[MR_T3D]

Two new tips...

First, landing on stock legs is a tough task. It takes a bit of finesse. You MUST kill any horizontal velocity while you're landing. That's a really tough task. Either retroburn and come in flat from high altitude or get good at manual RCS control.

Second, try simplifying your craft. Many are overengineered and that decreases efficiency. Try removing parts for better performance. If you add something, it must be for a specific purpose. Even when thought uncontrollable, spinning (so long as you don't lean over) is not necessarily a bad thing.

I've been finding that killing of horizontal velocity to be the hard part, but I think my most recent flight lost it because I stuck the ASAS on a stage before the lander to make it lighter and easier to land. Maybe I'll make an SAS module into a strong landing pad to help me..

[jr2]

I actually spin on purpose with one of my rigs; otherwise it leans over.  As long as I maintain a spin, it wobbles a little, but doesn't fall over.  (It is really hard to try and correct it when it starts leaning by any noticeable amount.)

[Nuke]

you can use rcs but you dont really need it. lock the sas to the vertical and use a little yaw and pitch to get a horizontal component to your thrust. do the same to any forward momentum. i dont touch down until my overall velocity < 5m/s. ive yet to try it on stock parts though so you might need to get than number even lower.

[MR_T3D]

Well, I've abandoned 6 kerbanauts on the surface of the moon and crashed another dozen 15 so far.

Latest attempt actually got me a safe enough landing to relaunch, just didn't have enough fuel to return. Was a late firing of the decent speed killing thruster and resulting in hitting the surface at 98m/s


Only ones to come back alive are result a misfired stage in low orbit and scrub out and a successful orbit of the moon competed successfully before

Loving the challenge, and I'll give kerpallo 10 a shot some other time, maybe tweak thrusters, perhaps I'll use a solid booster to get off the moon instead of managing fuel and preserving my precious lander's liquid engine

[Retsof]

Well, I've managed to land on the Mun, but getting back is another question.  My ascent stage may work better I I could tilt it on the way up, but turning off my ASAS results in an uncontrollable spin.  I think with a little tweaking and a couple extra fuel tanks in my ascent and mid stages (and of course moar boosters) I can pull it off.

[Rodo]

No matter how big I make my rockets, I get to the mun, I just run out of fuel on the way down to the surface.
9 brave kerbanauts lost so far, gotta try again but... I'm loosing hope :C

[MR_T3D]

I got to the moon with a liquid tank left to return
made minor miscalculation in getting out of lunar orbit, meaning it spend 16 days orbiting until the moon sling shot the pod towards kearth, but for no apparent reason, days in, during warp speed, the parachute broke off.
So bloody close to a safe flight.

NEXT MISSION: I finally did it, a 10 day mission, took minor damage upon landing on the moon, but managed to get out of it's orbit and back to the planet splashing just after dark on the planet.
10 day mission, safe return

Feels so good that kerpallo 11 was a success

[Nohiki]

I just made a rocket that landed em on the Mun, but it only worked for 1st launch for some reason :-/ Every other time, it failed mid-flight.

[Herra Tohtori]

No matter how big I make my rockets, I get to the mun, I just run out of fuel on the way down to the surface.
9 brave kerbanauts lost so far, gotta try again but... I'm loosing hope :C

You most make bigger lander.

[Bob-san]

So I got there twice. The first looked like this:



So I got there again and lifted off moments later. I think a winglet exploded. Oh well. I apparently lost the picture of it. >_< I still had a bit of horizontal velocity (not very much) but idk... I got there with a lot of hardware and got back with what was before my lander stage.



I landed on the side of a mountain. Just my luck.

[Mongoose]

Wow, even Jeb was terrified. 

[Rodo]

You most make bigger lander.

I think I'm making some kind of mistake when trying to get in orbit around Kerbin.
what do you guys do? I tend to burn all my lower stages straight up till 150k and then I burn 90° horizonally till I get a full orbit drawn in the map.

[Herra Tohtori]

You most make bigger lander.

I think I'm making some kind of mistake when trying to get in orbit around Kerbin.
what do you guys do? I tend to burn all my lower stages straight up till 150k and then I burn 90° horizonally till I get a full orbit drawn in the map.

Yeah you're doing it wrong.

Typically I start tilting toward 90 degrees somewhere around 30-40k mark, and gradually increase the angle, adjusting angle of attack so that the vector indicator doesn't dip below horizon. As you start the pitch program, switch to Orbit mode rather than surface mode so that you can see your orbital prograde ("forward" relative to your flight path around the planet). Kerbin's rotation adds a few hundred m/s to your orbital velocity when you go for counterclockwise orbit. Also for a munar mission you should try to get your orbit inclined with the equator as closely as possible, so your transmunar injection burn is easier to do and won't put you above or below the Munar orbital plane.

You should aim for initial orbit at 100-150 km altitude.

[Nuke]

you dont need such a high apokerb, your wasting fuel. with a good, stable, easy to handle rocket i start rotating at 20k, im at 45 degrees by 35k and get to 90 at about 50k. get your orbital velocity to around 1800ms, and then throttle back to very low thrust until orbit is established. you can also throttle all the way back and wait for apokerb, and then trim your orbit, of course for a mun flight i usually just go straight from launch to orbital insertion without actually orbiting kerbin.

now for a big unstable rocket i do things differently. its almost impossible to steer so a smooth progression is out of the question. you might have to eject several stages before you gain enough control to do a roll maneuver. so pretty much just go straight up past 40k (if you can turn sooner its fine so long as youre above 20k-30k), until you've ejected your unruly large stages and are free to rotate. in many cases i still dont have control at 40k, so il either wait till 50k to turn or start turning immediately. il start earlier if that stack takes considerable time to turn 90 degrees. i often waste a lot of fuel just trying to get a stack to turn. of course since we now have rcs thrusters and gimballed engines, rockets are much easier to maneuver.

*ninjad by herra*

[Bob-san]

The upper atmosphere, while it does provide drag, is nowhere near as inefficient as reaching an unnecessary apokee. I don't know the exact Delta-V differences but I managed to land on the moon with a very similar configuration as before. In fact, it was good enough to get me back to Kearth without needing RCS. In fact, I'm going to redo my lander stage again and get rid of the command module RCS since I can get back on just one fuel tank (and then jettison it for an Apollo-esque landing).

[Bob-san]

Landing on the Mun is harder than it looks. I'd know--I just crashed again.

[watsisname]

CAPTAINS LOG:  A BUNCH OF OUR SHIP FELL OFF, AND WE ARE STRANDED ON THE MUN.  HOWEVER, WE HAVE ENOUGH SPACE CRACK ON BOARD TO KEEP US HAPPY.



MISSION SUCCESSFUL

[Grizzly]

You should totally mount a rescue mission.

[MR_T3D]

landing without just using a chute or atmosphere is hard

And this is the ship that made it there and got the crew back

[Rodo]

Then I'll need to redesign the Lifter, it's kinda heavy right now and difficult as hell to maneuver even at 200.000, a small inclination while ascention would be suicide.

Thanks for the tips.