Your first hours in KSP

[cubinator]

I launched a rocket up, had some success, made a bigger one that could go higher, learned a little bit, made some progressively larger rockets and eventually escaped the atmosphere. I watched some videos, did the tutorial scenarios (there weren't so many at the time!), got the full version of the game soon after, made orbit, eventually got the classic "tipped lander on the Mun" scenario, got better at piloting and after a few tries was successful.

Most importantly: it was everything I could have asked for from a space game. The perfect simulation of real spaceflight to tide me over until I could fly to space for real, in a real rocket. 

[Nozza]

Y'know, I don't know why everyone else started off with nothing but a flea and a capsule. My very first rocket (second if you count the fact that I forgot oxidiser when I launched it the first time) made it to an escape trajectory... from the Sun. Yeah. I THINK it bugged out.

[Chel]

2 hours ago, Nozza said:

Y'know, I don't know why everyone else started off with nothing but a flea and a capsule. My very first rocket (second if you count the fact that I forgot oxidiser when I launched it the first time) made it to an escape trajectory... from the Sun. Yeah. I THINK it bugged out.

So the rocket glitched out and said that it was on an escape trajectory around the Sun? 

[Gapone]

My first version was 0.23 (but there already was 1.0.5).

The first thing i remember is a solid-fuelled Albatross-based plane.

I thought that solid boosters need intakes!

It FLEW! I flied it with altf12 infinite fuel. But when i landed the boosters were full. So i rolled in place trying to SHUT DOWN THEM!

[Drethon]

My first bit of time with KSP I kept flipping rockets and crashing until I did a little reading about SAS and finally got one to fly the right direction.

Then I kept flying straight up to orbit, then doing a 90 degree turn and trying to burn to an orbit.  Spent a while wondering why I kept running out of fuel with rockets other people got into orbit with until I read about the gravity turn.

Next I flew a rocket so low tech it had no landing legs to the Mun, after pointing straight at it and burning a few times until I got captured by the Mun.  Deorbited and landed on the engine on the first try (these days that would probably take a bunch of attempt to reproduce).  Left the SOI of the mun and corrected my terrible return orbit to point almost straight at Kerbin.  Had to f9 a few times until I found a survivable reentry angle and landed.  Then spent quite some time wondering how the heck I actually got an orbit to intersect with the Mun and then return.

In short, trial and error can be painful if you underestimate the amount there is to learn in KSP.  But it feels like a massive accomplishment at each step when it goes right.

[Fraston]

Put a big orange tank on the stratolauncher. Nothing went well there.

[Lukun7Rocket]

Me? Put a swivel on an fl-800 and go straight up. 212 km was apoapsis, and I was happy.

Going to mun, I didn't know how to make a mun rocket so I used PT series munsplorer and crashed twice before I made my own and finally landed

[Sidestrafe2462]

My first impressions with KSP were in the days of 0.16/17/18, when I watched an attempt at an SSTO launch on Youtube. (I think it was Scott Manley! Failing!) I then spent several hours trying to find "Herbal Space Program" or something like that. After finding out that it was "Kerbal" and not "Herbal", I spent serious time saving up cash while busying myself with the demo. Before that, I had found a copy of the really old game where I built ridiculous SRB stacks, in 0.14, (I think) and I was amazed that the demo had landing gears and quadcouplers and fairings.. I then busied myself making a rocket to go to the Mun, which involved serious part clipping as I used quad symmetry in conjunction with quadcouplers. It was a copy of a rocket from a super old video and the first thing that happened was me pushing the EVA button without a ladder. The second thing that happened was Jeb falling inside of the launchpad. The next few weeks consisted of me relearning orbit, crashing into the mun, and other things.

I soon saved up enough for the full game though, and in 0.19 bought it (just in time for free making history today!) I went straight to the SPH, having had enough time in the demo to get sick of space. I made a twin engine plane, with a couple of wing pieces and a simple tail plane. I made it halfway across the runway before realizing that I had to go to bed. The next few days consisted of me trying to make fighter jet replicas and space fighters, watching my brother make the strangest of all land vehicles, and discovering that cars made the world turn into a blue and white marble. Soon I dove into the world of the official KSP modding site, which I found incredibly cool and awesome. Lazor systems was my first mod, and tanks and aircraft carriers were my entire interest for the next few days. Skillful was next, but BDarmory came. I actually thought that BDA sucked,  because I didn't know that mods had to be unpacked, (they had not before) but I soon figured it out and since then my kerbals have been dying in wars across the galaxy, with the power of ALT-F12 Drive fueling them. 

[Thorn_Ike]

I bought KSP in 1.2, and I'd been watching other people build for years, so things went smoothly initially till I tried doing SSTOs.

Then I just resorted to Alt+F12, and didn't get out of that stage till today.

I was an idiot.

[Chel]

19 hours ago, Thorn_Ike said:

Then I just resorted to Alt+F12, and didn't get out of that stage till today.

I've been an Alt+F12 abuser for about 2 years, don't worry!

[Curveball Anders]

On 11/26/2018 at 6:17 AM, Thorn_Ike said:

Then I just resorted to Alt+F12, and didn't get out of that stage till today.

I (ab)use Alt+F12 often to test landers or EDL parts.

I don't call it cheating, I call it simulations

[Chel]

8 hours ago, Curveball Anders said:

I don't call it cheating, I call it simulations

Just like the simulations

[leftbedtime]

Before hand: new to the game, and forum. Logged 10 hours, and wanted to share my experience. No experience beforehand

 

To put it simply, I made fireworks for the residents back on kerbal. I like to play in sandbox, because I don't like having to deal with a tech tree, and I love to tinker around with different parts, and part combos

 

As of now, I am now able to put a ship into an orbit reaching past the moon, provided I don't accidentally sling myself into orbit around the sun. Making good progress!

[Barzon]

Well done! That is much better than my first 10 hours!

[Chel]

47 minutes ago, Barzon Kerman said:

Well done! That is much better than my first 10 hours!

Now I'm curious! What happened in your first hours?

[Tyko]

20 hours ago, leftbedtime said:

Before hand: new to the game, and forum. Logged 10 hours, and wanted to share my experience. No experience beforehand

 

To put it simply, I made fireworks for the residents back on kerbal. I like to play in sandbox, because I don't like having to deal with a tech tree, and I love to tinker around with different parts, and part combos

 

As of now, I am now able to put a ship into an orbit reaching past the moon, provided I don't accidentally sling myself into orbit around the sun. Making good progress!

Congrats! You're making amazing progress! When you're ready to explore other ways to orbit you should check out Gravity Turns. There's a lot of great info on the web and on KSP forums. At it's most basic level the trick is that orbiting is about going really fast sideways, not upwards.

You said your orbits are taking you past the moon and maybe into solar orbit so it sounds a bit like your launching more or less straight up. If I misunderstood your statement and you are doing flatter launches then just ignore me   

Edited November 29, 2018 by Tyko

[Dan Kerman]

My first day..  a lot to learn so dove into the tutorial. Definitely helped get some of the basics and terminology down. First few scenarios were no problem... of course it get harder as you go along. Crashed on the Mun several times and struggling with docking but it will come with time. Nerding out big time!

 

To add: One thing I've found is, if I get stuck...  restart the training scenario, read and comprehend what it is telling you to do. I've missed things (I blame my wife for interrupting me) and get stuck. Going back over it I see what I missed, correct it and get further along until I get stuck again..  rinse and repeat.

Edited December 1, 2018 by Dan Kerman

[maallaard]

I made an atmospheric lander with the mk2 lander can, with the small 2.5-meter fuel tank, the 88-88 antenna on top, every single science experiment (as well as the small drill), and I dubbed it the "umbrella" cause of the 88-88 antenna that covered the top like an umbrella. That was the very first craft I made right after I got KSP on a steam sale.

[toric5]

that would have been back in .17... I remember I made it to orbit fairly quickly, but I must have killed jeb hundreds of times trying to land on the mun. No pictures, Ive gone through 2 computers since then.

[Fearless Son]

I bought KSP back in early access, a few years before the 1.0 release, back when it still had the "souposphere" atmospheric modeling.  Figuring out how to get to orbit was a huge challenge, especially with the limitations on parts and the wobbly connections everywhere.  You had to place struts like duct tape everywhere to get something to avoid falling apart when you lit the fuse.  I finally figured out you had to go to about 10,000 KM straight up before starting a 45 degree gravity turn, then more practice to get the circularization burn to actually achieve orbit, let alone go anywhere further out.

So much easier these days, I can just slap some parts together and make a decent launch vehicle that will put a payload in orbit on the first try.

[darkerdadorito]

hard to recall, but it was 1.2, i did the tutorial, made a rocket and launched into orbit, and then realized i had no heat shield as i was reentering and ended up killing the crew.

[Lapis]

I joined in 1.0 right before 1.0.5. the first 5 hours was building massive rockets going straight up eventually I got to orbit (thanks to scott manley). discovered alt-f12 and now I use it all the time.

 

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I don't remember specifics, but I remember I played the demo for about 10 minutes then immediately bought the full version- I hadn't paid more than $5 for a game in probably over a decade previous to that, and there I was impulse buying a game for $40. That first Kerbin orbit and Mun Landing were freakin' magical I tell ya, worth every penny.

[ouion]

i think it was in 2012, when I first played ksp. man o man, it was the game I was looking for. I played the 0.13 demo for like five months trying to build rockets to get into orbit, then I purchased the full version of alpha 0.16. Basically, i was flying by the seat of my pants and figuring out certain rocket designs, funny thing is that most of my designs use asparagus staging and fuel lines everywhere. 

[KerballingSmasher]

Man,so many Alt-F12 users! My first hours were... a lot of reverting in sandbox mode. For some reason, I was trying to launch a probe before I ever did a manned mission, and it kept flipping! Now, I think I didn't have enough reaction wheels!