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What are the most important things you've learned about playing KSP to pass on?


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KSP is a great, fun game, but it has a difficulty curve like, well, a rocket. I figure there's some critical "lessons" to get yourself over to achieve competence. Here are the ones I've learned, so far.

1: MechJeb. I find KSP to be just about unplayable without it. I know that there are surely some purists who will disagree, but without an autopilot and MechJeb's VAB calculations, I'd likely still be considering myself lucky to so much as make Kerbin orbit, let alone be gearing up for my second shot at a Munar landing. I'd also likely have no idea of what to do without having seen MechJeb do things, but I've watched MechJeb in action enough to have an idea what on Kerbin it's doing and how to do it myself.

2: When in doubt, radialize! I've experienced nothing but bitter, hilarious disaster trying to build vertically, barely able to get ridiculous expanding stacks into Kerbin orbit. Instead, I figured out that I have to build outward; the same fuel tank+engine design, in a serial decoupler arrangement, is vastly less useful and powerful than two/three/four/six of the same fuel tank + engine design arranged radially around another of that same engine design.

3: SRBs, and how to use them. Specifically, SRBs are good for an initial bump to get your rocket engines up to speed and to let them carry some or all of the lowest-altitude work alone, with MechJeb on the limit to terminal velocity setting to save fuel, but it's not really worth it to use them for more than that. Radial liquid fuel engines are so much more useful, I'm pretty sure I could get a radial SSTO going.

4: The KW RockoMaverick engine, for when you don't yet have the Mainsail. This could work with the LV-T30 stock engine and I think it would still be superior, but KW Rocketry is what really sells it. Get a big old 2.5m Rockomax fuel tank stage going, however much is appropriate to the payload you intend to use, and stick one of those KW LFTA 2-1 conical 1.25-2.5 adapter-fuel tanks on the bottom, inverted. Stick on a tricoupler (or a quadcoupler, if you have it - those will definitely make it better,) and attach three KW Maverick D-1 engines. Gives you massively more thrust than the Rockomax Skipper (350*3 = 1050 thrust > 600 Thrust,) with better ISP at sea level and no worse ISP in vacuum and far more alternator output, not that that will matter on your ascent stage. It is heavier by 2 tons, true, but the far greater TWR means you'll ultimately save a lot in getting into orbit, and the RockoMaverick has been consistently lifting payloads into orbit for me that the Skipper can't. Not to mention it looks boss as heck, especially if you have six or twelve of them radially arranged around a central.. :cool:

5: Less is more when it comes to payload, more is more when it comes to engines. If engines are your payload, you're going to have some tricky balancing work to do, and your ascent stage will probably wind up being approximately the radius of the Death Star.

6: Navigation lights. I'm pretty sure they came from B9 Aerospace since they were manufactured by "Tetragon Projects." Use the red lights on the left side of the craft and the green on the right, and I like to put the white lights strictly down the "top" - that is, with the craft as a whole (that is, the first command part) not rotated, the white lights go straight down the middle when facing out of the VAB. This helps so much when you're in space and looking at your ship trying to work out which side is which. (Not to mention it makes your ship look boss as heck. :cool: )

7: Don't forget batteries and power generation! You don't want to SSTO a 45-ton payload and be about ready to embark on a Mun shot only to realize that your entire power supply is the tiny supply in the lander strapped to the top of your transfer stage!

That's what I've figured out, anyway. Some of it may be wrong, but it's what I've got and it's what's worked for me. If it's stupid, but it works consistantly, was it really stupid?

There is one thing I want to know, though...

Is there any practical point to installing fairings without FAR? I haven't got it installed and don't intend to. Fairings look boss as all heck and watching them pop in orbit is great, but without FAR, are they just adding mass and (paradoxically,) drag? Or do they actually shield the drag of their payload and replace it all with their own drag in stock, because that would probably justify the weight several times over on the ascent stage.

Edited by ShadowDragon8685
Lesson 7...
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1: MechJeb. I find KSP to be just about unplayable without it. I know that there are surely some purists who will disagree, but without an autopilot and MechJeb's VAB calculations, I'd likely still be considering myself lucky to so much as make Kerbin orbit, let alone be gearing up for my second shot at a Munar landing. I'd also likely have no idea of what to do without having seen MechJeb do things, but I've watched MechJeb in action enough to have an idea what on Kerbin it's doing and how to do it myself.

I think most people are going to disagree with you on this one. I certainly do. The feeling you get when you make a perfect touchdown on another planet or dock two giant ships in orbit is incredible. I'd recommend the Kerbal Engineer mod, gives you all the data that MJ does, but without the autopilot.

Anyway, things I've learned:

1. Learn to use the navball. Knowing what every indicator means, what it does, and why is so useful. I think 90% of people's issues with things like docking can be attributed to not fully understanding how to use the navball.

2. When in doubt: Simplify. Every ounce of weight you add at the top of your rocket will force you to make every stage under it bigger, which gets out of control exponentially. Learn what you really need, and what you can do without. Lean, mean rockets are easy to lift off, easy to fly, and easy to land.

3. Learn to dock, and get good at it. It opens up a whole new world... well worlds actually. Why struggle getting a massive ship into orbit when you can split it into two parts and have them docked in less than half an hour?

4. Rovers are fun... for about 30 seconds... then they flip over.

5. Understand why things happen. There's so much information at our disposal, here on the forum, in youtube vids, wikis, ect. It's easy to look up an answer to a specific question, but if you take the time to learn why things work they way they do you'll have learned a skill that you can use to solve future problems without needing to look up the answer. It's rewarding, it's enlightening, and it's fun. "Give a man a fish and he'll be fed for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll feed himself for a lifetime"

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1. Learn to dock without the aid of MechJeb.

2. Modularize everything. It cuts down on the design time behind building a station, base, or multipart ship.

3. Build the rocket/plane and hit the launch button. If it handles like the old farm truck, make some adjustments. A crashing rocket/plane is part of the game and enjoyment :).

4. Never send up a manned flight without a way of getting the poor Kerbal back down to Kerbin's ground, safely. Have rescue craft handy.

5. Perfect the Hofman Transfer orbit. Get to know this concept very intimately.

6. Smaller is always bigger. Avoid a large payload and avoid large stages unless you absolutely need them. With docking ports in the game, send your large contraptions up in pieces and assemble them in LKO.

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I think most people are going to disagree with you on this one. I certainly do. The feeling you get when you make a perfect touchdown on another planet or dock two giant ships in orbit is incredible. I'd recommend the Kerbal Engineer mod, gives you all the data that MJ does, but without the autopilot.

Mechjeb can't land at all in the latest versions and its docking is far from effective. I use it mostly for planning my interplanetary burns and it really saves me a lot of time and dv.

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1. You don't need to add 6.000 boosters to make rocket fly. Just make things simple and it will easily take you to the moon

2. If you don't know how to dock you will never make any big space station, or go behind minimus with manned vessel.

3. You dont need to use nay autopilots to go to the orbit, you need to know what does every indicator on the navball do.

4. When building a plane make your center of lift a little behind center of mass.

5. Don't place your front landing gear in middle of you aircraft, because it makes your plane flipping on start.

6. Lift is more important than thrust when building your space plane - without enginesyou can glide for very long time, without wings you fall like a brick instantly.

EDIT: Sheesh, my English wasn't that great back when I wrote it...

Edited by bartekkru99
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1. You do not have to follow the perfect ascent: turn at 10km and keep turning until at 70 km. Turning to 45 degrees at 10km and staying there until you're apoapsis is at 75km+ is fine.

2. Start burning 1:30s to 0:30s before apoapsis: you can get up to speed sooner and have more of a margin for error.

3. When designing a plane: as long as the lift marker (blue sphere) is in the center of the Com marker (yellow sphere), there is a 90% guarantee that the plane will fly stable.

4. When it comes to rovers: wide, low, and heavy is the way to go. At least make sure to follow the first two for places like Laythe, Tylo, Eve, etc. You only need to worry about the third thing for low gravity worlds.

5. Use the Maneuver nodes! They're there for a reason.

6. Despite what everyone says, you can learn form mechjeb ( how do you think I learned how do stuff in ksp?). Once you learn the stuff you need to know, replace mechjeb with Kerbal Engineer Redux. This will allow you to keep your skills fresh without sacrificing the building and info tools of mechjeb.

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1. You have most fun if you play the game at your own pace.

2. You save yourself a lot of trouble if you learn to play without mods.

3. It's better to build things that work in KSP than to try building things that work in real world.

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1. Learn how to move indicators on the navball. This is one that saves me a lot of frustration.

Lets start with the Prograde and Retrograde vectors. When you burn the prograde indicator will move toward the center of where you burn on the navball. The rate it does this depends on your current velocity. The lower your velocity the faster it moves. The retrograde indicator will move away from your thrust location. The rate it moves also depends on velocity. If you keep the velocity indicator within 50m/s you can move the indicators pretty much at will.

- Making a perfect soft landing with the indicators: while you're landing you'll want to line up your retrograde indicator with the zenith indicator on the navball. Make sure you do this in "surface" mode. Thrust on the opposite side of the retrograde mark to move it towards the zenith. Keep your velocity over 10 m/s as you descend. When the indicator is lined up with the zenith you can thrust towards zenith to keep it there while dropping your velocity to 5 m/s. This gives you a nice straight landing.

When you target something you get new indicators for that. The purple indicators tell the vector to your target.

- fast and easy intercepts: This is after you plotted to intercept the target. Once you're within 50km of your target the navball switches to target mode. You can now intercept the target. Burn retrograde to reduce your velocity to the target to less than 50m/s. Then burn toward the prograde marker of the target to start headin towards it. Burn on the opposite side of the target prograde from your own prograde (remember the green one) to line up your prograde with the target prograde. Keep these markers lined up as you approach the target. When you're within 2km of the target it loads up. If your velocity is over 50m/s burn your retrograde to reduce it to 10 m/s. You can use RCS to dock with the target now.

2. Docking navball indicator mod

Docking entirely with the navball!

To dock with only the navball you'll need a docking navball indicator. This also tells you how to move your target's vectors.

The target prograde vector will try to move away from your prograde (green) vector. To perform a dock with the navball:

- Set yourself up 100 meters from the target port in the general direction of this port.

- Target the port. This activates the navball indicator for the port

- RCS to thrust toward the port (target prograde indicator) up to 1 m/s.

- Angle toward the docking indicator (mine is red).

- Use strafe RCS to move your prograde vector to the opposite side of the target prograde from the location of the docking indicator. The target prograde will start drifting towards the docking indicator. Keep your prograde vector out until the target vector lines up to the docking vector, then strafe to align your prograde to the docking indicator. Let your ship drift, keeping all 3 vectors aligned by strafing your prograde vector to any side.

3. Kerbal engineer

I can't design a rocket without this anymore. It lets me configure the engines I need for a payload efficently. So far my space program has an unlimited budget. The efficency is for game performance. If i can make a more efficient rocket to complete a mission I should. It makes the game run better.

4. Asparagus staging

I never got why this is used until I started using it and setting it up. An asparagus staged rocket is more efficient than a standard staged rocket at least for the purpose of this game. It seems that rockets downstream from the fuel line will not actually increase the burn rate on rockets upstream. That is if you tied 2 tanks together and have a rocket on each the upstream tank drains as if it has only one rocket on it instead of 2. Yes it's counter intuitive to how you would think it happens. You get the thrust of the engines in the center without actually using the fuel tanks above them until the outer stages are completed.

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5. Perfect the Hofman Transfer orbit. Get to know this concept very intimately.

I agree mostly, but for the advance players, you don't always have to do a direct Hohmann transfers especially for planets without atmospheres. Some launch windows are better than others and don't always accept what a calculator says as the best time to maneuver. Play around with the maneuver nodes alot and you can save yourself hundreds or even thousands of dV.

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- Maneuver nodes are followed by burning towards the blue mark. That shows where you've set the destination orbit to.

- Kerbal Engineer is invaluable. Saves a lot of trial and error.

- Less is more. Especially when it comes to fuel and staging.

- Unless you're looking at liftoff thrust. Then, more is more.

- Alt-right click. Invaluable for when you mucked up the fuel lines, or forgot them completely.

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Learn the Rocket Equation - how to use it to determine how much delta-V your rocket has, and how to use it to determine the amount of fuel you need in order to have a target amount of delta-V. That, combined with an understanding of the importance of thrust-to-weight ratios, will tell you if your rocket is capable of doing the job you want it to and the bare amount of fuel you need to do it.

Smaller, less complicated rockets are generally better and more foolproof than big ones. A perfectly viable SSTO rocket orbiter can be built out of Tier 0 parts alone - a satellite can be launch itself to orbit if done correctly.

Docking is not as big of a deal as everyone makes it out to be. Just be sure you use RCS and that the thrusters are evenly spaced. Four thruster blocks is okay, eight is good, twelve is best.

Reaction Wheels and Reaction Stabilizers are nice but not essential.

Don't forget electricity.

You will screw it up at least once. Probably badly. That's what F5 and F9 are for.

When you can think of a better way, screw the rules.

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- Always put at least a few fixed solar panels on any non-tiny ship. You WILL forget to extend the bigger ones, and this is a life-saver.

- Even if you hate autopilots, get MechJeb or Kerbal Engineer and use them when building. Knowing how much Delta-V a certain stage is capable of saves LOTS of tedious trial-and-error.

- Decide on a standard docking port size for your fleet, and then stick one of them on EVERYTHING. You never know when you'll want to transfer fuel between ships in low Jool orbit or something.

- You need a lot smaller rockets than you think. Less weight is always better than more fuel and more engines to lift said fuel.

- Don't ever, ever put SRBs on any stage above the first one.

And a more specific one: To do a near perfect suicide burn, place a maneuver node as close to the surface as you dare, and pull the retrograde marker until you cancel out all your velocity. Then burn when the "time to node" equals the calculated burn time (don't split it, as you'd normally do, or you'll have a nasty surprise after half your burn :)).

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1 ) The game is under active and moderately rapid development. Don't expect everything to work, expect things to break in unexpected ways, expect future updates to break things, keep backups.

2) Mod developers are exceptional humans with who are happy to share their creations without expecting any tangible reward in return. It's in the nature of some of them that their interest may suddenly shift to something new, and their creations may be left to wither and die unless somebody else with the necessary skills decides to take over.

3) Internet forums focussed on computer games have a user base with a very broad spectrum of abilities and attitudes.

4) Computer game physics can deviate from reality in ways that may be unexpected and hilarious.

4) Kerbals can survive falls from a very great height, but not explosions.

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I just learned something new and very important.

If you get all the way back to Kerbin with a tall vessel, land on, say, a slope, tip over, and the science bits fall off, disaster has not struck. The Science has not spilled out!

If it was a Kerbbed flight (Kod help you if it was a probe, because then you're shafted,) you can hop out of the ship, walk over to the science bits, rightclick on them, and collect the science out of them, take it back to your capsule and hop back in to store the science within. (Alternatively, this raises the potential of disposable Science mcguffins, goo tanks and materials bay. Land, do a sample, remove it from the bay/cannister, store it in the capsule, jettison the science mcguffin to save weight.)

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I suggest you just go out there and learn for yourself. Have fun and blow some things up. Then try docking and landing at other planets, build a space station, fly airplanes. Download some mods and try those out. If you are really stumped, come back and ask for help. But just "be yourself" and play your way.

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If it was a Kerbbed flight (Kod help you if it was a probe, because then you're shafted,) you can hop out of the ship, walk over to the science bits, rightclick on them, and collect the science out of them, take it back to your capsule and hop back in to store the science within. (Alternatively, this raises the potential of disposable Science mcguffins, goo tanks and materials bay. Land, do a sample, remove it from the bay/cannister, store it in the capsule, jettison the science mcguffin to save weight.)

I'm pretty sure you can just recover the debris parts from the tracking station and get the science. Just look for the bits that say landed on Kerbin.

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- Always put at least a few fixed solar panels on any non-tiny ship. You WILL forget to extend the bigger ones, and this is a life-saver.

Definitely agree with this one. I ran a mission to refuel and switch crew on my Mun station and forgot to extend my panels after making orbit. I ran out of power while setting up for the Mun capture burn. Reverted to launch to try again and did exactly the same thing again (though I didn't run out until setting up for the rendezvous braking burn). Another revert (to VAB) to add a few flat panels just in case but obviously, after adding the panels I remembered to extend the main panels on the next try anyway...

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It is almost impossible to assign any priority to all the things I learned from KSP. And in fact, the most interesting facts were these that did not necessarily have something to do with the game. But I think the most important lessons for any KSP beginners would be:

* Make small changes, and test each change. You can easily create enormous rockets, but there is no chance to understand what you did well until you test each part separately

* Modularize, and test each module separately!

* Whatever you build, test it on Kerbin extensively. If it works well there, it will probably work anywhere else

The more I play KSP, the more I actually spend time on Kerbin, or at least in the lower orbit. It's amazing what you can achieve with just a few parts, if you understand them properly.

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1. KSP lets you build (ground) rovers, planes and rockets. You can take them to space, orbit, Kerbin's moons, other planets and the sun.

2. You don't have to. If you feel like it you can have fun just driving a rover around KSC (or further) or flying a plane around Kerbin.

[http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66887-I%C2%B4m-circumnavigating-Kerbin-on-a-Rover

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/66206-Video-Wednesdays-Today-I-Build-a-Rocket]

3. ISP, TWR and deltaV are essential to efficient rocket and plane design. Struts will usually save an unstable design but can't help an underpowered/fuelled one.

4. You are under no obligation to make efficient designs. Moar boosters and massively over-engineered vehicles are fine if you like them.

5. If you want to go somewhere in space understanding the map view, navball and maneuver nodes is pretty essential.

6. Or you can just let MechJeb do it, if that's what you want.

tl;dr

Understanding the theory and calculating the complex parts gives the game more depth.

"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not" (Einstein) - play the game, have fun and, if you want to do the theory first, be prepared to test and correct several times.

Edited by Pecan
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1. Don't listen to anyone about MechJeb. Try it. If you find it makes the game too easy, don't use it. I personally find the game frustrating and tedious and wouldn't play KSP without it while others get satisfaction from accomplishing things manually. It's a personal preference. And when you're sitting in a dark room by yourself playing KSP at 1am, what others think of MJ is irrelevant.

2. Asparagus

3. Watch Scott Manley videos on YouTube, but only to glean bits of knowledge. Don't expect for one minute to be able to do what he does any time soon, it will only discourage you.

4. F5 quicksave - F9 quickload. But always keep in mind that once you do a quickload your option to scrap the mission by Revert to Launch or VAB is gone. That's how Kerbals get stranded.

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- Always put at least a few fixed solar panels on any non-tiny ship. You WILL forget to extend the bigger ones, and this is a life-saver.

This, so much. Alternatively, have at least one battery "locked" to provide emergency power for extending the panels/reorienting the ship.

Lost a recent mission because I didn't do this. Although I didn't forget to extend the panels. "Eh, one gigantor should suffice, it only has one probe core"... then of course the ship is rotated so that its only panel is in shadow. Power runs out. Bugger.

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I completely disagree with you about MechJeb, KSP is a game based around space, of course its going to be a bit difficult, but MechJeb is good if you are really stuck, you can learn a lot from it, and see how it performs, then you can do the same thing, but for me, I get nearly no joy from telling MechJeb to do everything, even if I land on Duna, or anywhere, its a lot more of a achievement to to land on the Mun when you do it without any autopilots. If you are still stuck look on Youtube, there are plenty of tutorials on nearly everything.

Some things I have learned:

Sometimes less mods is better, its just as easy to land on nearly any planet using stock parts as it is using KW Rocketry or B9 Aerospace, except your payloads you can launch at once are a bit bigger.

Quicksave makes life easier when you are new to the game.

If your rocket explodes, add more struts.

Don't give up!

Thing in real life don't tend to work in KSP, things in KSP don't tend to work in real life (example: Space Shuttle, Skylon)

Bigger isn't always better.

Onion and Asparagus staging, learn how to do them.

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Mods are good for big things. KSP stock has plenty of tiny canards and medium-small wings, but the very largest two types of wings in stock are only about 7 square meters each. A single b-9 square wing part is 16 square meters. The large panels are 64 square meters.

Anything designed for real life doesn't have enough thrust to do much in stock KSP's pea-soup atmosphere.

stock things either are aerodynamic brick or fly backwards in FAR.

FAR things work fine in stock.

Cubic octagonal struts are minor deities.

How to determine if it is an infiniglider:

Does it have at least 2 small control surfaces per tonne?

Is it using stock aerodynamics?

Is it operating at over 15 m/s in the lower atmosphere?

Congrats on making an infiniglider.

How to build a sea plane in FAR: install X-plane, using custom installation, put it in the Kerbal space program directory. Delete everything else in the directory. Note: your UI may change.

When building rovers, the center of mass should be at the wheel AXLE, not the attachment point.

"Water" in Kerbal translates to auga, which means "no survivors."

If you have anything short of a fighter cockpit, your Kerbal is probably better off hitting the ground directly.

kessler syndrome is not an issue. Even with 1198 debris items in LKO, the odds of the orbits ever intersecting a given ship are slim and orbital debris will more likely clip through than hit your ship. Since cascade effects can only happen in the visual range and will probably delete more items than they create, you will crash your pc trying to make Kessler syndrome happen.

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I don't want to start a flame war, but I highly disagree with the Mechjeb. I am proficient at, well, everything, because I took the time to learn how to do everything systematically and in a manner that works. I wouldn't want to play a game about spaceflight if the game flew for me, right? I think I have the unfair advantage of being natural capable of seeing what will work.

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