Pro tips

[Rocket Farmer]

I figured I would start a posting of very useful tips a person uses that they have never seen posted in the forums.

For me my tip is this.

Know where you will land on Kerbin when you are returning directly to Kerbin without orbiting in between accurately and with little dv cost:

For accurate landing in Kerbin know that the Kerbin day is 6 hours long. So when returning from a high aopsis (mun, minmas or any other planet) as soon as you get into Kerbin's sphere of influence fast forward to the nearest multiple of 6 hours before your projected landing time (6, 12, 18, 24 etc). Check out where you will be landing on kerbin at that time (ie let's say 30 hours before you actually get to Kerbin).

Your landing point shown will be your actual landing point geographically as Kerbin will exactly rotate 5 times before you land (6x5 = 30). Simply adjust your course slightly to pick your preferred landing site. Given you are so far away dv costs are minimal.

You can also use this on any other body as long as you know how long their day is. This usually allows me to land those early missions within 5-10km of the space centre with little do cost.

[Vaporo]

Huh. I never actually thought to do this. I've always just guesstimated my landing site and said "good enough" so long as I wasn't landing on a mountain. I'll try this, in the future.

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

When docking, rotate the ship and/or view around so the horizon of the planet and the horizon on the NavBall match.

then up and down and left and right match on the screen and the navball and the keyboard (or joystick) and it'a all much more intuitive.

[troyfawkes]

If you don't use someone else's dV map (I don't), make your own. When you know exactly how much dV you need, your ships will work perfectly

That having been said, design with a dV safety margin based on your piloting and mechanics skills. I go for around 10% extra per stage.

To make my personal notes I use the Notes plugin and add in details as I go:

dV Map (m/s):

Kerbin:

LKO (100km):

GSO (2.868Mm):

Mun Intercept:

In/Out Orbit (30km):

Landing:

LO:

Full Mission:

Duna Intercept:

Kerbin Ejection / Correction:

In/Out Orbit (52km):

Landing:

LO:

Return Ejection / Correction:

Kerbin Orbit:

Full Mission:

[Retread]

When docking, rotate the ship and/or view around so the horizon of the planet and the horizon on the NavBall match.

then up and down and left and right match on the screen and the navball and the keyboard (or joystick) and it'a all much more intuitive.

You can also lock the camera's orientation to that of your ship by cycling through the different camera modes until you find "locked".

[problemecium]

- Nearly everything can be renamed from the Tracking Station using the little "i" button and then clicking the name. Anything "owned" by the player (not an asteroid or contract vessel you have yet to visit) can also be reclassified here, including debris, so you can keep any given object from despawning without having to enable infinite debris.

- Use the rotation gizmo and press "F" to change it to "Absolute" rotation to ensure that landing gear, and optionally winglets, on planes are truly aligned with the plane's axis to prevent the plane wobbling on the runway.

- It is possible to attach struts to a stock fairing by running them "through" the fairing. To strut down the fairing, place a strut outside it somewhere on the launch vehicle and run the other end to the inside somewhere. To strut a payload to a fairing, place a temporary part on the payload that sticks out through the fairing, then place a strut on the payload and connect it to the temporary part. If all goes well, the strut will be "blocked" by the fairing and end up attaching to it instead. If not, adjust the positions a bit and try again.

- Based on my own tests, in order to obtain all possible Science points from a given experiment, the below chart shows the number of recoveries required. As far as I can tell, transmitting does not affect the total points available, and the same number of recoveries will be needed to sponge up the remaining points after transmitting:

1: Crew Report, EVA Report (These can actually be transmitted for full credit)

2: Barometer, Thermometer

3: Gravioli, Seismometer

4: Goo, Materials Bay, Atmosphere Analysis, Sample (Note that the third and fourth recoveries will provide a tiny fraction of a point, in some cases reading as "0.0" but showing a sliver of green in the bar)

According to this, the number of copies of an experiment that should be on a lander for each biome should be the number shown minus 1, i.e. you'll need two gravioli detectors and one copy in the pod in order to get all the points; or you can just use a mobile lab and store three copies in there.

Edited June 8, 2015 by parameciumkid

[OldLost]

Know where you will land on Kerbin when you are returning directly to Kerbin without orbiting in between accurately and with little dv cost:

For accurate landing in Kerbin know that the Kerbin day is 6 hours long. So when returning from a high aopsis (mun, minmas or any other planet) as soon as you get into Kerbin's sphere of influence fast forward to the nearest multiple of 6 hours before your projected landing time (6, 12, 18, 24 etc). Check out where you will be landing on kerbin at that time (ie let's say 30 hours before you actually get to Kerbin).

Well, I guess I'm not a pro, because I don't understand any of this. "Fast forward"? How do you do that? You can't mean warp, as then you're not "so far away dv costs are minimal".

Your landing point shown will be your actual landing point geographically as Kerbin will exactly rotate 5 times before you land (6x5 = 30). Simply adjust your course slightly to pick your preferred landing site. Given you are so far away dv costs are minimal.

"Your landing point shown...? I don't know what you mean by this either, as I've never seen where my landing point is shown at all. All I see is my orbit. And, sure, I can reduce my orbit until it's suborbital, but still it never shows me where I'm going to land, as the end point (where the current orbit intersects the planet) keeps changing because of atmo drag, so I still don't see where KSP is showing me where I'm going to land. Please clarify, as I'd really like to know how to do this. Thanks.

[match]

After setting up and performing a rendezvous maneuver, don't burn the last little bit. Make sure your heading is set on the maneuver node indicator on the navball and delete the node. Then slowly finish the burn with your mouse over the intersection points (in map mode). You can watch the distance update in realtime and get much closer than you thought possible. Opting to use RCS for this part is a prudent choice.

The intersection markers will not update in real time while the maneuver node still exists.

~This probably has been posted before, but hopefully is worth passing along again.

[Superfluous J]

Get good at docking without RCS. Not just comfortable with it, but proficient. This will do 2 things:

1) You'll find that you use a LOT less RCS when docking, allowing you to either bring less or keep what you bring for longer.

2) If you run out of RCS anyway, you'll be fine. RCS will have gone from a necessity to a convenience that you can easily do without.

NOTE: This only really works when at least one of the ships has a docking port on its front, facing forward, so you can use engine thrust to go toward the target port.

[regex]

Get good at docking without RCS. Not just comfortable with it, but proficient. This will do 2 things:

1) You'll find that you use a LOT less RCS when docking, allowing you to either bring less or keep what you bring for longer.

2) If you run out of RCS anyway, you'll be fine. RCS will have gone from a necessity to a convenience that you can easily do without.

Corollary: just git gud.

Seriously though, docking using the main engines is one of the most unrealistic things you can do in the game, mainly because you rely on magically strong torque devices (in the same vein as launching directly to rendezvous, which I strongly advocate as a time-saver). If you want to be really good just learn to dock with as little RCS fuel as possible and eschew the main engine, that way you can brag about how little fuel it takes you.

[Superfluous J]

docking using the main engines is one of the most unrealistic things you can do in the game, mainly because you rely on magically strong torque devices

If you want the game to be realistic in this manner you can severely limit or even totally disable reaction wheels. I personally would hate this. I'll take magically strong torque over insanely frustrating... everything. Every time.

[regex]

If you want the game to be realistic in this manner you can severely limit or even totally disable reaction wheels. I personally would hate this. I'll take magically strong torque over insanely frustrating... everything. Every time.

It's not nearly as bad as you think, just don't install that persistent rotation mod and RP that timewarp stoppage is actually station-keeping. Also, you use your reaction wheels/gyros for station keeping and use RCS to desaturate them IRL, same thing I (basically RP) do in RO/RSS.

[match]

launching directly to rendezvous

I turn my target ship's dock to face the chase ship before before I launch to rendezvous... I think I'm a bit optimistic

[G'th]

Another docking/rendezvous related protip:

When setting up a close encounter, its easiest and more time efficient if you can't find an ideal CE distance (IE, below 1km) to simply kill your relative speed at the closest you can find or get. From there, simply move your pro/retrograde marker over the corresponding target marker using RCS and burn for however fast you want to encounter your target. As you timewarp, however, you'll have to make correction burns, otherwise your encounter distance will never actually come close enough to the target to begin docking.

Doing this, you only need to use the map view to set up the initial close encounter, and presuming you keep up with your correction burns (which typically take only a second or two every 20 or 30 seconds on timewarp) you'll end up closer to your target (Often right on top of it) than if you had just used the map view and nodes.

[Rocket Farmer]

Actually for close in docking I find it easiest to simply eyeball it.

Your target is dropping relative to you? Burn downwards. It's rising and moving to the right. Burn up and at a right angle.

alternatively if you get good with your nodes you can close to .1 a .2km without ever going to ship view (just staying in map view)

[bb-pio]

I figured I would start a posting of very useful tips a person uses that they have never seen posted in the forums.

For me my tip is this.

Know where you will land on Kerbin when you are returning directly to Kerbin without orbiting in between accurately and with little dv cost:

For accurate landing in Kerbin know that the Kerbin day is 6 hours long. So when returning from a high aopsis (mun, minmas or any other planet) as soon as you get into Kerbin's sphere of influence fast forward to the nearest multiple of 6 hours before your projected landing time (6, 12, 18, 24 etc). Check out where you will be landing on kerbin at that time (ie let's say 30 hours before you actually get to Kerbin).

Your landing point shown will be your actual landing point geographically as Kerbin will exactly rotate 5 times before you land (6x5 = 30). Simply adjust your course slightly to pick your preferred landing site. Given you are so far away dv costs are minimal.

You can also use this on any other body as long as you know how long their day is. This usually allows me to land those early missions within 5-10km of the space centre with little do cost.

That's pretty clever, thanks! Does this only work if you come in mostly vertical?

[bb-pio]

Pro-tip for building. You can attach any part to just about any other part, anywhere, by first putting a cube octagonal strut first, then attaching to that. Then use the offset tool to drag the strut inside the ship and you're done. You'll also get proficient and VAB/SHP camera control because you'll have to go INSIDE your craft to grab that cube octag again if you want to offset/rotate.

Edited June 9, 2015 by bb-pio

[Sharpy]

If you don't use someone else's dV map (I don't), make your own. When you know exactly how much dV you need, your ships will work perfectly

That is assuming a perfectly executed suicide burns. Not lingering over the planet for half an hour looking for the right place to land (or seeking your target), struggling to get your horizontal speed to zero and make a very soft touchdown. And not hitting 'Z' two meters above ground in a low-gravity world.

My fuel ferries spend half of their landing fuel budget by trying to get as close as possible to the refinery.

[SargeRho]

Your eyeballing skills need improving then

It's generally possible to land near a target on an atmosphere-less world with little effort. Just have a trajectory that's going to overshoot the target by a bit, then land when you're right above it.

[Superfluous J]

That is assuming a perfectly executed suicide burns. Not lingering over the planet for half an hour looking for the right place to land (or seeking your target), struggling to get your horizontal speed to zero and make a very soft touchdown. And not hitting 'Z' two meters above ground in a low-gravity world.

My fuel ferries spend half of their landing fuel budget by trying to get as close as possible to the refinery.

Pro-Tip, don't hover over the ground and slowly make your way across the landscape.

[Acet]

When trying to capture an asteroid:

- The point at which you exit the Kerbin SOI is the single most important thing in reaching the asteroid with the minimum possible dV usage: you can save 100s and 1000s of m/s simply by moving around your burn point a bit or burning a little more or a little less. Corrections outside the SOI are far more expensive.

- Include at least one mining drill (aimed to where the asteroid will get after grabbing) and one ISRU unit on your asteroid grabber and you can mine the asteroid to make the fuel needed to move it. This is especially good for C class and above.

- Choose asteroids with Solar Orbits closer to the orbital plane of Kerbin. The ones which are higher/lower than Kerbin's orbital plane will end up in high-inclination orbits, which are very costly to correct (in fact that can easily cost far more time and dV than the actual asteroid aerocapture).

Other:

- You can train your Kerbals to 3 stars by: taking them up to Kerbin orbit, transfer-to and land on Minmus and then plant a flag, fly to just out of Kerbin's SOI and then back in and, finally, pass by the Mun's SOI (no need to establish orbit). If you use your Mun SOI pass to lower your orbit via gravity assist, all this can be made using a bit over 3000 m/s of dV from Kerbin Low Orbit.

[Loerelau]

Target Moho so that you make sure that your solar panels keep towards the sun (Why is it not possible to target the sun...). Lost power so many times...

[justidutch]

After reading this post I remembered something that I do that saves me all sorts of worlds of hurt: always disable your engines while docked to a station or another ship.

Can't tell you how many times I've mistakenly pressed the [shift] key, only to rip things into little floaty bits.

[SRV Ron]

Orient your ship prior to landing on a planet or moon to the same compass headings as you used when taking off from the launch pad. It makes landing and takeoff a lot easier.

[Netskimmer]

Target Moho so that you make sure that your solar panels keep towards the sun (Why is it not possible to target the sun...). Lost power so many times...

Assuming the craft is manned and you don't have TAC LS or some other reason for continuous power, you could just lock off one of your batteries at full charge and then reactivate it in an emergency.