Need help touching down on the Mun.

[Da_Dumples]

So I\'ve been making regular trips to them Mun, Ive even been to Minmus and have safely arrested the crew on the surface. That meaning that they are alive, not that their rockets are necessarily intact and functioning. :/ It might be a bug, or the game is extremely difficult. Just not I touched down on the Mun at 4m/s and no horizontal velocity (I don\'t seem to have a shadow and I cant fix it/ tell if its a bug) and the second I touch down I spontaneously combust to a degree that I could have ridden the explosion into orbit. That was my most recent attempt. Earlier I was touching down in the same manner, 4m/s no horizontal velocity but the hill is at a grade and I am totally perpendicular to the ground, so my left lander legs touch the ground first and just break off (at less than 4m/s) and then of course explode for some reason. This leaves my ship mostly intact and my ego securely reinforced, but almost unable to take off again because I am now sideways.

So basically, I\'m wondering if there is a bug that makes the ships break apart easier, and also if there is a bug that has shadows disabled, but mostly if the ships are destroyed easier.

If its that I\'m not adjusting to the terrain enough or something I would love to see or read about how you guys do it. Please help and thanks!

[Vanamonde]

It would help if we could look at your ship. Do you know how to attach or post a screenshot?

The legs are very fragile, and even experienced pilots sometimes lose one or two depending on the terrain. If you\'re keeping them all when you land on flat ground, then you\'re doing about as well as everybody else. Slopes are just harder to land upon. But the legs are very light, so it doesn\'t hurt anything to give your ship a few extras so that there are still enough to keep it upright after a mishap.

Any ship part of any kind will explode after breaking off and hitting the ground. That\'s just how Kerbals build things. I\'ve knocked a parachute off and it went kablooey.

I can\'t help with the shadow question. :-[

Mostly it sounds like you\'re doing fine, and yes, KSP is both cute AND very hard.

Happy first post!

[closette]

I can\'t answer for your video settings which might preclude shadows (but also check that you are landing on the sunny side of the Mun with the sun not directly overhead).

Landing can be frustrating but stick with it! Depending on your lander\'s weight, 4 m/s might break a lander leg (I use 4 legs, not the minimum 3), so practice hovering and descending at 1-2 m/s. Not much more difficult than nulling out your horizontal velocity. Having said that, I still mess up landings some of the time.

I left a lot of stranded Kerbals on the Mun before I could get my RCS lander down safely. I watched how others did it on the many Mun landing videos on Youtube as well. Choosing one of the dark, flat plains is a good start.

If you post a .craft file, description of your craft, and some screenshots of it close to landing, you may get more useful and detailed help.

[Zephram Kerman]

It\'s possible to reinforce the lander legs, like this:

When reinforced, the legs can withstand more lateral motion and greater impact force. But I don\'t bother with this anymore, because it\'s easier to just add more legs to distribute those loads.

[Da_Dumples]

It would help if we could look at your ship. Do you know how to attach or post a screenshot?

The legs are very fragile, and even experienced pilots sometimes lose one or two depending on the terrain. If you\'re keeping them all when you land on flat ground, then you\'re doing about as well as everybody else. Slopes are just harder to land upon. But the legs are very light, so it doesn\'t hurt anything to give your ship a few extras so that there are still enough to keep it upright after a mishap.

Any ship part of any kind will explode after breaking off and hitting the ground. That\'s just how Kerbals build things. I\'ve knocked a parachute off and it went kablooey.

I can\'t help with the shadow question. :-[

Mostly it sounds like you\'re doing fine, and yes, KSP is both cute AND very hard.

Happy first post!

Thank you!

Heres a picture, if its not clear enough, basically it has 6 fuel tanks, 3 RCS tanks, and 12 lander legs. I\'m now fairly certain that my lander is excessively heavy.

Also, I cant figure out my settings and having shadows would realy help. If anyone knows what to do I would appreciate it.

Thanks so much for the help, all of you. It really makes the game worth playing

(Don\'t be surprised if there isn\'t an image here, I cant figure out the forums very well :/ )

[Vanamonde]

There\'s nothing wrong with your rocket, though it is kind of big for this job, and is pretty much guaranteed to break off some legs. Many players can land ships that big, but I can\'t, and it would be much easier with a smaller one. It takes a lot of power to get away from the gravity and air resistence of Kerbin, but once you land on Mun, a surprisingly small ship can get back home from there. So land only as much as you need to get back. This ship of mine is even a little bigger than necessary, but I like to have a little extra fuel and the RCS system in case I run into trouble. If you\'re a better pilot than I am, you could do without the ASAS assist, the RCS tank and thrusters, and maybe use the smaller fuel tank instead of the big one.

(Crap. Wrong pic. Just a sec. There, that\'s better.)

Oh, and I still don\'t know about the shadow thing, but I don\'t use it anyway. Do you have 'terrain scatters' turned on through the graphics option screen? That puts scattered boulders on the surface of Mun and Minmus. After some practice, you become able to judge your height based on how the rocks look.

[pebble_garden]

That\'s a large lander. I suspect the trouble is the four slender decouplers holding your extra fuel and the landing legs...I bet they\'re not strong enough for all that torque.

I\'d add some braces across the space between those outer tanks, and maybe a strut or two from the top of the tanks to the main body.

And try for a landing speed of under 2m/sec, if you can manage it.

As for not seeing your shadow, it doesn\'t really appear until you\'re about 50-60m above the surface, with the sun directly overhead. I don\'t know what effect slant angle has on that distance.

[Endeavour]

Your lander looks fine to me. Just put a lot of legs on it in case some break off. And try to land at around .5 m/s.

[VincentMcConnell]

It\'s all about velocity, weight and structural support. 4 Meters per second is pretty fast. Put it in perspective. That\'s more than 12 feet in one second.

You\'ll want to try coming down at less than 1. Use RCS if it helps. Also, try to reinforce your legs. If this still doesn\'t work, try reinstalling the game. Sometimes little bugs can happen.

[Markus Reese]

Definitely a decent rocket. One thing you might do is instead move your rcs tanks onto top of the side supplimental tanks. This will lower the center of gravity and help cut down on the loading up of the landers on one side of the rocket if you have any lean. They will jettison when you take off your booster tanks, but the smaller mass at that point usually wont need to turn your rocket. RCS are best for the large rockets. Also the speed. 4m/s is a final approach speed, and once you get close can cut it down to less than 1m/s, and just tap the surface ever so gently. This last point is usually good to have any SAS off. Keep an eye on your indicator and fly by it to ensure you have zero horizontal.

[Hremsfeld]

I\'d say start small. A single RCS tank, some thrusters, a fuel tank, and some legs. That lander is...pretty impressive looking, but as you\'ve already seen, it makes landing attempts a pain in the ass. An ASAS at that point just seems like dead weight to me, usually mine\'s on the secondary or even initial stage.

Hills are also a bit of a bugger, try to land on as flat a surface as you can. 4 m/s is pretty fast to us, but the parts should be able to support it. Naturally, a slower landing is less risky in terms of things falling off, but it gives you more time to make an error that leads to having a Permanent Research Outpost.

[Khrissetti]

That looks like a meaty lander! Remember that the heavier your ship is, the more force those legs have to deal with.

I can\'t see from that picture, but does your engine drop below your legs when they\'re deployed? Can you take a side-on picture of just the lander on the launch pad with legs extended? It might be that when your legs bend to absorb the impact of your massive lander, the whole ship dips low enough to scrape the rocket on the ground?

[maltesh]

I\'d say start small. A single RCS tank, some thrusters, a fuel tank, and some legs. That lander is...pretty impressive looking, but as you\'ve already seen, it makes landing attempts a pain in the ass. An ASAS at that point just seems like dead weight to me, usually mine\'s on the secondary or even initial stage.

Hills are also a bit of a bugger, try to land on as flat a surface as you can. 4 m/s is pretty fast to us, but the parts should be able to support it. Naturally, a slower landing is less risky in terms of things falling off, but it gives you more time to make an error that leads to having a Permanent Research Outpost.

An ASAS module means that you don\'t have to double up on RCS to keep the thrusters from rotating your lander if you\'re using it to sand off horizontal velocity. Admittedly, the game considers RCS modules massless, so having fewer of them primarily cuts down on accidental overcorrection and RCS wastage.

My stock lander uses three half-size tanks to widely space its footprint. I\'ve only had it roll over once, and that was because I was tying to land on a steep polar mountainside. For the vast majority of the Mun (which is, admittedly, much generally smoother in the paid version than in the demo), it comes down fine.

As others have mentioned, 4 m/s is a lot faster than I usually wind up landing. My typical approach means that I\'m often leaving the throttle at the last near thrust=weight setting I found near the surface, and half the time, I wind up using RCS to push the spacecraft down on my descents, for touchdowns at less than 1 m/s. I\'ve never had a landing leg snap off, but I also don\'t manually land monster landers.

[invalid8]

Just do what I do, which is savescum. Savescum hard.

[rkman]

Thank you!

Heres a picture, if its not clear enough, basically it has 6 fuel tanks, 3 RCS tanks, and 12 lander legs. I\'m now fairly certain that my lander is excessively heavy.

I would ditch RSC completely and one fueltank on the central stack.

Then the lander would still be well over minimum requirements but light enough to be controlled by the command module alone, and have plenty fuel for Mun deorbit and return to Kerbin. However, primary rule is: whatever works for you.

[Da_Dumples]

It would help if we could look at your ship. Do you know how to attach or post a screenshot?

The legs are very fragile, and even experienced pilots sometimes lose one or two depending on the terrain. If you\'re keeping them all when you land on flat ground, then you\'re doing about as well as everybody else. Slopes are just harder to land upon. But the legs are very light, so it doesn\'t hurt anything to give your ship a few extras so that there are still enough to keep it upright after a mishap.

Any ship part of any kind will explode after breaking off and hitting the ground. That\'s just how Kerbals build things. I\'ve knocked a parachute off and it went kablooey.

I can\'t help with the shadow question. :-[

Mostly it sounds like you\'re doing fine, and yes, KSP is both cute AND very hard.

Happy first post!

So I thought I should reward you for your help.

Here is a picture of my first successful touchdown on the Mun with some of my own innovations and recommendations from you guys.

[Vanamonde]

So I thought I should reward you for your help.

That\'s very nice of you, but honestly, I\'m just trying to pay this forum back for all the help it\'s given me.

Congratulations! It\'s amazing what a sense of accomplishment this game can give you, isn\'t it? My first non-damaged landing was the only time in my life I have ever fist-pumped the air. I took about 20 screenshots, and I still have them all.

Did you land on fins in that picture? I did that for a while to avoid the hazard of being thrown around by the springiness of the landing legs. It actually has some advantages: you don\'t bounce dangerously on contact, wobble around, slide downhill, or fall over. I also tried a combo of fins and legs that I hoped would be stable enough to hover/hop on RCS over to get a closer look at one of the mysterious Mun objects. That ship looked kind of like yours (spiffy 8) ), but the hopping thing proved to be impractical:

(Are the

arches

still considered secret? Don\'t look if you don\'t want to be spoiled. )

[VincentMcConnell]

I remember my first successful landing. It was in the Kerpollo Lunar Module.

I was actually sad when it was time to lift off from Mun. I can\'t imagine how it would feel in real life.

[Da_Dumples]

That\'s very nice of you, but honestly, I\'m just trying to pay this forum back for all the help it\'s given me.

Congratulations! It\'s amazing what a sense of accomplishment this game can give you, isn\'t it? My first non-damaged landing was the only time in my life I have ever fist-pumped the air. I took about 20 screenshots, and I still have them all.

Did you land on fins in that picture? I did that for a while to avoid the hazard of being thrown around by the springiness of the landing legs. It actually has some advantages: you don\'t bounce dangerously on contact, wobble around, slide downhill, or fall over. I also tried a combo of fins and legs that I hoped would be stable enough to hover/hop on RCS over to get a closer look at one of the mysterious Mun objects. That ship looked kind of like yours (spiffy 8) ), but the hopping thing proved to be impractical:

(Are the

arches

still considered secret? Don\'t look if you don\'t want to be spoiled. )

Yeah, I landed on the fins. They\'re a lot sturdier and easier to land with .

I did know about the arch, but I don\'t know which crater its in. Ive decided that my missions need some diversity and that im going to look for the...

Monolith

... on Minmus. That shouldn\'t be too hard, I can do trajectories like nobodys business and landing should be a sinch.

[Vanamonde]

That shouldn\'t be too hard

Ha! Don\'t be so sure! I did the math and discovered that Minmus has almost the same surface area as Denmark. I\'ve had a ship orbiting at low altitude for days, orbited a skylab, landed a station, several landers, and 2 rovers on Minmus, driven to both poles, and I\'ve never spotted the little secret bugger yet!

Oh, were you talking about getting to Minmus? Yes, that can be kind of tricky. But once you\'re there, you won\'t believe how much easier it is to land. Taking off, you actually have to be careful not to over-do it. Have fun!

[pebble_garden]

Here is a picture of my first successful touchdown on the Mun with some of my own innovations and recommendations from you guys.

Congratulations!

And that\'s a fine looking ship, it reminds me of the classic Willy Ley design:

[Da_Dumples]

Ha! Don\'t be so sure! I did the math and discovered that Minmus has almost the same surface area as Denmark. I\'ve had a ship orbiting at low altitude for days, orbited a skylab, landed a station, several landers, and 2 rovers on Minmus, driven to both poles, and I\'ve never spotted the little secret bugger yet!

Oh, were you talking about getting to Minmus? Yes, that can be kind of tricky. But once you\'re there, you won\'t believe how much easier it is to land. Taking off, you actually have to be careful not to over-do it. Have fun!

Doink

Unfortunately I forgot that I was going to look for the monolith and so I landed but I still have enough fuel. It should be peachy. But i really dont want to take off! Its so cool there!

And wow, its that small eh? *mindblown*

I plan on doing a bunch of low orbits and changing the orbits so as to scan the whole rock. Might be a bit tricky, but fun!

Side note, I love this game so much.

[Markus Reese]

I know what you mean about just leaving them there. I have one landed vessel i refuse to end flight on because of the awesomeness of the finale of the challenge. Bioman issues a challenge to complete challenges from a list in one flight. I managed to do them all and on stock parts. With the spaceplane down at

KSC2

I couldn\'t bring myself to end flight. It took alot of time, precise flying to get it right, and in the end was so epic, I couldn\'t end the flight. Same was with my first moonbase. I have the save files for that backed up.

On a side note, the angled wings like that can make for excellent landers when combined with landing gears. It is how I do my heavy landers with stock parts.

[Da_Dumples]

I know what you mean about just leaving them there. I have one landed vessel i refuse to end flight on because of the awesomeness of the finale of the challenge. Bioman issues a challenge to complete challenges from a list in one flight. I managed to do them all and on stock parts. With the spaceplane down at

KSC2

I couldn\'t bring myself to end flight. It took alot of time, precise flying to get it right, and in the end was so epic, I couldn\'t end the flight. Same was with my first moonbase. I have the save files for that backed up.

On a side note, the angled wings like that can make for excellent landers when combined with landing gears. It is how I do my heavy landers with stock parts.

HOLY WOW! That thing is amazing! Musta\' been a heck of a rocket to get that into orbit.

I salute you sir in your awesomeness and astronautical magnificence!

[Newt0570]

If I remember correctly, Mac OS doesn\'t have shadows from some sort of glitch. So if you\'re on a mac, that could be the issue you are having.

I don\'t mean using a mac is an issue. If I had the money I\'d get one.