Whelp! I have built a rover and successfully landed it on Duna, skycrane style!
The launch vehicle, with a
totally inconspicuous rover perched on top.
(I put nosecones on it just for you, adratgg)
Closeup of the rover with its half-ass-designed protective shroud. Lousy for government work, but good enough to be Kerbal!
Coming in over Duna. I didn't go straight to landing, but rather aerocaptured first so I could select a nice day-side landing site on the following orbit.
Landing site selected. Ditching the main engine before atmospheric entry.
Most of the way down, now! Ejecting the shroud.
Deploying parachute.
What follows next are several moments of terror, but unlike the Curiosity lander, this descent is not automatic... As it required my full attention, I have no screenshots of this process.
At an altitude of a little over a kilometer, the entry vehicle is still moving at about 200 meters per second at a very shallow angle. The parachute, now mostly useless, is ejected. The skycrane engines activate and slow the craft down to a hover just meters above the ground, then separates. The rover plops down, while the skycrane shoots off into the distance. It flew so far I didn't even see where it crashed.
A long journey, with long periods of boredom punctuated by short periods of sheer terror, is finally complete.
Oh hey, there's the parachute.
Meanwhile, on Gilly: