My first 10-ish hours with Kerbal Space Program

[Dr Turtlestein]

My first 10-ish hours in Kerbal Space Program have been an absolute blast. Since I'm not the biggest fan of simulators I didn't expect to be drawn in this fast and deeply, but lo and behold if I didn't have last year of vocational school and other social responsibilities, I'd be playing it non-stop.

My 10 hours have passed as such:

• First 2 hours spent flying one engine rockets and or blowing up the faculty buildings (sorry scientists and engineers).
• Then for 3 hours collecting data and unlocking new parts to toy with, also made my first airplane and took it for a joyride (landing is okay except the tail is too long and always breaks on touchdown).
• Around my 6th or 7th hour I achieved orbit and started setting up a satellite network, gotta get paid yo. With the new dosh I upgraded most of the faculty buildings.
• Now with second level tracking and administration building I can set maneuvers and I've spent the rest of the time flying towards the Mun, by the Mun and once even into the Mun.
• Just 15~ mins ago I managed my first Mun landing, it involved a lot of bouncing and non-important parts exploding since I ran out of fuel when it came time to break. Now Jeb is stuck there with the remnants of his rocket and our company flag.

Pictures of Jeb on the Mun -> http://imgur.com/a/xKRRF

And I already have ideas on what to do next (set up a satellite network on the moon so Jeb can talk to his wife, get a rover somehow on the Mun and if there's time, get him home).

Also to those wondering, the amount of dead Kerbans (Kerbals? Kerbins? Kerbonauts??) is: yes

[Sharpy]

Congrats on getting the addiction.

Get Jeb off the Mun, then make Minmus your b*tch.

Mun is ungrateful and hard. Minmus... Minmus is a joy ride.

[Dafni]

Nice! Welcome to the forums. Sounds like you got the bug too now, lookin forward to see more from you here.

Cool screenshot too, just dont make Jab wait too long, okay?

One little thing I noticed on your lander. You dont even need ladders on the Mun, nor Minmus or many other places, you can just use the jetpack to fly up to the hatch. And if you build your landers wider than tall the landings become much easier.

cheers

Daf

[Fearless Son]

Nicely done!  You have grasped a lot of the fundamentals of this much more quickly than some people I know.  

I think your take-away from that Mun lander you built is to try and lower the center of mass on the next one you build.  Take those three fuel tanks and put them all around the sides of the command module instead of stacked below it.  Much less likely to tip over that way!

[Kerbal Kommander]

Nicely done, and welcome to KSP!  I don't think I achieved my first Mun landing until after 40 hours.  It took many more for a return trip to Kevin.  I've learned a lot since.  I have over 500 hours in game and still haven't landed on half of the bodies in the system.  You have many hours of fun, frustration, and learning ahead!

[Dr Turtlestein]

9 minutes ago, Dafni said:

Nice! Welcome to the forums. Sounds like you got the bug too now, lookin forward to see more from you here.

Cool screenshot too, just dont make Jab wait too long, okay?

One little thing I noticed on your lander. You dont even need ladders on the Mun, nor Minmus or many other places, you can just use the jetpack to fly up to the hatch. And if you build your landers wider than tall the landings become much easier.

cheers

Daf

 

2 minutes ago, Fearless Son said:

Nicely done!  You have grasped a lot of the fundamentals of this much more quickly than some people I know.  

I think your take-away from that Mun lander you built is to try and lower the center of mass on the next one you build.  Take those three fuel tanks and put them all around the sides of the command module instead of stacked below it.  Much less likely to tip over that way!

I never thought about building the lander wider, I'll give that design a go!

Also the whole "running out of fuel" thing didn't help with the landing , but Jeb did seem to love those cartwheels that it resulted in.  A bit worried about the aerodynamics of it escaping the atmosphere, but that's a minute detail

[DoToH]

5 minutes ago, Fearless Son said:

Nicely done!  You have grasped a lot of the fundamentals of this much more quickly than some people

This  ^^ 

[ZentroCatson]

Ah, the memories... I started way back in 0.25 with a science mode save. It was really fun, I made all sorts of weird and inefficient launchers and landers, and even rocket plane. 

But do get Jeb off the Mun, please. You could try and land close to him, though that's difficult in stock. And you have to visit Minmus, it's an awesome place!

 

[pandaman]

Hi, and welcome. 

Your first Mun landing was very similar to mine.  Welcome to the world of rescue missions, they are great for learning how to do precision landings in awkward places.

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

10 hours... just 10 hours to land on the mun... 10... *dies*

It took me like 3 weeks to even try

[RX2000]

Nice job. It took me waaaay more than 10 hours to reach the Mun.

[RW-1]

Very nice, always good to relive those early days ... Wait a minute,I do that with every career restart

Enjoy!

[Guest]

You got on the Mun in 10 hours??? Wow. Impressive. :salute:

(Okay, you're stuck there, which does make me feel a little less inadequate. I did get back on my first try, although I re-entered right into a mountainside and Jeb died rolling down the slope...)

[Fearless Son]

6 hours ago, Dr Turtlestein said:

I never thought about building the lander wider, I'll give that design a go!

Also the whole "running out of fuel" thing didn't help with the landing , but Jeb did seem to love those cartwheels that it resulted in.  A bit worried about the aerodynamics of it escaping the atmosphere, but that's a minute detail

I will not lie, the wider lander is going to produce more drag at the front of the rocket on ascent, but you can compensate for that.  Some aerodynamic nose cones will help, though I find those are a great place for parachutes to save for your return to Kerbin.  Also, as you add more drag at the front of the rocket, you need to add more drag at the rear of the rocket to keep it controllable, and that means tail fins, nice big tail fins.  Fins are not very heavy, and it is relatively easy to add some thrust to the lower stage in any case, so go nuts!

[JohnnyPanzer]

Great Scott! Getting that far up the learning curve in 10 hours is impressive!

Glad to see yet another Kerbonaut join the ranks, I hope to see more of your adventures.

[Boris Kerball]

That was my biggest blast getting back to JEB when I ran out of fuel landing, I have the vid on my phone I could not believe how  easy it was to change orbit while moving across the surface and the target Icon flashed into life, stating 25km to go and falling fast..lol I landed about 1 mile away  lol and when jeb got to the rescue craft.. there's only enough fuel to orbit Kerbal earth..lol  another rescue...

welcome and well done to this great game.

[KerikBalm]

When it comes to Mun landers, you want short and squat.

I use designs like this in career a lot... but usually only after unlocking fairings, as short and squat is not good for atmospheric rockets:

Also, it can't return to kerbin's surface, it relies on docking in Mun orbit and another vessel to get the science and kerbals home.

I'm guessing you're still too inexperienced for orbital rendevous and docking... but this method does save fuel.

[Boris Kerball]

You will soon go back for Jeb, and as a newbie myself (in my 5th week) some thing I did not realise, might help you. what I did not know was that the stars next to the pilot actually mean they can do more with experience, One being when landing click on the retrograde button and he will automatically follow the arc of trajectory to  the ground, leaving you to just deal with thrust, and right clicking on the engine reduce thrust to less 50%

then using ctrl/shift in the last 30ft you can keep the decent to any speed under 5.0/ms.  Before I knew this I was bouncing around like a

(wooden Top)before your years...lol... trying to land..lol

 

[Dr Turtlestein]

4 hours ago, capt: scarlet said:

You will soon go back for Jeb, and as a newbie myself (in my 5th week) some thing I did not realise, might help you. what I did not know was that the stars next to the pilot actually mean they can do more with experience, One being when landing click on the retrograde button and he will automatically follow the arc of trajectory to  the ground, leaving you to just deal with thrust, and right clicking on the engine reduce thrust to less 50%

then using ctrl/shift in the last 30ft you can keep the decent to any speed under 5.0/ms.  Before I knew this I was bouncing around like a

(wooden Top)before your years...lol... trying to land..lol

 

Thanks for the tips, the 5.0/ms is a good number to keep in mind then.

Also what I found is that if you press CAPS LOCK you seem to be able to fine tune your direction on the navball (rotate slower and thus have more control) so it's good if you want to move around, but not go outside of a node.

[Archgeek]

On 10/18/2016 at 0:28 PM, Dr Turtlestein said:

My first 10-ish hours in Kerbal Space Program have been an absolute blast. Since I'm not the biggest fan of simulators I didn't expect to be drawn in this fast and deeply, but lo and behold if I didn't have last year of vocational school and other social responsibilities, I'd be playing it non-stop.

And I already have ideas on what to do next (set up a satellite network on the moon so Jeb can talk to his wife, get a rover somehow on the Mun and if there's time, get him home).

Also to those wondering, the amount of dead Kerbans (Kerbals? Kerbins? Kerbonauts??) is: yes

Welcome!  And congratulations on your quite rapid progress.

Also, since you asked via those question marks:

Canonically: The Kerbals live on the planet Kerbin orbiting their sun.

Apocryphally: Some call the kerbals hired as astronauts by the program kerbonauts, and some call the sun Kerbin orbits Kerbol.

[Fearless Son]

On 10/19/2016 at 6:36 AM, capt: scarlet said:

One being when landing click on the retrograde button and he will automatically follow the arc of trajectory to  the ground, leaving you to just deal with thrust, and right clicking on the engine reduce thrust to less 50%

Good advice, but I should also add that the piloting like that only works when the SAS system is engaged, so make sure that is turned on.  Further, while telling the pilot to keep the craft oriented in a certain direction relative to its velocity can be a great help at coming into an efficient vertical landing, you want to be quick to change SAS back to standard holding fixed orientation as your velocity gets close to zero.  When the velocity gets near zero, the orientation markers on the navball will start to rapidly shift, completely inverting if you switch to the opposite direction.  So if the pilot is trying to keep the ship pointed in a particular direction relative to velocity when you get to that point, they will start swinging the nose around seemingly wildly, often over-correcting due to inertia and rapid directional change.  Since this is likely to happen as you are getting close to the ground, you might not have time to recover and fix the orientation of the lander before touchdown, and if the lander ends up sideways it can be difficult to get it back upright without damaging it further.  

Since SAS defaults to baseline direction maintenance when turned on, you can swap back to it in a hurry by double-tapping the SAS toggle button (typically "T" on your keyboard.)  Do that when your descent is vertical and starting to get slow and you will avoid an unexpected "correction" by your pilot.  

Also, I recommend completely disengaging SAS when you touchdown.  It can keep the craft from "settling" on the surface properly if there is a little slope.

[Archgeek]

On 10/20/2016 at 5:39 PM, Fearless Son said:

Since SAS defaults to baseline direction maintenance when turned on, you can swap back to it in a hurry by double-tapping the SAS toggle button (typically "T" on your keyboard.)  Do that when your descent is vertical and starting to get slow and you will avoid an unexpected "correction" by your pilot.  

You can also single-tap 'F' (which reverses SAS on/off state as long as it's held) to do it one motion.

[Kerbal101]

@Dr Turtlestein Hello. I noticed you have build basic plane in your gallery "Bonus picture: First airplane design" built with YT-01 Fixed Landing Gear.

Have you managed landing your airplane anywhere, except runway, without these wheels blowing off? I mean this seriously. Thank you!

[Leafbaron]

On 10/19/2016 at 7:36 AM, capt: scarlet said:

You will soon go back for Jeb, and as a newbie myself (in my 5th week) some thing I did not realise, might help you. what I did not know was that the stars next to the pilot actually mean they can do more with experience, One being when landing click on the retrograde button and he will automatically follow the arc of trajectory to  the ground, leaving you to just deal with thrust, and right clicking on the engine reduce thrust to less 50%

then using ctrl/shift in the last 30ft you can keep the decent to any speed under 5.0/ms.  Before I knew this I was bouncing around like a

(wooden Top)before your years...lol... trying to land..lol

 

be careful when doing this. If you thrust to much and you start to move away from the Mun, your craft will flip over to chase the retrograde marker. Not ideal when you're only meters off the surface  

[Guest]

 its alot better then my first ten hours. and also good job:)