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What are the most important things you've learned about playing KSP to pass on?


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On 07/01/2016 at 11:29 PM, Evanitis said:

- Success is fun, but failure is fun too. The best is a mix of the two.

- There is no wrong way to play the game.

- Air intakes work underwater.

- The tier 0 airstrip is the bumpiest surface in the known universe.

Yeah with the runway i always take off from the ground next to it till i can level it up

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I've learned that a combination of patience and strategically placed struts is the key to success, also thrust, you can never have too much thrust. Well, actually you can, I had a rocket blow up once because the insane amount of thrust quite literally crushed the upper part of the rocket, that was fun.^_^ Maneuver nodes can also be very useful when used right.

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Align the driver to the driven. If you rotate a command module so the ladder aligns with the lower sections you will hate yourself when you try to use the directional controls. It also makes space hangar part alignment impossible.

Do not save the last bit of staging to detach in final re-entry in an attempt to limit space debris. It works fine *most* of the time but can also come back and hit you, or even worse, clip into the heat shield and make the craft uncontrollable. :(

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I've learnt a lot of things from KSP, and i usually end up being called 'the smart guy' everytime in physics class.But anyways: here are a few of many things i learned:

- To calculate delta-v, multiply the ISP of your engine with the natural logorithm of the qoutient of the dry and wet mass of your craft. 

- Don't use MechJeb too often.While the autopilot is really handy, it will take a toll on your piloting skills.You will eventually rely too much on the autopilot, and be dependent on it in a later stage.

- Learn to take advantage of the Oberth Effect.Whilst orbiting a moon that orbits really far away from it's parent planet, burn out of it's SOI, and set the initial periapsis around the parent planet the lowest you can get it without entering it's atmosphere, if it has an atmosphere.Once outside the SOI of the moon, warp to your periapsis and burn.By doing this, you consume the least amount of fuel when leaving it's gravitational influence.

- If you want to make your orbit's more perfect, set your thrust limiter on your engine really low, go to a point approximately inbetween the apoapsis and periapsis, then burn radially or anti-radially, depending on which side you are on.

- When building planes, put your wings a bit farther back to prevent constant stalling.Side fact: Don't overuse the Advanced Canards, as your plane will have to strong lift and will flip your plane upside down on takeoff.

- When departing for other planets, know your phase and ejection angles.This prevents you from wasting a crazy amount of delta-v on getting to a place that's basically right next door to Kerbin.

- ALWAYS REMEMBER TO ACTION GROUP YOUR SOLAR PANELS!

- DON'T FORGET THE SOLAR PANELS!

- Opt for a minimalistic design.Build rockets that have just enough fuel and safety countermeasures to get you somewhere and back safely.

- Always have an extra battery or two onboard.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I mostly learned these things during my rookie years, back in 0.19, all the way up to 0.24 (no kidding).Here's one thing i said when i first joined this forum around 2 years ago.Back at the time, i knew very little about how KSP works.I literally asked why my game wasn't budging, because i was on the dark side of the Mun with zero eletricity.YUP.THAT HAPPEND.Anyways this a really lenghty post, and i'm sorry for taking up precious thread space :blush:.Thanks for reading my learned lessons, and some mistakes and sins! :D

Edited by Candlelight
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I've learned a lot, and seeing how big this thread is, I'm sure nearly all topics have been covered..so I'll keep this short and sweet. My best advice is:

1) Have patience, and never give up when trying to learn something new (ie. docking). The payoff when you finally learn something new is so worth it.

2) Utilize the forums! There is so much valuable information and tutorials on these KSP forums; nearly any/every topic you can think of has probably been covered before, and if there isn't a related tutorial, there is probably at least a related post in the forums. If you don't find what you need, create a thread and ask; the people that frequent these forums are absolutely beyond amazing...they are quick to respond, friendly, and incredibly helpful and understanding.

 

That's my 2¢ :)

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On 3/10/2016 at 4:57 PM, KocLobster said:

I've learned a lot, and seeing how big this thread is, I'm sure nearly all topics have been covered..so I'll keep this short and sweet. My best advice is:

1) Have patience, and never give up when trying to learn something new (ie. docking). The payoff when you finally learn something new is so worth it.

2) Utilize the forums! There is so much valuable information and tutorials on these KSP forums; nearly any/every topic you can think of has probably been covered before, and if there isn't a related tutorial, there is probably at least a related post in the forums. If you don't find what you need, create a thread and ask; the people that frequent these forums are absolutely beyond amazing...they are quick to respond, friendly, and incredibly helpful and understanding.

 

That's my 2¢ :)

My first docking attempt took almost 3 hours, had to revert 3 times because I ran out of mono prop.  Almost more satisfying then my first Mun landing without SAS.  I can now dock 100t monsters with nothing more then reaction wheels and main engines

My most important advice is SAS is the "t" button.  took me 3 days to figure that out.

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Spending an hour trying to strut down a fairings content isn't worth it. Re design the payload, re align your thrustsers, come up with a new way of launching the payload or use procedural fairings. They have auto strutting so in the case of unbalanced loads very useful 

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don't EVA after a crash if the door is facing the surface

gimballed rockets will murder your ship if attached radially without some space between

the spock rule: the wellbeing of the many outweigh the wellbeing of the one. sorry Fredgun.

if anyone has some rules of thumb for wrestling an asteroid back to Kerbin I'd love to hear it.

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1. Quicksave at every opportunity.

2. Don't be afraid of failure, embrace it. (as long as it doesn't kill jeb:))

3. Planes are hard.

4. CHECK YOUR STAGING!! I've lost far too missions and kerbals to putting a decoupler on the wrong stage.

5. Triple check you have batteries, parachutes etc.

6. Kerbal engineer redux is one of the most useful mods ever made.

7. The kraken is always watching.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 18/03/2016 at 5:49 AM, Kaiser82 said:

if anyone has some rules of thumb for wrestling an asteroid back to Kerbin I'd love to hear it.

Unlock the claw's pivot and adjust it's angle so your engine fires coaxially with the asteroid's COM.  Oh, and don't put in a widdershins orbit like i did the first time I did an asteroid capture mission...

Wemb

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On 3/19/2016 at 7:49 AM, Kaiser82 said:

don't EVA after a crash if the door is facing the surface

gimballed rockets will murder your ship if attached radially without some space between

the spock rule: the wellbeing of the many outweigh the wellbeing of the one. sorry Fredgun.

if anyone has some rules of thumb for wrestling an asteroid back to Kerbin I'd love to hear it.

Rescuing Fredgun will give you the ability to rescue all the future countless many lost-in-space kerbals...They will certainly be more kerbals than you have in the astronaut complex :P (just kidding, but seriously learning and pulling that off will make Fredgun[cool name btw] to be a more well known hero than Jeb)

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1.  Pulling a long rocket is much more stable than pushing a rocket.  Don't forget that engines can overheat and burn off parts behind them so watch where they thrust.  

2.  Testing is under rated.  Try and test your crafts to see if they would work in similar conditions.  Don't be afraid of using cheats in order to test the crafts easier(IE: infinite fuel plus hack gravity to see how transfer craft will operate, using hyperedit to test)

3.  Testing is over rated.  Sometimes the best way to learn is by your failures.  You learn what works and what doesn't work by trying different things in different conditions. 

4.  Bigger is not always better.  If you can build something that's smaller and has the same functionality and dv, then you can build a smaller rocket to get it to orbit, which is usually easier to get into orbit and can have fewer parts.  

5. Try something new. Install a new mod to change how you plan, build, and fly your crafts.  Mods like remote tech, TAC LS, FAR and RSS will make you think differently and broaden your view on how the game is played, plus you may like the particular mods and insist on playing with them.  

6.  If you mod, try going stock and if you play stock, trying modding.  You never know if playing a different way will be more fun or make you appreciate KSP more.  

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On 26.1.2014 at 8:12 PM, capi3101 said:

Learn the Rocket Equation - how to use it to determine how much delta-V your rocket has, and how to use it to determine the amount of fuel you need in order to have a target amount of delta-V. That, combined with an understanding of the importance of thrust-to-weight ratios, will tell you if your rocket is capable of doing the job you want it to and the bare amount of fuel you need to do it.

...

 

Also always be aware of the fact that, simplified, engines in KSP can be broken down into 2 major groups:

Engines that work well in an atmosphere and engines that work well in a vacuum

 

It usually doesn´t make sense to use an engine in the first stages, that only works well in a vacuum ... it also doesn´t make sense to use an engine for interplanetary tranbsfer, that is horrible in vacuum and only good in an atmosphere. (unless you have no alternatives or very good reasons to deviate from this rule, of course ... there may also be special cases that give you reasons to deviate from certain rules)

 

Also be aware that usually in eingines there is a tradeoff between efficiency and thrust ... the most efficient engines usually produce the least thrust ... ask yourself how mucvh thrust you really need (especially in space (if it is not about landing or starting from a planet) you usually don´t need high TWR values and can play more with efficient low thrust engines)

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One cool thing I found is that if you learn the ASCII code KSP is written in, you can modify the actual parts to be more efficient/powerful, or (more challenging and therefore fun :D) less efficient/powerful. I don’t know if this has been discussed at all, but I think it’s an interesting idea. Just make sure not to lose the original part tho. :wink:

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10 hours ago, Mycroft said:

One cool thing I found is that if you learn the ASCII code KSP is written in, you can modify the actual parts to be more efficient/powerful, or (more challenging and therefore fun :D) less efficient/powerful. I don’t know if this has been discussed at all, but I think it’s an interesting idea. Just make sure not to lose the original part tho. :wink:

Or just learn to use ModuleManager to make the alterations for you so you don't have to change the original cfg files and your changes won't conflict with changes that other mods may make to the same parts...

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  • 2 weeks later...

Today I learned that with RemoteTech installed, a Solar eclipse just before you start re-entry is a very scary thing indeed.

Wemb

Edited by Wemb
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The knowledge/information I learned about KSP are not about KSP itself, rather they are about my real life...

Long introduction hidden, expand to know the back story for the talk below...

Spoiler

 

Because I grew up and I am living in a Middle-eastern country... During my school time, maths, physics and chemistry classes were the MOST hated classes for everyone... I never wondered why we hated them or why we would ever love them... However for me it was different, I felt some love to those lessons despite I was not perfect in them, but I just loved crunching the numbers, and doing the equations and differentiations... My friends saw me a bit weird though.

When I see videos of the geniuses out there, and even the passed away scientists, such as Newton, Einstein, Halley, Farady and many many others, I wonder why they became what the were and I am not... compared to their time, I am living a VERY luxurious life to them, with the full internet and all the knowledge in my mobile phone or laptop, but still I cannot solve an equation easily like they did. When I look for today's schools that are outside the ME, or even the whole MENA region, I know the reason that we don't have those minds like EU, Americas, and AUS have. It is because MENA region (I am sadly saying this) does not value the future, and considers maths as a teacher's future only, we learn maths, physics, chemistry just to be teachers in schools. No more. We take the maths class and we forget it completely after the final exams, while in fact our whole life is involved in maths and physics, but we are perfectly blind from this fact, ignoring it because we don't like numbers.

 

KSP taught me that science is around us everywhere, it taught me to look at everything in a different way, before I play KSP, I used to hate every second I spent on an aircraft during travel, I hated every single second of my time driving a car, and more I hated to walk for a single second under the sun... But now, I await every potential chance and appointment to ride an air plane, just to feel how the air flows around that piece of metal, and I sit next to the wings just to watch the flaps, ailerons, and the "A.I.R.B.R.A.K.E.S" work, and I enjoy the sound of the engines after it was torturing my brain with its non stopping roaring. The landing time is my favourite time of the whole trip, I love it and I can feel the air outside hitting and lifting the body of the plane as I never imagined it before...

I can now really see where our Earth is in space, how other planets move around our sun, and most of all, I realized that our horizon is actually vertical not horizontal as we see it from earth, I could never imagine myself sitting on the screen watching an eclipse and imagining it happening from a point of view not inside earth, but from outside it. Before I played KSP, I never felt the laws of physics so real like I do now...

I am now badly looking and hoping to get a telescope (although it is not that easy here) to see more and more of the stuff I missed because of how we used to look/consider maths and physics here...

I will make sure that I pass this knowledge to my children and help them not to waste their early creative years like I did.

Edited by SalehRam
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*Always shut off the battery in your first pod. I've never been disappointed that I didn't have 5 more EC to spend, but I've often wished I had enough to deploy a solar panel or get just a bit of rotation started. Also, as long as there's EC somewhere on the ship, you can still tweak tweakables.

*Big drills are mostly useless. Unless you're limited on your drilling time or need the extra reach, the small drill will do everything you need with less weight and less radiators.

*In the last moments of a powered landing, Surface mode Radial Out is your best friend. Doubly so when you realize you're coming down on a hillside.

*Learn how to use bi-elliptical transfers to make large inclination changes. It's counterintuitive until you turn your head and squint, but if you're going more than 45 degrees, you'll be glad you did. (P.S. From 45 to 60 degrees, your target is to double your current semi-major axis. Otherwise, go to the edge of the SoI.)

*Speaking of which, learn the difference between altitude and semi-major axis.

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13 minutes ago, Aubri said:

*Always shut off the battery in your first pod. I've never been disappointed that I didn't have 5 more EC to spend, but I've often wished I had enough to deploy a solar panel or get just a bit of rotation started. Also, as long as there's EC somewhere on the ship, you can still tweak tweakables.

This one doesn't work anymore, once the probe core goes dead you can't turn on a reserve battery.

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