Landing Sideways?

[Captain47]

I have recently been thinking about what the simplest and most effective way there is to build a manned rover. The answer that I'm going with is that the lander upon re-entry will turn sideways, turn off its main engine, and then fire two side-mounted engines helping it slow down (along with 4 parachutes).

Everything works fine in my tests except for the fact that on EVERY LANDING, the MK 3 Pod that I'm using always detaches from the lander. And even when the craft lands at a steady 4 mps, it still topples off. The only reason I added landing engines in the first place was because the force of the parachutes opening separated the command pod (which is understandable).

What can I do to fix this? Should I change command pods, or is there some sort of way to strengthen the connection between the pod and the rest of the rover? The later option would probably be the most helpful.

Thanks

[blubbermonkeys]

Strut the commannd pod together with the thing you're attaching it to.

[zxczxczbfg]

As Blubbermonkeys stated, struts, struts, struts! I've found that a sort of cross-braced arrangement with eightfold symmetry seems to work for me (basically resembling a "catch stitch" around the joint, Google it).

[LickableIce]

also you can use wings (since you said you were using parachutes) to angle the craft and land even softer like a plane.