Jump to content

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


Recommended Posts

Quicksave before aerobraking. If your altitude is off by just a little bit, you will probably not like the results.

also, quicksaving with chutes deployed... gremlins eat the parachutes while trying to load the game. :P

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Think through your entire mission before launching it. It saves a lot of time and worrying when you know exactly how much fuel is going to be needed for a trip, and can just do the mission without needing to wait a year for a refuelling vehicle to reach your ship.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the VAB, you can separate radial decouplers into pairs of two for easier construction of asparagus staging.

That is, if you add 8 decouplers with 8x symmetry, you can click on them over in the staging on the right. They will expand from one icon that shows all 8, to 8 seperate icons. Click on each one to separate it from the rest, then you can drag them two at a time ( or however many) to a new stage.

This allows you to put your engines and rockets on with 8 or 6 times symmetry, but separate their decoupling for asparagus staging.

You'll have to add the fuel lines one at a time, i.e. with 1x symmetry, but this is way better than having to place your decouplers in pairs by eye.

Matt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...
1. Learn to dock without the aid of MechJeb.

Hahahahaaaaaa!!!!!!! Have you ever tried to dock anything WITH MechJeb? Out of the couple of dozen times I turned on the docking autopilot, MechJeb completed the docking maneuver MAYBE two times. The rest of the time the craft just went RCSing out into deep space. The docking autopilot is beyond useless.

Just putting that out there. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hahahahaaaaaa!!!!!!! Have you ever tried to dock anything WITH MechJeb? Out of the couple of dozen times I turned on the docking autopilot, MechJeb completed the docking maneuver MAYBE two times. The rest of the time the craft just went RCSing out into deep space. The docking autopilot is beyond useless.

Just putting that out there. :)

When did you last try it? MechJeb's docking AI has gotten much, much better in the last few months as Sarbian focused on improving it. Still not as good as a skilled pilot, but not the monoprop-wasting wreck it once was.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Aerobraking calculators are subject to Garbage In, Garbage Out like any calculation. Check your units: inputting an altitude in metres and telling the calculator it's in kilometres is likely to result in an unscheduled landing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Once you get non-crap at the basics (rendezvous / Mun & Minmus landers) there is a tendency to treat this like work, ie: stack in orbital manoeuvres like back to back meetings so there is not a second to spare. At least, that is... I mean was..., my tendency.

Chillax.

While KSP may be multi--threaded, you are not. There may be times when you have a whole chunk of fast-forwarding to do, but for the sake of enjoyable rocketeering, don't think of that fast forwarding as wasted time. Think instead, of strategies implemented successfully ONE AT A TIME.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

MechJeb managed to dock my enormous, ungainly space station lower section to the equally enormous and ungainly upper section last night, so just on the basis of personal experience I'd give it a thumbs up. The only docking I've actually seen it fail was one where I started in a very stupid position and ran out of electrical power on the one probe before it could get things finished. What I really appreciate from MechJeb is the rendezvous autopilot... matching orbits by hand is painful and tedious.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What I really appreciate from MechJeb is the rendezvous autopilot... matching orbits by hand is painful and tedious.

At the start of the week I would have agreed with you, making upwards of 10 burns to get within 10k and then going direct (what can I say I am still a noob). Now down to 2 burns to start and end the transfer and I am normally within 300m, unbelievable how much difference it has made.

G

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know, I think the biggest takeaway from this game for the real life, is that ambitious missions require a lot of planning ahead and need to be worked out on a piece of paper or spreadsheet and be check listed before you proceed. Once you launch, it's often too late to make major changes.

Edited by goduranus
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's one:

Don't be a moron and immediately warp to 60-day-away maneuvers or SOI changes. Think a moment. Is the time long enough to start any more missions, perhaps send a rover with that lander, or two probes instead of one? Do so - by the time you realize "wait I shoulda sent more" the transfer window will close and won't reopen for a long time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't know whether it's a KSP thing or a Windows thing, but while in Fullscreen mode (which is currently bugged and doesn't run in the background even if you enable it) you can press Alt + Enter to put it into windowed mode, which means it will run in the background... you can then press Alt + Enter to put it back to Fullscreen!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

two words

scott manley

:)

- - - Updated - - -

Don't know whether it's a KSP thing or a Windows thing, but while in Fullscreen mode (which is currently bugged and doesn't run in the background even if you enable it) you can press Alt + Enter to put it into windowed mode, which means it will run in the background... you can then press Alt + Enter to put it back to Fullscreen!

O.o

WOW thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On Gilly the highest elevation is higher than the upper boundary for low space. So with the wrong orbit your science gathering in low orbit can end "with a firework".

At least the orbital velocity in this altitude is so low that there is a good chance that at least the command module will survive the impact :wink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...