Pecan

I spent a lot of time designing and building launch vehicles when I started with KSP so I have 30-odd pretty-heavily optimised standard lifters from 1t - 80t with ~18% payload ratio. I've never thought they were good enough to publish though; firstly because I haven't tried (enough) using jet first-stages and secondly because, well, they are mostly pig-ugly and still not as efficient as some that are available (temstar's originals for a start). That means I tend to use engine and rocket calculators a lot (ie; blizzy's, et al) and re-visit/build/design for all but the most trivial launches. When I need to just throw something into orbit to test the later stages I'll pick my best standard launch vehicle for it the, after making sure the payload is as it should be, (re)build a specific one for it. Asparagus is almost a must - but so is a limit of 2 'rings' (usually one 1 and often only 2 or 4 side-stages, rather than a full ring) and nosecones/aerodynamic fairings. Unless designing purely for efficiency (as above) my ships look good too. All my ships use the most efficient engines possible (travert's mass-optimal charts) - so Mainsails are right out - and none use part-clipping (which limits my engine clusters to 7 in most cases).

I've just fired-up my demo version to check and it does indeed have maneuver nodes. On the other hand I haven't watched the video so I don't know what you think you're missing. As Kasuha said, you need to stay in the air long enough to have a trajectory and switch to map-view in order to see it. Standard "quick" advice for getting into orbit (version 0.18 demo) - the stock craft all have 'issues' which are easy enough to fix once you've got the hang of things but it's even easier to build your own orbiter. Click on the VAB, start with a MK1 Command Pod - your ony choice in the demo anyway. If you intend to bring your Kerbal back put a Mk16 parachute on top of the pod and a TR-18A stack decoupler underneath it. Add an Advanced SAS System, FL-T800 fuel tank, FL-T400 and LV-T30 engine in order under the decoupler. This is the stage that will get your orbiter into space but it needs a bit more punch - "moar" boosters as the saying goes in these forums. Put another decoupler below the engine and an RT-10 Solid Fuel Booster below that. Repeat this so you have, from the top, parachute, pod, decoupler, SAS, two fuel tanks, engine, decoupler, booster, decoupler, booster. Now click the launch button (top-right of the VAB screen, you might want to save first) and your rocket will be taken to the pad. KSP's physics engine takes a few seconds to kick in then you will see the ship and camera 'settle' a little. Press 'T' to engage the SAS unit, it'll keep you pointing in the right direction ^^. Throttle-up (left shift-key) to max then press the spacebar to engage your first stage - booster 1. You're off. Watch the fuel-guage at the bottom-left of the screen, ignore the 'overheat' warning and wait for booster 1 to burnout. When it has no fuel left press the spacebar again to jettison it and engage booster 2. When that one runs out too, spacebar to stage again and you'll have your main rocket firing. Continue straight up to 10km then press 'T' to disengage SAS. Now press 'D' (yaw-right) to pitch-over to 45-degrees as shown on the navball at the bottom of the screen. Press 'T' to re-engage SAS. Now we get to the map view and maneuver nodes you were asking about. Press 'M' to switch to map view (press it again when you want to go back) and you will see a blue 'current orbit' line on the globe of Kerbin, rising from the space centre and with a 'ship' marker indicating your current position. The line arcs up and back to the ground because you haven't made it to orbit yet. At the highest point (apoapsis) is a tag with the legend 'AP' (amazingly enough standing for 'apoapsis'). Put your mouse over this and watch as your (predicted) maximum altitude increases. [Optional, but efficient: when your AP reaches about 50km disengage SAS again (T) and pitch-over further (D) to 20-degrees above the horizon]. When your apoapsis reaches 75km or more throttle-back to 0 (left ctrl-key, or just 'X') and the ship will continue to coast into space. Well done, that's step one but still sub-orbital. Right-click on your orbit line at the AP marker and click 'add manoeuvre' - this is what you wanted - drag the prograde symbol (blue circle, in the direction of travel) outwards and KSP will show you a brown, dotted 'planned' orbit line as well. Adjust your 'prograde burn' manoeuvre so that the periapsis marker (lowest point of the orbit, Pe in map view) is also around 75km - above 69km in any case. To the right of the navball KSP will now show the time until you have to execute this burn (hurry up, you won't have much time!) and how long it will take to carry it out. There will also be a new, dark blue, symbol on the navball indicating the direction you must face to carry-out the burn. Disengage SAS (T), align with the manoeuvre indicator (WASD), re-engage SAS (T). When you get to the node throttle-up (left shift-key) until your periapsis (Pe) is above 69km then kill the engine again (left ctrl-key/X). [Optional, but efficient: start your burn early so you're half-way through it when you reach the node. E.g.; if it will take 10s start at T:-5s (and finish at T:+5s)]. Congratulations; you're in orbit and know how to use manoeuvre nodes. IF you buy the full game you can install mods. IF you (still) aren't interested in flying spacecraft install MechJeb, as already mentioned by others, and getting to orbit is as simple as turning on the autopilot, telling it what height you want to go to and pressing spacebar to launch. IF you (really?) aren't interested in building ships either you can download many good ones from the spacecraft exchange in these forums. These ships (.craft files) will also work in the demo version, if you prefer.

Videos are a good way to "show" but often don't "tell" very well because they are, usually, time-limited to only one or two concrete* examples. Work on the script of what you want to say and the sound-quality at least as much as the visuals. Also consider just writing (with illustrations) for anything you want to explain in detail - text books exist for a reason. You can write longer articles/tutorials than you can pack into a video, people can take their time reading them, easily flip forwards/backwards to check references and it's easier to translate for all those people in the world that don't happen to speak your language. Plus an awful lot of us have to pay for the internet and/or don't have a connection that can (reliably) handle video. Keeping the format small and simple means you can reach more people with more content. It's not as much fun of course, but videos and live lectures are supplements, if you're intent on teaching. [*concrete works for boats - why not rockets!]

Just to add to my previous post - I use asparagus because it's efficient. I also tend to restrict it to a single 'ring' around the core, use nosecones and Procedural Fairings - even though the last two actually make the rockets perform worse as I have not installed FAR. In other words - I make efficient-ish ships that look plausible. This is one on the things I'm typing-up at the moment. Neither is set in stone. Earlier ships use stack, radial and parallel staging for comparison and as mission requirements become more demanding. The 'wide and low' lander example looks like a flying mushroom if I wrap it in fairings (named 'Fun Guy' = Fungi; that's the worst gag I'm including, promise) so just gets a nosecone on the side-tanks. Sometimes onion-staging is just simpler to build and the vehicle doesn't need any more, so that's what it gets. As far as I can see the asparagus objections and counter-arguments are: 1) they haven't done that in real life - KSP doesn't restrict you to re-creating what has been done before 2) They can't do that in real life - the cost/power/mass of KSP components and fuel is different to those on Earth so what is practical is also different 3) It's not aerodynamic - it is no less aerodynamic than anything with side-boosters, if you build it that way (the only difference is fuel-lines, after all) 4) Conservation of angular momentum makes it impossible (all that fuel moving in a spiral around the craft would make it spin uncontrollably in the opposite direction) - a plausible argument against wrapping asparagus stages around the core, still allows any number of aspargus stages wide (onion-stages in a line with symmetry 2). Arguably, reaction wheels are sufficient to counteract the fuel-flow torque (who can tell!). 7) 6-rings wide asparagus is ridiculous - oh yeah, but you're allowed to build ridiculous things if you feel like it 6) It's fiddly to build/I don't like it/I can't do it - no problem. Everyone's allowed to have fun their own way. [*sigh* I've put three solid evenings into the write-up now and only got through the introduction and most of the prologue (beginner rover, atmosphere plane and sub-orbital rocket). Will start publishing as tutorial once I'm through the first project (Kerbin satellites at different altitudes). Overtime at work coming to an end so I should have more time to spend on the rest from next week]

And the 2.5km maximum physics distance doesn't worry you at all?

Much too low! The point of a good TWR at launch is to get you out of the thick low atmosphere as soon as possible. Throttle-back if your atmospheric drag is excessive (another fine KER information display) above terminal velocity.

A lander-can is designed to work in a vacuum and is the lightest possible frame and 'balloon' that will hold the atmosphere needed for the crew. It has no chance in high-pressure and temperature atmospheric re-entries, apat from the fact that it doesn't have any kind of heat-shield. But KSP isn't Orbiter, I use them a lot.

An awful lot of "when to deorbit" a spaceplane/shuttle depends on how it flies once it's back in atmosphere and how much (if any) fuel it has. In the simplest case - deorbit whenever you feel like it and fly through the atmosphere to line-up on approach. In the worst case - it all depends not only on how high your orbit, or its inclination, but where on that orbit you currently are and where its equitorial nodes (AN/DN) are 'around' the planet from KSC.

To put this in context - the orange tube fuel tank is, I think, the longest single stock part. It's about 4m (rough eyeball guestimate). You're planning to build something that's (at least) the length of 125 orange tubes end-to-end? Not only won't it land on the runway; there won't be much runway length to take-off from in the first place! (No, I'm not thinking or suggesting you'd use those tanks that way, just getting a length comparison). What was the height of the arking ... arke ... bloody tall thing Whackjob built recently? Whatever it was you're talking about comparable complexity.

Alas, it is but legend to me. It was gone by the time I bought the game :-(

If not trolling, why does anyone think asparagus = ugly? A core with two radial boosters and nosecones is ok? If you add fuel-lines so the boosters keep the central core fuelled does it stop being ok? (Onion) A core with four radials is ok? Still ok if they feed the central core? Why not if the first pair to be staged feed the next (which feed the core)? (Onion -> Asparagus) I'm writing-up an 'Exploring the system' series of ships and missions at the moment (I know, I know; all I can say is I'm doing lots of overtime still for the next week or so) and the step from orbit to moons illustrates the design differences in stacked, radial/onion and asparagus so I'm really asking for opinions here*. Certainly asparagus can be ugly, but it doesn't have to be. An onion design with core + 6 boosters looks the same as an asparagus one, except for the way the fuel-lines run. [*Because I'll include a section of community-comments in the write-up]

As cantab partly illustrated - Apple stuff only works on Apple machines and if you want to write for Apple you have to start by buying one of their machines. I'd like to like them more, Apple IIe was the first machine I used as a professional, but it is the most fiercely guarded monopoly in IT. Good luck to them and all that, but their sales and money are coming from people who buy simple gadgets, not those that want to built a business-critical IT infrastructure. Linux has the opposite problem in that it's getting more and more popular with IT departments that have the staff who understand it but can't appeal to the mass consumer who find Windows too difficult anyway. NB: I have no complaint about any of the three major (micro-computer) OSs, nor the people who choose them, nor their reasons for doing so. The marketing ethos of each supplier is different and something you should be aware of when buying (caveat emptor and all that) but they're equally valid.

Making popcore - Stayputnik or okto cores have a lower heat-tolerance than any other part. One of those on an SRB explodes at ~6km. Pointless, but fun.

Try to have your command pod/remote control probe core pointing forward, not at the sky (as it is in Behemoose's picture). SAS and the built-in pod torque will be much more stable when pointing at the horizon but are still usually better turned off.

Woot! I've explored the island tower, etc. but never thought to explore KSC.

You mean you're getting that thrust from flameout despite having no fuel in the first place? Cool - another tool for the Kraken Drive fans :-)

Not in stock KSP - there's no way to attach fuel lines 'after the fact'. The KAS (Kerbal Attachment System) mod allows you to add them during EVA - and other things. If the centre tank is draining first then your fuel lines are on the wrong way around anyway. The point of asparagus is to use and stage the radial tanks first, leaving the centre one fully-fuelled to the end.

Have you considered the size of fuel-tanks and engines you'll need to spin this ~200t station up to 1 revolution every 4 seconds? Then stop it again every time a ship wants to dock. The most effective place to put those engines would be radially towards the ends of the habitation and counterweight modules - pointing sideways, of course. That means an awful lot of torque on the docking ports though. More practically you'd want to place them further inboard, which will necessarily be less effective. It will probably be very difficult to balance their thrust to make sure you're not introducing unwanted translation as well as rotation. I'm sure this is possible but it certainly won't be easy.

The mod you want for that is Fusebox.

That's one of the best short OS summaries I've read in a while Streetwind - good job :-)

Mk1 lander can, Mk16 parachute (assuming you want to come back, TR-18A decoupler, X200-16 fuel tank, Aerospike (better ISP than the more powerful engines). Launch TWR 1.58 (bit low, but rises to >5 by the time the fuel is exhausted, never reaches terminal velocity), 4,677m/s deltaV (atmosphere). Gets to 75km orbit with almost 300m/s deltaV remaining. 5 parts including decoupler, no staging except after de-orbit, leave the decoupler out if you like and get about 40m/s more. You may also like to look at: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/71491-Lowest-mass-to-orbit-and-back However, the OP said "past" LKO, so I don't suppose LKO itself is a problem ^^.

Please see http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/72321-Any-news-on-when-0-24-is-coming-out started just yesterday. Note that it's been locked.

We should also probably mention that it's rarely necessary to lift more than about 40t (orange tube, docking ports, etc) in one launch - once you can dock you can assemble monster ships in orbit. In any case, most missions/destinations don't need nearly as much stuff as you'd expect. Again 'necessary' doesn't mean you won't want to.

Google search for 'space simulation games'

I know it's upsetting and frustrating but I'm sure in time you'll find n-bodies that are attracted to you[r ship]. Don't worry, just try to move on Platonically. [Er, sorry, I may have missed something there ...]