TCIS's Guide To Planets & Moons

[Chel]

A simple guide for new players on all the different planets of the Kerbal universe, and the difficulty of getting to each one, getting back, what to bring, what not to bring, and some little facts (and easter eggs) along the way.

Kerbin (Skill: )

Kerbin is home to the Kerbals, and is orbited by two moons, the Mun, and Minmus. Kerbin is where every player starts out on (unless you have a planet pack mod, but this is for stock installs). Kerbin is pretty much the easiest planet that has an atmosphere to get into orbit, and is where all flights start from.

The Mun (Skill: )

The Mun is the first moon of Kerbin, and is modelled after the Moon. Many new players aspire to land on the Mun, and it is easy to get an encounter to it and back. When you are doing a Mun encounter, make some space to go around it. Then burn your engines to circularise your orbit. Once you're happy with the place, you can set a Kerbin encounter, and once reaching Kerbin, burn your engines once again to get into orbit.

Minmus (Skill: )

Minmus is the second moon of Kerbin, and is seen by the Kerbals as the 'dessert moon', due to it's green colour (apparently also the colour of snacks). It's a little bit harder to get to, and you will need some basic manoeuvre node skills (so you don't encounter Minmus and then get sent flying off on an orbit of the Sun!). Once again, set a trajectory to go around it, burn your engines to circularise, and then return (if you want to). Minmus can often be seen in the early morning, as a green-blue dot in the sky. It is also a bit more challenging to get to than the Mun, due to it's small size.

Moho (Skill: )

Moho is a brown planet, near the Sun, and is modelled after either Venus or Mercury. Since it is so close to the Sun, it can take a little while for the sunlight to catch up with your spacecraft, so try to avoid arriving in darkness. It is very hilly, and has lots of craters. A strategy that I use to reach Moho is to first go to Minmus, refuel from my fuel station, and then dock extra tanks along, and then go to Moho. At the north pole of Moho is a bug/easter egg, the Mohole. It is small, but very, very deep. Many people have tried establishing bases inside the Mohole, so try it if you dare to spend your entire Friday night hunched over the computer screen, going insane every time you fail want to have a nice, totally easy, relaxing challenge. Getting there is also a bit challenging, as it has no atmosphere, meaning that you cannot aerobrake to slow your craft down.

Dres (Skill: )

Dres is sometimes referred to as the 'Forgotten Planet'. It's a little bit far out, isn't really close to anything, and is basically a larger version of the Mun. An easter egg of Dres was that Carl Sagan's face would appear on the surface, but this has now (sadly) been removed. Asteroids, or 'Dresderoids' as they are nicknamed, spawn in rings around the planet, which can make Dres a handy refuelling area for ships heading to other planets. Just like Moho, Dres has no atmosphere, meaning that you can't aerobrake to slow down.

Eve (Skill:  )

Eve is probably the most challenging, but most rewarding, planet to get to for new players in KSP. It offers the second-highest amount of science, it's gravity is higher than Kerbin's, and it looks cool because it's purple. Getting an Eve encounter is a little bit difficult, requiring lots of fuel, knowledge of manoeuvre nodes, and bypassing other planets. Landing there is tough, as the high gravity can easily rip off parts of your craft. The good thing is that airbrakes are very effective at Eve, so you should probably design more of a plane than a rocket, as the high gravity will pull you down anyway (meaning that firing rockets at the ground to slow down won't be very effective). If you want to get back out of Eve, then I will say this: bring some SRBs. A couple of SRBs, or a massive quad of powerful engines. Otherwise, the gravity means that you are probably stuck forever.

Gilly (Skill:)

Gilly is the only moon (or asteroid, as a matter of fact), of Eve, and is very easy to encounter and land on. Unlike Eve, which has extremely high gravity, Gilly has extremely low gravity. .Landing there is extremely easy, and once you get out of your spacecraft, walking around sends you 200+ meters into the air! You may want to have a heavy weight on your spacecraft down the bottom so it can't float away once you've landed, because things can start rotating and flying around with tiny movements. They can be so small that the game lets you timewarp, so you should always firmly plant yourself on the ground before doing so.

The Jool System (Skill: )

Since Jool is home to five different planets and moons, this will cover the whole system. Jool is big, green, and fun. It is very far from the Sun, can take days (or even months) to get there, has a thick atmosphere, and no surface. Flying through the atmosphere is fun, but be warned, as once you get below a certain height, your craft will be completely destroyed (even if you have unbreakable joints and no crash damage cheats on). There isn't really much to use Jool for, but the space around it provides good science. It is home to the Jool system, which consists of Laythe, Vall, Bop, Tylo, and Pol.

Laythe isn't really that different from Kerbin. Both have water (at least from a basic perspective), both have land, and both have atmospheres and oxygen (meaning that jet engines work). Laythe is made up of islands and peninsulas, meaning that you can make little tourist areas and send Kerbals there, but it is also home to massive oceans. If you are experienced enough, you can send science boats into the ocean, to explore and gather data. You could even make submarines to descend below the surface! At night, you are greeted to a beautiful sunset with all the other planets and moons of Jool, and can reflect that you are here, and that Kerbin is so far away.

Vall is icy and blue, but a really rich source of science. It seems to have weird ramp-mountains on it, and is home to the Vallhenge, which is an easter egg of the Stonehenge. It is sometimes used as a rover testing area, due to the hills and uneven terrain, which is good for all-purpose ground vehicles.

Bop is a very hilly place, and is home to the Kraken. Bop's gravity is not too strong, and not too weak, but Bop is also a bit glitchy. A common glitch is where a spacecraft is orbiting it, and the player switches to the map view. Once going back, they find that their spacecraft has disappeared, apparently colliding with Bop. On the north pole, a small green speck can be seen in a crater. This is where the Kraken resides, after being destroyed by the Sword Of 0.17, where a bugfix update removed the Kraken glitch from happening.

Tylo is the largest moon in the game, and is even larger than Kerbin. Its gravity is high, which makes it hard to get away from, meaning that you should bring some really powerful engines, or SRBs, if you want to escape from the moon. Tylo is sometimes used as a communications array to provide connections to craft far out of Kerbin's communication range. I like to use Tylo as a test area for Eve craft. If it can't get off Tylo, then I know that it can't get off of Eve.

Pol is a tiny, outlying moon of Vall, featuring some hilly but also flat terrain. It is a good source of science, but that's about all it is worth going to. A glitch that can happen is when you are landing on Pol, and there is an invisible wall. If your craft touches it, then it is destroyed. Due to this, a good safeguard is to extend a ladder while landing (because ladders aren't physical). If it 'sinks' into the surface, then you are going to hit the invisible wall, and should abort the landing and land somewhere else.

Duna (Skill: )

Duna is an orange, Kerbin-sized, planet, and is the game's version of Mars. Duna consists of hilly and flat areas, canyons, and cliffs. A good thing to do to land on Duna is to aerobrake, which involves going into the atmosphere for a short amount of time, letting the friction slow your craft down, before you then start landing. Duna's atmosphere is a little bit weaker than Kerbins, and so parachutes are not as effective on Duna, so you should also bring some airbrakes along. Several easter eggs exist on Duna, such as the giant Kerbal face, and the Mars Curiosity Rover's camera 'head' sticking out of a rock.

Ike (Skill: )

Ike is Duna's only moon, and is similar to the Mun. Its gravity isn't particularly strong, and it is easy to encounter. If you have the time, you could dock two ships together to head to Duna. One could go to the planet, while the other could undock and head to Ike, instead of having to launch two separate missions.

Eeloo (Skill: )

Eeloo is a planet that was added to the game as a Christmas gift in 2014, and is possibly the hardest to get to. It's slow orbital speed means that you may spend hours timewarping to get a launch window from Kerbin. It is the only planet to not have a circular orbit, as it has an orbit that intersects Jool's, and is only close to the Sun for roughly a quarter of it's orbit time. To get to Eeloo, you should try to get a launch window where Kerbin and Eeloo are closest to eachother (to save fuel). You will have to do large burns (and maybe some gravity assists) to get an encounter, and it WILL take a long time to get there, so either timewarp, or go do something else for a few hours/days. Once there, the planet is pretty much a flat, white-brown area, and not many easter eggs exist (yet). One good thing about Eeloo is that it currently offers the most science, which can be worth the trip if you want to advance your space program.

 

And with that, hope this long summary of planets and moons helps new players! TCIS.

 

 

Edited August 31, 2017 by The_Cat_In_Space
Finally finishing topic after 3 days, and updating information

[Vanamonde]

I would give both Moho and Dres much higher difficulty ratings, if I were you. Neither has an atmosphere to help with aerobraking, Dres has a relatively small SOI to target, Moho takes gobs of dV to reach, and its orbit is inclined. I find Moho to be the hardest to intercept, in fact. 

[ProtoJeb21]

20 hours ago, Vanamonde said:

I would give both Moho and Dres much higher difficulty ratings, if I were you. Neither has an atmosphere to help with aerobraking, Dres has a relatively small SOI to target, Moho takes gobs of dV to reach, and its orbit is inclined. I find Moho to be the hardest to intercept, in fact. 

I don't find it too troublesome to get an encounter with Moho. Getting into orbit, however...that's a different story.

[ThreePounds]

32 minutes ago, ProtoJeb21 said:

I don't find it too troublesome to get an encounter with Moho. Getting into orbit, however...that's a different story.

I usually try to do an Eve flyby first. Helps tremendously with the plane change and reduces the hyperbolic excess velocity. I've done Low Kerbin to Low Moho Orbits for about 4km/s.

[MrWalrus123]

you should also mention how Minmus is much smaller than the Mun, so its slightly harder to get to, but easier to return from.

[Chel]

On ‎26‎/‎08‎/‎2017 at 6:47 AM, Vanamonde said:

I would give both Moho and Dres much higher difficulty ratings, if I were you. Neither has an atmosphere to help with aerobraking, Dres has a relatively small SOI to target, Moho takes gobs of dV to reach, and its orbit is inclined. I find Moho to be the hardest to intercept, in fact. 

I've updated the information. Thanks for the feedback!

[mk1980]

if you use the atmoshphere of a planet/moon to slow down, it's called "aerobrake" (or "aerocapture" if the maneuver changes your trajectory from a flyby to an orbit or impact/landing trajectory).

you used the word "lithobrake" in your guide, which would be using the solid surface of the planet to brake. i think that term is often used as a funny synonym for a crash landing.

[Chel]

12 hours ago, mk1980 said:

if you use the atmoshphere of a planet/moon to slow down, it's called "aerobrake" (or "aerocapture" if the maneuver changes your trajectory from a flyby to an orbit or impact/landing trajectory).

you used the word "lithobrake" in your guide, which would be using the solid surface of the planet to brake. i think that term is often used as a funny synonym for a crash landing.

Ok. I'll update the info.

[qzgy]

Moho is modeled after mercury. Eve is the venus-like analogue in the game.

On eve, from what I gather, SRBs aren't too great. Instead bring Vectors and aerospikes, the only two engines (apart from he mammoth, which is just a bunch of vectors) that really work. The problem isn't really the gravity, but the air pressure which renders most engines useless. You also need about 810 km/s of dV to do an eve ascent, as opposed to the 2-3km/s on tylo. Tylo isn't really great for eve testing....

Tylo is also really handy for a gravity assist into joolian orbit.

Duna is also not too helpful for parachutes. I mean, they work, but landing engines are good too, just to make it easier.

Edited August 31, 2017 by qzgy

[Grand Ship Builder]

On 8/30/2017 at 11:30 PM, qzgy said:

You also need about 810 km/s of dV to do an eve ascent, as opposed to the 2-3km/s on tylo. Tylo isn't really great for eve testing...

810 km/s? That's enough to escape the Kerbol system, get to the nearest star, and land back at the KSC, all with plenty of fuel!