Mun Landing Difficulty

[recon14193]

So, I recently found the old version archive. http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/24858-Old-versions-of-KSP-%28some-versions-still-wanted!%29

I wanted to fulfill a goal of revisiting the old ksp and success fully landing and returning some kerbals. ( I got the landing not the return down)

One thing I felt though while trying again and again to get back to kerbin, it was really easy landing on the Mun. I was able to land very easily in the past versions, but I feel it is much more challenging in the new updates. So, I wanted a poll. Do you think it is harder landing on the Mun has gotten harder as ksp has been updated and progressed?

[BostLabs]

The new surface features of the Mun sure make it interesting now.

[99TheCreator]

I find it easier, although that may be because i have been playing KSP for a year and a half now.

[DisarmingBaton5]

I agree with 99.

[regex]

I find it much easier to land. All those hills and craters removed all the difficulty from Munar activities, it kind of sucks now...

[BostLabs]

I must be landing in the wrong spot, regex. LOL

Edited September 13, 2013 by BostLabs

[roosterr]

The new surface features of the Mun sure make it interesting now.

I voted no, but I admit, this part is true.

Coincidentally, I have had a Mun landing about every other night for the last 2-3 weeks. I have an anatomically correct version of the Saturn V Apollo ship that I am VERY VERY close to completing an accurate mission. In fact I got it, but a water splashdown is my last hurdle. Difficult to do when you are low on fuel and Kerbin is rotating while you are setting your maneuver nodes. Maybe tonight!? Anyway, I am good for an answer because my first Mun Landing was v.0.16 and here we are again almost a year and a half later.

[Randox]

I can't say I find the craters make any difference to me. The Mun is a pretty easy body to move around over during descent, and it's still mostly flat and level, or close enough for the purposes of landing. The real distinction to me would be the advent of landing gear, and I think that makes landing substantially easier.

Also, experience. I used to struggle to keep a strait down descent while keeping fine control on the speed. Not so much anymore.

[The Destroyer]

Honestly I don't find it easier or harder. The craters are no challenge to me, I can spot out the flat spots.

Even if I make an emergency landing I can still land on a 45 degree. I've had so many landings.

[chuangatronic]

I wouldn't necessarily say it's hard to land on the moon either. I first started out straight vertical descents but now I pretty much approach at any angle I want depending on how I reach my objective. I really think it's more of an issue of experience than anything.

[Vanamonde]

There's no single answer to this question. It got easier when they introduced landing gear, easier when they re-did SAS, harder when they re-did the terrain recently, etc.

[dudester28]

As long as your lander has a low center of gravity, it really isn't any harder to land on the mun. Many people oversize their rockets when landing on the mun and they do so vertically. I, too, made the same mistake until I realized just how minimalist one can actually go.

[UmbralRaptor]

It's vastly easier in 0.21.1 than 0.12, though the progression hasn't always been linear.

An incomplete list of things that made Mün landings easier:

Radial attachment of (stock) fuel tanks, fuel lines (0.13)

Lander legs (0.14)

Lander engine (0.14)

Additional fuel tank size (0.14)

Quicksave/load (0.14)

Even more engines, including some aircraft parts (0.15)

Greater variety of rocket parts including higher TWR engines and larger tankage (0.16)

Multiple conic patches viewable at the same time (0.17?)

Maneuver nodes (0.18)

Docking (0.18)

Probes (0.18)

Some things that have made Mün landings harder:

Increased terrain height (0.14.2)

RCS nerf (0.15.2?)

Lower Isp parts (0.16)

Fuel line and throttle bug fixes (0.17)

Aerospike nerf (0.18)

RCS bugfix (0.18.2)

SAS/ASAS/reaction wheel changes (0.21)

Increased terrain height again (0.21)

[Kerbol Prime]

Its the same for me. The new terrain actually doesn't cause more trouble...that is other than the loooong pause with SOI transfers.

[Specialist290]

I've personally found it easier, though that might just be because I've been steadily gaining experience at it with time.

That said, the recent terrain changes have made finding nice landing spots a bit more interesting, if not the actual landings themselves.

[FITorion]

Gotten harder gradually over time? No. It was pretty much the same... and actually got easier with time from .13 to .20 as more parts were added to allow ships to land.

But .21 bumped up the difficulty a little with the new landscape. So is it more difficult than .20? yes... more difficult than .13? No.

And the only things the new terrain really does is mean I need to start in a higher orbit and maybe do some maneuvering to find a less sloped spot when close to the surface.

Edited September 13, 2013 by FITorion

[M5000]

Personally, it's gotten harder for me. Seeing as I actually started playing in .18, I had access to landing gear already. The ASAS changes don't really affect the difficulty, for me, since I usually disable ASAS and pilot manually, using ASAS to lock headings only. However, the addition of all the new craters makes it harder. There is definitely less flat area, since there are, you know, more craters.

[NeoMorph]

I was expecting the new munar hills and valleys to make it next to impossible to land right way up but instead I found that you just have to plan your landing is all. Use robotic probes to survey the area and then and only then do you send a manned (Kerballed?) mission. Not lost a Kerbal on the Mun that way (and I did lose some in previous iterations of the Mun).

[EvilotionCR2]

A lot of things were added since 0.11 when the moon was added. We had less engines and fuel tanks,no landing legs,no 2.5 meter things in the stock game and much smaller community with almost no rocket builders like today.

Edited September 13, 2013 by EvilotionCR2

[RocketYeah]

I think it has got easier but it's probably more down to skill of the player than to how updates have effected the difficulty, having said this I only began playing in .17, it took me a good few months to be able to do a 3 Kerbal Mission to the Mun, I could do a one manned mission easily, in fact i'd gotten to Duna before I could land 3 Kerbals on the Mun haha So i'd say down to skill of player and how ambitious the thing is you're trying to land.

[Klingon Admiral]

08/15 ölanding on the Mun hasn't changed much with .21.

But I still curse the day I decided to land a top-heavy lander on the Mun ... in the middle of the night.

[DaRocketCat]

Landing on the Mun in .13 was nearly impossible, one had to build gargantuan monsters, take a look at some old youtube vids.

[Awaras]

Landing on the Mun in .13 was nearly impossible, one had to build gargantuan monsters, take a look at some old youtube vids.

No, not really... You could easily get to the Mun with something about this size, maybe a bit larger:

[Geschosskopf]

I dunno. The actual flying of the lander and bringing it to a gentle stop got a bit easier with the new SAS of 0.21. But other aspects of the mission got a bit more complex/interesting. Maybe you could call that more difficult, although I prefer not to.

The main thing is that there's practically zero smooth ground on Mun anymore. Used to be, Mun was a mostly a mosaic of triangular tiles hundreds of meters wide. These tiles were often cocked at slight angles but they were flat all across. No big deal. But these days, small, steep-sided craters are everywhere and at least on my machine, they don't become visible until I'm at very low altitude and firmly committed to landing in that general area. IOW, what looked like a fairly flat area from 10km up turns out to be all jagged at 2km, and even then it's often hard to tell how much slope there is until I'm much lower. Thus, some last minute side-steps are often required now, whereas before that was a rare occurrence. And even then, I usually end up landing on slopes of about 30^. So, I had to redesign my standard Munar lander to add RCS, which I'd never found necessary before, and to be lower and wider to cope with the steeper hillsides I usually end up on. But having done those things, Munar landings are once again routine.

So that's landing itself. But IMHO the new terrain has had its greatest effect on rovers, both in operation and design. Most rovers can climb much steeper hills than they can safely descend, and the inner top edges of crater rims are pretty steep. Thus, if you land in a crater, you can probably get the rover out of it and go elsewhere, but returning to the lander intact is often problematic. Now, if your mission isn't long-term and you never expect to use the lander again, no big deal. But if your dispersed base relies on rovers continually moving around between units, you can't be wrecking rovers, so all your base units need to be on the same side of crater rims. So, either all your base units need to be inside the same big crater, or they all need to be on contiguous patches of relatively crater-free ground. This requirement complicates the landing process and is another reason for needing to do last-minute side-steps during descent.

[Scarecrow88]

Actually landing isn't any more difficult, but finding somewhere flat to land is. Most of the time I now find myself touching down on a slope or incline that isn't apparent or obvious from a few hundred metres up.