Uberick

I feel ya dude; When I first started playing this game, I thought to myself "How have I not been playing this until now?" Such a great game. Welcome to the party!

I found it from Robbaz's videos(dude is hilarious). I found a video of his Surgeon Simulator video on the internet, and after I recovered from all the laughing(I almost died watching that video it was so funny), I watched his other shows, KSP included. After a couple of shows watching him have that much fun with the game, I figured I'd give it a shot. Best money I've ever spent on a game.

I was doing mun gravity assists, but didn't find them giving me much in the way of delta v. Most of the time, it actually cost me MORE delta v in correction burns, so I stopped doing them. Gravity assists around other planets can be helpful though, especially on long duration grand tour probe missions.

I'm personally very excited. . . the introduction of reaction wheels and the ASAS fixes are the most important to me at this point. I'm also very excited to see some of the groundwork for career mode being laid!

I have this same basic question. Im looking into buying a new processor, and I don't know if I should go Intel or AMD. My instinct is to go intel's haswell processor and oc it.

Hey all Im looking at getting a new computer in the hopes of improving my KSP framerates. I was think of getting the new haswell 4770k and overclocking it. My question is this: Does anyone have any recommendations for processors (or other hardware) to improve KSP framerate that might be better than that? Thanks in advance!

I've sent one probe on an escape trajectory. . . so it can be done. There's nothing to do out there though

What everyone else said; if you are crashing, you are not in an orbit. Check your map to see the shape of your orbit. Unless it circles the entire planet, never dropping below 70km at your lowest point(periapsis), you do not have a stable orbit. As far as autopilot is concerned, MechJeb can automate certain functions, but that is a mod(check the spaceport). Stock KSP does not have any autopilot. The SAS and ASAS are only stabilizers, SAS will attempt to counteract roll and ASAS will attempt to hold your ship on its current heading, but they will only do this while SAS(to the top right of your NavBall) is activated. To activate or deactivate SAS, press T be default. On another note; Welcome to Kerbal Space Program!

Somethunk like this happened to me when I was designing my eve landed and the (giant) launcher for it. I found myself getting frustrated because all I did was try to perfect that one launch. To break the monotony, I went and did another Mun landing(always fun), and launched an ion probe. After that, I found myself having much more fun even after I went back to the launcher. Try to go do something different to break yourself out of a rut.

I don't think I've had any crashes. . .at least none that I remember. I've got almost 200 hours on it so far.

In order to get into orbit around Kerbin requires approximately 4500 delta v. To reach a 400km orbit should require a few hundred more, so try to give your vehicle 5500-6000 d/v and that should do it. My recommendation would be to bring a little extra fuel if you use your station for refueling. . . it can't hurt.

Yea, I think it was meant to be powered by nukes. . . in which case, if your ship is manned, you don't have to keep it powered to keep it under control. Only Ion engines will give you trouble on the dark side.

As long as it doesn't have Ion engines you can add batteries to keep it powered on the dark side of a planet. If it relies on Ion engines, no amount of batteries will allow it to make a 1000d/v ejection burn:( As an alternate solution, you could try a moon slingshot if you want to keep it in the sun most of the time. Example below(not optimal, but you get the idea) that way, you do two burns, one as you come out on the daylight side of the planet, and another as you pass by the daylight side of the moon. as you can see in the second photo, that will get you to Duna orbit if you line up the phase angles right(mine aren't set up right now, so it won't show an intercept.)

an East facing orbit, or counter-clockwise, is the normal orbit. To see, just look at your intercept with the planet and see if you are coming in on the planet such that it will establish an east facing orbit. If you enter the planet's SOI, and have a west facing orbit, you can use a maneuver node, and use the inclination or the blue circles to move your orbit to the other side of the planet before you circularize. It should only cost about 100 d/v usually.

Note that, the probe bodies give much less torque, and SAS modules do NOT provide any torque(common misconception). The only way to get torque is from LOTS of probes, or command pods. Sometimes, adding a dummy command pod can be worth it just for the torque it provides(either that or RCS).

You have to reach about 70km in order to get "out" of the atmosphere. Tilting will do nothing to stop the atmosphere from slowing you down and sucking you back down to Kerbin. When you are launching, switch to your map and watch your apoapsis(highest point of your orbit). once it reaches about 75km, cut your engines and coast until your ship is at about 70km. Then, turn prograde and burn until you circularize.

Try fiddling with your graphics settings, maybe delete(after backing it up), your setting file and see if it resets itself. For landing though, most of the capsules have a "radar altitude" indicator, which will show you your true distance to the surface. I use this for my landings, if you check your max acceleration, and your acceleration due to gravity, and your current altitude, you can usually approximate a suicide burn.

i never put up anything without an engine. Partly this is because of orbiter, where everything is always falling out of orbit, and also because you might want to move it later. Adding an ant engine and an oscar b fuel tank, or an ion engine, or some rcs can give you a ton of maneuvering for such a small probe. For less decoupling, put stuts on it(they absorb the decoupling force), or use docking ports.

THAT, is the best example of Pe kicks I have ever seen! On that same note, yea, for long burns do everything in small steps. I have an Ion probe doing a grand tour right now, and it routinely has to do 3-5 hour burns. Splitting it up if possible will increase accuracy.

I think that the mythos of Jeb is more important than the actual Jeb. He's like the Dread Pirate Roberts. . . the man behind the mask changes, but the title remains the same. ..

Yea, the numbers don't line up,but the mechanics are the same. If you go play orbiter you will notice the difference between Earth and Kerbin. Earth is bigger, launches take more time, all the planets are farther away. I assume they've shrunk KSP to make it easier to navigate(driving a rover around Duna takes a fraction of the time it would take to drive that same rover around Mars), and I think that's the right decision.

I'm pretty sure it only requires about 3000 d/v to get to orbit. A 2 man lander can with two 360l fuel tanks can do that with an aerospike. Use the wide 360l fuel tanks, stack them under the lander can, add engine and landing legs and you've got it. You might want to add a 3rd fuel tank to give some wiggle room, check the thrust to weight ratios though, I can't remember off the top of my head if an aerospike can lift that much on Laythe. . . I want to say it can though, if only barely.

Spaceplanes are a pain. . . I only built one to say that I did it. Three intakes per engine works pretty well. You want to gather as much speed as you fly up to the point where the jet engines won't work anymore; take a nice, gradual climb. Then, shut off all your jets(set them to an action group), and burn rockets the rest of the way. Once you're in orbit, it helps to have a station to dock at and refuel, otherwise you'll usually only have enough gas to maybe head to the moon, The trick is getting the whole thing weighted and balanced properly. It has to be flyable, as well as meet the T/w ratio and d/V requirements. There are some good videos if you search youtube, but I recommend trial and error:)

I've got that at 1706 d/v. The calculator agrees. If the engines all have the same Isp, you only put in the ISP of your engine once. If you use multiple different engines with different ISPs, you average them to get their combined ISP, and then put that in once. Extra engines count as dead weight. Adding more will get you faster acceleration, but less efficiency. You're going to have to decide which you want to have depending on the mission. Ideally, you want to use only one of the most efficient engine, that'll get you the most delta v. Still, noone is going to strap an ion engine on anything bigger than a garbage can, it just takes forever to go anywhere. 1706 is plenty to get to Duna, the transfer only costs 1050. Happy Launchings!

As far as stations go, the lower they are, the easier they are to get to(less fuel), and, if you start a burn from a lower orbit, you will get more energy out of the fuel(lower orbits have more energy). Thus, if you have a refueling station that you use to top off your ships before they do a transfer burn, put it as low as possible. Interesting side note, it's easier to dock ships the higher the orbit is, because they will "rotate" less because a higher orbit has less curve for a given distance. Some people care about this, some don't. In regards to gravity turn; you want to make it gradual, yes. If you point the nose too far from prograde, you will waste energy, because you are firing your engines at such an angle that it isn't properly adding the speed to your current vector. This is called "Steering Loss". To minimize this, try not to put the nose of your craft much farther than the edge of the prograde marker. Give it just enough to turn. Hope this helps:)