment, but overall it's a fun and effective design.  Val and her friend Cardrien had a great time.  I hope your first flight with it went just as well if not better.

 

 

On 2/9/2016 at 7:31 AM, Snark said:

Why, yes.  Yes we are.  Because that's why the OP made his post here in the first place.  It's what he asked for.  So we're helping him.  As he asked.

Does that seem... wrong to you, somehow?

eh...  The OP asked for thoughts or concerns regarding the functional viability of his lander as it is.  Most of the advice in this thread does not pertain to that.  Instead it encourages him to adopt entirely different gameplay styles and design philosophies for no other reason than "I like my way better."

That sort of suggestion is not inherently bad, but pretending that it's about helping someone to better explore their current direction rather than encouraging them to adopt elements of your own is in poor taste.  I see it clog up thread after thread, year after year, every time I wander through the KSP forums and it does get tiresome after a while, so I fully empathize with "no no no no no no no"....

 

Anyway, the lander!

I did make a few modifications in the version that I checked out, so I should specify those up front:

1. I lowered the side tanks and legs as much as I could without looking totally goofy for the same reasons mentioned by others.  Ground clearance is important wherever possible, and coming in hard is a particular concern in this case since the lander has such a low TWR and light legs.
2. Since lowering the legs gave it such a high CoM, I added a pair of RCS blocks to the shoulders of the lander (one quad and one linear on each side) to help prevent it from tipping over when landing on a slope.  If you're using RCS this way, you just switch them on right before touching down and let SAS fire them as needed.  As long as you're not using them for maneuvers or anything then there's more than enough monopropellant in any of the standard pods for this purpose and you don't need to add any additional tanks or anything.
3. Instead of trying to figure out exactly how much mass you have tucked into the service bay, I just threw a pair of locked monoprop tanks in there for ballast. As a result, the lander I flew is probably around 3-5 tons heavier than your actual design.
4. I added some lights because I like to have lights.

Thoughts, observations, etc:

• The fuel and engine arrangement is the biggest area of concern.  Specifically: When the side tanks run dry the 48-7Ss die out, requiring you to finish the landing with just the single LV-909 if you're touching down at anywhere near the lander's max effective operating range.  The lander's overall TWR is on the lowish side to begin with, and if your relying on the 48-7Ss for support than it could be a real problem if they gave out at the wrong moment.

• There are a number of possible ways to address the fuel/engine issue:

1. If you happen to have the Poodle unlocked, then using one of them instead of the LV-909 + 4x 48-7S would be great for a lander this size and would eliminate any issues without having to adjust fuel lines.  Since you're not already using a Poodle here, I'm assuming it's not an option at this time.
2. Moving the 48-7Ss to the outer rim of the central tank is another viable approach, node-attached to girders or cubic struts that are surface-attached to the tank itself.
3. Running a second set of fuel lines from the central tanks back out to the side tanks (in addition the the fuel lines you already have) would also ensure that the 48-7Ss don't die at the wrong moment, but it would require you to remember to manually drain what's left the side tanks into the core tank before lifting off to return home -- tedious, and very unreliable if you forget to do things as often as I do.

• It has lots of fuel which is great, but that also means lots of launch mass.  This is not a terribly small lander.  By the time you've added in a transfer stage you could easily be looking at ~250 tons on the pad, so make sure it's sufficiently upgraded.

• Landing on a moderate slope, the high CoM of the build I used combined with the softness of the legs were a bit concerning.  The RCS blocks eliminated any risk of tipping over in this case, but I would rather not try to take this down on any kind of uneven terrain without them.

• The return portion was aerodynamically stable, and handled a direct return from the Mun to an atmospheric periapse of 30k very comfortably.  The 5t of ballast I was carrying in the service compartment probably affected that, but I don't think that running a lighter load would cause problems in this case. One parachute was fine.

Overall, I rather like the look (omg, space rabbit!) and feel this configuration, and may use it myself in the future.  The only changes I can think of to make in my next revision are a Poodle engine and LT-2 landing legs.

[Fearless Son]

Okay, what @Snark said makes a lot of sense.  I had not even thought of doing the retrograde hold at all, mainly because I never got out of the habit of doing the old beta style piloting (I started when KSP got on Steam.)  That does sound like it will work.  

@Vim Razz's picture reminded me, because it is something I forget often enough when attempting a Mun landing, that a good set of downward-facing illuminators can come in real handy for a lander.  They are not strictly necessary, but they are situationally extremely useful if, for example, your landing spot is on the nightside or otherwise in shadow.  Being able to see the ground below you is a bit help.  Even when landing during the day, I still find the illuminators useful because they show me not only approximately where the bottom of the lander is pointing, but also approximately how far I am from the surface.  The lander's shadow can be a little deceptive, but the onboard point-lights will always shine directly on what they are pointed at, and as the illuminated areas get brighter, smaller, and further apart, your can eyeball-judge how close you are to touchdown.  You do not need a bunch of lights for this, two would be enough.  Just thought I should recommend that.  

[Snark]

15 minutes ago, Fearless Son said:

Okay, what @Snark said makes a lot of sense.  I had not even thought of doing the retrograde hold at all, mainly because I never got out of the habit of doing the old beta style piloting (I started when KSP got on Steam.)  That does sound like it will work.  

@Vim Razz's picture reminded me, because it is something I forget often enough when attempting a Mun landing, that a good set of downward-facing illuminators can come in real handy for a lander.  They are not strictly necessary, but they are situationally extremely useful if, for example, your landing spot is on the nightside or otherwise in shadow.  Being able to see the ground below you is a bit help.  Even when landing during the day, I still find the illuminators useful because they show me not only approximately where the bottom of the lander is pointing, but also approximately how far I am from the surface.  The lander's shadow can be a little deceptive, but the onboard point-lights will always shine directly on what they are pointed at, and as the illuminated areas get brighter, smaller, and further apart, your can eyeball-judge how close you are to touchdown.  You do not need a bunch of lights for this, two would be enough.  Just thought I should recommend that.  

+1 for putting a couple of downward-pointing spotlights for landing.  I've found that they really help, even for landing in daylight.  Really adds to depth perception for "how high above terrain am I."  The only other real clue is your shadow, and unless the sun is almost directly overhead, your shadow can be hard to locate until you get pretty close to the ground.

Some people like to land in IVA, since there's a radar altimeter in that view.  Personally, I can't stand the IVA view, I always use the default 3rd-person exterior view.  It's unfortunate that there's no radar altimeter there, have to rely more on the Mk1 eyeball.

If you're not averse to using mods, there's a little mod that *cough* I wrote which surfaces this information a bit better in the default view.  Next to the navball, it shows "time until impact" in the spot where "time until maneuver" would normally be shown, and "estimated burn time" (to kill your velocity at the surface) in the spot where your maneuver node burn time would normally go.  It's fairly minimalist, just that display, which appears automatically when needed (i.e. when impact is soon) and is gone the rest of the time.  Doesn't do any flying for you, and doesn't really do anything that you couldn't do manually (if less conveniently) anyway by playing shenanigans with a maneuver node.  But a fair number of folks have found it convenient. 

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

@Vim Razz Thanks a bunch for trying it! I'll take those suggestions into account. I have unlocked the Poodle, I just don't like it because it looks weird (Don't judge my rocket building style  )

I kinda stopped using that save after I wasted many hours of work setting up a Minmus mining operation only to ruin all of it due to stupidity, but that's another story. I'll go back to that save and try out the lander, though.