Wiki campaign or career mode?

[burmabaines]

Hello all, brand new to this game and itching to get started. Before I do can I ask peoples opinion please?

I'm after a gentle introduction with goals. I can't decide wether to begin in sandbox mode and do the wiki campaign http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Campaigns or set off on the new 0.22 career mode.

All opinions welcome and thank you.

[Fr8monkey]

I would start in sandbox until you get your space legs.

Advice: Start small and build up.

[luinux]

I would try career mode first: the fact of not having to deal with so many different parts is gonna make it easier to learn. Also, personally I've got much more fun in career mode!

[Rowsdower]

Career mode is a built-in option that is super friendly for new players, so for the ease alone, I'd suggest that. However, the great thing about KSP is how open ended it is. Try both, see what you like and see what fits. Maybe even come up with a brand new way of doing things

[Fr8monkey]

Guess that is true.... Ignore me.

[Tank Buddy]

I would recommend sandbox as you can get used to basic game mechanics, but you may be overwhelmed by all of the parts. Start out with simple, easy goals and work your way up. Watch lots of tutorials and feel free to ask the forums for help, they are very good about that.

[austin4050]

Start off in Sandbox (with cheats they help) then slowly move away from the cheats, until you have none at all. I would only then do career to get the full effect of learning the game. This is my personal opinion.

[iLlama]

I would start with the campaign mode because it's hard to work with 160+ parts when you just got started and you don't know what those parts do and you end up building ****ty rockets. In this way you must start small and then grow bigger following logical steps. For example you can't rush for the mün in the first flight but you need to make a suborbital flight, then an orbital one, then a higher one, then a münar orbit and only then you can land on it because 1-now you unlocked the necessary parts AND you tried them before so you know what the parts do 2-now you know what you need for each step (how much fuel, electric charge, thrust and wich parts you need like parachutes, landing legs, power, winglets and so on), this makes the wiki campaign unnecessary.

If i were you i'd stay away from cheats because with cheats you don't get every single aspect of the parts you are using and the maneuvers you are performing.

[Seret]

I agree about starting in career mode. Learning to build efficient rockets with the small parts is a good foundation. If you want something goal-oriented have a look at the science page on the wiki and it'll give you an idea of places to go and collect science. In general you either right click on science parts or capsules to do sciency stuff, or you can assign the science parts to action groups and trigger them from a key press.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Seret

[SRV Ron]

Start off simple, either mode.Build a small rocket similar to this with capsule, parachute, couple of fuel cans, and LV-T30 engine. Go fly it. Learn what works and what doesn't.

When you have become familiar on how to fly suborbital, build a two stage and go for orbit. Use a LV-909 for the second stage engine. Perfect the art of the orbital turn. Don't forget to leave enough fuel for deorbital burn.

If in Sandbox, this is a good design for orbit and will allow you to play with thrusters while in orbit. Use a Mainsail for the first stage and a Skipper on the second.

From there, space and your engineering skills are the limit.

[vetrox]

I vote start in sandbox. To many times have i read newbies complaining about how hard career mode is.

Sandbox has the kerbal x to ease you in (well, it was the first thing i flew in ksp)

[Javster]

I strongly recommend career mode, you unlock things progressively. Maybe play the demo first?

[Xacktar]

It's funny how the opinions are split here. XD

Both have their pros and cons.

Career: Fewer parts to start with, failure sometimes rewarded, has 'goals'

Sandbox: Lots of parts, maybe be overwhelming, can build big from the start. No downside to screwing up.

[iLlama]

Start off simple, either mode.Build a small rocket similar to this with capsule, parachute, couple of fuel cans, and LV-T30 engine. Go fly it. Learn what works and what doesn't.

When you have become familiar on how to fly suborbital, build a two stage and go for orbit. Use a LV-909 for the second stage engine. Perfect the art of the orbital turn. Don't forget to leave enough fuel for deorbital burn.

If in Sandbox, this is a good design for orbit and will allow you to play with thrusters while in orbit. Use a Mainsail for the first stage and a Skipper on the second.

From there, space and your engineering skills are the limit.

there is practically no difference in playing the campaign and using those simple rockets for learning because the unlocking process forces you to use those parts. a problem of copying those prebuilt ships is that you do not learn and understand how to use the parts properly because you are just copying so play in career mode.

Edited November 18, 2013 by iLlama

[iLlama]

Sandbox: Lots of parts, maybe be overwhelming, can build big from the start. No downside to screwing up.

Exactly, you can build big from the start and if you are a newbie you are likely to do a mess and blame the game and not understanding what you did wrong (in that mess multiple things could have been done wrong and it's hard to figure out even for pros).

career mode forces you to start simple, understand what the parts you have do and learn how to use them before giving you the new ones.

not only that you also learn the basics of piloting and building because you need to do a step before making the next one (sub-orbit gives you an idea on how much fuel/thrust you need and how hard is your rocket to control before moving to orbital and screw those things up).

I strongly recomand playing the career mode frist and then move on to sandbox when you feel more confident (but really career is still a lot of fun when you are good at the game i play it more than sandbox now, love it!).

The wiki career it's fun for experienced players because it's hard, it's not designed for learning, go read some tutorials instead.

Also stay away from cheats, they make things easy but that's not the point of the game so they spoil it a lot and it's not fun and challenging anymore!

Happy launchings!

Edited November 18, 2013 by iLlama

[SRV Ron]

there is practically no difference in playing the campaign and using those simple rockets for learning because the unlocking process forces you to use those parts. a problem of copying those prebuilt ships is that you do not learn and understand how to use the parts properly because you are just copying so play in career mode.

You know, the same could be said about the prebuilt ships supplied in Sandbox. With the exception of the three man ship, the first two are early Career Mode designs. The noobe still has to build them. I don't supply any craft files to them.

[burmabaines]

Hmmmm! Thanks for all the replies so far. Yeah, there's quite a split!

So I've decided to start off in sandbox mode following the wiki campaign. I think I'll stick with it until I pull off a mun orbit, then do the same with career mode and then decide. I'll let you all know what I decided is best for a beginner.

[lunaticPhD]

Sandbox is definitely the way to go!

[iLlama]

Career is the way to go!

even Duncan from the Yogscast built a decent rocket in career mode!

if you have seen his videos on sandbox KSP you know what i mean

[Starwhip]

I did the career mode, following the wiki campaign. It's harder than you think (Seeing that you have to make the first rockets manned)

[hawkwing]

Recently I've managed to get a few of my friends to play KSP and those they've been having a lot more fun playing through Career mode (and making more progress) than I did when I started the game back in sandbox all those months ago.

Career is the most fun I've had with the game.

[FamousFry]

i think traning first

[bludy]

i enjoyed career mode a lot, gave a shot at wiki campain but i preferred to stick on my personal program..

learning curve is not so bad when you don't have too many parts you want to try..every step in science tree and with biomes and experiments it's quite balanced..and recovering vessels which took only partially their mission is still a lot satisfying!

i passed through the tutorial and the scenarios and now i filled the tech tree..

Edited November 26, 2013 by bludy
didn't read thread from start

[cr055H41rz]

Sandbox! DO ET!

[inigma]

I wrote the wiki campaigns, and I approve this message.

My hope was that squad would glean from the campaigns ideas for career mode. They exist to give space program managers ideas and goals to aim for in their own programs. Im glad to see a lot of people have benefitted from the wiki campaigns. If you have modifications or suggestions, feel free to edit any campaign - after all it is a wiki, and I dont want to take complete responsibility for keeping it maintained.