landing on minmus

[putnamto]

everybody always told me to start with minmus before the mun because its easer to land on.

why did everybody lie to me, the surface of the planet is made out of rubber, i touched down going 3/ms and bounced, and bounced, and bounced, and bounced, and bounced some more, finally laying down side ways.

by this point i was pretty fed up with the planet, so i turn on indistructable parts(dont tell anyone) and fired thrustes to skim the surface till i could become airborn again. i did, slowed myself to almost a standstill, touched down, and bounced again.

i am never going back to this flipping planet, its like everything is made out of rubber and theirs litterally zero friction, nothing ever settles. i landed my ship 5 degress off vertical, hammered the controls to try and just put the other two legs on the ground and it just kind of ignores me and continues to fall over.

sorry im in rage mode now.

any suggestions for landing on this crapshoot of a moon, withought bouncing around for an hour.

im done with this planet, completely done, never coming back here again, whoever designed it needs to be slapped.

landed finnally with two legs touching, and the other two less than a kerbals kneecap away from the surface, i didnt notice it till i was eva, and as soon as i get back in the ship it slowly starts to tip over and completely ignores my input.

and i guess with unbreakable parts, antennae are still breakable, when i was sideways two of the four antanae were intact, when i finnally get it back upright and get my science done they are all broken.

[Foxster]

If you are using landing struts for Minmus - don't.

You don't need them for Minmus (or pretty much anywhere really). The stock settings for them are not the best either and need some adjustment nearly always. 

Either just land on the craft's engines or stick some lightweight parts on the bottom of the craft. Also try to get your landing speed really low; 3m/s for Minmus is too high. Aim to come to stop a few meters above the surface and then drop at a snail's pace. 

 

[putnamto]

yeah i realized its the landing legs after i observed it bouncing around, even when i got it propped up on its engine bell and deployed the legs it shot up like a grasshoper.

[Pacca]

I usually live with the landing legs, but I do have to compensate for them bouncing around and knocking spacecraft over. My Minmus landers tend to be very tall and easy to tip, so I actually use the bounciness as a feature; if I land on a hill by mistake, they can give me a cheap method to get to flat ground without burning fuel, provided I have SAS available. Once you do find a nice landing spot, you can make up for the springiness by using RCS thrusters to push them into the ground when they bounce up, if you have them. If you don't, SAS is usually enough to keep things steady while you wait for the bounciness to settle, although obviously that depends on how the lander is built.

 

It can be quite frustrating though, I've tipped many a lander to it. I usually make a save before landing, so I can redo it if necessary (unless your in hard mode, you can't make them there)...

[putnamto]

i tried the RCS into the ground idea when i was bouncing all over the place and it just tended to make the problem worse.

[Pacca]

You have to RCS carefully; never use it when your already going down, only when you bounce up. You use it to kill the springs energy, if you RCS while the springs are already going down, it will make things worse. It takes careful observation and quick timing, and it is somewhat easy to mess up a bit. A bit of a hassle for some maybe, but I like doing it.

[Rauko]

Last night I made a very small minmus rcs lander. Just a external seat, a probe core, three small oxidizer and one unidirectional rcs thruster. Everything in line, with three legs for landing stability and plenty of science. With only rcs I had no dv readings, but I managed to visit 5 biomes in one trip, and back to the orbiter module. I will provide pics tonight.

Just set sas to retrograde and pres h until horizontal vel is small an your lander is somewhat vertical. Then switch to surface radial out.

The key is touching land with almos 0 vert velocity to avoid bouncing.

[Chumpes]

try 0.5m/s instead of 3m/s at touchdown

[Pecan]

It's not your lander bouncing.
Minmus is ticklish, so it moves every time you touch it.

(Honest).

[Duck McFuddle]

Don't blame Minmus. 

I love Minmus.

Minmus is my happy place.

You have personally offended me. 

I'm joking.

 For real though it might not be Minmus's fault. Minmus does have very low gravity (One of the reasons it's good for beginners), so you will bounce a bit coming down too hard. HOWEVER! If you do everything possible and it still does something like this, it could be a bug. Glitches happen. Try validating your files, removing mods, basically just trying to eliminate any possibility of bugs. If all else fails, you can reinstall KSP - it's not the best option, but it should fix any issues. 

Well, bottom line is to blame bugs first. Or maybe you're just doing something wrong.

Edited December 22, 2018 by Duck McFuddle

[Dan Kerman]

Tried my first attempt at landing on Minmus. Got out there with dV to spare....  everything went very smoothly until about 600m above the surface... it was like I sucked down.. and the more thrust I used, the faster I descended until..  well, you know  Kaboom! Ermmmm

[Kryxal]

Well, SOMEBODY just had to ask "Where is the Earth-shattering kaboom?"...

[Ethanrocco]

Who ever told you that landing on Minimus is lying. The Mun is closer and allows for easier landings, even though Minimus has lower gravity (aka more bouncing) 

If you are hovering above lets say ~100m above minimus' surface, then yea 3m/s is decent, but if you are almost about to hit the ground, ~20-10m above, then be real gentle and be at 1-.5m/s, that way you can guarantee that landing. 

just use normal landing legs, strap them on to the fuel tank and you should be able to land on Mun or with a softer landing, Minimus (that is if your doing a career run or just wanna go there, other than that the moon is pretty barren anyways.)

Edit: btw you can always DM me on steam for any questions   https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198051228489/

Edited December 22, 2018 by Ethanrocco

[Pecan]

13 hours ago, Ethanrocco said:

Who ever told you that landing on Minimus is lying

I say Minmus is easier.  Lower gravity and big flat spaces make it much easier than Mun.  In addition it's much easier to design and build a Minmus return lander because TWR and dV requirements are lower.  The only bit about a Minmus trip that is harder is the potential plane-change.

Whoever says Mun is closer clearly still thinks distance is the governing feature of spaceflight and calling people who disagree liars is a way to win arguments.

[Loren Pechtel]

In my opinion Minmus is easier because the lower gravity is more forgiving of getting the landing burn right.

However, as you have experienced landing legs are bouncy.  I accept the drag penalty of a squatter rocket and it's much better behaved.  Also, in low g 3 m/s is asking for bouncing, land more gently.

[Ethanrocco]

I am not saying that it is ultimately harder to land on Minimus than on the Mun, im saying for someone i assume hasn't tried landing on the Mun should land on the Mun first.  
 

Quote

Whoever says Mun is closer clearly still thinks distance is the governing feature of spaceflight and calling people who disagree liars is a way to win arguments.

okay, ouch. you dont need to be some smartass to figure out that i was tired at 12am and just wanted to help, i even did some typos. And no, I dont think that Distance is a "governing feature of spaceflight" since the more fuel you burn the more speed you get, and your trajectory gets exponentially larger the closer you get to the escape velocity. If he is able to get a capture on Minimus, great, if hes not able to be slow enough to land, then he needs to be at a slow pace so he doesnt collide or bounce off the surface. 

Edit: Not going to reply again, since apparently people criticize everything when its about trying to help someone that seems pretty new to the game. (BTW if the player is new, they probably wont know that TWR or dV stands for, let alone figuring out what it means)  

Edited December 22, 2018 by Ethanrocco

[dire]

On 12/18/2018 at 11:30 PM, putnamto said:

everybody always told me to start with minmus before the mun because its easer to land on.

why did everybody lie to me, the surface of the planet is made out of rubber, i touched down going 3/ms and bounced, and bounced, and bounced, and bounced, and bounced some more, finally laying down side ways.

by this point i was pretty fed up with the planet, so i turn on indistructable parts(dont tell anyone) and fired thrustes to skim the surface till i could become airborn again. i did, slowed myself to almost a standstill, touched down, and bounced again.

i am never going back to this flipping planet, its like everything is made out of rubber and theirs litterally zero friction, nothing ever settles. i landed my ship 5 degress off vertical, hammered the controls to try and just put the other two legs on the ground and it just kind of ignores me and continues to fall over.

sorry im in rage mode now.

any suggestions for landing on this crapshoot of a moon, withought bouncing around for an hour.

im done with this planet, completely done, never coming back here again, whoever designed it needs to be slapped.

landed finnally with two legs touching, and the other two less than a kerbals kneecap away from the surface, i didnt notice it till i was eva, and as soon as i get back in the ship it slowly starts to tip over and completely ignores my input.

and i guess with unbreakable parts, antennae are still breakable, when i was sideways two of the four antanae were intact, when i finnally get it back upright and get my science done they are all broken.

You are totally right, I had to reload my landing and try a second time on the big one in this image because it turns out, even though the parts i landed on are rated for a 45 m/s impact they just split apart and explode anyway!!!1

15 meters per second was totally doable, though. Landed the big tower on a pair of sparks (the 0.1 mass engine) at 1.07 TWR. And yes, it bounced several times (7 m/s, 3 m/s, 1 m/s....) but luckily it's pretty SASsy when its tanks are completely empty (those green rings are 39,000 Snacks! that I need to grow on Minmus, not to mention I completely drained the fuel tanks landing it...)

Edited December 23, 2018 by dire

[Pecan]

18 hours ago, Ethanrocco said:

Edit: Not going to reply again, since apparently people criticize everything when its about trying to help someone that seems pretty new to the game. (BTW if the player is new, they probably wont know that TWR or dV stands for, let alone figuring out what it means)  

Don't worry, you're welcome here and this community does not get toxic, except about MechJeb.  The moderators wouldn't have it any other way *grin*.  You've just got to have a better explanation for your counter-opinions.  You aren't the only one who says Mun is easier though.

The essential truth here is that the landing gear are currently disfunctional, so what should be 'easy' landings are too bouncy or result in a runway exploding, etc.