Horizontal Surface Station Landing

[Ravyne]

Basically, the issue is that I've been attempting some way to land a part horizontally, with legs on the ends. I've been using adapters to utilize HOME's 3m end leg struts, but the issue is in landing the thing. Any engines I use for retrorocketing send the craft into this painful-to-watch spin, and parachutes just end up disintegrating the craft when they pop open. So does anyone have any practical advice on getting this done or should I pursue alternate methods?

Edited October 13, 2013 by Ravyne

[Vanamonde]

Parachutes won't destroy an assemblage if you 1) distribute their attachment points so the shock isn't concentrated, 2) mix drogues with regular chutes so that they don't all open at once, 3) open the chutes in sets with action groups, or 4) some combination of the preceeding.

[Stormwynde]

If you're trying to come at something horizontally (to dock?), instead of legs, use wheels. Then you can land close and drive to it.

[boomerdog2000]

My method was to stack a sort of skycrane lander stage on top (vertically) of the rocket, then dock it to the top of the module while it was on its landing trajectory.

[Ravyne]

Parachutes won't destroy an assemblage if you 1) distribute their attachment points so the shock isn't concentrated, 2) mix drogues with regular chutes so that they don't all open at once, 3) open the chutes in sets with action groups, or 4) some combination of the preceeding.

That sounds excellent, and one of those solutions that you don't realize would work until you read about it and proceed to realize just how stupidly you were approaching the situation in the past. I'll give this a shot here in a bit.

If you're trying to come at something horizontally (to dock?), instead of legs, use wheels. Then you can land close and drive to it.

Actually it was the first portion of a HOME base I was attempting to set up on Eve before I establish Kethane operations.

Edited October 13, 2013 by Ravyne
Was thinking about Mun when I meant Eve.

[Diazo]

Just for reference, here's how I do this.

You can see the rocket exhaust from the little engines I have mounted for landing on the mun. (As I'm on kerbin they are not enough to do anything.)

But they are mounted to 4 fuel tanks on the corners so that the CoM is maintained as you descend because fuel is consumed equally from the 4 tanks.

Just make sure to line your center of thrust up with your center of mass in the VaB when building.

One of my plans is to make all my base modules rovers so I can move my base around, so all my base modules are going to be landed like this. (I'm looking at you Kethane tanks....)

As always, get creative(crazy?) and see what you can come up with.

D.