Lander design tutorials?

[rottielover]

I was wondering if anyone had a solid tutorial on landing stage / craft design and function.

I've found little bits of good info here and there, but I have not yet found a comprehensive tutorial covering just landing design and function.

Obviously you can slap some legs into something and call it a lander, but am really looking for someone to go over some design aspects, then some practicalities (similar to the tutorials I've watched on rocket and space plane design, start small and simple and work up in complexity.

Landing a pod to plant a flag is one thing, landing base constructions or large Kethane mining rigs is another. Use of skycrane type designs yet another.

There are some obvious "golden nuggets" floating around the forums, but it would be nice if someone could combine that information into one place.

As an example: you can cover the simple land a pod / rover. The. Landing a maned mission that includes a rover for your kerbals, then maybe landing base type modules. Then skycranes for small things and skycranes for large items?

Icing on the cake: a reusable skycrane capable of both delivering a payload to the surface or taking a payload to orbit.

Thanks in advance.