Trouble landing a small probe rover. Help?

[AxelNova]

Hello!

So I attempted to do this a lot of times but I keep failing. After I figured out how to get my ship carrying the rover to the Mun orbit I've been having a rather difficult time landing it. I just have trouble slowing it down. It seems like I can't hit the "speed sweet spot" if you will. Since the rover is controlled by the probe computer it means it's quite small and very light and it can't handle a big impact and the little engines that are on it don't seem to slow it down enough.

Anyway I would love if some of you would share some tips and tricks on landing small rovers on Mun.

Thanks for your advice.

Best regards,

Axel Nova

[Vanamonde]

You can do more of your braking higher up so there's less speed to shed at the last minute, but that can waste a lot of fuel. How about just replacing the engines with larger ones?

[AxelNova]

The rover is too small for big rockets. I usualy break high but I keep just speeding like crazy.

[Aeshi]

A picture or two of the rover might help us work out the problem a little better.

[rryy]

Try landing using a sort-of skycrane. Put 4 of the small radial engines, a probe core, a few small fuel tanks, and a decoupler/docking port above the rover. When you land, just decouple the skycrane from the rover and crash the skycrane into the ground. This will have a very high TWR, but it will not have much delta-v, so use your orbital stage to do as much slowing down as possible before you decouple it.

[Panichio]

I would recommend looking at the stock 'Rover + Skycrane'. You can learn a lot by inspecting it's design.

[AxelNova]

Pictures of rover commig later today so hang on guys we'll figure this out!

[Jason Patterson]

Are all of the engines that you have unobstructed? If you've got a part blocking one of the engine nozzles, it will still make all the noise and smoke of a normal engine but won't produce thrust. Hit F3 while you're trying to land, and if you see messages like "LT-1 Landing Strut was damaged by engine exhaust." (or something like that anyway) then that's your problem.

It's also entirely possible that you just don't have the TWR to land the vessel you've built, though that's rarely a problem on the Mun.

[AxelNova]

Here you go!

[rryy]

That rocket looks a bit too big for landing on the Mun.

The lander should be good for landing on the Mun, as it looks like it has a high TWR. You may be starting the burn too early, which wastes the small amount of delta-v in that, so maybe add a bit more fuel or, as I said before, make a skycrane like this:

[AxelNova]

Well I tried it again with a bit of improvement and We have landing! It went quite well but one wheel suffered a bit so the rover was a little hard to control and it ended up in it rolling over BUT it landed and it drove.... for a bit. Here's a pic with the beautiful Kerbin in the background.

[rryy]

Maybe now you can practice targeted landings to see if you can land a Kerbal next to it and repair the wheel!

[AxelNova]

Hold the phone! Kerbals can repair?! I have a crew already on the Mun! You say it can be repaired?

[Eric S]

Yes. They can repair rover wheels by standing close to them while EVA and right-clicking on the wheel. You can also repack parachutes and extend the solar panels on a dead satellite this way.

[AxelNova]

The more you know...

Thanks guys! These forums can be super helpful!