Easiest planet to land on?

[Mr Kerbal Man]

After 70 hours of gameplay i finally started landing craft on the mun effectively, now i want to go to another planet, what is the easiest planet to land on that isnt a moon?

[18Watt]

Moved to Gameplay Questions for better visibility.

[DeadJohn]

"It depends". Eve or Duna can be reached with a rocket that's just a little bit larger than a typical Mun rocket. I would try Duna first, then Eve.

Eve has a very thick atmosphere so parachutes work well; you can just settle to a landing without having to control your ship. The landing challenge of Eve is because the atmosphere is so thick there's a more risk of burning up during entry than at Kerbin. Eve landers need good heat shields. The other challenge at Eve is trying to takeoff because that thick atmosphere requires a lot of fuel to get back to orbit. Consider Eve a one-way trip for probes and wait to learn how it works before trying to land Kerbals.

Duna has a very thin atmosphere where parachutes barely slow you down. You need to rely on rocket power for landing so the final part of landing at Duna is harder than Eve. If you can land on the Mun with no atmosphere, though, you shouldn't have much trouble at Duna. Heating and takeoff are much easier at Duna than Eve.

Laythe is much like Kerbin so the actual landing will be very familiar to you with parachutes and not too much heating. Navigating to Laythe, though, is more difficult than for Eve and Duna.

[Rutabaga22]

Well, Kerbin is pretty easy to land on due to it's proximity to the KSC, 

I would probably recommend going to duna first. It can be landed on with parachutes only( if you have a small lander), it's got easy to land on terrain, and it's not hard to return from.

[Zhetaan]

10 hours ago, Mr Kerbal Man said:

[W]hat is the easiest planet to land on that isnt a moon?

Putting aside Kerbin as a trivial case, Duna and Eeloo are the easiest to land on.  Duna is extremely forgiving with its thin atmosphere, but Mun landings make good preparation for Eeloo.  The difference is getting there:  if your question is just about landing, then I'd say it's about even.  If it's about the entirety of the trip, then Duna wins handily.

Moho:  It's actually not too challenging to land on, though it's the most difficult planet in the game to reach.  Moho is made as a challenge for navigation.  It's not totally easy to land on either; the surface gravity is about twice that of the Mun.

Eve:  Before heating was implemented, this was the easiest landing in the game provided you had a parachute.  Now, landing here is tricky.  Aerobraking is actually difficult because there's a very narrow range between failing to capture and burning up--and depending on your incoming velocity, there may be no safe approach without a braking burn.  Eve is also a challenge planet:  it's the most difficult to leave.

Kerbin:  Landing here is arguably the easiest, but again, it's trivial.

Duna:  Of the planets with atmospheres, Duna is the most forgiving for aerobraking--even more so than Kerbin.  One is cautioned that parachutes often are not enough to carry the mass of an interstellar vessel, and so parachutes on Duna are often best used to assist a powered landing, but totally passive parachute landings are possible if one can control the vessel mass.

Dres:  Dres is actually easier, theoretically, to land on than the Mun, since it has .115 gee of surface gravity compared to the Mun's .166 gee.  However, the gravity is, I think, overcome by the more uneven terrain.  The orbit is rather sharply inclined to the ecliptic, so it's more difficult to reach, as well.

Jool:  Arguably the most difficult planet to land on.  Let us know if you manage to do it.  Take Dart engines:  they're the only ones that work at 15 atmospheres.

Eeloo:  Essentially identical surface gravity to the Mun (Eeloo is .172 gee; Mun is .166 gee) means that if one can land successfully on the Mun, then one can do the same here.  The terrain is easier and more forgiving, too.  Eeloo's main drawbacks are its distance and its orbital inclination, but some creative navigation (and a gravity assist from Jool) can readily lighten that burden.

[Scarecrow71]

My own ranking of planets to land on, from easiest to hardest.  Keep in mind that I am intentionally leaving Kerbin off this list because you should have plenty of experience landing back on Kerbin after getting into space (and I assume OP is asking about planets OTHER than Kerbin).

1. Dres.  Although there are those out there that claim this rock doesn't exist, I firmly believe and have proof that it does.  It's easy to land on due to the low gravity and no atmosphere, but it can be difficult to get to depending upon the craft you are using to do so.
2. Duna.  The atmosphere on Duna is nearly negligible (in my opinion), but it has enough of one that you can use parachutes for the landing.  If you take an Engineer with you, you can use them to repack the chutes and potentially use the lander as a return vehicle to Kerbin.
3. Eeloo.  Much like Dres, getting there is the problem.  Eeloo can be a bit tricky to get to due to inclination, which then makes orbiting and landing a bit of a trick as well.  However, its low gravity and relatively smooth surface (in most places that I've seen) make landing here easy enough.
4. Moho.  Proximity to Kerbol is what makes this difficult.  Takes a lot more dV to get there than you'd want to use, and it takes a bit more dV to land on then you'd think it would.  And if you mess up getting there, you could wind up a bit closer to Kerbol than you'd like.  Gravity here might be a tad...problematic.
5. Eve.  The atmosphere alone has claimed far more landers and probes than people wish to admit.  There's a ton of memes simply expressing how difficult it is to touch down and take off.  If you can get down to ~60km in the atmosphere without blowing up, you have a shot at hitting the ground.
6. Jool.  Technically, you cannot land on Jool.  It has no actual surface in-game to land on, which makes it beyond impossible to do.

Remember this is only one person's view of things, and what I have experienced may very well be what others have not.  Your mileage WILL, not may, vary.

[Zacspace]

Laythe is Jool's first moon, so it technically isn't what OP's asking for, but I think what they really meant is some place that's not a moon of Kerbin. I don't necessarily think it's a better destination than Duna, I just though I'd point it out as being deceptively noob friendly.

it takes about 2000m/s to get a Jool encounter from Kerbin orbit. If you tweak that encounter to meet up with Laythe's upper atmosphere (at the right place and from the right direction) you'll be able to aerobrake into Laythe orbit in a single pass without needing to take any particular measures against heat, just like at Kerbin. Parachutes will also work about as well on Laythe as they do on Kerbin. Basically, anything you throw at Laythe will land there, the hardest part is getting the encounter set up.

The downsides being that landing on Land is going to be a little trickier since Laythe is mostly ocean, and also that Laythe's similarity to Kerbin makes it similarly difficult to escape. If you decide to take it on, maybe send something unmanned, I suggest a little jet plane.

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, Zacspace said:

he downsides being that landing on Land is going to be a little trickier since Laythe is mostly ocean

Which is why I use MechJeb.  Select a landing spot and let the computer do the work.

[Vanamonde]

Just about anything with a heat shield and a parachute can land on Eve. Almost nothing comes back from it, though... 

[magnemoe]

On 11/1/2022 at 7:56 PM, Vanamonde said:

Just about anything with a heat shield and a parachute can land on Eve. Almost nothing comes back from it, though... 

True, downside is that you will come in at quite some velocity, for an small probe you are likely to slow down pretty fast you can easy get roasted. 

Duna, you come in slower I say you don't need an heat shield on an minimum energy trajectory but bring one if unsure. 
You will land at solid ground. Make sure to have an drogue parachute and couple of standard, set pressure to open to minimum and have landing engines even on an small robotic rover, again probably not needed but stupid to break wheels and more lightweight than some landing legs system. 
You can also use the landing engines to slow you down in the atmosphere but drogues are lightweight. 

Yes I probably made is sound hard but its much easier than landing on the Mun, you could even do an powered landing Mun style or use an parachute for the final part to help killing your horizontal movement. As on the Mun landing an rover you want to have an landing rocket on top of your rover who you eject after landing. 

If you want an manned mission with return 2000 m/s is minimum from surface so I go with 2500 m/s after you get your intercept. Here I would want multiple parachutes

Edited November 11, 2022 by magnemoe

[jimmymcgoochie]

Try Minmus first- it’s trivially easy to land there, even a Kerbal with an EVA pack can land from orbit, but the inclined and slightly eccentric(?) orbit of Kerbin makes it good practice for interplanetary journeys which are all inclined relative to Kerbin: flying from Kerbin to Minmus, and between Minmus and the Mun, will give you plenty of opportunities to get to grips with the mechanics of interplanetary transfers without needing much fuel to do so or waiting around for years for the transfer window to open.

Minmus is also an ideal place to gather a lot of easy science and also to set up a mining base to make fuel, which makes things a lot easier in the long term as you don’t need to launch all that heavy fuel from Kerbin on a huge and expensive rocket if you can lob it down from Minmus instead.

[Kerbal123_Furry]

On 11/2/2022 at 2:56 AM, Vanamonde said:

Just about anything with a heat shield and a parachute can land on Eve. Almost nothing comes back from it, though... 

Landing is ez but hard to return(Land 200 tons of parts and preventing them from disassembly)

[Richmountain112]

0: Kerbin. The end of a manned spacecraft always ends up back at Kerbin. This is trivial.

1: Jool (1-way) I would say Jool if it weren't for the fact that it has no surface. This means that anything that reaches -250m will inevitably explode. Plus the only thing that you’d send down here anyways are small probes.

2: Eve (One-Way. The thick atmosphere makes it pretty easy to actually land on. Assuming your ship is well designed and has a parachute.