I suck at Mun missions

[zapman987]

So I suck at Mun missions. Playing Career, Ive managed to land once (and crash I quit counting times).

My problem is fuel. I can not get a decent ship out into orbit, orbiting the moon, and land; without burning tons of fuel, much less try to get back.

My generic ship is a mk1 pod, legs, some FL 400 tanks, a 909 and some t45 engines. Normally 3 stages (last is landing), with solid rocket assist.

Anyone give me some tips on how to get more efficient? While I know I could build something like an apollo11 replica, I dont have docking ports yet, nor landing cans, and really want to learn how to do this properly without.

[Vanamonde]

Are you asking for help with flying, design, or both? Pictures of your ship might help. Meanwhile, here's a walkthrough for moon missions with a sandbox example ship, and the third ship in this thread is a career mode moon ship using parts from tiers 0-3 only.

[mcirish3]

Well let me try to help. WElcome to KSP by the way.

First off I think any one of the winners or finalists in this competition would do the trick and give you a guide on future builds.http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58037-BSC-Kerbal-X-We-have-a-winner%21 But to be honest you build does not have to be that elaborate.

That said one thing you may want to learn about is Asparagus staging if you dont know about it already. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Tutorial:Asparagus_Staging It is the single best way to make your rocket more efficient.

The second thing you want to learn about is the Hohmann transfer https://www.google.com/search?q=hohmann+transfer&oq=Homan+transfer&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0l5.6411j0j8&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8

The Hohmann transfer is just a fancy way of saying this is the most efficient way to change orbits which is what you are doing when you head for the moon. Luckily that is easy in KSP since the maneuver node basically does that for you. All you have to do is increase the pro grade marker until the post burn orbit just crosses the orbital line of the Mun. Then pull this along your current orbit until you get an intercept. (of course I am assuming a fairly good equatorial orbit)

As far as landing goes. Try not to start your burn too soon. The most efficient burn is one that brings your craft to a stop just in time to land. Of course most of us are not that good at getting it perfect. What I do is try to bring my craft a 0 horizontal speed about 3-5 km above the surface then try and gage a a last minute burn from there.

I hope some of this helps.

Oh for a mun burn towards the Mun just as it comes over the horizon of Kerbin when in low Kerbin orbit usually gets you a fairly efficient Mun injection.

Also, this might suprise you but it takes less energy and thus less total fuel to go the Minmus and back. If you dont want to rebuild your Mun ship and lander send it to Minimus instead and get your first non Kerbin landing under your belt. Land on what looks like flat places they are frozen lakes and are very flat so your ship wont tip over easy. The Mun is very hard to find a flat place to land on so your lander there should have a wide base so it does not tip over.

Edited November 25, 2013 by mcirish3
Alternative ending

[GraviTykillz]

Just did a Mun Landing today.

I have to say that although I did not have mcjeb onboard today.

Mcjeb is what taught me how to land.

theres plenty of ships available in the stock craft section.

experiment with some of them or i would mail you this craft if you want

[Traches]

It's tough to offer more help without more detail, but I'd leave the SRBs at home. They are good at launch, for increasing your thrust, but they're very heavy for the delta V they give you and aren't worth using in space.

One of the more efficient landings is one where you bring your periapse as close as possible to the surface (without hitting terrain!) And then when you get there, burn towards surface retrograde, and also above or below it, with the goal of zeroing out your horizontal velocity as close to the ground as possible.

[mcirish3]

It's tough to offer more help without more detail, but I'd leave the SRBs at home. They are good at launch, for increasing your thrust, but they're very heavy for the delta V they give you and aren't worth using in space.

One of the more efficient landings is one where you bring your periapse as close as possible to the surface (without hitting terrain!) And then when you get there, burn towards surface retrograde, and also above or below it, with the goal of zeroing out your horizontal velocity as close to the ground as possible.

Yep, forgot to talk about that.

[capi3101]

Alright - so you're in career; from the sound of it, you've unlocked Survivability and General Rocketry on Tier 2, but not necessarily Stability. I'm assuming you've gotten no farther than that.

First off - forget asparagus. You need fuel lines for that, and those won't become available until Fuel Systems on Tier 4. It's serial or nothing.

Let's talk design first:

CSM/LANDER

Mk1 Command Pod x1

Mk2-R Radial Parachute x2 (set these port and starboard on the command pod)

Mystery Goo Containment Unit x2 (around the bast of the command pod)

TR-18A Stack Decoupler x1

FL-T400 Fuel Tank x1

LV-909 Liquid Fuel Engine x1

Modular Girder Segment x4 (set these radially as close to the bottom of your craft as you can get them)

LT-1 Landing Struts x4 (set these on the ends of the girders - we're trying to widen the base of the ship when you go to land).

This is what I crudely call a "Phallus 7" design; it's about as basic of a direct ascent lander as you can get. 5.1 tonnes, 1904.68 m/s of delta-V - which is just enough to get down, up and back to Kerbin.

A transfer stage to go from Kerbin to the Mün needs 1070 m/s give or take. So that piece looks like this:

TR-18A x1

FL-T400 Fuel Tank x1

LV-909 x1

That'll actually give you 1116.82 m/s of delta-V.

It just remains then to get that into orbit. Try this:

TR-18A x1

9 stacks of:

=FL-T400x6

=FL-T200x1

(Set one centerline, eight radially - use Modular Girder Segments to attach).

LV-T45 x1 (center stack)

LV-T30 x8 (outboard stacks)

That'll get you 4577.49 m/s of delta-V and a 1.32 launch TWR. You might have to turn on parts clipping (ALT-F12) to get it to work.

This single stage rocket is the least efficient means of getting your payload up, but at least it will be relatively simple to build.

Okay. So launch - straight up to 10k, then 090 at 45 degrees elevation until you're at T-35 seconds to apoapsis. Then follow your prograde vector. If you fall below T-30 to apoapsis at any time, return to 45 degrees elevation. Above T-60 to apoapsis, begin burning along the horizon. Burn until your apoapsis is up around 110,000 meters or so. All the while, watch your gee meter - you want to throttle back occasionally such that the needle stays right at the top of the green section of the gauge (not above it). Once you're out of atmosphere, set up your maneuver node and burn for orbit when you're ready. You'll probably want to do that at about 1/3 thrust. Dump the booster once you're in orbit.

Next, align your map view so that you're looking at it top down, and target the Mün. Set it up so that if the top of the screen is 12:00, the Mün is somewhere around 3:30 or so (about 100 degrees from the top going clockwise). Set up a node at the 6:00 position and pull prograde until you get an encounter. Use the data from the maneuver node to time it - you want roughly half your burn to occur both before and after the node. You might want to light your transfer stage engine and fire it up for a few seconds before you get there; it won't throw things off too far and it'll give you a better time estimate. Burn when the time comes and adjust as necessary. When you get to the Mün's SOI, burn retrograde at periapsis to establish orbit. You want to get it relatively close - 14k is good. Pick a landing site, burn to deorbit, and dump the transfer stage.

Here's the tricky bit - quicksave (F5) before you begin (and F9 to quickload after a foul-up). Go IVA and find your radar altimeter - the gauge that looks like this:

Keep an eye on it until the needle starts twitching. Then burn retrograde. Make sure your speedometer is set to "Surface" mode (click on the word portion of the speedometer if it isn't. Lower your lander legs if you haven't already. You want to burn off most of your velocity at this point. When it gets to 50 m/s, back off the throttle to 2/3, then 1/3 at 20 m/s. The retrograde marker should approach the center of the blue portion of the nav ball. Kill your burn at that point and go back to your radar altimeter. Watch it until you're 500 meters over the deck, then burn hard again - use the radar altimeter to get an estimate on where the ground is. Get your speed below 10 m/s and keep it there once you're within 100 meters. Throttle down when you hit the surface. Watch your fuel during this process - if you go below 80 liquid fuel units at any time, abort the landing and head back to Kerbin; you should have just enough fuel to make it back.

Hopefully one of these suggestions covers your needs; let us know how it turns out.

[Topsu]

Alright - so you're in career; from the sound of it, you've unlocked Survivability and General Rocketry on Tier 2, but not necessarily Stability. I'm assuming you've gotten no farther than that.

First off - forget asparagus. You need fuel lines for that, and those won't become available until Fuel Systems on Tier 4. It's serial or nothing.

Let's talk design first:

CSM/LANDER

Mk1 Command Pod x1

Mk2-R Radial Parachute x2 (set these port and starboard on the command pod)

Mystery Goo Containment Unit x2 (around the bast of the command pod)

TR-18A Stack Decoupler x1

FL-T400 Fuel Tank x1

LV-909 Liquid Fuel Engine x1

Modular Girder Segment x4 (set these radially as close to the bottom of your craft as you can get them)

LT-1 Landing Struts x4 (set these on the ends of the girders - we're trying to widen the base of the ship when you go to land).

This is what I crudely call a "Phallus 7" design; it's about as basic of a direct ascent lander as you can get. 5.1 tonnes, 1904.68 m/s of delta-V - which is just enough to get down, up and back to Kerbin.

A transfer stage to go from Kerbin to the Mün needs 1070 m/s give or take. So that piece looks like this:

TR-18A x1

FL-T400 Fuel Tank x1

LV-909 x1

That'll actually give you 1116.82 m/s of delta-V.

It just remains then to get that into orbit. Try this:

TR-18A x1

9 stacks of:

=FL-T400x6

=FL-T200x1

(Set one centerline, eight radially - use Modular Girder Segments to attach).

LV-T45 x1 (center stack)

LV-T30 x8 (outboard stacks)

That'll get you 4577.49 m/s of delta-V and a 1.32 launch TWR. You might have to turn on parts clipping (ALT-F12) to get it to work.

This single stage rocket is the least efficient means of getting your payload up, but at least it will be relatively simple to build.

Okay. So launch - straight up to 10k, then 090 at 45 degrees elevation until you're at T-35 seconds to apoapsis. Then follow your prograde vector. If you fall below T-30 to apoapsis at any time, return to 45 degrees elevation. Above T-60 to apoapsis, begin burning along the horizon. Burn until your apoapsis is up around 110,000 meters or so. All the while, watch your gee meter - you want to throttle back occasionally such that the needle stays right at the top of the green section of the gauge (not above it). Once you're out of atmosphere, set up your maneuver node and burn for orbit when you're ready. You'll probably want to do that at about 1/3 thrust. Dump the booster once you're in orbit.

Next, align your map view so that you're looking at it top down, and target the Mün. Set it up so that if the top of the screen is 12:00, the Mün is somewhere around 3:30 or so (about 100 degrees from the top going clockwise). Set up a node at the 6:00 position and pull prograde until you get an encounter. Use the data from the maneuver node to time it - you want roughly half your burn to occur both before and after the node. You might want to light your transfer stage engine and fire it up for a few seconds before you get there; it won't throw things off too far and it'll give you a better time estimate. Burn when the time comes and adjust as necessary. When you get to the Mün's SOI, burn retrograde at periapsis to establish orbit. You want to get it relatively close - 14k is good. Pick a landing site, burn to deorbit, and dump the transfer stage.

Here's the tricky bit - quicksave (F5) before you begin (and F9 to quickload after a foul-up). Go IVA and find your radar altimeter - the gauge that looks like this:

Keep an eye on it until the needle starts twitching. Then burn retrograde. Make sure your speedometer is set to "Surface" mode (click on the word portion of the speedometer if it isn't. Lower your lander legs if you haven't already. You want to burn off most of your velocity at this point. When it gets to 50 m/s, back off the throttle to 2/3, then 1/3 at 20 m/s. The retrograde marker should approach the center of the blue portion of the nav ball. Kill your burn at that point and go back to your radar altimeter. Watch it until you're 500 meters over the deck, then burn hard again - use the radar altimeter to get an estimate on where the ground is. Get your speed below 10 m/s and keep it there once you're within 100 meters. Throttle down when you hit the surface. Watch your fuel during this process - if you go below 80 liquid fuel units at any time, abort the landing and head back to Kerbin; you should have just enough fuel to make it back.

Hopefully one of these suggestions covers your needs; let us know how it turns out.

Mind giving some pictures about the build? =/

Cant get how it should look to my mind.

[capi3101]

Mind giving some pictures about the build? =/

Cant get how it should look to my mind.

Welcome to the forums.

I'll have to get back to you on that. I put that list together last night right before heading on to bed and didn't actually build the craft itself. I'm at work right now; best I could do at the moment is some crummy MS Paint job. It'll be a few hours before I can get to where I can play the game again (about 02Z) but I'll put it together then and post an image or two when I have some ready to go.

Worried about that design, actually - things before General Construction of Tier 3 (where you get struts and launch clamps) are always dicey. I'll make sure and give it a test flight too.

Edited November 25, 2013 by capi3101

[Sirrobert]

Just did a Mun Landing today.

I have to say that although I did not have mcjeb onboard today.

Mcjeb is what taught me how to land.

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/487808930282706580/D8748F4F1A5CF513F5B88C632A2F3D8EE684D5B9/

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/487808930282710807/50C1427FA87308D39F0400908D88BF735EDA534A/

theres plenty of ships available in the stock craft section.

experiment with some of them or i would mail you this craft if you want

Why would you weigh your ship down like that?

[Markus Reese]

Hiya, I have a setup that I like to use. It is fairly simple setup as well for a moon land. Here is complete for my munar landings. The probe was just from my roleplaying. I would land a probe before I would land the lander to scout landing area.

All five landing engines are enough to decel and get down onto the moon. When I reach a low altitude, I toggle deactivate the outer engines and run it just off the center one for better throttle control.

The purpose of the landing legs on the science canister is that on landing, they are needed to dampen impact and preventing it from being destroyed. It also cannot land on water unless you add some radials.

The main focus of the design is using the lander engines to also widen out the landing platform making it alot more stable. No need to worry about the ladders. Remember low gravity so can use your jetpack to get off and on the lander.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Markus Reese

[capi3101]

Alright - some pics.

This is the design I proposed above. Had to turn on parts clipping to put it together and then it turned out too flimsy. Also turned out to be wholly unnecessary - three outboard stacks proved sufficient for the task (though I'd go with four just to be safe - as I'll explain momentarily). You can see the remains of the booster in this next pic.

My problem there was that I only made the outboard stacks five tanks long instead of six - a mistake that ultimately forced me to scrub the flight entirely. Had there been six tanks, all of the booster engines would've run out of fuel simultaneously. More importantly, there would've been sufficent delta-V that I could've avoided having to finish the orbit burn on the transfer stage engine (which meant I didn't have it to deorbit at the Mün, which ultimately put me 30 m/s shy of being able to finish the mission).

The lander - I got the impression that was the confusing bit. Putting the legs out on girders widens the base, which makes it less prone to tipping over on landing. That little trick works best with angled I-beams - you can use that kind of setup to sling small rovers underneath the lander.

No batts or panels with this design, of course, so you've got to watch your steering - especially once the mission is solely on LV-909s. That's another thing to consider.

Edited November 26, 2013 by capi3101

[TheGeoninja]

My suggestion for early Mun landings is don't bother with a proper orbit just course correct until your going right into the Mun then use what fuel you have to just make it back to Kerbin.

[zapman987]

First, thanks to everyone for your suggestions! Im still trying to read them all

Mostly design, but some flight help (which may come with design). I had another note on landing earlier, and everyone said RCS (which I just got, and will try).

To whomever talked on fuel lines: I dont have them yet. I think someone posted a good design basing a guess what I have, I think its pretty correct.

[WafflesToo]

First, welcome to KSP and the forums

Second, don't let yourself get too discouraged; Mun landings are considered a major mile-stone event and are really (at first anyway) difficult.

LANDER DESIGN

Two things to consider with your lander. #1, a wide landing base is a must. One trick you can use in the VAB to get just a little more footprint out of your legs is to hold the <SHIFT> key and hit <W> (or is it <S>? I can't remember) a few times to angle the legs out a bit. Most of the designs people have suggested with radially-mounted fuel tanks or girder sections are good things to look at. The other (slightly less important) is mass. Generally speaking, it takes about 10 tons of rocket to lift 1 ton of lander into orbit so I'd recommend against RCS and RTG spam for this reason.

Also related to mass is your Thrust-to-weight ratio. Of course you need a minimum amount of power to be able to land (and take off again) but too much makes throttle control really difficult when you get close to setting it down. I'm sure you noticed that just as you're trying to set it down you'd lower your throttle a tidge and the thing drops like a stone; tapping the throttle up a scosh and lander tries to fly back into orbit. This is a sign that the lander may be overpowered. I'd recommend trying Markus Reese's design, only swap the LV909s out for the 48-77 engines (that should drop your Munar TWR down to about 3:1). I'm willing to bet it'll handle easier for you.

A downward facing spotlight can be a real life-saver when it comes to judging how close you're getting to the terrain; and can help you gauge if it's level enough or not.

LAUNCH and ORBIT

Not going to talk about design too much outside of suggesting you not use SRBs after stage one. They're really not that efficient and are mostly there to get a quick boost of speed early on.

Efficiently launching can make a huge difference in how much rocket you need to get to orbit. First, watch your speed. I could tell you about terminal velocity, air resistance, and map out maximum efficient velocity every 1000 meters... but that would be stupid and overwhelming. The rule of thumb is 100m/s off the pad, keep your G-meter at about 1G, and you want to hit about 200-240m/s when you reach 10,000m. Second is turning the rocket over. The easy way is to turn it over to about 45-degrees at 10km of altitude, then turn it over to the horizon at about 30km. It's not the best turn, but its a good place to start from and you can work out better ways as you gain experience. Third, you want your orbital altitude as low as possible. I used to go all the way out to 100km but these days I put my parking orbit down around 75-80km. Less energy spent getting into orbit and (unintuitively) less energy spent with your Munar injection burn.

GETTING TO THE MUN

This is easier than you think. Plunk down a maneuver node. Grab the prograde green karat and pull on it until you have a ~860m/s maneuver plotted, then grab the blue circle on the node and wave it around your orbit until you get an encounter with the Mun. You can fine-tune it from there.

I think that covers some of the basics. I'll upload some designs later when I get home and have access to my own computer (this laptop sucks too hard to play much with ) Hope some of it helps you out.

Good luck.

[Liowen]

While I am far from an expert at KSP, I have had it just over a month now, I have managed 3 Mun landings and 2 Minimus landings using the same ship. I filmed on of each of my Mun and Minimus, while they are not a tutorial fore say it may help guide you into the right idea. The first video I had a ton of issues with so please follow the on screen text bits....you will thank me later. If the others do not show up in the list then you may just have to go to my channel to view the rest in the listing. Again I am sure there are more efficient ways to do things, but considering this was less than a week of having the game I consider it a success!

Edit: Just a side note this ship does not have advanced SAS, or RCS on it so tunring it in space is a bit of a chour, but doable if you give yourself time.

Edited November 26, 2013 by Liowen

[obi_juan]

Several persons here have give you excellent advises. But I will say some different.

Go to Minmus. Why? Because you only need a few more fuel to reach Minmus from Kebal than to go to the Mun (every ship that could go to the Mun could go to Minmus)

But Minmus have the following advantages:

1) Is more smaller, so the gravity is also small. So you need lees fuel to brake

2) The blue color of the surface of the Minmus will be provide you a better contrast between your ship and the surface

3) The valleys on Minmus are complete flats, an are at 0 meters of altitude so you not need to guess where is the "real" surface

4) The mounts of Minmus are very soft, a small mistake in the velocity will absorb the impact and you ship will be able to fly again.

[Liowen]

Several persons here have give you excellent advises. But I will say some different.

Go to Minmus. Why? Because you only need a few more fuel to reach Minmus from Kebal than to go to the Mun (every ship that could go to the Mun could go to Minmus)

But Minmus have the following advantages:

1) Is more smaller, so the gravity is also small. So you need lees fuel to brake

2) The blue color of the surface of the Minmus will be provide you a better contrast between your ship and the surface

3) The valleys on Minmus are complete flats, an are at 0 meters of altitude so you not need to guess where is the "real" surface

4) The mounts of Minmus are very soft, a small mistake in the velocity will absorb the impact and you ship will be able to fly again.

Looking back Minimus is easier to to land on, but if he is having trouble with approaches Mun might be better to practice near until he can get the feel for it. It also makes rescue missions a bit more likely. As far as contrast I didn't think it was hard to judge the ship against either to be honest, but I would recommend lights just in case of a dark side landing. To quote Kennedy:

[Markus Reese]

Well, the fuel lines just allow you to use less engine on landing, but are not critical. In fact, in the pics I posted earlier, it lands entirely on the fuel on the outer engine. Without lines, the center will not be used at all is the only difference. On landing, still using the same thrust efficiency and same fuel source so biggest difference is slightly slower on decel, and a bit more on touchdown.

I always tell people who do have trouble getting a rocket to work is to work in reverse order, just like how you build. So to get the feel for building the more complex rockets with what you have, get each step one at a time.

1. Return module using one piece (my pic), or deployable science pod if you bring it. The latter simply is using a decoupler and radial parachute on the science module to deploy when you get to low altitude (sub 10km)

2. Return drive. This is pretty tough to get wrong in solar system. One fuel tank to match pod and one of the high efficiency engines will always get you home. In my rocket, the half tank and the single engine is enough to de-orbit mun AND re-enter atmosphere. Trick is to do your decel at high Ap.

3. Lander engines. Just fiddle around. Might take more than one flight, but fortunately if your return drive is working, you can abort a landing if these run out of fuel.

4. Munar engines. This stage is what I like to use to de-orbit and capture munar orbit. Preferably, you can have a little bit of fuel as you begin your landing just to help slow down a bit quicker, but ideally, your lander engines should be able to capture. This section is more important to the high fuel consumption portion of de-orbiting Kerbin.

5. Launch engines are pretty standard. They either work, or they dont. Most important part is to remember that if you do this with multiple engine stages, that any non fired engine is just extra mass you are burning fuel to move. Without fuel lines, it is best to have all boosters running from start or have a long burn high thrust with a lower thrust small secondary booster to get from high atmosphere to orbit.

Again, refering back to the one I did, I have the heavy cluster of SRBs to get me up out of the worst of the air resistance, then I engage my tri clusters of fuel where it is more efficient to get high atmosphere. The singles capture orbit and begin my transfer.

The other way to do this is how I did it in ye olden days. I had shorter side liquid fuel boosters that ran the high thrust. The inner engines had more fuel, but were more efficient. In this way, I had assist in getting fuel to higher atmosphere, and was able to jettison the outers as they ran out of fuel.

Edit: That rocket I took to minmus, I think I use the full size tank (not double size) for my mun lander, but cannot remember for certain...

Edited November 27, 2013 by Markus Reese

[capi3101]

I'd recommend trying Markus Reese's design, only swap the LV909s out for the 48-77 engines (that should drop your Munar TWR down to about 3:1). I'm willing to bet it'll handle easier for you.

Just pointing something out - if OP doesn't have Fuel Ducts, he has access to neither the 24-77 nor the 48-7S engine. You get the 24-77 with Precision Engineering, a Tier 5 tech, and the 48-7S comes with Fuel Systems, a Tier 4 tech (and the same one that has Fuel Ducts). The -909 really is his best bet at his current tech level; it's got the highest available Isp, ergo the most bang for his buck given x amount of fuel. Only problem with it is that it doesn't generate electricity when it's running.

[Liowen]

Sorry I just realized this was for career mode, I thought for some reason it was sandbox. I do apologize for my confusion.

[WafflesToo]

Just pointing something out - if OP doesn't have Fuel Ducts, he has access to neither the 24-77 nor the 48-7S engine. You get the 24-77 with Precision Engineering, a Tier 5 tech, and the 48-7S comes with Fuel Systems, a Tier 4 tech (and the same one that has Fuel Ducts). The -909 really is his best bet at his current tech level; it's got the highest available Isp, ergo the most bang for his buck given x amount of fuel. Only problem with it is that it doesn't generate electricity when it's running.

D'oh! Missed that tidbit. But five of them on a 15 ton lander is overkill and a half. One would be sufficient but without fuel ducts I don't know how you'd rig it.

My advice still stands though... as soon as you unlock it. (God that engine needs to be nerfed)

[capi3101]

But five of them on a 15 ton lander is overkill and a half. My advice still stands though... as soon as you unlock it. <snip /> (God that engine needs to be nerfed)

Both true.

One would be sufficient but without fuel ducts I don't know how you'd rig it.

The five engine solution is viable - you'd just have less fine control over the throttle. Probably the best that can be done before you have ducts (unless you want to a setup like what I had earlier). It's a good suicide burn setup, I guess.

[WafflesToo]

The five engine solution is viable - you'd just have less fine control over the throttle. Probably the best that can be done before you have ducts (unless you want to a setup like what I had earlier). It's a good suicide burn setup, I guess.

My current career mode lander masses 8 tons and has two and it felt really jumpy on the throttle. Just unlocked the 48-7S on my last mission which should make it a touch more docile. It's not really a great design for a novice though because the landing legs are too close together.

OP might be interested in the other lander design, the one with the landing legs on outriggers as a possible solution.

[Markus Reese]

Just pointing something out - if OP doesn't have Fuel Ducts, he has access to neither the 24-77 nor the 48-7S engine. You get the 24-77 with Precision Engineering, a Tier 5 tech, and the 48-7S comes with Fuel Systems, a Tier 4 tech (and the same one that has Fuel Ducts). The -909 really is his best bet at his current tech level; it's got the highest available Isp, ergo the most bang for his buck given x amount of fuel. Only problem with it is that it doesn't generate electricity when it's running.

Aah yeah. That was a similar thing with my first mun on career mode. My first time was just a Mun flyby. I used 4 batteries on the ship. As long as you shut off the SAS toggle once you are just drifting, it is more than enough to at the minimum do a mun flyby. There is a fair amount of science in just getting to a lower altitude of Mun so is a good goal if you feel like you need to get more tech before actually landing.

My current career mode lander masses 8 tons and has two and it felt really jumpy on the throttle. Just unlocked the 48-7S on my last mission which should make it a touch more docile. It's not really a great design for a novice though because the landing legs are too close together.

OP might be interested in the other lander design, the one with the landing legs on outriggers as a possible solution.

My solution to that was to toggle on/off the outrigger engines. It gives enough power for a more efficient late brake, then you can shut them off and use one for nice throttle control on landing.