How to Land on the Mun in Under 30 Seconds

Note: You don't have to follow this exactly to a tee to get sub 30--if you do everything optimally you'll actually probably get around a 24 or 23 second time, so there's definitely some room for mistakes. Also note that this only applies to Sandbox Mun Landing, the other categories are longer and much different to this speedrun, and aren't covered in this guide.

Anyways, first, you need to build a rocket which can burn all of it's fuel very fast, while still having a lot of delta-v to be able to get to the Mun as fast as possible. Also, it should optimally be stable at 4x timewarp while burning it's fuel in atmosphere.

Next, you need to figure out when exactly the optimal launch time is so that your rocket doesn't miss the mun. I can't give the exact window, as depending on your rocket design this window will change, so you'll need to test this out yourself before doing runs.

After this testing phase, you can finally launch your rocket and start doing runs for real.

Immediately after burning all your fuel at 4x timewarp you need to slow back down to 1x timewarp just as the rocket exits the atmosphere, to be able to go up to 10,000x timewarp as fast as possible. 100,000x timewarp would be faster, but the Mun's sphere of influence is small enough that the game literally doesn't have enough time to automatically slow down timewarp to 50x before your rocket exits out the other side, so 10,000x timewarp is optimal.

Next, once the rocket gets close to the Mun, start spam-clicking the eva button which appears when hovering your cursor above your kerbals' portrait, so that your kerbal exits their capsule as soon as possible. Make sure that your kerbal does not leave the ladder they are initially put on after getting out. It's also important to note that you do not need to manually slow down timewarp, and sometimes you may need to actually manually *increase* timewarp to 100x or even 1,000x.

Then, if everything goes perfectly, even though the rest of your rocket explodes, the kerbal should still survive and fall to the Mun's surface without a scratch. This seems to be somewhat random, and as far as I know there's unfortunately no setup or manipulation to consistently make the kerbal survive.

And there you go! Assuming you did everything right, you should have just landed a kerbal on the Mun in under 30 seconds in real time! Though you may want to send a rescue mission, as your kerbal is now stranded. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a message on src, happy flying :)

List of Recognized Glitches

A "glitch" is an unintended behavior of the game or consequence of intended behavior, caused by a deliberate setup by the player that changes the nature and integrity of the gameplay. For example, the infinite fuel glitch is caused by the unintended behavior of an engine having negative fuel consumption, is set up using the KAL controller, and removes the craft design and delta-v aspects of the game.

The definitions of glitches shall be decided by the community (join the Discord) and not solely the mods. The mods should organize this discussion and verify runs accordingly. If a run is submitted and labeled as "Glitches: Yes" without any of the recognized glitches, the moderator can choose whether to validate the run as with or without glitches, or ask the community to decide if there is a new technique that could be considered to be a glitch. Any technique with no clear consensus should maintain the same status as before, or be considered a glitch if new.

Not Allowed
* Debug menu to display extra info, affect in-game physics, teleport, clear input locks (up for debate), or any other use
* Mods that add parts, affect in-game behavior, or display extra information
* Using difficulty settings other than default Normal
* Interacting with crafts launched before the start of the run, including setting a craft as a target.
* Using a version before v1.0, which has incomplete coding of the game physics
* Manually changing the "settings.cfg" file


Glitch
* Any Kraken-drive that provides thrust from passive parts or collisions
* "Crash-landing Glitch" or putting a Kerbal in EVA to survive collision at high speed (ex. over 100 m/s) due to the game incorrectly handling collisions
* "Infinite Fuel Glitch" or using an engine with negative fuel consumption, set up using the KAL controller
* "Thrust Multiplier Glitch" or using the KAL controller to give an engine >100% thrust limiter
* Time warping to deliberately avoid large energy requirements, such as that needed for a mobile processing lab
* "Re-entry skip" or using time warp or limited simulated frames to prevent large parts of the atmosphere from being simulated
* Other techniques with similar effects, such as an infinite electricity glitch

Exploits or Allowed actions (not a glitch)
* Multiple Mobile Processing Labs to duplicate science payout for a single experiment
* "Money Laundering" or accepting contract(s) for the advanced payments, spending it, and declining the contract(s) for no penalty since Normal difficulty does not allow negative balance.
* Time warping to avoid minor electricity requirements, such as controlling a probe
* "Lithobreaking" or surviving a landing in which some of the parts break due to slightly high speed, which slows down the craft enough for other parts to survive.
* Using stacked decouplers for an instantaneous change in speed
* Using an older version that is v1.0 or later which has different in-game physics than the most recent version (ex. v1.0 had less severe atmospheric heating and more severe engine heating, allowing the design of a Mun craft with no decouplers)
* Using a visual mod with none of the previously mentioned effects.
* Using non-standard symmetry using the Symmetry Multiplier exploit (ex. 3x4 = 12-fold) or removing from symmetry and re-placing (ex. 6-1 = 5-fold).

On Suicide Burns

Wiktionary defines a suicide burn as:
"A method of landing a rocket vehicle using rocket thrust, where a precisely timed and metered rocket burn, at the moments before touchdown, is used to soft-land a rocket on its tail."
Something similar to this is desired in speedrun landings, although some margin of error should be included to be RTA viable.
  If you've taken intro physics, you can imagine setting up this problem. With known constant deceleration, determine the desired velocity at a given height so that the craft reaches height = 0m at vertical speed = 0m/s. I leave this as a problem for the reader, which should result in v = sqrt(2*a*d). I made a handy log-log chart [https://imgur.com/a/al7P96l] that displays this solution for different max acceleration, which you can look up in map view. The chart works for any body without atmosphere; you just need to subtract the surface acceleration. Note that your acceleration increases as you use more fuel, but this is a good place to start.
  A method that works well for me is to have a list of desired heights at different speeds (100 to 400 m/s) to use as a quick reference. I also start a burn by cancelling all horizontal speed and end by coasting under the impact tolerance (12m/s in my case). I burn until I reach the next speed value, then wait until I reach the next height. I actually have 2 columns: 50% thrust and 100% thrust. This gives you a window to allow some margin for error. I like to use nice round numbers (ex. 300 m/s; 10km, 6km).
  As you become more consistent, you can use physics warp for faster times overall. I would be careful doing this right before landing if you have a large engine. Although the "Terrier" engine is slower, physics warp can result in similar times to using the "Swivel." I've found the lower thrust sensitivity makes the "Terrier" easier to land.
 In IGT runs, reaction time is less important and TWR is probably lower, so calculations are more necessary to avoid crashing. One strategy is to place a maneuver node at the surface, cancelling all velocity. Naively, one would start burning when the time to the node equals the burn time. However, the time to the node is actually longer since you will be decelerating. Assuming constant deceleration, you actually want to burn when the altitude is d = t_burn*v_burn/2. I usually start burning 20% higher for my margin for error. Remember you can pause in IGT runs without losing time, which gives you time to plug numbers into your calculator. In this case, an optimal suicide burn is much less important than your craft design and delta-V budgeting (tens of seconds vs. tens of minutes). Just burn early enough to avoid crashing.
  That's all I have to say about suicide burns. In the wise words of Scott Manly, "Fly safe."

Which category is right for you?

Each category focuses on slightly different aspects of the game. This guide is designed for runners looking for a new category.  
Here are the basic differences between ''game modes'':
Career: Progress through the game with limitations of cost, part count, weight, orbit tracking, and tech. Build crafts quickly from memory. Early game can be rough. Incorporates many game mechanics.
Science: Like Career without part count or weight limitations, which may be exploited. Collect more science to make up for no payout from contracts. Generally the least developed, so it has potential for routing.
Sandbox: Design and refine crafts ahead of time instead of memorizing and quick building for better consistency and more complex designs (note part count affects game performance). Choose launch time to use specific transfer windows. Generally the fastest.


Here is a summary of what makes each category unique:

Career 100%: The ultimate long-duration category (7h), planning and routing, craft-building, memorization, note-taking, science, flag-planting (stable landers and no splash-down)

Career Glitched 100%: medium-long duration (4h), optimized actions

Career All Round Trips: Similar to 100%, less science-collecting, fewer contracts, different landings from 100%, long-duration (6h)

Sandbox All Round Trips: Refine crafts by doing IL runs. choose transfer windows, over-engineer crafts. Quicker than Career (4h), no quick-building, but otherwise similar variety.

Sandbox Mun & Back RTA: Optimize craft and inputs, emphasis on launch and suicide burn, pleasantly fast-paced (2m)

Career Mun & Back RTA: Optimize missions and menuing, fast building, good variety of skills needed, re-entry glitch, medium-short duration (10m), depends on computer performance (load times and physics warp), depends on version

Mun Landing: crash-landing glitch, shortest category (1m)

Sandbox Mun & Back IGT: giant craft with chosen thrust and delta-v, pausing for quick calculations, a lot of waiting, less emphasis on reaction time

Sandbox Mun & Back IGT w/ glitches: small craft with high thrust, emphasis on reaction time and precision

Career Mun & Back IGT: grind science and contracts (science car), then similar to Sandbox Mun & Back with limitations

Tech Tree: Science Lab abuse, possibly different for Career, medium duration (1.5h)

Island Express: high-speed atmospheric rocket with suicide burn or parachute, popular Reddit challenge, possible infinite fuel glitch time save

Career All Encounters: simple craft with early tech, orbital mechanics, interplanetary transfer, and transfers around Jool, medium duration (1.5h) (post on Discord if you're interested so we can make this a category)

All Orbits or All Landings: (too similar to All Round Trips)

IL categories are more obscure, and can be useful for All Encounters practice. They each emphasize surprisingly different game mechanics:
Moho Encounter: tricky transfer, reasonable delta-v
Moho: technical rendezvous-like transfer, delta-v intensive, relatively high-gravity landing
Eve Landing: low delta-v, no inclination, harsh entry, easy touch-down with parachutes, purple
Eve Round Trip: infamously technical, high delta-v, high-gravity landing, aerodynamic stability during descent and ascent, dependent on landing site
Minmus: like Mun & Back, emphasis on transfer
Duna: simple transfer, low delta-v requirement, parachute-assisted suicide burn
Dres: notably average, reasonable challenge, includes a quick return window
Jool Orbit: easy encounter, dependent on high-energy transfer, somewhat boring
Eeloo: challenging encounter, dependent on transfer window and high-energy transfer
Jool 5 Encounter: applicable to All Encounters, diverse orbital mechanics, rendezvous-like transfers, some randomness and improv, medium-short duration (20m)
Jool 5 Orbit: applicable to All Round Trips, route-planning
Jool 5 Round-Trip: well-known challenge, relevant to All Round Trips, challenging craft design and mission planning, medium duration (1.5h), good variety, scenic
Career Mode ILs: Extension to Career Mun & Back RTA, potential for unique Career routing for some destinations (Jool 5, Eve), medium duration speedrun

Name	Author
How to Land on the Mun in Under 30 Seconds	electricpants 4 years ago
List of Recognized Glitches	ElectroLlama 3 years ago
Main Category WR Progressions	electricpants 3 years ago
On Suicide Burns	ElectroLlama 5 years ago
Which category is right for you?	ElectroLlama 4 years ago