First timer in RO - What to look out for

[G'th]

So I'm doing a clean slate of KSP atm and I've decided that I'm going to try Realism overhaul with all the goodies. So I'm trying to get an idea of what all to expect.

Obviously its going to be like my first moments in KSP all over again trying to get into orbit for the first time (because I'm purposely trying to ignore the required delta V), but what else? I'm used to realism mods like Remote Tech, DR, etc but I've never played with Real Fuels and the like.

[Guest]

You need to go really, really fast - never underestimate this.

[Jovus]

Liquid engines. They don't throttle.

[andrewas]

Boil off. Cryo fuels don't stay in the tank forever, even if you put them in the cryo tank rather than try to save weight with balloon tanks.

[Red Iron Crown]

I'm an RSS/RO newb, I have to agree that the lack of throttling is the biggest adjustment. I didn't realize how much of my piloting skill was dependent on deep throttling.

Thrust scaling with Isp is an adjustment, too. A few of my early rockets sat on the pad burning away because I failed to take that into account.

Aside from that, it's a great challenge and learning experience. First time in a long time that I've felt so much satisfaction just from achieving orbit.

[Hannu]

How I can get real fuels to work? I installed everything in RO and have options to put many fuels in tanks but engines do not work with anything except stock fuels.

You have to take care of ascent profile. It is better to overshoot few tens of kilometers and get more time to accelerate to orbital velocity.

[Jovus]

If your engines refuse to work with anything except the stock fuels, I'd suspect a bad RO install. But I don't really know.

[Skyentist]

Also note that you no longer launch at the equator, but about 20 degrees above it.

[NathanKell]

Welcome to RO!

This wiki will help you out and in particular this page (Moving from Kerbin to Earth) has some highlights on what's changed.

[Robotengineer]

I would not recommend ignoring ∆V requirements. Pay attention to orbital inclinations, and launch a satellite into an orbit that matches that of the Moon so you can launch directly into a transfer orbit and bring the inclination difference to the lowest degree you can. Inclination change in LEO requires a lot of ∆V. Learn the engines and get KER. RealFuels can be a pain at times, but it allows you to do a lot more than stock engines.

[soulsource]

Get MechJeb. While I consider it cheating in stock, RO is a pain without it. Remote Tech, if you use it, isn't very good at handling crafts without reaction wheels yet (before I forget: reaction wheels are nerfed in RO, and only present in dedicated parts), wasting a lot of thruster fuel, so consider using MechJeb instead of the RT flight computer (but don't cheat yourself by circumventing signal delay that way, and keep in mind that MechJeb will only work if there is a radio connection, while the flight computer will only need a radio connection to transmit commands, not to execute them).

Also note that you no longer launch at the equator, but about 20 degrees above it.

Actually you can choose your launch site in the tracking station. KSC is great, as it allows you to launch directly in an orbit parallel to the ecliptic (use Mechjebs rendevouz info to find the correct time of day). If you want to launch at the equator, go for Kourou.