When was the last time you had to land on your engine?

[42undead2]

Mine was quite recently. 15 minutes ago actually. I had originally just planned a sub-orbital flight on Kerbin,and it was just supposed to crash anyways. I then thought ''Hmm, I have quite the amount of fuel left. Why not just try get a Mün encounter?''. 5 minutes later, I have a Mün encounter, and heading straight for it. As I had no Periapsis above the surface, I tried to just land it. Went something like this:

But Bill survived, and is happy!

Edited April 22, 2013 by 42undead2
Better picture.

[Ledenko]

When I failed to notice a reload tore the legs off my Munar lander

[Conte_Vincero]

On a new save, I sent bill, Jeb and bob to the mun, with an experimental asparagus staged lander (my first). Unfortunately I mounted the gear on the lower fuel tank, and so had to land it on the 4 engines. Fortunately as a non MechJeb player I have got quite good at landings and was able to pull it off sucessfully. Their rocket shall be the centerpiece of my new Munbase.

[NASAFanboy]

I never land on engines. Last time I did I splattered jeb all over Tycho.

[3quin0x]

Nothing a bit of duct tape cant fix. If only they brought some.

[cmfarsight]

landing a rover on eve, swapped out the heavy landing legs for the mediums on my standard rover delivery vehicle to save fuel, 1k up form the surface realized that the legs did not reach past the bottom of the nuclear engines I was using, also found out that the nuclear engines attachment to the fuel tanks is rather weak.

[swiftgates24]

When I landed on Minmus to hard, and one of three (Yeah, dumb idea using 3 legs.) legs broke off, so I retracted the other two and landed on my engine

Edited April 22, 2013 by swiftgates24
Picture

[stibbons]

I sent Jeb on a manned mission to put a satellite in synchronous orbit over Kerbin (couldn't go unmanned because I'm using RemoteTech). He got off the ground and circularised in a very good orbit. Got up to altitude and deployed the payload, then turned around to head home.

It wasn't until he started to enter the atmosphere that anybody thought to wonder where the parachute had gone. Jeb still had a NIRV and three quarters of an FL-T400 full of fuel, so at 30km above the ground he turned retrograde and started burning again. Came down vertically, but still hit pretty hard, destroying everything except the pod. But Jeb lived to forget his parachute another day, and any landing you can walk away from, right?

[sporkafife]

On a new save, Their rocket shall be the centerpiece of my new Munbase.

Was this supposed to happen, or was it one of KSP's famous "accidental colonisations"

When I'm designing minimal spacecraft (10 part Jool mission or something crazy like that) it's terrible to waste 3 parts on landing legs, so landing on engines is a necessity

P.s. can anyone remember when there were no landing legs and we had to use decouplers + winglets because they were the only pieces that could reach past the engines

[42undead2]

P.s. can anyone remember when there were no landing legs and we had to use decouplers + winglets because they were the only pieces that could reach past the engines

Ain't that just a classic?

[EndlessWaves]

Had to? My landers are the appropriate weight (i.e. as light as possible) so landing on engines is easy and the first choice.

[SunJumper]

I landed a small probe on every body except the sun and Jool, literally all of them landed on engines, except for Eve and Laythe. They landed on RTGs.

[SkyRender]

It was a few months ago I last had to, during my first Kerbal Tourist Program effort.

The Kraken ripped the landing legs off, hence I had to do it "the old-fashioned way". First try, naturally; I've been landing on the Mun since 0.12 after all.

[TooManyErrors]

I managed to land on my engine when I was doing a Mun flyby in either .16 or .17. Not only did they land safely, but all three Kerbals made it back.

Edit:

I have a screenshot now, which was taken in .17.

Edited April 22, 2013 by TooManyErrors

[Vostok]

a very long time ago. I was particularly pleased with this landing though, especially due to how breakable the old engines were...

[ThatBum]

I once ran out of fuel on a Kethane miner just meters above the surface of the Mun. I had some horizontal motion still, so I landed and the two leading legs snapped. I rolled around on SAS torque and popped myself into the air (vacuum?) with the other two legs, and immediately retracted them again because I was about to fall over the other direction. So now it's sitting on a poodle...not something you hear every day. Mmm...hardware-assisted braking.

[42undead2]

I landed a small probe on every body except the sun and Jool, literally all of them landed on engines, except for Eve and Laythe. They landed on RTGs.

Would that even count as landing legs? I'm actually not sure...

[Ruedii]

Several times on aborted launches I've landed on the engine, blew up the fuel tank, and the capsule survived. I have several screenshots of brave Kerbal Astronauts standing in front of their wrecked craft with the Kerbal Space Center in the background.

[tommygunyeah]

I think mine was my first ever mission to the Mun and I forgot KSP had struts

[Keldor]

The last time I landed on my engine would have to be that time the landing gear didn't reach all the way down to the ground.

[42undead2]

The last time I landed on my engine would have to be that time the landing gear didn't reach all the way down to the ground.

When in doubt, test! (Or as someone would say, explosives! )

[musicpenguin]

Never. I have never gotten far enough to the moon or minmus to use my landing gear

[MBobrik]

The space kraken tore the landing legs off my first mun lander mid flight. I decided to go anyway and smeared the lander all across the surface of the Mun. Don't know whether it counts as "landing on your engines", "lithobraking with your engines" or "crashing engines-first"

[Manitcor]

When building a lander I always do a landing test with no gear on to see how it behaves. In general I try to make the lander so that if I lose my legs I can still put it on the ground with minimal damage (though it might not fly again).

[PIRATEONTHERUN]

Was this supposed to happen, or was it one of KSP's famous "accidental colonisations"

When I'm designing minimal spacecraft (10 part Jool mission or something crazy like that) it's terrible to waste 3 parts on landing legs, so landing on engines is a necessity

P.s. can anyone remember when there were no landing legs and we had to use decouplers + winglets because they were the only pieces that could reach past the engines

And there was the good 'ol mun lander with three tanks at the bottom of decouplers and SAS modules at the bottom. Can't forget that one!