Killed another three Kerbanauts in yet another fatal Mun landing attempt..

[Evenger14]

So far I have killed at least 50 or so Kerbanauts trying to land on the Mun. I can never get my speed down far enough, and I'm never prepared for the fact that the altimeter shows the sea level, not the distance directly below me.. (or I miss the Mun entirely) I've only landed once, and I crushed my engine and was out of RCS fuel so I was stuck there. I have the MechJeb mod for the assent autopilot, and I see that I can use the landing autopilot for landing on Kerban, is there any auto landing mod I can use for the Mun?? It gets frustrating after this many tries and not even one successful landing.

The last decent stage I used.

[AmpsterMan]

Seeing as you have the MechJeb, you can do what I do and do unkerballed flights until you get them down pat. I recommend you watch some videos, pebblegarden has some really good videos and Scott Manley (Illectro) is beast. Really I find this game to be really unforgiving, which is a good thing. A note on your lander, it seems to be too small. I would try going for the larger Fuel Tank with the larger lander engine, some RCS and the larger legs obviously. Even if you were able to land with that you wouldn't be able to get off.

[jhz3]

I would also recommend Scott Manley's videos, they're excellent. He uses MechJeb but does not use the autopilot so you can watch and develop your skills at flying and landing. I also think your lander is a bit small and I'd recommend using the telescoping lander legs as they're quite a bit more durable. Don't worry about losing some ships getting it down pat, this is a very tough game (I had at least two dozen failed Mun attempts before I landed safely, and at least a dozen more before I landed AND returned safely). Just FYI, MechJeb's auto land will land you on the Mun and Minmus safely, it doesn't just work on Kerbin.

[Evenger14]

Tried adding a bigger tank and the next bigger engine and telescopic legs, too much weight and the autopilot couldn't get into orbit.. Does anyone have a ship/lander model that I could download and use? I just want to get to the Mun, don't really care how..

[jhz3]

I'll upload my first lander design if you want, but it has a pretty serious flaw. About 2/3rds of the way through the first set of boosters, it will heel over almost horizontal and oscillate badly until they're released. I believe it has to do with the large gimballed engines overcorrecting for the thrust they're pushing. MechJeb will take it to orbit however, it's just a scary thing to see. If you still want to use it I'll upload it.

EDIT- Fixed it. You can autofly this baby straight to the Mun now.

http://www./?q37931gr87pgwme

Edited September 7, 2012 by jhz3

[Evenger14]

So.. N00b here. It download a "Frontier X.craft.txt" file that opens in notepad and says all the part things.. Wut.

Edited September 7, 2012 by Evenger14

[jhz3]

That's... odd. Mine downloads the .craft just fine. Did you try to open the file? Just move the original to your KSP/ships/VAB folder. If it still saves as a .txt just save it as a craft file manually by renaming it to "shipname.craft". Should work fine. Good luck!

[nhnifong]

The Mechjeb landing autopilot works on the mun.

[Ferrit]

The Surface Information in MechJeb is very handy as it includes a true altitude reading which makes landing much safer. Quick save in Munar orbit before starting landing manoeuvres so can try the landing again if it goes wrong.

My own personal preference is from a 10km orbit to kill horizontal velocity as much as possible then carefully drop down to the surface. Keep a close eye on the true altitiude and perform a couple of braking manoeuvres so you get an idea how fast your craft decelerates. Then once below 1000m true altitude slow down and ease your way ot the surface. It's not particularly fuel efficent doing it this way but (for me at least) probably one of the safest and most reliable.

Best of luck to you!

[hebdomad]

One of my old tricks I used to use in my Mun landings is to have a stage I'd drop off under my lander and slowly accelerate away from it.

The theory was it would hit the ground before I did so I would have a nice warning on how far away the surface was.

Edited September 7, 2012 by hebdomad

[Oggula]

I haven't done a piloted descent since 0.13 but it wasn't that difficult, I managed it on the third attempt, and went back 17 times. Get a big launcher with loads of delta V, dispense with the crappy lander engine, kill your horizontal speed at 10km, kill vertical speed at 3km, and always land on the light side unless you have landing lights. Descend using the SAS to keep the craft completely vertical.

[AmpsterMan]

If all you want to do is practice landing, you can take off on kerbin and try to land so you get the hang of it. Don't forget you can save with F5 and load with F9 after you crash.

As far as weight goes, I have noticed with my own designs that each stage should have a purpose. Ex. S1 gets you out of the first two layers of the atmosphere, S2 gets you most of the way into orbit, S3 takes you to the mun and allows you to do manouvers there, possibly even killing most of your horizontal velocity, S4 lands, S5 takes off, S6 is really just your pod.

In earlier versions decouplers were very heavy so staging was not optimal. Now not so much, stage the living lights out of your craft if you have to.

Really, even though mechjeb can get you anywhere in the kerbol system, it can't design crafts for you. I recomend taking a peek in the spacecraft exchange. Really good gems in there.

[plumsink]

Your descent stage looks too weak for your lander. Rebuild it with a couple standard 400 unit fuel tanks and a small engine (not just RCS) and ideally have an upper Munar transfer stage that you can use for part of the descent to the surface. Also, if you are going to use the 3-kerbal crew pod, those things are heavy and your engines and fuel should grow accordingly. Here is a lander I just used recently, I actually have a large 2250 capacity fuel tank on this one and a 100 thrust engine. As you can see it landed fine on a steep incline:

[Evenger14]

Got the .craft file working, and holy crap during launch I go down to 4FPS lol didn't try to take it to the Mun yet, as I figured I should work more with MechJeb in Kerban orbit before trying to get to the Mun. Basically I'm doing my own Gemini missions with a simple 3 stage ship/lander I built dubbed "Orbiter 1", then I'll move on to Apollo style. (I did just start playing this a couple days ago and I really suck at it so I'm going slow lol)

I have three ships currently in stable orbits, the two farther ones are at 350KM, the white being at 90 degrees and the blue being 180. The inner one is actually maybe not so stable as it seems to be shrinking.. Not sure of the altitude..

Just finished circularizing my orbit with MechJeb (I'm a tad OCD, circular orbits are so nice looking lol)

How do I use spoilers?

Also, why are there no female Kerbans in the space program?

[tsakali]

they are unisex.

monosex?

also I think everyone has the same last name cause they are all inbred, hence their natural 'wit'

[Spartan117]

In terms of landing on Mun, what I do is around 5000m on the in-game altimeter, I slow my velocity down to under 100 m/s. Just make sure my velocity is under 100 m/s and as I get lower and lower, try and use the shadow of the craft to gauge true altitude. Not exactly fuel efficient, but it works and I'm able to get back to Kerbin. You can try and practice landings on Kerbin, but the acceleration due to gravity will be greater, so if you apply the same counter-force (thrust) on Mun as you do on Kerbin, you'll go shooting into space.

[jhz3]

Got the .craft file working, and holy crap during launch I go down to 4FPS...

Yeah, she's a big beastie. Served me well through the first stages of my KSP career though. Glad to hear you're not getting discouraged! One last thing, if you use my ship, I mounted the small SRBs on two decouplers to give them clearance when they fell. Mechjeb doesn't know how to handle that apparently, so you'll have to press spacebar after the first set of large SRBs and the small SRBs drop off. This will blow off the second decouplers and mechjeb will continue to stage normally after that. Now I feel kinda bad uploading a rocket with so many quirks, I wasn't a very subtle designer when I started

Edited September 8, 2012 by jhz3

[OdinYggd]

I have the MechJeb mod for the assent autopilot, and I see that I can use the landing autopilot for landing on Kerban, is there any auto landing mod I can use for the Mun?? It gets frustrating after this many tries and not even one successful landing.

Mechjeb's landing mode works on the Mun, and also on Minimus when you get that far. It's not tied to any specific planet.

Most of my mun landings, both manned and unmanned, have been mechjeb landings with manual thruster control to push the craft away from any surface hazards- like other ships in the same area.

[Evenger14]

Yeah, she's a big beastie. Served me well through the first stages of my KSP career though. Glad to hear you're not getting discouraged! One last thing, if you use my ship, I mounted the small SRBs on two decouplers to give them clearance when they fell. Mechjeb doesn't know how to handle that apparently, so you'll have to press spacebar after the first set of large SRBs and the small SRBs drop off. This will blow off the second decouplers and mechjeb will continue to stage normally after that. Now I feel kinda bad uploading a rocket with so many quirks, I wasn't a very subtle designer when I started

I'll remember that. and I'm still not a very subtle (or a good) rocket designer. I have just begun breaking away from the whole "Needz moar boosterz!" thing.

Mechjeb's landing mode works on the Mun, and also on Minimus when you get that far. It's not tied to any specific planet.

Most of my mun landings, both manned and unmanned, have been mechjeb landings with manual thruster control to push the craft away from any surface hazards- like other ships in the same area.

Alright man thanks! I'm gonna try to get to the Mun tonight, whether or not I live will be another question..

Thanks to everybody who came here and gave me suggestions!

[Werwolf]

Good luck Evenger!

[Evenger14]

Yeah, she's a big beastie. Served me well through the first stages of my KSP career though. Glad to hear you're not getting discouraged! One last thing, if you use my ship, I mounted the small SRBs on two decouplers to give them clearance when they fell. Mechjeb doesn't know how to handle that apparently, so you'll have to press spacebar after the first set of large SRBs and the small SRBs drop off. This will blow off the second decouplers and mechjeb will continue to stage normally after that. Now I feel kinda bad uploading a rocket with so many quirks, I wasn't a very subtle designer when I started

It did it fine for me.

Mechjeb's landing mode works on the Mun, and also on Minimus when you get that far. It's not tied to any specific planet.

Most of my mun landings, both manned and unmanned, have been mechjeb landings with manual thruster control to push the craft away from any surface hazards- like other ships in the same area.

How exactly do I get it to land on the Mun? I tried this time using the Frontier X, clicked LAND, it maneuvered like it was going to but did nothing. Figured it knows how to land better than me so i waited, well it landed by smacking into the ground at 500+m/s.

Got me to the Mun though, gonna relaunch and attempt a manual landing

Edited September 8, 2012 by Evenger14

[Felsmak]

Tried adding a bigger tank and the next bigger engine and telescopic legs, too much weight and the autopilot couldn't get into orbit.. Does anyone have a ship/lander model that I could download and use? I just want to get to the Mun, don't really care how..

Try this one! http://www./?jfno1uec1ez14zl

It's my most efficient design ever, and it has never let me down!

[jhz3]

How exactly do I get it to land on the Mun? I tried this time using the Frontier X, clicked LAND, it maneuvered like it was going to but did nothing. Figured it knows how to land better than me so i waited, well it landed by smacking into the ground at 500+m/s.

Got me to the Mun though, gonna relaunch and attempt a manual landing

Were the engines engaged? I know it sounds stupid, but if you jettison the "kicker" stage with the maneuvering thruster, the descent stage engine does NOT turn on automatically. That may have been what happened, because it would cause the descent stage to turn retrograde but not thrust, like you described. I can't see the staging bar on your screenshot, but I think that may have been the issue. If that wasn't it, try to get into a stable Mun orbit of about 10km then hit the "LAND" button. It has always worked for me. Glad you're getting use out of my design, I'm still waiting for your Mun landing pictures!

[Evenger14]

Try this one! http://www./?jfno1uec1ez14zl

It's my most efficient design ever, and it has never let me down!

K gonna try it now lol

Were the engines engaged? I know it sounds stupid, but if you jettison the "kicker" stage with the maneuvering thruster, the descent stage engine does NOT turn on automatically. That may have been what happened, because it would cause the descent stage to turn retrograde but not thrust, like you described. I can't see the staging bar on your screenshot, but I think that may have been the issue. If that wasn't it, try to get into a stable Mun orbit of about 10km then hit the "LAND" button. It has always worked for me. Glad you're getting use out of my design, I'm still waiting for your Mun landing pictures!

Bah I just got on an escape trajectory out to the sun.. All the rage. I cannot use Mechjeb to line up with the Mun since I never get caught by the Muns gravity and MechJeb just puts me in a destabilizing orbit back to Kerban all the time. Then I line it up manually, hit the warp time and miss my retro burn to land and get flung out into deep space. I suck so bad.

[Evenger14]

/Rage quit.