Cydonian Monk

Action groups are set up in the VAB/SPH when building the craft. In the upper left-center of the screen there are two buttons - one for parts, one for action groups. The action groups button brings up a dialog with a list of groups: 1-10 and things like Abort, Gear, Lights, etc. When you click on a valid "part," the actions you can set to an action group will appear in the second column of the action group dialog. Just click on the action to add it to the selected group. (Ex: "Toggle Gimble" when a gimbled-engine is selected.) You activate the group by pressing the key mapped to that action (or 1-10 for the number groups.)

Here's my first space station in Low Kerbin Orbit: Baile Speir. It was constructed over 6 launches, consists of 10 independent modules plus the escape craft, 219 parts (24 of which are in the escape craft), and has a mass of approximately 55.58 tonnes. It has living space for 19 Kerbonauts (12 without putting bunks in the lab, observatory, or docking bay), and a current working crew of 4: Bill (the Rocket Killer), Bob, Elger and Johnton. Baile Speir is currently in a clean 100km orbit (+/- ~100m) at a 0.8º inclination. All stock - No mods were used in the construction of this station.

Today I completed construction of a space station in Low Kerbin Orbit: Baile Speir. It was constructed over 6 launches, consists of 10 independent modules plus the escape craft, 219 parts (24 of which are in the escape craft), and has a mass of approximately 55.58 tonnes. (There were seven launches, but the first batch of solar arrays had defective docking ports and wouldn't release the construction tug. All those parts were written off and deorbited along with the tug.) The core of the station (and roughly the center of mass) consists of 4 small probe cores (spread radially), 2 large probe cores (along the primary axis), and 2 large ASAS modules. It maneuvers wonderfully with or without RCS (though it /is/ rather small, so that's to be expected). Baile Speir has living space for 19 Kerbonauts (12 without putting bunks in the lab, observatory, or docking bay), and a current working crew of 4: Bill (the Rocket Killer), Bob, Elger and Johnton. Bill is the station commander, and his crew are hoping his bad luck doesn't extend beyond launch. The Obair-1/BS-1 crew is expected to remain in orbit or one Kerbin year. Bill will remain on the station indefinitely with the thanks of every tax-paying Kerbal citizen and all the KSP mission planners. Baile Speir is currently in a clean 100km orbit (+/- ~100m) at a 0.8º inclination. No mods were used in the construction of this station. By the time the Obair-1 crew/escape craft arrived, I could dock almost without looking. (The ease with which I moved the craft into the docking bay kinda scared me, actually. Just backed up to the port mostly parallel to the primary axis, spun the craft 90º, and the magnets kicked in at once.)

Agreed. So many of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn are only known to us because we sent probes there. It should almost be the same for KSP. (Honestly, I'd like to see semi-randomly generated systems and planets.)

Today we launched Fios 2, second in our kerb'd missions to the Mün. Launch craft was the Heron HeavyLift-A, and total launch mass was 420.89 tonnes. Our brave crew for this mission included Bill, Johnton, and Elger Kerman. The launch occurred shortly after sunset on the 66th day of the Space Age. Unfortunately at 19 seconds into the flight we "had a bad problem," and did not go to space today. Instead we witnessed the first use of our launch escape system, which jettisoned the crew capsule at 22 seconds into the flight (just above the reach of the launchpad lights). The escape system worked perfectly, and moved the crew capsule a good distance away from the launchpad. The ensuing fireball as the Heron-HL-A came crashing back down to Kerbin caused severe damage to the launch facility, took out two of my launchpad light arrays, and nearly killed Bob Kerman (who was watching the launch from a crew cart). Not the flight Bill, Johnton and Elger had expected, but they landed safely none-the-less. The trio have been reassigned as the crew of Fios 4, possibly our first kerb'd mission to Minmus.

ASAS: "Inverted Pendulum? Why would I even want that?!?" (Flips craft upside down.) "There, isn't that better? What? It's still inverted?!? WILL IT NEVER END!?!?!"

There's a saying: "I wasn't born here, but I got here as soon as I could." Welcome to many nights of lost sleep.

The first probe I "landed" on the Mün skipped and skidded across the surface, leaving a huge trail of debris (but survived, with a solar panel to boot). The first kerb'd craft? Well....

Ditto, though it didn't take me 433 hours. I was a bit irked after my first "campaign" moonshot as the seperator ring that /should/ have hit the Mün along with my stage-2 somehow had just enough momentum to miss. After ~30 launches it became my first piece of unrecoverable space junk... though at least it was ejected from Kerbin orbit.

Today? Today Jeb returned the Cuairt-1, first münar lander in my "campaign" game, from the Armstrong Memorial to münar orbit where he rendezvoused with Buzz and Harler in the command module, Fios-1. They then shoved off for Kerbin, leaving the Cuairt-1 behind as a münar observatory. Once back in Kerbin orbit I discovered that I'd run the "cold equations" a bit too precisely... only had a tenth of a unit of fuel after our Kerbin de-orbit burn. Still managed to land within a few kilometers of KSC.

Simple: No Kerb Left Behind. This was part of the reasoning behind my early switch to a mostly-robotic space program. Even on my simulation save I tend to go back and rescue the stranded. My biggest issue with keeping the little green dudes alive comes from spaceplanes..... Somewhere there's a bar where the walls are three-deep with photos of Kerbal test pilots.

Welcome! A rendevous between two craft in orbit is one of the harder things to learn from scratch in this game (imo). I would suggest the wiki tutorials and lots of practice. (If you got within 8k you're already headed in the right direction.) In short: match orbits. The craft that's "behind" should be in a lower orbit, with apoapsis of the orbit matching the craft you want to meet. When they're close (less than 1km at least), boost the lower orbit at apo to match completely. Then nudge the ships (RCS or whatever you have available) to get in closer. Just be patient. The "target mode" on the map is your friend. Once you get the hang of it it's easy, but has a bit of a curve. No idea what's up with the flag. I've only landed one kerb on the Mün in .20 and I forgot to leave a flag....

Hello all! I found this game a couple months ago when I had some post-op down-time, and I haven't been able to pull away since. I'm something of a space geek, so this game might be more dangerous than hard drugs.... It appeals to the engineering parts of my brain that are only infrequently used at work. (And the simple math involved is... cute. Though the density of Kerbin is worrying) Anyway, back to hurling little green dudes at the horizon! (Now seeking willing kerbonauts for a monastery on Duna. Return trip not required. Safety not guaranteed.)

Greatest achievement? A few days ago I decided to rescue the two kerbonauts from my Simulation Campaign that were stranded on The Mün. Both landed with overweight/underfueled early-prototype test landers, and one of them had been stuck there since... the early days of 0.19? The catch: I decided not to send a rescue lander. Instead they would each use the remaining fuel/monopropellant in their landers to gain as much ÃŽâ€v as possible, AND THEN JUMP, using their suit's RCS packs to achieve orbit. Once in orbit the command module would match to the EVA'd kerb and pick them up. I call it Operation Skyhook. Worked like a charm for the first kerb (Ronton). Second little green dude is still waiting for a ride back, as the crew from Ronton's mission abandoned him and returned to Kerbin years ago. (And I figured since Ronton had been there for so long he should be the first to return.) Doing that was way cooler than most everything else I've done in the game.