flying a moon base horizontal

[onlinegamesz]

Hi,

Im making a moon base and I need to land horizontally on it, but the problem is I don't know how, I did a kind of weird option to put 4 engines on the side, but then when I launch it, it is flipping around. (the Mass and the Thrust is just in the middle)

Trying to land vertical and then with thrusters make it horizontal, is not a option because the "impact" (only around 7m/s) is to high and a part of the base explodes. (I tried it like 10 times).

Pic:

Edited June 20, 2013 by onlinegamesz

[Sick]

fit landing struts on ends, land vertically and flip it to the side. At least that's how i did it lol

[capi3101]

Hmm...sounds like you need to find a way to lower your center of mass. It'd look ugly as hell, but have you considered raising your rockets/fins upwards on trusses?

What does your booster look like for this, just out of curiosity? Are you trying to launch it upright? It doesn't look like it'd be balanced along one of the logitudinal axis; if you're launching it upright, that's probably what's causing you headaches.

[nhnifong]

It's the winglets doing that to you. They won't have any effect on the moon though.

BTW, stick a docking port or a probe core on the top so you can control from there on your decent and you're navball will be oriented properly.

[onlinegamesz]

fit landing struts on ends, land vertically and flip it to the side. At least that's how i did it lol

The landing gears wont break then?

Hmm...sounds like you need to find a way to lower your center of mass. It'd look ugly as hell, but have you considered raising your rockets/fins upwards on trusses?

What does your booster look like for this, just out of curiosity? Are you trying to launch it upright? It doesn't look like it'd be balanced along one of the logitudinal axis; if you're launching it upright, that's probably what's causing you headaches.

Thats pretty much the best negative compliment ever heard, anyway Im not trying to launch it upright and I dont know what you mean with "logitudinal axis"

[capi3101]

You know what, I don't know what "logitudinal axis" means either..doesn't help that I didn't spell it correctly. Doesn't matter; you're not launching it upright.

I'll go back to my original suggestion; raise the position of the engines on trusses. Take a cubic girder piece and stick it on the decoupler you already have. Stack about six or seven vertically, attach one more out horizontally and put your engines on those. Something like this bad ASCII art...

x x

↓x x↓

x x

x x

x x

x x

x(O)x

For good measure, put some lander legs along your horizontal piece.

I don't actually know if that will work; just a suggestion.

[Landge]

Pretty sure he meant longitudinal.

Personnally I'd stand it on end to launch. Then mount 1 pair of the side landing rockets pointing to the side centered on the CoM and change the engines to LV-909's. Those are way over powered if you're using those to land on Mun. Mounting a docking port or probe body as was mentioned above, on the side which will later become the top when landing.

[rryy]

Instead of the four radial engines, you can make a skycrane by placing a radial decoupler roughly above the center of mass. Then, put a radial attachment point or an I-beam right on top of the decoupler and try to align it as close as possible with the center of mass. Then, put a fuel tank above it and then mount some engines radially to that and you have a skycrane! Also, put a remote guidance unit on it so, once the base module is landed and the skycrane is decoupled, you can crash the skycrane into the surface to leave no debris.

Edit: It should look something like this:

You can see that the I-beam is aligned with the CoM.

And here is an example "skycrane" that, once the module is landed, will decouple from the radial decoupler and crash into the ground.

Edited June 20, 2013 by rryy

[onlinegamesz]

Yes it works! Thanks rryy