Starting from small acorns

[Scarecrow88]

I know this is going to be a bit boring for all you old seasoned hands out there, but I am sure you can all remember your first successful Mun landing, and what it felt like to achieve that first hop. Well I have just managed said feat on my 3rd attempt, and I'm quite chuffed. First attempt had too much lateral movement so crashed on touch down. The second attempt used too much fuel trying to avoid making the same mistake as the first, and I didn't have enough fuel to get back. I also had the wrong landing legs attached, they were too short! The landing was good enough that I touched down on just the engine and stayed upright, but I didn't dare do any EVA for fear of knocking it over. So it was 3rd time lucky.

[DerekL1963]

You're doing better than me... I flew a ton of unmanned practice missions first.

[Reavermyst]

congrats! you're one step closer towards kerbol conquest!

[Specialist290]

Nicely done!

[CaptinKornflake]

You never forget it, even after building several bases and landing on laythe... you never forget your first time landing on the mun. That's the kind of beauty I love in this game.

[Vanamonde]

I know this is going to be a bit boring for all you old seasoned hands out there

Nope. charactercharactercharacter

[Echostatic]

You really never forget. I remember the first time I reached the Mun, I came down on the dark side with no lights. Kaboom. But the second time I reached it, I totally made it! Going on EVA was the biggest thrill.

[NeoMorph]

You will never forget your first landing... the feeling that it's easy now... and then you go for your second landing AND IT ALL GOES PEAR SHAPED.

I really think the Mun is actually the hardest landing I have done so far. Duna, Ike, Minmus and Kerbin were all simple in comparison. There is something weird about the Mun that had me bouncing all over the ground the last time I tried it (manually that is). I landed, did a flip after bouncing off my landing legs, landed, bounced again, landed... kept on doing this for about 7 more times lol. Using springy legs is not a good idea. I can just imagine Apollo. "Houston, the Eagle has landed. The Eagle has Landed. The Eagle has Landed. The Eagle has Landed. The Eagle has Landed. The Eagle has Landed."

Congrats, and may you have many more successful landings.

[Custard Donut (In Space)]

Great stuff it's an amazing feeling, and for me one that endures because i love going going back there again and again.

5th time on the Mun and as excited as ever!

http://i1310.photobucket.com/albums/s656/Sancho545/2013-04-18_00053_zps80c21472.jpg' alt='2013-04-18_00053_zps80c21472.jpg'>

[georgTF]

Well how can i forget.

I ran out of juice because i started from 100k up and lost fuel to gravity. The engines cut and the lander hit the surface with 60 m/s. Fortunately even though the entire thing disintegrated the tough 3 man capsule survived intact (I chose it because it was so tough and i'm glad i did). Not only that, but the impact site was near an arch that sits on a hill and the capsule slid down that hill, then down into the crater coming to rest several clicks from the (at the time undiscovered) memorial.

What a landing eh? It was great because it was time to launch a genuine rescue mission. It was also fortunate that i had a rover only a few hundred kilometers away. After a long dangerous ride it crashed with only 7 km to go. Some stupid bump bounced it sideways while going 36 m/s and it was all she wrote. It was night, i didn't see...

The rescue lander missed by a country mile, lost too much fuel, couldn't go back up. My rover was crashed and couldn't collect the original 2-man crew, still huddled in their capsule, nor the one kerbal who tried to rescue them. It took another damn rover delivery and an unmanned lander, and of course that one exploded for no reason as the stranded kerbals approached it.... sigh.

Finally a lander was delivered, did not go boom and the 'nauts were rescued and delivered to their original spaceships and made a triumphant return to the space station. The original crew went home (in a ship with actual parachutes) and the rescue crew departed for Minmus on their original scouting mission.

You don't forget that.

Completely unrelated, but the Mun mission was the last mission that i did unmanned first. After that every new world was going to be seen by kerbals themselves rather than probes. And also, because i apparently love rescue missions. And i do.

Mun rover. I HAD to drive a rover on the Mun, don't ask. Just had to. It was destroyed while trying to pickup stranded kerbals.

The ship+lander. Gotta have enough fuel. And overbuild.

Horseing around before the drop.

Walking away is not good enough if you're walking on another planet...

You can tell the rescue craft was a rush-job. It dun have parachutes. But they still don't know so they're happy to see it.

"Yeah but if it docks, we can't jet-pack towards the rescue lander!"

No ticker-tape, but there's crickets chirping. Next time land on the right continent at least.

[Spatzimaus]

It's strange, I actually landed on Duna before Mun or Minmus. So for me, Duna is the one I really remember, especially since I BARELY had enough fuel to get back.

But here's the thing. Now that you've successfully landed on Mun, you know how to do things. It'll snowball from here; within days you'll be on Duna. You'll be launching large space stations into Kerbin orbit, sending fuel bunkers to the other planets, and trying to figure out how to get home from Eve. It all happens VERY fast once you've got a design that can get to a moon and back, since most of what comes later is just a matter of scale and docking.

[Stelith61]

It's strange, I actually landed on Duna before Mun or Minmus. So for me, Duna is the one I really remember, especially since I BARELY had enough fuel to get back.

But here's the thing. Now that you've successfully landed on Mun, you know how to do things. It'll snowball from here; within days you'll be on Duna. You'll be launching large space stations into Kerbin orbit, sending fuel bunkers to the other planets, and trying to figure out how to get home from Eve. It all happens VERY fast once you've got a design that can get to a moon and back, since most of what comes later is just a matter of scale and docking.

Hah, Me too!

I never did a return trip from the moon until the other week actually. Never returned from Minmus as of yet. Done extreme EVA though.

But I have sent manned return missions to Duna (1 Lander, and now a station, I have a working shuttle too) and to Dres (Just a capsule flyby.)

My Duna lander was docked together in orbit. I got docking before I landed anywhere!

[Tauge]

Good job.

And isn't chuffed like...one of the greatest words ever? I'm mean seriously...its just great.

[Scarecrow88]

I had to start fresh, as my original unzip didn't have a Screenshot folder or a Username folder in the vehicle saves, which meant F1 wasn't taking snapshots, and I couldn't transfer the vehicles I designed between my laptop and desktop. The new unzip has solved that, but I seem to have another problem. Designed a completely new vehicle to get one man to Mun and back, and it seemed to work very well, plenty of fuel. What I found whilst landing though, was that I didn't get a shadow to warn me when I was close to the surface. With the altimeter showing just under 1900m I was fortunately going slow enough that I touched down without crashing, but I didn't realise I had actually touched down to start with, as there was no shadow.

Is this a known bug in the game, or has something gone awry with my graphic settings?

[loiske]

I remember doing it so many times (i started playing just before they added other planets) first 10 times it was crazy attempts to balance vertical and horizontal speed. good times...

[Shiftyeyesshady]

I'll never forget my first mun landing, because I streamed it live and have it saved on my twitch channel. It was before EVA though. After that, I got really good at reaching the Mun, I did 5 successive landings and returns after that.

[Scotius]

I had to start fresh, as my original unzip didn't have a Screenshot folder or a Username folder in the vehicle saves, which meant F1 wasn't taking snapshots, and I couldn't transfer the vehicles I designed between my laptop and desktop. The new unzip has solved that, but I seem to have another problem. Designed a completely new vehicle to get one man to Mun and back, and it seemed to work very well, plenty of fuel. What I found whilst landing though, was that I didn't get a shadow to warn me when I was close to the surface. With the altimeter showing just under 1900m I was fortunately going slow enough that I touched down without crashing, but I didn't realise I had actually touched down to start with, as there was no shadow.

Is this a known bug in the game, or has something gone awry with my graphic settings?

Lack of shadow happens to me too sometimes. Very annoying. Probably something is messed up in graphic settings. Try changing Shadows Cascade option (or something). And we do need some sort of radar altimeter part - it would spare us a lot of frustration.

[SecondGuessing]

You will never forget your first landing... the feeling that it's easy now... and then you go for your second landing AND IT ALL GOES PEAR SHAPED.

I really think the Mun is actually the hardest landing I have done so far. Duna, Ike, Minmus and Kerbin were all simple in comparison. There is something weird about the Mun that had me bouncing all over the ground the last time I tried it (manually that is). I landed, did a flip after bouncing off my landing legs, landed, bounced again, landed... kept on doing this for about 7 more times lol. Using springy legs is not a good idea. I can just imagine Apollo. "Houston, the Eagle has landed. The Eagle has Landed. The Eagle has Landed. The Eagle has Landed. The Eagle has Landed. The Eagle has Landed."

Congrats, and may you have many more successful landings.

Duna was such a disappoint for me, compared to the Mun it's child play: deploy chutes, wait, win.

[Tw1]

The altimeter uses the "Datum" hight- like sea level. But there is a radar altimeter that gives your exact height above the ground in the IVA view, if you want to try that way.

The other option is a mod, but you want to play for longer at least before you start doing that kind of stuff.

Maybe try adding lights to your lander? It helps.

I still remember my first landing. I went the the Mun without even learning to get into orbit around Kerbin.

The capsule underwent so many changes, and I still get it out from time to time, for the memories.

Lost a leg and half the engines, so my little man was stuck there until I made my rescue rocket.

But this had the advantage of leaving a permanent monument to Kerbal kind's first step into space.

One small step for Kerman, one huge rocket ride for Kerbal kind!

[Spatzimaus]

Duna was such a disappoint for me, compared to the Mun it's child play: deploy chutes, wait, win.

Try doing it without chutes. My first landing, the one I mentioned above, was without chutes because I didn't know you could re-pack them in flight, and I knew I'd need them for the Kerbin landing. Also, it depends on your design; for small capsules or aerodynamic planes, Duna's atmosphere makes things easy. But when I was trying to land there last time, it was with a large (55 ton), decidedly un-aerodynamic brick that I was taking on a grand tour of the system. The thing just could not stay stable on the way in, tumbling once it hit the thick layer, and there's not enough atmosphere on Duna to cancel all sideways velocity quickly if you're aerobraking in. In the end, I had to go to a high orbit and drop almost vertically just to give the chutes the right angle to slow me down without ripping me apart, and even then it was a near thing.

The fact is, my first Duna landing should never have worked. I was sure I'd never land, and then I was sure I'd never get off the surface, and then I was sure I'd never get home. It might be one of the easiest places to get to outside the Kerbin SOI, but that doesn't make it trivial for a first-time explorer who can't seem to get his orbits to work right and who's only just graduated beyond the demo. Mun and Minmus are much easier, if only because you have more control over your velocity and orientation, and the lower gravity helps a lot, too.

[Reblet]

Well, I know how you feel, having just completed my first successful munar landing! I had a whole 0.32 units of fuel to spare... I think I might budget landing delta-v a bit more generously next time.

Doesn't that look like a happy lander?