Table changes distance to preceding line depending on rows

Question

This seems to be such a simple issue, but I still have not found an answer to this question. I am using a non-float tabular environment. Depending on how many rows my table has, the distance to the preceding line changes.

If I have table with one row, the distance between the last non-table line and the first line in the table one baselineskip as I want. However, if I have a table with more than one row the table moves up closer to the preceding line, where the exact distance depends on the letters in the line. (please find the example and the output below)

Is there a way to set the distance of the table to the line before to a set value?

Thanks for your help in advance.

\documentclass[fontsize=11pt]{scrartcl}

\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\begin{document}
\setlength{\tabcolsep}{0pt}
\setlength{\parskip}{0pt}
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}

lipsum\\lipsum\\
\begin{tabular}{p{0.2 \linewidth}p{0.2 \linewidth}}
\hline
lipsum & lipsum
\\\hline
\end{tabular}%
\vspace{1cm}

lipsum\\lipsum\\
\begin{tabular}{p{0.2 \linewidth}p{0.2 \linewidth}}
\hline
lipsum & lipsum\\
lipsum & lipsum
\\\hline
\end{tabular}%
\vspace{1cm}

libsum\\libsum\\
\begin{tabular}{p{0.2 \linewidth}p{0.2 \linewidth}}
\hline
lipsum & lipsum
\\\hline
\end{tabular}%
\vspace{1cm}

libsum\\libsum\\
\begin{tabular}{p{0.2 \linewidth}p{0.2 \linewidth}}
\hline
lipsum & lipsum\\
lipsum & lipsum
\\\hline
\end{tabular}%
\vspace{1cm}

\end{document}

Answer 1

You can use \begin{tabular}[t] so that the reference point for the tabular is on the first row, then the standard \baselineskip calculation produces the expected space. With the default vertical centre alignment, the reference point is in the middle of the tabular so if the tabular has more than one row it will have height larger than \baselineskip so tex can not ensure \baselineskip spacing.