Can You Recommend Three Mods For a NOOB?

[shadragon]

Topic in title.

I'm a new KSP'er and I'd like to pick up practical mods / add-ons to enhance my experience. Top of my list was MechJeb, but after that I hit page after page of add-ons and I simply don't know what will work best. 

I'd like to keep my system reasonably responsive and not load it down with unneeded packages. So what would be your recommendations for just three mods be and feel free to add your reasons why.

Cheers.

[JedTech]

Here a great list of the most popular mods in popularity order: http://spacedock.info/kerbal-space-program/browse/top

Here are some of my starter mod recommendations: 

• Scatterer (to make visuals look more awesome)
• SpaceY (if you want larger parts)
• Chatterer (for fun kerbal audio chatter during flight)
• Docking Port Alignment Indicator (for easier docking)
• Outer Planets Mod (to add more planets to visit while keeping stock planets)
   

Edited August 24, 2016 by JedTech

[DaMachinator]

• Kerbal Engineer Redux
• SCANSat
• DMagic Orbital Science

Kerbal Engineer Redux adds massive amounts of useful information to the game, including Delta-V readouts and orbital information. If you like to precision-design your rockets, or just want to know if your standard lifter can lift x payload into orbit, KER can do that. It's also useful for airplanes because it gives you fuel time at different speeds and altitudes. Works with modded planets too.

SCANSat allows you to make maps of celestial bodies that are very useful for lander missions. Low and high-resolution altimetry maps give you slope and altitude data for selecting a landing site, you can map the biomes and scan for anomalies with another scanner, and it integrates with the stock resource scanning system to create resource maps.

DMagic Orbital Science provides a host of new science instruments especially useful on unmanned missions, since many of them do not require recovery for full science value. It also adds smaller versions of the Mystery Goo and Science Jr. later on in the tech tree. Over all, an extremely well-balanced mod.

Edited August 24, 2016 by DaMachinator

[Sresk]

I'm pretty new too but here the one I wouldn't consider playing without.

Mechjeb

Kerbal engineer

Chatterer

A bookcase orbital reference - no one talks about this one but it gives you altitude and velocity numbers at any point in your orbit.

Stock visual enhancement with solar flare and scatter.

All of those will basically keep your game stock/vanilla

If your looking for more content without too much complexity then take a look at:

Usi - for a reasonable life support system 

Stock alike mk2 and mk3

The near future expansions and kerbal atomics- these will give a lot of new parts and toys to play with without having to dive off the deep end into intersteller extended 

[KAL 9000]

If you don't know how to fly, try MechJeb. Kerbal Engineer, OPM, and DMagic are also musts. If your computer can handle the visuals, try Stock Visual Enhancements and Scatterer. If you like the idea of customizing your Kerbals, try Texture Replacer. KAS and KIS are also awesome, and kOS never hurts.

[wasml]

I'd add Precise Maneuver editor for better manipulation of maneuver nodes.

And (once its updated) Kerbal Alarm Clock for keeping track of multiple flights.

RCS Build Aid for balancing ships in the editor.

These are all tools for building, flying and tracking so very light weight.

Edited August 25, 2016 by wasml
Looks like Alarmclock is 1.1.3

[Sresk]

Oh lol

13 hours ago, wasml said:

I'd add Precise Maneuver editor for better manipulation of maneuver nodes.

And (once its updated) Kerbal Alarm Clock for keeping track of multiple flights.

RCS Build Aid for balancing ships in the editor.

These are all tools for building, flying and tracking so very light weight.

Oh lol I honestly forgot about those as they kinda feel so core to the game I forgot they where mods

[legoclone09]

Personally, I must say Navball Docking Alignment Indication (way better than the GUI version, at least for me), then MechJeb just to see how to rendevous from experience and not a video, and then Bluedog Design Bureau which adds parts. Lots of parts, around 250 currently. Then if you want a bit more, Stock Visual Enhancements and Stock Visual Terrarin, but since I don't know how powerful your computer is, only get those if you have 8GB of RAM.

[Trann]

My selections for new players would all be functional ones: Kerbal Engineer Redux (valuable data about your ship and its position), Kerbal Alarm Clock (don't miss an intercept ever again), SCAN Sat (for tracking valuable biome science).  They've each been mentioned above but not in this combination.

 

Good luck!

Edited August 25, 2016 by Trann

[Tyko]

I'll narrow it to 2 mods that will really help when your first launching rockets around Kerbin. Others have provided some great suggestions that you might want to layer on after you've gotten the basics down, but these two really opened up the world of KSP for me.

• Kerbal Engineer Redux - it provides a ton of info that help you to learn to build and fly more effective ships. The DeltaV calculator alone makes this worth your time
• Precise Maneuver - using the default maneuver node tools is pretty fiddly and tough to control. Using Precise Maneuver will give you much finer controls over your maneuver planning and also makes it easy to play around with different options and see what works.

Edited August 25, 2016 by tjt

[Red Shirt]

After MechJeb:

MechJeb Embedded - automatically adds MJ to all pods.

Navballs to you - to set Navball to auto visible on map mode

Distant Object Enhancement - Makes planets and moons standout in the sky

Bonus mod:

Chatterer - totally useless but I can't play without it.

After this just play until you see a need.

[Sresk]

Yeah I can't play without chatterer either I'd love to see that one extended with more sounds and conversations between the crew and ground control.

[OrbitalBuzzsaw]

K.E.R

Mark 2 Expansion

Space-Y

[Bombaatu]

Because I haven't seen it mentioned: Transfer Window Planner - integrates very well with Kerbal Alarm Clock

Kerbal Inventory System & Kerbal Attachment System - build stuff! IN SPACE!!!

And a few of my hands-down favorite parts mods:

• Universal Storage (especially if you have DMagic Orbital Science and/or a life support mod!)
• Mark One Laboratory Extensions (M.O.L.E.) - early-game space stations
• Pathfinder (with included Buffalo) - bases & build-able, modular rover (requires KIS/KAS)
• Probes Plus - some fantastic probe cores, antennas, solar panels & instruments (science experiments)

[Maestro22]

Three essential mods for noobs, from my point of view:

1. KAC. I missed several maneuver nodes without it, annoying me a lot. 

2. KER. When starting to understand the importance of delta-v, this mod finally allowed me to really design effective rockets. 

3. Not that important for the noob IMO. Choose from any of the mods mentioned in the other posts.

[njmksr]

I would recommend B9 Aerospace, for part variety. I would need to think about the other 2.

[Hodari]

Either MechJeb or KER would be the only absolute "must have" mod for a new player.  KJR might be a good idea as well, especially if you're planning to build anything particularly large.  After that, a lot of it depends on what exactly you're planning to do or what parts of the stock game you don't like.

Various contract packs, mods that add more planets, and rescaled solar systems are good options to look at eventually, but I'd say start with the stock game first and only move on to those after you've mastered the basics.

[regex]

Three words: Realistic Progression Zero. Start out your KSP career right!