Mister Spock

My Kerbin space is getting cluttered. Does everyone's map look like this? It's getting crowded around Kerbin in particular. Sometimes I have trouble picking out my current orbit and maneuver nodes. Is there a way to temporarily turn off all the other ships in map view?

Mun Base Alpha. And Beta, Gamma, Delta.... I stranded this Kerbal there, and the unintended side benefit was that he completed easy flag-plant contracts for a while. I've stopped accepting those contracts for a bit because they feel a bit gamey, but if funds get tight, I might revisit that decision.

Jumping on Minmus.

My flag on Minmus. As I said in another thread, the flag design was Kirk's idea, not mine.

I think this was my rocket to send a lander to Minmus, but I don't remember for sure. Gives you an idea of what I've been using inside the Kerbin SOI.

Here's my first docking effort -- a surprising success. The rescue-Kerbal missions helped prep me for this.

And yes, I've been busy flinging ships out my Duna launch window. First I mailed off a tank of fuel, Duna Refueler, pushed by an LV-N. Next I made a big science station, Duna Station, and I was pleased I got it into orbit and was then able to send it toward Duna with an LV-N, too. But although I assigned a couple Kerbils to the science lab, they escaped when I made a last-minute strut addition, and the science lab is empty -- gah! I didn't revert or reload; I am trying to live with the consequences of my actions. One lesson I've learned is to put docking ports on *everything*, so my next vessel was a capsule, the Duna Orbiter, manned by three Kerbils. They'll dock with the station, theoretically. Er, once docked, I may not be able to move them to the lab without a mod like Ship Manifest, I imagine? Or maybe I will be able to EVA them to it? I've got a couple hundred days to think about it. Finally, I've been testing Duna Lander. It's weighing in at more than 5 tons, and it still doesn't have enough fuel, I suspect. I want to load it up with science gear too, but first priority is enough fuel to let it shuttle between Duna and my orbiter/refueling stations. I need to get better at finding ways to get heavy payloads into LKO, and then to move those same payloads to distant planets. Right now I'm using brute force -- moar rockets -- but spaceplanes or SSTO thingies sound more elegant. Up until now, I hadn't seen a need for Kerbil Alarm Clock. Wow, now I need it in spades. With all these ships crossing the solar system, it's hard to keep track of all the upcoming nodes and changes of SOI and whatnot. Plus I have ongoing missions around Minmus, with nodes and such awaiting my attention in a day or so. What a lifesaver that mod is. Oh, I also should've mentioned two other mods I'm using: PreciseNode, and AviationLights, for fun. I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow. Up too danged late playing this addictive game.

Here's a look at one of four ships I now have en route to Duna. I've been experimenting with pretty lights.

This will be a log of my newbish efforts to learn KSP. I've been playing KSP for only a few weeks. I did start a career mode in 23.5, but I got only as far as Minmus, and I didn't come close to finishing the tech tree. Last week I started a new career game in 24.2, and I've been loving it. My first missions were probably standard stuff. Launches, orbits, parts-testing, Kerbil-rescuing, etc. From a newb's perspective, the contracts are pretty nice. The "rescue Kerbil" contracts forced me to learn how to do an orbital rendez-vous. With some help from the nice folks in the Gameplay Questions thread, I was able to figure it out, and I now can do them reasonably well. The "test parts" contracts introduce me to new parts, or even to existing parts that I've been ignoring, and they give me a look at them. These contracts have also induced me to make a plane, because I thought it would be fun to splash down with a jet to run those splashed-down-test contracts. I also test some stuff on a rover I made, just because. My first couple docking efforts went surprisingly smoothly, partly thanks to the practice rescuing Kerbils. Anyway, I soon had a couple million roots, because I'm afraid I've been rather liberal about using the "revert" button. (It's that, not the reload-quicksave button, that I abuse too much.) So off I went to the Mun and Minmus. I stranded a Kerbil on the moon because I didn't have enough fuel, but that turned out okay, because he did a few plant-flag missions until I decided that was a bit cheesy. I had an easier time hopping around Minmus for science, as its lower gravity requires less fuel expenditure. For the past day or two, I've been using Minmus as a practice proving-ground for my upcoming launch window to Duna. (I'm using Kerbal Alarm Clock to help plan launch window; what an amazing mod. I had resisted installing it for a while, but I got it yesterday, and I'm glad I did. My other mods are Kerbal Engineer Redux and Final Frontier. Mod-light so far, but I look forward to playing things like Remote Tech 2 and Deadly Reentry later.) So I put a space station and a refueling station in orbit around Minmus, then just sent another manned mission there. The intention was to have a lander sample a bit more science, then return to orbit to dock and refuel just to make sure I could do that. But before I could rendez-vous with my tanker, my Duna window started to open. It's now 2-3 hours before the optimal launch window, and I'd like to start sending stuff toward Duna. My first effort was a miserable failure. I figured I'd try sending a simple orange tank, equipped with a nuclear engine, to Duna, just to get an idea of what the maneuver nodes would be like. But I didn't make my lifter big enough, and I had to try to fire the nuclear engine to make the final push into orbit, and the engine gave out or something. (I know the LV-N doesn't like atmospheres.) I need to think more systematically about how to build infrastructure at a place like Duna. I was thinking tanker, then space station, then lander. I'm still not quite sure how to make or use a tug. (Do tugs operate only in orbit, or do people use them for transfers?) I'm still reading posts on the forums for guidance, but it's kinda fun to engage in my own disastrous trial-and-error too. More to come tomorrow.

I still haven't finished my first climb up the tech tree, so today I practiced my landing skills at Minmus, visiting three different spots and taking science from them. Then I lifted off to dock my lander, now low on fuel, with an orbiting refueling station. But before I could do that, Kerbal Alarm Clock warned me that my Duna launch window is just a few hours away. (I set it 5 hours in advance to give myself time to build stuff and think. Maybe that wasn't enough time.) My first Duna launch was an abject failure, as I tried to lift a nuclear-powered tanker into orbit, but my lifter ran out of gas, forcing me to try to fire the nuclear engine at about 60,000 meters altitude. It quickly failed. Back to the drawing board.

Thanks for answering my questions, everyone. My first launch window for Duna is approaching, and I've been practicing by setting up refueling stations above Kerbin and its moons. This thread will help.

And to build and fly my first space plane. I did this while performing a couple of contracts to "test part while splashed down", which is why these two planes have slightly different payloads. Now I'm debating whether to plug in a joystick next time I try this.

I continued my noobish march through the tech tree, this time to build my first rover:

The devs have said that they intend to expand the types of contracts, but they haven't given us much more detail than that. Maybe someone knows more than me. I agree with most of your thoughts on this. One thought about testing contracts: from the perspective of a relative newb like me, the test contracts are great. They often give me a look at a part I'm not familiar with, or one I'd never try. Examples include some of the tiny engines, engine clusters, and a pricy liquid-fool booster. Actually, from a newb perspective, most of the contracts are useful. The rescue-Kerbil contract helped teach me how to do an orbital rendez-vous, for example. But yeah, I think we'd all like to see a larger variety of contracts, like contracts to use a space plane to get a big payload somewhere, or to fly a tycoon to Duna, or to build a space station somewhere, or a colony, or whatever.

Gene Kerman! You know, the contract-giver guy. He's so enthusiastic! And he's apparently modeled after Gene Krantz, the NASA flight director during the Apollo era.

Pingonaut, what do you mean by "prepping" your game for mods? I assume you mean researching mods, reading about them here, or developing them? I use a growing list of mods, and while I do spend some time reading about them here, most of my KSP time is spent playing the game. Maybe it's time just to fire up the game, enjoy the mods you have now, and have fun?

Can I ask a newbish question? Once you do get that orange tank in space, how do you dock it to your space station? Does your tug dock with it, then haul it to the space station? Is the tug basically an LV-N with a small fuel tank and a docking clamp? I don't mean to derail a useful thread, so feel free to ignore me; I'm just so newbish that I struggle to refuel at all, never mind refueling economically. I have three half-empty orange tank "space stations" around Kerbin, and another two around Minmus. I don't know an efficient way to join them all up!

I agree that the rescue-Kerbil missions appear too often, but I do think they're very useful for us newbs, so it's good to have 2-3 at the start for rendez-vous practice. After the player accepts and completes one or two, I'd make them much more rare. Being a newb, I unintentionally left a Kerbil on the Mun, as his lander is virtually out of fuel. I'm not using TAC/LS or anything like that, so yeah, he can live there indefinitely and regularly complete plant-flag missions. But after I did 4 or 5 such flag-plants, I found myself swimming in money, so I stopped accepting the flag contracts. As for difficulty, the devs plan to add more costs, don't they? E.g., a money cost to unlock items, on top of the current science cost? Also, I guess we can play Iron Man, without revert/reload, but I'm not ready for that yet; I make too many newbish mistakes. Beyond that, I suppose they could add options to enhance difficulty, like life-support or communications requirements. And yeah, they could easily implement difficulty levels by adjusting item costs.

Heh, and mine says "We came in peace for all Kerbalkind."

Thanks, Cerberus. Yep, that's what I'd like to do -- play the keyboard like a piano, as Scott Manley put it. I just want the right-hand RCS controls to mirror the WASD CTL/SHIFT controls for the left hand, and they don't seem to. I'm thinking I for forward, J for left, K for backwards, L for right, N for down, H for up.

I don't use it.

Er, so how does one change key bindings? Edit the config file? Incidentally, all this practice rescuing Kerbils had a side benefit: my first docking attempt went very smoothly. Yay! I docked successfully on the first try. (Screenshots in the "What did you do in KSP today" thread.) But I had to change to docking mode to use the RCS system competently. I'd really like to remap the default RCS controls for the right hand.

Well said, SkyRender. I'm pretty new to KSP, but I'm astonished by the richness of the mod support for this game. We're pretty lucky.

Plus I had my first successful round-trip to the Mun! I've made a one-way trip, but this was my first successful there-and-back. Came home with lots of science and completed contracts. Yes, that's the "Kerbal Federation of Planets" flag. Kirk made me use it.

Looks like you're having fun with MKS/OKS; I'd like to try those too. For now, I'm doing more newbish stuff. Today I docked successfully on my first attempt. The Kerbil-rescue missions prepared me pretty well. - - - Updated - - -