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What the hell are you talking about? Squad willingly steered their ship directly into a bland game. If anything they paid more attention to Reddit than these forums, if they were actually to be believed, due to a greater population of feedback.

There's some serious "kids these days" energy in this thread. I thought better of these forums (actually I didn't, based on the reasons I originally left, but I thought it had gotten better).

Typically I've seen the SRMs called "stage 0" if the central stage starts at the same time. Same with the R-7 and the liquid-fueled outers.

Near sep it was almost or greater than 5 gees 4 gees. The central engine was shut down to manage that. E: Here's a thread with some great information, including pitch-over angle. In the first image you can see a point labeled "S1C-CECO" (Central Engine Cut Off). Also, I was wrong, it reached nearly 4 gees, not 5.

When are you guys putting an alarm clock app into KSP2? Hopefully not after 1.0 like KSP1 did, that's a pretty crucial feature. I've been hoping to do a completely modless playthrough in KSP2, something I never really did in KSP1 because so much of my playtime was pre-1.0. Anyway, have a happy new year and keep up the great work! Your start on exploration mode and the current science gameplay is excellent, a much better experience than I expected given the talk of how similar to KSP1 it was going to be.

Well, wait a second, that really depends on launch efficiency and stage TWRs as well. It's even more important to get the most out of your rocket when you need to reach an orbital velocity of around 7500m/s (compared to Kerbin's 2300m/s, both ballparks, don't @ me). Launchers like Ares and Minotaur with high TWRs tilt over quite early while other rockets tilt over later (or slower) because their upper stages usually have <1 TWR. The idea there is to loft the stage above the target orbit so you have time to burn into orbit. Remember also that IRL rockets don't often enter a coast phase until they reach orbit but because Kerbin is so small and easy to launch from you will often coast your second stage because it makes sense. That means you can launch more horizontal, especially if the upper has a higher TWR.

Eve returns are pretty tough but not at all impossible. If the science rewards are worth it I'd definitely do that mission, even without advanced engines.

lolwut? I really am built differently, most of my launchers are in the 1.3 range, give or take. 1.5 is excessive. My apologies, that was meant to be encouragement. Offer tips, I think everyone's learning.

I'm pretty sure this thread already has some good tips for newbies on several ways to get to space, without doing something dumb like the old souposphere launch. There's no reason it can't serve multiple purposes.

I learned that profile playing RO: tilt over 5° at 100m/s and follow prograde to orbit generally works for most things or provides a decent basis for you to adjust from (works pretty good for Redstone, Delta, R-7, and Atlas, sucks for Saturn V). On Kerbin, depending on TWR, you tilt over at 50m/s to 80m/s, sometimes even 90m/s if your upper has terrible TWR (more time to push the PE out). Full throttle all the way. This does not work so well on Kerbin because it's so damn small; depending on your upper, how long your lower burned, and all the TWRs, you'll end up burning radial in or doing start/stops to adjust (I usually do radial in because it lets me do complete burns). I mainly just do that from habit because I genuinely don't really care about efficiency during launch. Efficiency begins in orbit for me.

And even then, "45° at 10km" isn't always the best ascent profile, especially if you have an anemic upper or a solid kickmotor (for whatever reasons). Although it's usually a good starting point when testing a new launcher.

Yeah, with full throttle I often end up burning radial in on my second stage to manage my AP climb rate. Sometimes I can make a good a launcher that can handle it without throttling by using solid motors and I think that's probably why I prefer to use solids as stage-0 (the Ariane/Atlas/Delta strategy). RO really ruined me though, I refuse to touch the throttle (aside from start/stop) unless I'm doing something like Angara with a throttled central stage.

Am I the only one here that slaps the "align to prograde" button after tilting over and just lets the rocket go? Lots of people throttling too, seems all that time playing RO trained me to go full throttle until I hit my second/third stage.

It varies by launch vehicle, I don't always launch things with a TWR in mind (aside from being > 1). Sometimes I have a low-TWR lower "lofting" a low-TWR upper stage, sometimes I can tilt over at 50m/s with a high thrust rocket, sometimes it's in-between. I usually revert once or twice per launch to get it right since every launch vehicle is different.

Tutorials exist. There's even a "Training Center" at the KSC. That's where new players should, and probably will, start, not by staring at the first tech tree node blankly wondering how they're not going to kill a Kerbal.

And that's going to hold true for every other solar system you go to, for MOST players (if they even go to every new solar system).

It's funny to me that the one real example of a feature based on "actionable information" you can gather besides maps is something you can actually do science about right now, in the game. Probably the biggest use for an aerobraking assistant tool would be at Kerbin where we already should know pretty much everything and where it really doesn't matter where we land to do a recovery. MOST players will use it once or twice for every body outside of Kerbin with an atmosphere and they'll presumably have to unlock it for every body outside of Kerbin.

Aerocapture/braking really isn't that. In any case, I'll agree to disagree, for one because I don't really think it's a feature that needs to be in the vanilla game and for two because I think it's a really dumb thing to lock behind something that isn't mind-numbingly repetitive.

Why does it have to unlock? I've already done the science through play, I know how to aerobrake, I did it in my last save without the help. Yes, yes they are. Don't lock QOL features, just give them to us.

No. I like what Intercept is doing and I certainly don't need to engage your arguments because they're purely opinion.

Some of us just disagree with this entire thread after reading it.

I'm presuming you have no intention of gatekeeping my delta-V expenditures or manner of mission execution and that basic planetary stats don't change from save file to save file. With that said, what actionable data are you offering me then? A new QOL feature that shows how I can aerobrake? I'll just slap down a quicksave and try a couple times until I know how it works. Or I'll leverage my knowledge from previous saves and just do the thing. At that point you're just keeping me from a time-saving feature. Meanwhile, I've been doing actual science learning how to aerobrake.

I have my doubts. But to the point, I learn all that through trial and error right now anyway so what you're offering me is quality of life, and at the point where you take away QOL in order to gatekeep I'm going to call that dumb. It's like the pilot class in KSP1, probably the biggest example of just how stupid QOL gatekeeping is. Like that Kerbal had to gain experience and level up like we're playing D&D in order to hold a point in another direction? What the hell am I actually playing? That's totally fine, especially if resource concentrations are randomized between playthroughs. Hell, make it require multiple passes and have different resolutions like ScanSat, make slope and height maps too. The problem with maps though, is that they don't provide a lot of good actionable information unless they have high definition (resolution, zoom in) data and are also paired with a waypoint system where I can look at the flight screen and see where I want to land. Without those tools the map is nothing more than a pretty picture.

Ultimately that's my real gripe about science gatekeeping in this game, it's keeping me from defining my own space program. There's not a whole lot of choice in the tech tree, certain nodes have much more value than others (the ones with experiments in them) and stuff like aircraft and probes get short shrift or have to be unlocked after. It tends to force me into a certain style of play, even if I unlock every part node as I go. So yeah, learning about what atmosphere does by sending a probe every new game just isn't interesting to me. Let me send a damn plane on a pillar of fire where I want, when I want. Or whatever. Yes. Lately I've been considering each node in the tech tree being me directing industry where to ramp up first rather than "unlocking tech".

Or we could just assume that people did some actual science beforehand so I don't have to follow the exact same path to space every damn time. Honestly that's what we really need, a tech tree that can accommodate all sorts of playstyles, not some dumb rehash of American Space Program everyone thinks we should have.