Yet Another Generic Landing

[dissen91191]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdnyyLcPmEc&feature=g-upl

As the title says this is just another generic landing to practice is there any way i can impove the way i land?

[maltesh]

It looks to me like you're watching the spacecraft more than you're watching the navball. I don't know if you're using the keyboard or a joystick, but if you're using the Keyboard, I'd recommend the following:

When you start your final descent, make sure that the speed indicator is showing "Surface". On that particular design, I'd say come to as much of a stop as you can on the main engines, then lock vertical with SAS, and use your RCS thrusters to push the velocity indicator to the center of the blue hemisphere.

From there down to the danger zone (which is about 3000m for moderate latitudes on the Mun), I'd stick to a descent velocity of Altitude in meters/100 (e.g, 50 m/s at 5000m). Try to find a throttle setting that will hold you there, and use the RCS to keep your descent vertical. Adjust your throttle as necessary to manage the descent rate, but most of the action should be on RCS.

If you have no information about how high the local terrain is, below the danger zone, stick to <10 m/s. If you do have a general idea, stay at that velocity for the last several hundred meters at least. Watch the Navball. The spacecraft is a distraction. Keep pushing the velocity marker back into the center.

When you really start to get near the surface, try to keep below 3-5 m/s. Use the RCS forward and backward controls to push downward or upward as necessary, as well as keeping the mark centered.

[Vanamonde]

Just a suggestion: you're trying to come down with the ship upright and cancel your horizontal velocity with RCS. That takes a long time with the tiny thrust of the RCS, and the RCS tanks run out quickly, which I suspect is why you're weighting your lander down with several of them. What I like to do is ride my descending arc down, always burning directly toward the retrograde marker. This counter-acts vertical and horizontal velocity at the same time, and does it using the greater power and fuel supply of the main engines. In fact, if you think about the geometry a bit, steering toward the retrograde marker means you will always eventually reach a zero horizontal speed (assuming you start from a sufficient altitude). There's no fine-tuning of steering needed until you're just about to land, so while I do use RCS for landing, it's only for a last-second braking. As an added benefit, steering toward the retrograde marker means you can align the camera along the axis of the ship, and get a pretty good idea of the spot you're going to land upon.

[AncientAstronaut]

Keep you engine pointed in the direction of travel... Not towards the ground... sigh

[TheDarkStar]

You don't really need RCS to land. As long as your craft is small or you have thrust vectoring engines, you can just turn to kill horizontal velocity. However, I did like that you had a wide lander, since that make you a lot more stable.