How did you learn your basic KSP skills?

[Columbia]

Hello, forums!

All of us had a unique way of learning KSP skills - such as going to other planets, docking - and, maybe some of us were self-taught, or watched and followed tutorials such as Scott Manley's own.

So how did you learn many of your KSP skills, such as these?

..Well, for me, I learned going into suborbit by launching a random, huge rocket, and suddenly seeing that I was at more than 70,000 meters high.. so it was straightforward.

I learned how to get to orbit through the wiki.

Landing on the Mun? Well, that's a bit unclear.. I learned some of it from the wiki, but couldn't understand many terms. It was a long time before I managed to do so.

I learned going to Minmus from watching Scott Manley's tutorials.. and that's where I learned maneuver nodes!

Learning how to land on other planets was a bit hard, as I couldn't understand Scott Manley's tutorial of it.

What I DID learn was about this website named ksp.olex.biz, and found out about launch windows. I practically guessed at how I was going to do it.

Docking..? Well, I mostly learned it from Starwhip's tutorial "Docking; From Navball to First Station, and beyond!" whoch I found very in-depth and easy to understand comared to ther tutorials.

What about you guys?

[Endersmens]

I took this post away since it seemed to offend some. I'm sorry if I offended you.

Edited April 25, 2015 by Endersmens

[Daze]

I learnt to land on the Mun with this video:

[AbacusWizard]

I learned by a combination of three methods:

• applying the physics skills I already have (deriving the rocket equation, calculating when to turn on the engines to land at ground level, general intuition about what happens to an object's motion when a certain force is applied, etc.)

• further research (reading parts of Buzz Aldrin's writings on orbital rendezvous, for example)

• in-game experimentation (so what happens to my orbital trajectory if I fire thrusters in this direction?)

Honorable mention to Arthur C. Clarke's book The Exploration of Space, which gave me a lot of inspiration about what could be done that I ought to try (e.g., interplanetary travel infrastructure: crew takes SSTO shuttle up to orbit, transfers to interplanetary craft that never lands, maneuver to orbit another world, transfer to SSTO shuttle that takes them down to other world's surface).

[Lindy]

So how did you learn many of your KSP skills, such as these?

Build, launch, crash and burn.

Wash, rinse, repeat...

[EtherDragon]

I had learned pretty much everything from Orbiter Space Flight Simulator, already.

But the added dimension of designing my own functional Rockets could only be learned in KSP. There was a lot of build, KABOOM, edit, profit going on!

[Renegrade]

Self-taught, almost entirely.

I learned really basic orbital mechanics/docking in Frontier: Elite II (self-taught). I learned more advanced mechanics/rendezvous/docking in KSP (again self-taught).

I did watch two Manley videos. One was a documentary about the fuel pumping bug (I watched it as the wiki documentation on fuel transfer is or was (at the time) rather un-user-friendly), and the other was a basics of spaceplanes so I could see a visual representation of a good distance for the CoM/CoL separation.

I also read about that constant-altitude type landing (it's basically just an extended version of my own "Apollo-style landing" however).

I also TRIED to read about the maneuver node, but the documentation just didn't click, so for the longest time I just laid courses by eye on the navball, and slowly figured out the maneuver node through trial and error. And now, I actually tend to do a lot of maneuvers by eye, which saves quite a bit of time vs. fiddling with the blasted thing.

Finally, I saw some posts long ago about the time even LONGER ago when there was no maneuvering node, and the "Mun on the horizon" rule of thumb. That helped somewhat when 0.90 was released~

By and large, I felt that reading up on the techniques was cheating myself out of figuring them out for myself. It's much more rewarding to do it in the latter fashion, and I feel that my understanding is stronger because of it. The only "downside" is that my jargon is a bit weak. Not that that's a downside, really.

[Renkov]

I guessed at a bunch of stuff with varing degrees of success. It wasn't until watching Scott Manley videos that myskills became more than " look I got it into orbit this tiime! "

However, I'd like to relate the tale of my roomate, who, not knowing about RCS controls and landing with such, built all his landers with the small gear bays because they had a higher tolerance and he'd roll until he got stable. His landing plan was, Look for a flat area and hit the thrust.

[justidutch]

I'm with Renegade, I did my best to learn everything myself. Manoeuvre nodes, docking, landing. Many exploderisms happened on the way, which I sadistically find enjoyment in. Hence my fun in playing this game. The only time I have looked for help was how to achieve a stable orbit, cuz I knew jack squat about such things. I have since learned way more than I wanted to. Learning is bad, as I tend to find ignoramuses way more blissful than I.

[mrclucks]

Saw a friend launching a rocket, asked about it. Came across the Manley's videos, watched half of his IS series. Then I finally bought it and figured out how to get to orbit

[klesh]

I was (am, lol) a student at the Manley College of Space Flight, class of 2013.

[Thomas988]

I tried really, really hard to learn everything myself, but I simply could not, since prior I knew absolutely nothing about physics whatsoever. Scott Manley and HOCgaming were my teachers, but I also took reference form a lot of online tutorials. Of course, I always took what I learned and put my own spin on it.

[Tex]

I was mostly self-taught, although I did make use of the tutorials when I first played the game. I mean, that's like an obligation for me, to check out the tutorial first. Once I learned how to do that, I basically just screwed around when Sandbox was the only option, and so I just flew mission after mission. I do think, though, that I managed to get a Munar landing on my second attempt ever, which my KSP-playing friends IRL were all jealous about

[Tweety]

Despite manoeuvre nodes already being in the game when I brought it (0.18) I learnt how to get to the Mun watching a video and setting off prograde when the Mun appeared from behind kerbin. Videos are my favourite resource even if I don't understand I can then grasp it by trying it myself and understand what was explained in said videos.

Tweety

[michaelsteele3]

In-Game Tutorial

[klesh]

• further research (reading parts of Buzz Aldrin's writings on orbital rendezvous, for example)

Here is his 1963 MIT Docoral Thesis on the subject in .pdf format, if anyone is interested: http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/12652/28555330.pdf?sequence=1

Flying a spacecraft is very different than flying a plane. There is no true up or down and the dynamics of orbital flight make maneuvering to dock, or rendezvous, two spaceships very complex. I focused my research on solving the problems of speed and centrifugal energy which lead to an ‘orbital paradox’ – a situation in which a pilot who speeds up to catch another craft in a higher orbit will end up in an even higher orbit, traveling at a slower speed and watching the second craft fly off into the distance.

The solution to this paradox is counter intuitive, and required new orbital mechanics and procedures. Later, after joining the NASA astronaut corps, I spent time translating complex orbital mechanics into relatively simple flight plans for my colleagues – they thanked me (with a mixture of respect and sarcasm) with the nickname Dr. Rendezvous.

[Quote]

Trial and Error for the most part. There was a video that helped me greatly on how to land on the moon. There wasn't even any instruction in the video. Just a video of the persons trip.

I can vividly remember the craft and how to construct it, since it was before 0.13, before the Space Planes hanger was introduced. Before actual landing gear. In order to land on the moon in the video(and subsequently I) used stabilizing tail fins for landing on, attached in a precarious way with the very old style side separators. I think I learned docking through a Scott Manley video, but I honestly don't remember.

[Panzerbeard]

Trial and error combined with my existing (limited...) knowledge of physics. I looked at tutorials after I figured things out on my own; so once I could get into orbit consistently I looked at guides to see how far off I was from the 'proper' way to do it

Edited April 24, 2015 by Panzerbeard

[GoSlash27]

I recreated NASA's process.

I started with suborbital flights, then orbital, then orbital rendezvous and EVAs, then a munar mission.

This was all in the demo.

When I stepped up to the full game I learned how to dock and how to work with the aerodynamics.

Best,

-Slashy

[Hobbes Novakoff]

Watching MechJeb do it. I still use it, mostly because it's several hundred times more precise than me, and the ability to lock to a certain navball vector is amazingly useful for flying SSTOs. Every time the game updates, I spend a few weeks playing full stock. The thing I always miss is the delta-v meter (hint hint squad)

[Starhawk]

The Wiki.

Happy landings!

[Xannari Ferrows]

I started using basic rocket math before I developed my skills. Eventually it just became routine, I suppose...

[GeneCash]

Watching MechJeb do it

Yup. I had a good knowledge of spaceflight from being a NASA nutcase for decades, but I'd never seen all the pieces of an orbital rendezvous actually put together in one continuous piece until I saw MechJeb do it. There was an instance where I went "wait, what's it doing n---- OH YEAH! OK! I SEE!" for every step it did.

And the first time it did a Mun landing... hell, I wasn't that tense since I saw the actual Apollo 11 landing. I nearly needed oxygen myself after it settled down.

[BDelacroix]

Trial and error and many simulations.

[Yukon0009]

Bigger and bigger rockets sent me off to the Mun. It was getting there that was the bottleneck for me (landing only took me 4 tries!)