The Mun's surface

[Rocketdude]

So I've been going on trips to the Mun for awhile now but it seems like the surface is just so crater covered that it's easier to land on Minmus than the Mun and keep you lander intact,I know many people wont agree with this but I was just wondering what everyone thinks about the amount of craters.

[Johnno]

I love the amount of craters. Love love love. If anything I feel that Minmus could use a cratered surface on the 'hilly' parts, in combination with flat frozen patches it'd be awesome.

[FITorion]

It'd be nice if there were some flat places ... here and there... They might have gone a little overboard with the craters...

I like variety in landscapes though. I think I'd like it better if the distribution of craters wasn't so evenly distributed. There should be places of heavy cratering an places that are somewhat flat... Like the large dark mark areas should have fewer and much shallower craters... then their should also be places where the cratering is so intense the terrain is chaotic.

I too would like Minmuses high lands to have a crater or two... I'd love the different landscapes right next to each other.

Also it certainly is easier to land on Minmus than the Mun. Even back when the Mun was mostly flat.

[Superfluous J]

I agree that it's easier to land on Minmus than Mun. It's flat, has a teeny tiny gravity well, and is bright to boot.

But I still like Mun the way it is. If every planet and moon were the same the game wouldn't be fun.

[Kasuha]

I like Mun's craters but I hate its slopes. Especially since hovering with the craft and looking for better landing spot is pretty tricky when you never know which key is which direction.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I like Mun's craters but I hate its slopes. Especially since hovering with the craft and looking for better landing spot is pretty tricky when you never know which key is which direction.

I can't tell you how many rovers I've lost (for science) on those hills.

[RSwordsman]

The moon's craters don't bother me, despite having claimed a ton of landers and rovers. The only thing I don't like is having to pick landing spots based on Kethane distribution.

[Brofessional]

There's plenty of flat space in the maria.

[montyben101]

There are an unrealistic amount of craters on the mun... Our moon has much less

[Brofessional]

There are an unrealistic amount of craters on the mun... Our moon has much less

And Jupiter isn't green, what's your point?

[Kasuha]

There are an unrealistic amount of craters on the mun... Our moon has much less

[Kasuha]

What I don't like on Mun craters is that they can overlap each other in an unnatural way. In reality craters are created one by one and the later one completely deletes any signs of the older crater that would be under it. Not so much on Mun.

[Torham234]

Awesome Moon Picture

Nice one.

Here is the LOLA topographic map example.

[Torham234]

What I don't like on Mun craters is that they can overlap each other in an unnatural way. In reality craters are created one by one and the later one completely deletes any signs of the older crater that would be under it. Not so much on Mun.

Could be something to do with the incredible density the Mün has compared to our Moon

[MrPopcup]

I love the craters, but not THAT much amount! I think they need to make a flat areas here and there, Especially for bases!

[bogpad]

I actually had more successfull mun landings on the new surface than the old one, and especially with the new landing legs, I don't have any problems at all. Even when I come down on a slippery slope. Still, landing on minmus is easyer, but it already was compared to the old mun aswell, I mean, you don't even have to have a lander to land on minmus, as long as it has an engine, you can land it there (but I guess for a good player, that also counts for the mun, not for me though).

It is another thing for rovers though, rovers and the new mun don't really go well together imo :/

[KerbMav]

Is someone bold enough to pull topographical maps of Moon and Mun out of his hat and compare the elevation levels and differences?

Although I do not think that a 1:1 representation of the Moon was intended.

The craters look convincingly enough and the Moon picture shows some overlapping or one-in-the-other craters too - all depends which crater came first and which is bigger, so a newer crater not necessarily replaces the older one.

That said: For me the old surface looked moonisher and I liked it better - not because of its topology but for the lighter color of the ground.

[allmappedout]

There are an unrealistic amount of craters on the mun... Our moon has much less

Really? Is that true? Looks pretty cratered to me...

Up close it's very cratered, just like the Mun. You just can't see most of them from Earth.

Also, if you look, you can see multiple instances of 'joined' craters, just like on the Mun.

Edited October 25, 2013 by allmappedout

[Ekscalybur]

There are an unrealistic amount of craters on the mun... Our moon has much less

I'm REALLY glad I wasn't the only one who seriously scratched their head when they read this. This statement made me question whether the poster had ever seen a picture of the Moon. There are very, very large swaths of landscape on the Moon that is either in a crater, or is the slope of a crater wall. There are even several instances of crater-ception. Craters, inside of craters are that are inside of even larger craters.

[Xetalim]

The craters are fine.

[malkuth]

I like the mun.

[togfox]

I keep looking for a cheese centre.

[Pulstar]

I think it is fine, you just need to practice landing inside a crater where it is fairly flat. Those things are big, there's plenty of room. Neil Armstrong didn't just land the LM at then exact spot where his descent trajectory took him to, he had to hover for a bit to find a suitable landing site. Although for him rocks were the issue and not craters.

[magnemoe]

No issues landing on Mun in 0.22 I actually had more incidents landing in 0.21. Used an probe rover who was hard to fly on manual as it was not totally symmetric and a small dV reserve. Pretty much stopped using mechjeb initiating mun landings even then I got it back, better to just use it to show landing spot and to do the final decent where I always go down to slow.

I recommend going in low as in below 20 km, kill most speed over an suitable area, wait until an good landing spot as in inside an crater and kill all horizontal speed.

This don't work as well for landing close to something, here mechjeb is king but work well for finding where to land.

And you want an low and wide lander. engine below the one man landing can and four 45 liter fuel tanks on the sides with fuel pipes to the pod give and wide enough lander.

Optionaly two 90 liter fuel tanks and two material labs.

[antb0y]

I like the craters, too. If anything, they make the Mun's landscape more authentic. I have yet to run into trouble finding a decent landing spot.