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[alexandertnt]

Sometimes I wish I could reset my knowledge of how to play the game and go back to failing horribly trying to land on Mun, instead of being able to go out for a casual walk on Eve.

Those were the good ol' times.

[Aqizzar]

How the heck do people get these little Mun landers to work anyway.  I've done this before, it shouldn't be this hard, but every time I manage to get in Mun orbit, I have to burn up so much fuel stopping the orbit and then so much fuel shedding 400m/s of descent velocity that I don't have enough fuel left to get back to Kerbin.

I'm doing the same thing I always have before, with one-and-half standard fuel tanks and the little lander engine for a one-man capsule.  All this extra science gear can't weigh that much right?  I guess I just need to take a bigger service module with me.

At least I managed to successfully land my first spaceplane, right on the airstrip even.  So I had to quickload in orbit four times to deorbt in the general vicinity of KSC, but I did actually land.

Spoiler: The first flight was almost successful. (click to show/hide)

[Skyrunner]

I wish KSP would let me use Free Download Manager... 459 MB is brutal :c

[Rose]

I wish KSP would let me use Free Download Manager... 459 MB is brutal :c

It actually does, I've found. Last I checked, anyway. If you have it set up right, it will download a good deal of it, and then, when it inevitably fails, you just go and download the game again from the site, and FDM will resume from where it left off.

[LoSboccacc]

I wish KSP would let me use Free Download Manager... 459 MB is brutal :c

I switched on steam precisely because of their patcher.

[sluissa]

How the heck do people get these little Mun landers to work anyway.  I've done this before, it shouldn't be this hard, but every time I manage to get in Mun orbit, I have to burn up so much fuel stopping the orbit and then so much fuel shedding 400m/s of descent velocity that I don't have enough fuel left to get back to Kerbin.

I'm doing the same thing I always have before, with one-and-half standard fuel tanks and the little lander engine for a one-man capsule.  All this extra science gear can't weigh that much right?  I guess I just need to take a bigger service module with me.

At least I managed to successfully land my first spaceplane, right on the airstrip even.  So I had to quickload in orbit four times to deorbt in the general vicinity of KSC, but I did actually land.

Spoiler: The first flight was almost successful. (click to show/hide)

I've personally found that I need around 2 standard fuel tanks in order to get down and back to Kerbin if I'm not doing some more complex staging or have something to dock to in munar orbit. If you're careful, you could probably get away with a little less, but 1.5 is a tight fuel budget just for a one Kerbal capsule to get down AND back again. Adding science to that can easily push it over the edge.

[Sean Mirrsen]

How the heck do people get these little Mun landers to work anyway.  I've done this before, it shouldn't be this hard, but every time I manage to get in Mun orbit, I have to burn up so much fuel stopping the orbit and then so much fuel shedding 400m/s of descent velocity that I don't have enough fuel left to get back to Kerbin.

I'm doing the same thing I always have before, with one-and-half standard fuel tanks and the little lander engine for a one-man capsule.  All this extra science gear can't weigh that much right?  I guess I just need to take a bigger service module with me.

At least I managed to successfully land my first spaceplane, right on the airstrip even.  So I had to quickload in orbit four times to deorbt in the general vicinity of KSC, but I did actually land.

Spoiler: The first flight was almost successful. (click to show/hide)

I've personally found that I need around 2 standard fuel tanks in order to get down and back to Kerbin if I'm not doing some more complex staging or have something to dock to in munar orbit. If you're careful, you could probably get away with a little less, but 1.5 is a tight fuel budget just for a one Kerbal capsule to get down AND back again. Adding science to that can easily push it over the edge.

Again, see my mission. 1.5 tanks is quite enough. You do end up with a rather tight budget, but it's very possible, even with science.

The key is to brake efficiently at the Mun, and to return efficiently.

I think it does end up under ten minutes real time, so I might record the way I do it myself with Bandicam and see about uploading it somewhere.

[da_nang]

I typically for the Mun go with something around 1.5-2 km/s guesstimate worth of delta-v when landing on mun. ~500 m/s to stop horizontal, ~500 m/s for establishing orbit upon return and the rest is for slowing descent and escape.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Well, the Engineer lists my lander's dV at 2951m/s. That's what it has in Kerbin orbit. By the time it hits Mun SOI, it has around 1900. Projected dV for landing is about 900, this is a suicide burn from a direct intercept. That'll leave me with 1000 for return.

edit: okay, actual landing dV turned out closer to 1100. 800m/s is still plenty for a return.

[Girlinhat]

Try not to make your lander into a vessel that travels.  Ideally you should be able to thrust up to an intercept, or even make orbit around Mun, and then stage to the pure lander phase.  My landers end up having the SOI transfer rocket used to reach Mun, then bleed velocity, then detach to the lander phase and let the transfer rocket crash.

[IronTomato]

Am I the only to have almost accidentally used the term POO... Path Of Orbit?

[Girlinhat]

Am I the only to have almost accidentally used the term POO... Path Of Orbit?

I use it intentionally, if that counts.

[Sean Mirrsen]

So, I went ahead and did what I said I probably wouldn't. That is, loaded my exploratory kethane scout up with everything it can carry, and tried to lift off.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Turns out, it's possible!

Fuel spent after rising to a 100x100 orbit around Moho: less than a third of the carried Kethane, or about an equivalent of less than a sixth of the ship's Argon capacity. That's even with Kethane being used to replenish RCS fuel in flight.

I think I'm perfectly capable of sending it to Eeloo right from there. ^_^

[da_nang]

So, I went ahead and did what I said I probably wouldn't. That is, loaded my exploratory kethane scout up with everything it can carry, and tried to lift off.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Turns out, it's possible!

Fuel spent after rising to a 100x100 orbit around Moho: less than a third of the carried Kethane, or about an equivalent of less than a sixth of the ship's Argon capacity. That's even with Kethane being used to replenish RCS fuel in flight.

I think I'm perfectly capable of sending it to Eeloo right from there. ^_^

Moho to Eeloo? Holy shit the delta-v for that must be enormous. Not just getting there but staying there. And there's no atmosphere to help you. I'm assuming you plan to use slingshots?

[Girlinhat]

Those Near-Future Propulsion "PIT" drives have incredibly high fuel efficiency, effectively very large ion drives (in fact they use Argon instead of Xenon).  So, he'll probably get anywhere he wants to.  Slowly.