Is there a landing tutorial?

[fommil]

There are very few built-in tutorials and I'm now shooting for the Mun.

Eventually I'd like to build up to landing and taking off again, but there are no tutorials for landing... how do people practice this maneuver?

Also, is there a way to automatically stage the lander legs to come out?

I've heard about docking as well... I don't think I have the tech for that yet, but when I do is there a tutorial for that?

In a way, not having tutorials for this is kinda fun, because one could argue that it *is* the game. But if we think about real life space programs, there is certainly a way to practice using the equipment in a Earth based simulator.

[Pecan]

Taking your questions in reverse order:

There are a lot of tutorials here in the forums, in this very section in fact. A good thread for finding them is forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/445-The-Drawing-Board-A-library-of-tutorials-and-other-useful-information

There are, especially, a lot of tutorials and other threads on docking as it is - like in real life - about the most difficult of manouevres. Broadly, it falls into two phases: 1) rendezvous by matching orbits, 2) actually moving slowly closer and aligning docking-ports to dock. Both these are well-covered here.

There is no way to stage the landing legs but they are automatically added to the 'Gear' action group when you place them on your ship. Action groups use keyboard buttons to activate items - G for gear (not neccessarily capital). The wiki page on keybindings may help (http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Key_bindings) but you'll get used to them quickly: stage=space (not much use), brakes=B, gear=G, lights=U, RCS=R, SAS=T, abort=backspace, Custom01 - Custom00=1 - 0. You can set any and all of these in the VAB/SPH by clicking the middle button at the top-left of the build screen. Click an action group to edit it, click a part to select it (other similar parts added to symmetry also selected too), choose the available action in the list shown.

While there are landing tutorials the 'simple' - not most efficient - way to practice is to turn your vehicle retrograde and burn the engines to make your orbit-line hit the surface (the de-orbit burn). Then keep your nose on the retrograde marker, watch your altitude and vertical speed (indicator next to altimeter), burning to land slower than -10m/s and with almost no horizontal speed - which, like many essential things KSP won't show you in stock. Anyway, as you initially burn towards the horizon, from de-orbit, you're initially killing horizontal speed. As you do more of that your vertical speed, falling towards the surface, becomes more significant and the retrograde marker moves towards the vertical. Keep your nose on it all the way, gradually putting more and more thrust into killing vertical rather than horizontal speed. Start all this from a low orbit (7-8km for Mun) and if possible use the IVA (inside) view instead of the normal one - most cockpits include a 'radar' altimeter that shows your true height above the ground instead of above "sea" level as the main altimeter does.

Note that although it's harder to GET TO, Minmus is so much easier to LAND ON and TAKE-OFF from, that it is the easier mission overall. Especially using quicksave (F5) and quickload (F9) you can do the transfer to Minmus, get a good low orbit, quicksave ... and then practice to your heart's content, quickloading if it all goes wrong. Minmus's gravity is so low it is easy to accidentally start going back up again but don't worry ^^.

ETA: Nearly all available tutorials are written or videos, in-game tutorials are very few and far between and I don't know of any off-hand.

Edited June 8, 2014 by Pecan
Tutorials not in-game added.

[asb3pe]

Scott Manley youtube series entitled "Kerbal Space Program - Tutorial For Beginners". Episodes 6 and 7 are the ones you want to watch, he goes to Minimus and lands there (he says its further than Mun but much, much easier to land and take off from due to low gravity). I'm learning everything I know about the game from these youtubes, they are terrific and Scott is a superb "explainer".

[Taki117]

As far as your Landing legs are concerned, hit "G" then it's all about killing your horizontal and vertical velocities and touching down gently.

[Dispatcher]

Once you've mastered landing on and launching from Minmus, then you will be ready to take on the Mun.

[Orionkermin]

I would also like to add; choose you're landing spot before de-orbit. For the Mun that usually means trying to land in the middle of a crater as they are typically flatter. The difference between landing somewhere relatively flat and a 30 degree slope is huge, especially when you're first starting out. Building your lander with a wide base can help as well. Tipping seems to be a common issue with newer players.

Have you done any practice on Kerbin using powered landings? Its gravity is high but at least you can just put a simple lander on the pad and try going up, coming back down, add some horizontal velocity and try to land from that, etc.

[PlonioFludrasco]

Have you done any practice on Kerbin using powered landings? Its gravity is high but at least you can just put a simple lander on the pad and try going up, coming back down, add some horizontal velocity and try to land from that, etc.

If you are playing career, it's also a good way to get science from nearby biomes like shores, runway, KSC...

[fommil]

Thank you all! I kinda wish this was on a stack overflow style board instead of a vBulletin, because then I could vote up all these excellent responses :-D

[Pecan]

Incidentally - you might find the Minmus/Mun vehicles in chapter 5 of my 'Exploring the System' campaign useful - they're designed for first lunar landings :-)

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/79658-Exploring-The-System-%28Pt-1%29-A-design-tutorial-campaign

[Taki117]

Thank you all! I kinda wish this was on a stack overflow style board instead of a vBulletin, because then I could vote up all these excellent responses :-D

True, but we do have a REP system (its the button next to the report button, looks like a star) so if you like comments give some rep.