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Does anyone here play the Demo?

Spaceception

By Spaceception
in KSP1 Discussion

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Who here plays the Demo?  

88 members have voted

  1. 1. Who here plays the Demo?

    • Yay
      14
    • Nay
      74

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Reactordrone

Reactordrone

Posted
Posted
26 minutes ago, nosirrbro said:

And, Reactordrone, I dont see why one would ever use the demo if thy have the full game.

New people come here with issues that they have while playing the demo and it helps to troubleshoot their problems if you're playing the same version, especially since the demo has such a different drag/aero model and limited part menu.

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wumpus

wumpus

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Posted

I bought KSP through steam and can't get the demo (through steam).  I guess I could create a separate steam account, but couldn't be bothered to answer a forum demo question.

I think I downloaded the pre-1.0.0 demo.  I know I built several ships using only demo parts and went to at least Minmus with it (but built the ships in "real" KSP and Kerbal Engineer).  Note that with that demo you could use explosive staging...

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Pecan

Pecan

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Posted
15 hours ago, Reactordrone said:

New people come here with issues that they have while playing the demo and it helps to troubleshoot their problems if you're playing the same version, especially since the demo has such a different drag/aero model and limited part menu.

This.
Plus writing tutorials.

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322997am

322997am

Posted
Posted
15 hours ago, Orc said:

Hi all

 

I'm playing the demo. Can't afford the full game for the forseeable future. Still having an absolutely silly amount of fun.

 

Regards

Orc

If I win message me and I'll give u the copy

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Caelib

Caelib

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Posted
On 12/18/2015 at 8:57 PM, Spaceception said:

I can't be the only one here who plays the Demo instead of the full game, right?

Why would anyone play the demo?  The game is on sale all the time and is $20 really that much to pay?  You're only punishing yourself by playing the demo.

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Spaceception

Spaceception

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Posted
7 hours ago, Caelib said:

Why would anyone play the demo?  The game is on sale all the time and is $20 really that much to pay?  You're only punishing yourself by playing the demo.

I know! But my laptop can't run it, and I have to wait 'till my 16th bitrhday (Birthday money).  :(

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wumpus

wumpus

Posted
Posted

Notes on the demo: [I played the demo over the holidays, and just got back to the machine with my password manager]

There are a ton of tutorials for getting to orbit and the Mun in KSP.  Nearly all of them are for much later editions than the demo (I'm guessing you knew that when you posted the orginal post).  The basics:

Getting to Orbit.  You need to get to at least 70,000 meters of altitude and 2000m/s horizontal velocity.  The horizontal velocity is the hard part (see snide sniping in the recent Bezo/Musk spat).  To get to the Mun you do this and then need another 800 or so m/s just to get out there, then you need to decelerate and land, and take off...

The parts (whole list found here: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Demo_parts)

[rocket engines] - T30 (non-swivel) - Likely your main engine until you are in space.

T45 (swivel) - Just like above only it has the ability to thrust in [limited] specific directions.  Use one of these in the center and make the rest T30s.

LV-909: highly efficient/low thrust rocket.  Once you are in space this is the only rocket you should use.  It might even replace the T45 in the center, depending on how you design your rocket (don't do this in the current game, around 1.0.0 it was nerfed for atmospheric use).

RT-10 (the solid rocket booster). Note that you can't build these around another solid booster, you can put a bunch around a liquid rocket (the three above are all liquid rockets).  This can get annoying as one of the main points of SRBs is low cost (the other being high thrust), and you are stuck either attaching them via side decouplers or ditching an entire rocket stage when the SRBs burn out.

Fuel tanks - mostly obvious.  You probably only care about the rocket fuel and not the RCS fuel.

SAS: Put one of these on your ship if you want to lock your heading in place (I like to).  Hit the "T" button to lock heading, then launch.  After about 10,000m, hit T again to unlock and point to 45 degrees (heading east i.e. 90 on your navball).  Hit "M" for map view (and go down and click at the bottom to bring your navball up) and then then burn until you are high enough (70,000m is minimal, about 100,000m makes things easier but takes more fuel).  If you don't lock your heading, do pretty much the same only with adjustments on course.  Note that the full version does everything here differently, and the rockets flop around off course enough to want SAS enabled almost all the time.

RCS: If you want a real challenge, try doing a rendezvous.  Note that you won't have the parts for a docking, but getting close is more than half the battle.  Otherwise you really don't need to bother with either RCS thrusters or fuel.

Decouplers: How you drop the first stage when it is burned out.  You have vertical and horizontal decouplers, horizontal decouplers is how the magic happens.  Also note the cost of the things: if you want to play the game for a little while, reducing the number of horizontal decouplers is a good way to reduce overall cost.

Adaptors/Couplers/Struts:

3-1 adaptor: Connect three for the price of one decoupler.  Probably comes most in handy for attaching SRBs.

Fuel coupler: Probably the most important part in the entire demo and easily overlooked.  This allows "asparagas staging" (an old kerbal specialty, if less important in current releases).  The magic is this: click on you lower stage (but horizontally attached) liquid fuel tank and drag to a higher stage fuel tank (the order is important and determines which way the fuel goes, right click on the part for a reminder in game).  Then adjust the staging so that all rockets fire at the same time.

Once you set this up, all the fueled engines fire at once, but only drain the lower stages.  Once the lower stages are drained, the lower stage rocket shuts off (out of fuel) and is jettisoned.  The upper stage fires on at full fuel load and then drains itself as it goes.  This allows much larger rockets in the demo than vertical staging (the rockets can only lift a few large fuel tanks on their own, any larger needs lots of rockets in parallel to lift it all).  One of the tricks I came up on my demo holiday was placing a small fuel tank beside the rest of the rocket, and then surrounding it with four SRBs.  With the 4 SRBs (per side), it hardly needed an engine for itself, but with the fuel tank being drained by 3-5 other engines (in "higher" stages) it would drain before the SRBs burned out.  The resulting rocket was shot at a fairly high speed over 5000m and with nearly full fuel tanks.

Struts: add these to keep your rocket if it wobbles about.  Anything with multiple SRBs attached will often get ripped straight off the rocket and shot upward without some struts attached.

Ground support/launch clamps:

Launch clamps are a good idea in general, and help avoid a nasty bug where parts touching the base get stuck to it.  Note that in the full release (in career mode) launch clamps have effectively zero cost since they are recovered on the launch pad.

Nose cones:

Include only if you think the looks need it.  Due to the horrendous aero/physical model in everything before release (unless you added the FAR aero-fixing mods), these actually add drag.

Winglets:

AV-T1 (non adjustable) - don't bother.  Unless you are really having trouble keeping on course (and the SAS should help more), these shouldn't be needed.

AV-R8 (adjustable) - note that these let you guide your rocket and thus have some use.  Just understand that they typically go on the ends and get discarded pretty fast (but that shouldn't matter if you have a T45/LV909 on the next stage).

Parachutes (only one, and remember to pack it.  I don't think it can save more than the capsule itself).

Ladders: Bring these along so you can walk on the Mun.  Not needed in the release, and I think there should be a means of using the RCS pack on the Mun (it told me the tank was full, but I couldn't access it), but a good idea.

Landing gear: missing on the wiki (which meant I hadn't looked for it on my successful trip to the Mun).  Always a good idea.  Note: it might make a lot of sense to have both a "decent stage" and a "takeoff stage" on the Mun (Apollo did this, for obviously different reasons).  When I landed on the Mun, I did a quicksave.  After loading I found one of my engines stuck to the surface (if I launched with it connected it would rip off and my unbalanced ship would quickly crash).  Fortunately I had extra engines surrounding my craft (I didn't know landing gear was in the demo) and was able to stage and drop the connected engine.

Ship building hints: (note the above posters likely included better specific designs, the following are more general and how to find a good design).

The obvious one is build horizontal and use asparagas staging.  Note: while it might get mentioned in earlier guides on KSP (and was until recently planed for Falcon Heavy) it is hardly that magical.  The real benefit it has is not "wasting" the mass of rocket engines by allowing their thrust to be used by more than one stage.  The thing you learn in rocket science (i.e. KSP) is that a little efficiency gains by doing this go a long way.

I'd recommend starting at the top and working down (the game helps enforce this by handing you the capsule first).  Build enough of an orbiter/lander/rendevous-ship/whatever and then figure out what type of booster you need to get it into orbit.  The space[only]-craft should be powered by LV-909s (and can often get away with just one.  You might attach "drop tanks" to the side to get to the Mun.  Gravity isn't going to pull you back, any extra thrust isn't needed to get there and just adds mass you will need to lift/accelerate).

The most efficient means to build a booster is essentially a row of (pairs of) boosters.  Start with a T-45 and a couple of large tanks.  Then attach horizontal decouplers and add a pair or similar boosters (two T-30s and two large fuel tanks).  Note: Hit the "double symmetry" button and try to add the decouplers in the center of one of the fuel tanks (the next set of fuel tanks likely will only connect in the center.  Getting these things to attach is one of the bigger frustrations of KSP).  Connect your fuel lines from new to old, then group the staging.  Repeat with as many boosters as it takes to get into space.

Note that if you build your lander with 3-fold symmetry (to make it more stable during landing), it works fine to build the rest with 3-fold (or more) symmetry.  2-fold is the most efficient, as it pulls from the least number of tanks at once, but it isn't that big a deal.

A word of warning: while mods exist to make everything easier (my rockets were likely silly-over powered due to a lack of Kerbal engineer), the Mun in the paid release bears little resemblance to the flat surface of the demo.  You might want to land on Minmus first once you buy the full release (although for some reason career mode won't offer you Minmus until you land on the Mun.  Something to do with Minmus having an inclination I guess (note: I'm pretty sure Minmus didn't make the demo.  It is a smaller moon much further away than the Mun, but easier to land on being flat and having a much lower gravity)).

 

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Pecan

Pecan

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, wumpus said:

Notes on the demo: [I played the demo over the holidays, and just got back to the machine with my password manager]

The wiki, "currently based on version 0.18.3", is out of date (and so's your demo if you had those parts available).

Have a look at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/128142-munshot-wdemo/ for more up-to-date details.

Edited by Pecan
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wumpus

wumpus

Posted
Posted
19 hours ago, Pecan said:

The wiki, "currently based on version 0.18.3", is out of date (and so's your demo if you had those parts available).

Have a look at http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/128142-munshot-wdemo/ for more up-to-date details.

Very odd.  I didn't expect those parts, but that is what came with the steam download.  It was well before the Christmas Steam debacle to.  Maybe I'll finally make a dummy steam account to test out the demo (it wouldn't let me "buy" KSP "again").

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pandaman

pandaman

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On 29/12/2015 at 0:05 AM, Caelib said:

Why would anyone play the demo?  The game is on sale all the time and is $20 really that much to pay?  You're only punishing yourself by playing the demo.

With all due respect, and no offence intended, not everyone can spare $20 for a game that easily.  Different people have different circumstances, that's life.

 No matter how good a game, and how good value for money it is (and KSP is awesome value for money), some kids need to save up their pocket money and some adults have more urgent priorities (like food and bills).

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