How did you learn your basic KSP skills?

[federicoaa]

I've learned with Prof. Manly and also watching how MJ flies the rocket for me

[yorshee]

Scott Manley's videos helped a lot, as well as watching fellow once-newbies at the game learning to play it, like JackSepticEye for example.

So yeah, Youtube videos, plus some trial-and-error Hyperedit messing around on Sandbox mode.

[Roflcopterkklol]

Most things i know about this game i know through trial and error if i am honest, always liked trying to figure things out for myself, heck i do not even calculate delta V according to numbers i do it by memory of how much of what is needed to go where lol.

[ImperialistPigDog]

Trial and error mostly, I did watch some Scott Manly to learn how to dock though.

[luizopiloto]

I play Flight Simulator series since 98... and I played Orbiter a bit... when I got to KSP... I already had all the skills needed...

[Superfluous J]

Days, months, and ultimately years of iteratively:

• Doing it wrong.
  
• Realizing it was wrong.
  
• Realizing what was wrong.
  
• Figuring out how to fix what was wrong.
  
• Fixing what was wrong.
  
• (repeat)
  

[AbacusWizard]

Days, months, and ultimately years of iteratively:

• Doing it wrong.
  
• Realizing it was wrong.
  
• Realizing what was wrong.
  
• Figuring out how to fix what was wrong.
  
• Fixing what was wrong.
  
• (repeat)
  

This reads very much like a certain description of stages of learning I read about in my teaching credential program!

• unconscious incompetence: you don't even know what you're doing wrong

• conscious incompetence: you're still doing it wrong, but you're aware of it

• conscious competence: you can do it right, but you have to focus

• unconscious competence: you're so good you don't even need to think about it anymore

[helaeon]

Education in the sciences... that helps a bit.

Playing flight sims my whole life... that helps a bit.

Logging the time... that helps a lot.

Being willing to take techniques from others I like, discard what I don't, and put a piece of myself in there. That's mostly how. I learned that piece in martial arts, and yes that should sound suspiciously like a Bruce Lee quote.

[Rath]

I was broke for a while before I could buy ksp so i learnd orbital dynamics from videos even before getting the game

[OrbitusII]

Trial and error with some education via YouTube videos (even those that weren't strictly instructional). I actually developed a fair bit of my programming and modeling skills this way.

[Sidereus]

Most of my skills I learned while playing the 0.18 Trial version. Lots and lots of trial and error trying to get the Mun. The only difference between getting to the Mun and getting to other planets is how much dV you have to bring along with you...and it also sort of helps to know when to launch.

Rendezvous and docking I learned by watching a video tutorial. Once I understood the basics, all I needed was some practice. Same with space planes.

[White Owl]

Mostly trial and error, mixed with reading various documentation and guides. I actually find it difficult to learn new skills from watching videos, which I suppose could be kind of ironic. I greatly prefer learning by reading, experimenting, and doing.

[ddenis]

I've learned watching how MJ2 does maneuros for me, also videos on youtube.

Edited April 25, 2015 by ddenis

[Rhomphaia]

Getting to orbit was learned from these forums, back in the days when there wasn't a map view and the only way to tell if you had made it was to do the math, or go round and see what happened.

Landing on airless bodies was learned from the old Lander game that used to come with windows. KSP just added another dimension

Most other stuff was learned on these forums.

[touzenesmy]

pretty much this

[Johno]

Trial and Error. The method of champions!

However, I have a problem - I'm a bit risk averse. Which means I don't make enough errors to learn from, sometimes (I tend to revert rather than stay in a position and work the problem).

This therefore means there's a lot I haven't learned, yet, despite playing the game since version 0.8.1 . . I can't make a probe visit a planet other than Kerbin, reliably, to save my life!

[Kerr_]

I first played at ~ .18, so sandbox was the only thing available at the time.

(Game caught my eye because of my general username: Kerr ... Kerbal. and someone in my gaming group regularly called me 'kerr balls' -> kerrballs -> Kerbal)

On these types of games I REFUSE more than the basic tutorial for controls - learning how to play by trial and error is all the fun!

It took me about 3 days before I made orbit, my biggest challenge was.... understanding staging groups. I had no idea that you could drag/drop staging groups until I did it accidentally. I wound up with a notepad sheet for every craft, detailing what each of the 0-9 action groups did.

The first craft I had that made orbit was a 300+ part monster (I can has good pc!) (And I hadn't discovered struts!) and was nearly in a polar orbit (still off-inclination ~ 20 degrees). It was unmanned and at an Ap of ~670 and Pe of ~ 200. I reached the Ap before I realized I needed to go horizontal to actually orbit. That particular craft had 8 probes on it, each two stage. first stage was liquid fuel with a tiny engine and matching tanks, then an ion engine with one xenon tank. I used these probes to learn about the orbital mechanics of it, ultimately ejecting two from kerbin, placing two over the mun, and the rest were stuck in various orbits over kerbin.

I launched multiple versions of that first craft after that. After the next few days I could reliably make orbit with a full orange tank left. Then I started reading the wiki, and wikipedia. Now I play career with custom hard mode, 12% rewards, and start with -500 rep. (No re-use of vessles for 'data over kerbin' type missions)

I've been everywhere in that save landing and recovering as much of every ship as possibru is key.

Also, I never had much trouble with using the keyboard/controlling my craft/etc. I've played a lot of flight sims over the years. I have joysticks but have never once used them in ksp. Maybe I'll try it in 1.0

Edited April 25, 2015 by Kerr_

[Heartstrings]

I watched Day9's video series on it. (not that that helped! ) Before then, I had seen it around, but wasn't terribly interested.

[LordReserei]

I relied on some of my rudimentary knowledge of rocketry, and historical knowledge of real life space programs. As well as trial and error.