Your first hours in KSP

[Chel]

When you first started playing Kerbal Space Program, what was it like? Was it easy to get into orbit? Did most of your missions end in violent explosions? Did you just resort to Alt+F12'ing and fooling around? 

Here's my story: So I bought KSP on the day that it reached 1.0, because I wanted the released version of the game. I fooled around in Sandbox, building huge space stations and mostly failing to get them to orbit. For my first career save, I actually did pretty well. Then I found mods, and since then my KSP now takes like 10 minutes to load. I've also discovered the addiction of Alt+F12, and once I used it for the first time I basically can't stop. I still play this game, being a passionate supporter of SQUAD's creation, and I also play the Enhanced Edition, which I bought because I was sick of my computer's framerate. 

Edited October 23, 2018 by The_Cat_In_Space

[Ultimate Steve]

When I first started playing Kerbal Slideshow Program I built a four part rocket and went up, then down, then made a terrible rover that broke immediately. It took hours to do anything on that old brick...

Eventually I got into orbit, and landed a probe on the Mun before abandoning the game until I got a computer that could run the game at 5fps instead of 1fps.

EDIT: Later on, I moved to my dad's laptop which could run small craft with a green timer, and I was hogging his laptop so much that he bought me a really good desktop. Back when it was brand new, I could aerocapture a 500 ton stack of solid rocket boosters at Eve, at 4x time acceleration, with no lag.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Ultimate Steve

[Vanamonde]

I made a tiny rocket, flew it, and landed the capsule a few hundred meters away from the launch pad. Then I made a slightly larger rocket and flew it a little farther. And so on until I had orbit after a couple of hours. That was in the demo, and the next day I bought version 15.0.

[Chel]

10 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

I made a tiny rocket, flew it, and landed the capsule a few hundred meters away from the launch pad.

Lemme guess: RT-5, mk1 command pod, and parachute? 

[Vanamonde]

2 minutes ago, The_Cat_In_Space said:

Lemme guess: RT-5, mk1 command pod, and parachute? 

Didn't have SRBs yet. 

[Chel]

1 minute ago, Vanamonde said:

Didn't have SRBs yet. 

Oh yeah, I just remembered you said it was the demo. 

[Vanamonde]

And version 15. 

[Chel]

1 minute ago, Vanamonde said:

And version 15. 

And now we're up to version 1.5

[micha]

Hmm, that's a little while ago now. Fairly certain my first rocket made it to a splashdown in the ocean though. Flea, Mk1pod, a parachute, and Jeb (this is before Val joined the crew). These days my initial flight is still the same, except there's a couple of Mystery Goo's strapped on too and I adjust the thrust and fuel level of the Flea first.

Apart from having to experiment with how many fuel-tanks were necessary to get to space and then orbit as I hadn't heard of Kerbal Engineering Redux yet I don't think it took me too long or too many explosions to get there. And then on to the Mun.  I think I did watch quite a bit of Scott Manley though not long after I started playing.

Many years later, and I still haven't really made it out of Kerbin's SOI yet (launched a couple of probes to the other planets and did an out-of-game test run to Duna once).  When I do get time to play there's usually a new update, which means updating mods, and re-starting career mode. And since I usually have dozens of missions on the go at the same time, it kinda precludes my out-of-Kerbin probes from getting too far while I muck about with Station missions.

Edit: v0.23.5 was when I started..

 

Edit 2 : And this was either my first, or close to it, shot at the Mun; already somewhat modded (KER, Surface Experiment Pack, KDex, Procedural Fairings, Universal Storage, and some sort of beautification mod):

Album a/Rzvbe will appear when post is submitted

Edited October 23, 2018 by micha

[The Aziz]

I made at least 10 different iterations of a rocket and the most successful one was the one that reached higher altitude, of course straight up. Because, yeah, any signs of steering made them uncontrollable.

Back in 0.9

Yes you read that right. Not 0.90.

[purpleivan]

I bought the game on 23rd July 2014, then put up various small rockets until I got one into orbit.

25th July I put a small probe into Mun orbit.

Then I launched a station and sent a vehicle up to it.

After that it was an Apollo(ish) series of missions preparing for a Mun landing

First was a Munar orbit mission on 2nd August.

Followed that with a test of the rendezvous and docking of my planned command module and lander in Kerbin orbit on 3rd August.

Finally later the same day I put my first Kerbal boots on the surface of the Mun.

Good days!

[ZootinZack]

Back when the Mun was the only and absolutely penultimate goal... I remember trying SO hard simply to achieve orbit, let alone actually get there and back. I didn't know jack excrements about gravity turns, hohmann transfers... newfound respect for the pioneers of space exploration. 

Funnily enough I don't remember the frustration as much as the thrill of learning stuff.

[Aeroboi]

When I played KSP for the first time I remember looking at the clock when it was 5 AM, I had to go to work and forgot to have dinner the evening before. I also ended up with rockets that had 6 times the required size but that is noobishism.

[PrvDancer85]

I remember that i've gone straight to the orbit tutorial and launched the rocket without knowing wich buttons does what. After i figured that out i started my first career and it took me a hole evening to reach orbit and it took 2 reallife days to build something that would bring me to the mun and back

[Sharpy]

I began with 1.1 when tutorials were already good, and dutifully went through the basic tutorials for orbiting, launch and Mun landing. Then I started the science career and started flying right away. Took me a couple months to learn gravity turn, learn that you can set planets as maneuver targets (had my first Duna flyby done by then...) and to master docking (I could do it pretty early on but would take me hours every time). But other than that, touch and go.

[KerbolExplorer]

I began at 1.2.2.....I tried making a space shuttle......

The cementery filled up fast.........

[Superfluous J]

I went from 0 to orbit in probably an hour or so. I really don't remember but it wasn't all that difficult. Back then it was all sandbox so you just threw moar boosters on it until your cpu fans kicked on. Also, I had a pretty solid foundation of geekery and nerditude to help me out.

Before the end of the weekend (I think I discovered the game on a Thursday or Friday), I had successfully done a manned Mun land-and-return mission.

I never, ever alt-F12'd to actually achieve anything. Actually back then alt-f12ing wouldn't achieve much. I didn't even know about quicksave until I had a fully functional Mun land-and-return mission. I learned about F5/F9 after the 3rd or 4th failed landing. I couldn't believe this game didn't have a way to save. Then I found out it did. <facepalm>

Edited October 23, 2018 by 5thHorseman

[winged]

Mk1 command pod, LVT- something engine and parachute. As soon as rocket took off, the parachutes fully opened up... you probably already heard this story.

[Kebab Kerman]

I remember building a rocket that literally crashed Kerbin.exe. It was flashing and everything. I had made a Planet Buster™! [stupid ™ wont italicize properly >:( )

Then I got the idea of placing multiple in the world at once. I think you can guess what happened.

 

Spoiler

Well, whatever you guessed, you were wrong! It DELETED THE PLANET. The entire planet just vanished from the map and it wasn't even like the magic boulder, it was just... gone. Like "Food in the USSR" gone. Then I got scared because I was 10 at the time and alt-f4'd out of fear something spooky would pop out. I didnt play the game again for another month. I can't believe I've been playing for 4 years now... I feel old...

 

[Geonovast]

1.3

I knew... nothing.  Absolutely nothing.  While I'd always been fascinated by space (and specifically the space shuttle) as a kid, I knew no specifics.  My orbital mechanics knowledge came from Star Trek....

My first few hours were basically building rockets that shot straight up and frustration from how floppy they were because WHY COULDN'T I USE MORE THAN ONE DECOUPLER ON A BOOSTER?

Then I tried a few tutorials, thinking (Ha!) that they'd teach me how to play the game.  Things got worse.  I felt accomplished when I managed to shoot a rocket straight at the Mun and crash into it at a couple km/s.

Then I found the forums, and actually learned how to play.  I learned how to get to orbit, do transfers, etc.  The tutorial section of the game should seriously just be a link to the forum.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Geonovast

[wumpus]

First mission, I had to google that you had to hit the spacebar to launch the probe.  Then I had to learn that you needed either a probe core or capsule (with kerbals), I think it let you put a rocket on the launch pad without them.  I'm pretty sure orbit wasn't easy (unless you wimped out and used an orange tank + mainsail just for orbit because this was well before career mode [now called "science mode"]).

Without "career mode" we had unofficial "campaigns" like these: https://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Campaigns

I know I skipped that whole "hit another continent with a suborbital rocket" (I could see that KSP controls weren't designed for that) and skipped docking to go straight to the Mun, but in general the campaign ideas were a good thing to follow (and allowed you to skip bad missions without grief).  I then got overzealous about "rocket simplicity" and how much I could do on low tech (primarily RT-10 SRBs), and stuck around landing on the Mun almost entirely on RT-10s (expect 4 layer "wedding cake" to do it with pre-release KSP).

[Jetpackmaniac]

My first rocket in the demo was a mk1 pod with a rt5 and parachute on the same stage. Then I spent the next few days trying to get to orbit. The most I ever achieved in the demo was a mun flyby that condemed Jeb to a highly elliptical orbit in an EVAsuit that was out of propellant. When I got the full version, the first thing I did was get the biggest engine, and put it on a orange tank with a mk1-3 command pod on top. After some time playing KSP, I ended up deleting it for a while, returning in 1.1.3. 

[TheKorbinjer]

I watched Scott Manley before I ever played KSP, so I had an idea of how to play the game, but not very well. First launch, i  built a rocket, and didn't know how to start the engines. Took me 30 minutes of googling to figure it out. Made orbit finally several hours later, but that was because I didn't know about SAS. Orbital inclinations where always off by several tens of degrees. I had the max of 3 rockets in orbit (demo) and none of them had fuel in them.

 

Good times.

Got the game a year later, been loving it ever since.

 

[Tyko]

I started playing right around 1.0 launch. I launched a couple of small rockets and started thinking about getting into orbit but had no idea how big of a rocket i needed. I decided to do some research. I learned about DV and TWR. Went back into the game and poked around in different screens looking for a way to find out the TWR and DV of my craft. 

Once I realized the game wasn't going to help me on these I read up on the forums, watched some YouTube videos and printed out a DV map (why this wasn't part of the game was beyond me). Next I found that to actually engineer a rocket versus the Moar Boosters! approach I'd have to break out a calculator. So I tried that. I ran a few calculations and learned how the formulas worked. THEN I realized that every time I made a minor change to any stage of the rocket I was going to have to recalculate for the entire rocket and said "the heck with this".

Since I wasn't interested in the Moar Boosters! play style I put the game aside. A few weeks later a friend told me about Kerbal Engineer. I installed that and was like "why the !@@%# isn't this built into the game?"

Now I've played thousands of hours over several years, but wouldn't be here if it wasn't for KER and the DV map.

Edited October 23, 2018 by Tyko

[Cavscout74]

After discovering the game by accident watching youtube vids, I downloaded the demo with the idea if I could get a rocket to orbit in the demo, I'd buy the full game.   I pretty much started off building rockets that looked like they might be able to make orbit.  I think I googled the KSP wiki to find out about gravity turns & making orbit, but all my designs kept falling short.  Or in many cases tumbling short - I had more problems with control than with sufficient dV.  Eventually, I kept one under control long enough to get it into orbit, so I bought the game the next day.