Manned Lander?

[Applemush]

Hello All! I was just curious about how to replicate the mun landing that's done in the tutorial, but in the actual game. I'm trying to figure out how to get a landing craft on top of a large rocket with a separate command module. I have everything assembled, but when it comes to staging I want them to be two separate craft. Do I simply set up the stages so everything that happens on the landing craft is at the very lowest stages? Or is there a way to give them entirely separate trees, and only show the "commanding" craft? Tahnks kindly,

Applemush

[Alshain]

I've not done the tutorial, but yes. Set up your lander in the last few stages. When a craft separates, it's staging is filtered out based on where the parts end up. That is true for decoupling as well as undocking. There is no way to have separate staging trees, the game considers it 1 craft when docked, the second craft is "created" when they separate.

The exception to that rule is when re-docking. Some information about both crafts is retained, such as it's name, so when undocking again everything goes back to the way it was. However everything straight out of the VAB/SPH is one craft, even if it contains two mated docking ports.

Edited February 2, 2015 by Alshain

[capi3101]

You're wanting to do an Apollo-style Mun mission, eh? I'd suggest looking at the Apollo 11 tutorial on the wiki; the data is a bit out of date right now and the booster was unstable even when it was last seriously revised in 0.20, but it'll get you started on your own design (particularly with how the staging is set up) and the CM/LEM produced are both perfectly usable (add some OX-STAT panels to the sides of both and you're golden - and consider Skippers on the upper two booster stages).

Edited February 2, 2015 by capi3101

[Hidden Gunman]

One way to do it is to construct your command module first, then construct your lander on top of that (basically, attach and construct it second). So long as your non-lander has a command component first, you can add a second (or more) command component, and if I recall, save the lander as an assembly (you'd need to check that though).