To land on the mun

[MrSnappyTurtles]

How do I go about landing on the mun

[Pecan]

See my tutorial

ETA: Oh ok, I'll be a bit more explicit - the easiest way to perform a landing is to face your rocket retrograde (backwards) and burn your engines to reduce your orbital speed. As that happens you'll fall more and more steeply towards the surface - keep turning your rocket so that it is always facing retrograde. Eventually you'll be falling almost straight down and your engines will, therefore, be firing almost straight up. Aim for a touchdown speed of <10m/s vertical and as near to stopped horizontally as you can, otherwise you'll tend to tip over.

Edited August 20, 2014 by Pecan

[Specialist290]

You may also want to take a look at this illustrated guide, which includes a link to a "trainer" ship you can use in sandbox mode.

Additionally, the Drawing Board, which is linked through my signature, should include a number of tutorials on the subject as well.

[Wanderfound]

How do I go about landing on the mun

By crashing into it repeatedly. At least, that's how most folks do it to start with.

More seriously, there are plenty of tutorials out there. Get on Youtube and search for Scott Manley or Kurtjmac.

But you'll probably enjoy it more if you try it yourself a few times first. Watching things fail in entertainingly catastrophic ways is half the fun of the game, and the view from the top of the mountain is always better if you walked there yourself.

[MrSnappyTurtles]

my first landing was a crash lol

[cantab]

Start by learning how to get into orbit round it. That's a good mission to do in itself.

[MrSnappyTurtles]

i can do the orbit just not the landing lol

[Superfluous J]

Slow down on the dark side so on the light side your periapsis is around 6km off the ground.

Quicksave.

Loop around to that periapsis and about a minute or two before it, burn retrograde until you've come to a stop. Make sure you're in SURFACE mode and not ORBIT mode on your navball. Also, make sure your prograde marker is in the middle of the brown half of the navball (aka straight down), and your retrograde marker is in the middle of the blue half (straight up)

Fall down and burn when you get close to the ground. This is the tricky part, as you'll have to also manage left and right. If you brought RCS use it. If you didn't (or you run out) tilt your ship.

THIS IS VERY HARD TO DO UNTIL YOU'VE DONE IT A LOT.

When you crash, restore from that quicksave and try again. And again. And again. You'll get it eventually.

[juanml82]

Get Mechjeb. Delve into it's configuration and you'll find, under surface, two indicators which aren't shown by default: time for impact and, more importantly, "Suicide burn". Load them up in the surface window or any other window of your choosing. You can also get Kerbal Engineer Redux - in its surface tab, you'll find the inclination of the terrain below (once you're low enough).

So, here's what you need to do:

Get your Pe low. 10-15 km will do. You may also lower your Ap. When your orbit is roughly near the place you want to land, create a maneuver node and pull the retrograde until you're falling vertically. What this will do is to kill your horizontal velocity, or at least, most of it. This not only lets your pinpoint your landing, it also saves fuel.

Keep Mechjeb or KER's surface window on sight. You'll have "time to impact" (important), "horizontal speed" and "vertical speed". Needlessly to say, horizontal speed is the speed you're moving across the ground below while vertical speed is the speed you're falling, or climbing.

You should kill your horizontal velocity so you don't tumble when you land. To do so, switch your navball to surface, point towards the retrograde vector and burn until your H/S is below 2 m/s.

Now Mechjeb's "suicide burn" indicator becomes useful. This indicator will tell you how much time you have left to burn full throttle upwards so you hit the ground at 0 m/s. It's only accurate if your horizontal speed is zero. If it's negative, you'll crash and your only chance is to augment your throttle with RCS.

Since it takes time for the throttle to go from zero to full, you should wait until the suicide burn is around 5 seconds, and fire full throttle while you're aiming straight into the sky (at the center of your navball). Once your vertical velocity is below 10 m/s, or less if you feel like, cut your throttle and continue falling. Your V/S and your suicide burn indicators will increase, you can rinse and repeat. Typically, you can land fine with speeds below 10 m/s unless you're landing on your engines. Some rover wheels can resist speeds of 50 m/s (the tires will break) but you will probably rebound.

Just in case, once you're about to land retract any solar panel and activate your RCS. If you aren't landing on a perfectly flat surface, your ship will likely tumble to a side. Use your RCS to keep it centered. Don't use the camera view to check in which direction you need to rotate (ie, press the WASDQE keys), use your navball.

You should also train your landings at Minmus rather than the Mun. It takes more DV to reach it, but landings are far easier due the lower gravity and the easier terrain.

Oh, and about mechjeb, Neil Amstrong and Buzz Aldrin didn't descend by floating a camera nearby and eyeballing their speed.

Edited August 21, 2014 by juanml82

[Wanderfound]

i can do the orbit just not the landing lol

For a few quick lander building tips:

* Build wide, not tall.

* Economise. Don't make it too heavy.

* You don't need a lot of thrust. A single LV-909 is plenty.

* Use plenty of lander legs or you'll tip over.

* Make sure that your legs are mounted low enough that your engine doesn't hit the ground on a hard landing.

* The highest mountain on the Mun is about 8,000m. Bring your orbit at least this low before starting your descent.

* RCS translation controls are very handy for killing horizontal velocity while remaining upright. Try to get your horizontal velocity close to zero as soon as possible. Use the main thruster pointing retrograde to start with, but finish off with translation RCS. You can come in at an angle once you get good at it, but I wouldn't recommend it when you're starting out.

* Downwards pointing spotlights are good for giving visual cues as to altitude (it worked for the Dambusters in WWII...). So is watching for your shadow. Position your camera so you're looking away from Kerbol.

* Give your RCS a few test puffs on the way down to make sure that you're facing the way you think you are.

* Remember that the altitude readout at top of screen is height above sea level, not height above ground.

* Try not to waste too much fuel stopping vertical velocity until you're within 1,000m of the surface; you'll end up having to do it twice due to gravity.

* Make your touchdown speed as close to zero as possible, but be careful not to start going up again. Very fine throttle adjustments are important. Using the N button for downwards RCS can help with this.

* Try to pick a relatively flat landing spot.

* Lower your landing gear early so you don't forget.

* Keep the RCS and SAS on until you're sure you won't tip over.

* If you do tip over, don't give up. Retract the landing legs on one side and right yourself with RCS.

* Don't forget the solar panels.

* You don't need ladders, your EVA jetpack will do.

* Don't try to land on the dark side until you're good at it.

* Have fun. Every crash is an opportunity for an exciting rescue mission.

[Pecan]

i can do the orbit just not the landing lol

Practice with Fat Sally (Chapter 5), she's very forgiving of slopes:

[SRV Ron]

Do a mission to Minmus first and land on the sea. Use a rocket with no RCS so that you learn to kill all horizontal drift by tilting the rocket. Minmus's lower gravity and flat seas will make learning how to land much easier. When you got the experience of landing on Minmus, then go for Mun with its uneven surface and higher gravity.

The demo Mun lander in 0.23.5

And, a mod ship

[Sirrobert]

Minmus is easier to land than the Mun.

And most importantly: Quicksave and quickload royally

[Wanderfound]

Minmus is easier to land than the Mun.

And most importantly: Quicksave and quickload royally

Nah, just crash lots. That way, when you send up your rescue missions, it doesn't matter where you land: there'll always be a stranded Kerbal nearby.

I think I had over twenty of them up there by the time I got the hang of it...