Advice for a beginner - FASA, RSS/RO, RP-1 sandbox vs career vs stock

[Junyo]

Greetings all. Not sure if this is the right forum to ask this question, but hope it is. 

I'm a new player to KSP. I've played it for a bit a while back. I think i got as far as doing a Mun fly-by. 
Life happened, I got distracted. Now, I'd like to return to it and give a good shot and learn it properly. 
However, i'm unsure of the mods that would best suit me. I'll briefly outline what I'm looking for, and I'd appreciate if you'd advise best mods to do the job. 

 

In order of priority, i'm looking for the following:

1. Something that is rewarding, but that will not require me to read 3000 pages  of wikis and hours of YT videos. 
2. Highest quality environmental and part visuals for maximum immersion
3. Ability to replicate actual space program ships (Apollo, Space Shuttle, Soyuz) and photo realistic rocket/part models
4. A sensible simple to complex career progression that helps you learn the game, but that is not a crazy grind or too dificult/risky. E.g. not interested in managing crew training, upgrades, construction time etc like RP-1 forces you to do. More like the stock KSP career. 

So far, for visuals, top of my list are AVP + Parallax for stock KSP, and RSSVE, Extreme Texture Overhaul and FASA for environmental and ship parts. 
RSS/RO for realistic rockets parts and planets. 

The mods that i'm on the fence about are RP-1, mostly.  My main question is, is a new player able to play RSS/RO without RP-1? 
Does RSS/RO include Apollo/Shuttle/Soyuz parts or do I need a mod like FASA to obtain those?

Is it possible to reduce RP-1 difficulty settings to eliminate construction time, crew training and give more starting money and faster science?

As a beginner, I'd rather just focus on rocket design and enjoying the game rather than worrying if my next crash is going to put my space program out of business or if Jeb is not ready for that new mission or capsule. 

Thanks!

Junyo

[paul_c]

I am not sure why you have dismissed simply starting out in KSP (again) with no mods, then perhaps adding a sprinkle of them as you progress.

[jimmymcgoochie]

I’m going to say it now- don’t go for RSS/RO unless you’re well and truly familiar with KSP. It’s a very steep learning curve and you will definitely need to do a lot of work- reading guides, watching tutorial videos etc.- to make the most of it. If you haven’t even landed on the Mun yet, you’re not ready. Not even close.

Start again in career (or science) mode in the stock system, use a minimal number of mods- graphics and tools are OK, but go easy on parts mods as they can just add confusing clutter and slow your load times- and only once you’ve landed Kerbals on the Mun and Minmus and probes on at least one other planet should you consider trying something a bit more challenging like sending a crewed mission to Duna and probes to land on Jool’s moons. You don’t have to land on everything before stopping a particular play through, set yourself some specific goals and don’t be afraid to leave it when you complete those goals; there’s no fixed end point in KSP!

If you’re looking for parts to fill certain gaps in the stock part lineup then there are a number of options- my personal favourites are Restock and the Near Future series but there are many more to choose from if you don’t like that particular style. In terms of graphics mods, you’ll probably need EVE and scatterer plus a config mod like AVP or Spectra (I personally like Spectra better), then there’s distant object enhancement, planet shine and engine lighting to name just a few. Tools like MechJeb can make your life much easier, but there are several that I recommend for specific things- gravity turn to launch your rockets efficiently and consistently, stage recovery to recover the dropped stages and get refunds for them, Astrogator for when you’re going to other planets and where can I go to see if you can get there in the editor, and Bon Voyage so your rovers can drive themselves. You could even try a different tech tree that, for example, puts probes first and crewed capsules later, or adding a mod for life support, part failures or a different science system (Kerbalism does all three of those) to add more of a challenge.

If you want to try a new solar system later on, there are plenty of options out there- additions to the stock system like OPM and MPE (AVP works with OPM but spectra does not, keep that in mind); more stock(ish) scale solar systems like Beyond Home, Galileo’s planet pack and/or Grannus expansion; and larger scale systems like JNSQ or the rescale mod to resize the stock system. RSS and RO are very challenging and it’s best to build up to them by trying gradually more difficult playthroughs with the difficulty settings turned up and/or more mods.

Alternatively, try some of the many and widely varied challenges on the forums- from the lightest and cheapest rocket to orbit to landing on every planet and moon possible to using the KSC as an obstacle course, there’s going to be something that you like the looks of and which will challenge your creativity and improve your skills one way or another.

RO and RP-1 is not for beginners; trust me, I’ve tried it twice- the first time I tried, I was still fairly new to KSP, the experience was horrible and I lasted less than an hour before giving up; the second time around, over a year later, I actually understood how to do things in KSP a lot better and it has been an enjoyable, but very challenging, experience so far.

Jumping from Mun flyby to RSS/RO is like learning to walk and then immediately trying to run a marathon. Take your time, you’ll learn much more that way and it will be a more enjoyable experience when you eventually build up to it.

[GuessingEveryDay]

And don't forget about Waterfall. Some engine mods don't have support for them, but you can also get Real Plume. Waterfall looks amazing.

 

[FL-T400]

I'd also recommend against RO/RSS/RP-1 for beginners. My first run at it took about 5 hours from when I first started trying to install RO to when I was able to fulfill the "First Launch" contract, because of how long it took to install, how many tutorials I had to read and how many times I had to fix something on my spacecraft. I was already fairly experienced with stock KSP at that point too.

If you want a bit more realism without a massive increase in difficulty or complexity, I'd recommend:

• Ferram Aerospace Research Continued - it updates the aerodynamic model to be a lot more realistic. Its info readouts can be hard to understand, but I've still been able to play with it despite still not understanding them.
• Persistent rotation - Makes it so ships will keep rotating in time warp
• Semi-Saturatable Reaction Wheels - makes reaction wheels less magic, so you'll need to include RCS. Might be a bit too difficult, but you can always uninstall.
• An uncrewed-before-crewed tech tree replacement. There are a bunch of them, so just pick one you like.

For replication of real life rockets, I'd go for the procedural parts mod and B9 procedural wings. You can't do perfect replication, but they're fairly easy to use and give much better options than stock.

Finally, I'd recommend using CKAN to install your mods, as it insures you will have the necessary dependencies, and it lets you very conveniently install and update mods. All of the mods I've recommended except for the tech-tree replacement are also part of RO, so they should also help you a bit in preparing for that.