Something old, something new

[Ryohei56]

Hi there. I'd been aware of KSP for a long time, but had never been moved to go as far as actually acquiring the game. Given that I've had a keen interest in all things space since Sputnik, it should have been a no-brainer. However, I tended to spend my gaming time slaughtering Romans (Total War), Orcs (Middle Earth) and anything else with a pulse (Skyrim).

Anyway, I finally took the plunge and began my journey to the stars. Sadly, my guys have an unfortunate tendency to experience fiery death, and none have yet survived to reach orbit, never mind infinity and beyond. I've been hunting out tutorials, but most seem to relate to older versions of the game - I'm running 1.9.0 - so it seems like they are a bit out of date. Can anyone point me in the right direction for more up to date info?

 

Cheers

[Starhawk]

Hello @Ryohei56 and welcome to the KSP Forum!

3 hours ago, Ryohei56 said:

Sadly, my guys have an unfortunate tendency to experience fiery death

That is the Kerbal way. 

As long as the tutorial for getting to orbit is something made in a post-release version (i.e. 1.0 and up), you should be OK.  There have been numerous tweaks to the atmosphere since first release, but the process is basically the same.

Whatever you do, do NOT use tutorials made before version 1.0.  That was when the major overhaul was done to the aerodynamic model and anything before that used a very different method.

Many, many good tutorials can be found in the Tutorials subforum.

There is also an enormous amount of useful information to be found in the KSP Wiki.

If you continue struggling, it may be a good idea to post in the Gameplay Questions section of the forum and ask for advice.  If you do, it is almost always valuable to include an image of the craft you are having difficulties with.

To do that, you upload the pic to an online image storage service (such as imgur.com, which is free and requires no registration) and paste a link to the pic in your post.

Hope this helps.

Glad to have you aboard.

Happy landings!

[Vanamonde]

My guide hasn't been updated for quite a while but shouldn't be out of date. Maybe it could be helpful? 

 

[Ryohei56]

Thanks for the help, guys - and I can also pass on the thanks of all the litlle Kerbals whose lives you have saved. The Grim Reaper will have to be patient......

Vanamonde, that's a pretty good design for a rocket to practice with. Once I have got a bit better I can try tweaking it, but this'll do just fine right now. Incidentally, I did come across a video by a YouTuber called GrunfWorks, which also proved quite useful. It's about 27 mins long, and goes through the whole process with a succession of rockets. His final ship was not dissimilar to yours, but his methodology was slightly different. Interesting to compare the approaches.

Of course, once in orbit, I couldn't resist letting Jebediah (or 'Major Tom' as his friends call him) go stepping through the door. He did end up 'floating in a most peculiar way' - unfortunately not in the same direction as his ship. Oops......https://www.mixcloud.com/JeanLalonde/rip-major-tom-musique-de-montréal-35/

[Retro Starship]

Welcome to the KSP forum @Ryohei56. New here myself since the end of last year, but yea so much fun with KSP and this forum. Wow you seem like me! I have always loved rocketry all my life and just came across KSP by accident last year but played years of Runescape, Guildwars2, etc.

I am running 1.8.1 and 1.9.1 (latest) from steam.

I watch a few very cool youtubes vids too like Scott Manley and Mike Aben (his KSP Tutorials are great).

 

 

Well welcome to the forum and the best recommendation....Have fun!