Just a couple of questions

[Stilgar2300]

So i just bought the game last night and it's great! but so far only one of my designs isn't a widow maker that nearly failed when an engine broke off and nearly destroyed the rest of the ship. What is a good design for beginners?

Also a couple of questions about the future of this game:

1) I know there are mods for lunar bases but will the devs make them for the vanilla version?

2) Is it known if we will get to make first contact?

3) will we be able to leave our home system eventually?

4)Will there be mine able resources on the moon?

[The Joker]

1) From what I've gathered so far, perhaps. We'll have to wait and see.

2) Nothing about aliens or first contact, really.

3) Probably not.

4) Perhaps, with the campaign mode coming in I wouldn't see why not.

I could be wrong on all of these, just to let you know.

[Arkasai]

Simplicity is your friend when you're first starting to get into space. If you're blowing up or spinning apart in the upper atmosphere your ship may be too complicated or have some instabilities that a simpler lighter craft will not have. A small final stage with a single fuel tank and engine will be the easiest thing to put in orbit, you can go lighter but you might not make it back (I hope you plan on saving those kerbals) - keep it simple and you'll have a lot more success early on. Either that or do what I did and strap that baby together with a billion struts. Struts are like 'The Force' from Star Wars they hold the whole damned Kerbal universe together.

As for your other questions I'm not sure, though more planets are being added in the next release. You may not like the idea of mods right now, but once you've seen most of everything in the game the mods are there to give you more to do like remote communication satellite control, launching controllable probes from a mother ship, adding solar panels and battery storage, there's much more to do with these tools than is currently implemented in the vanilla game.

I've been playing a few weeks and all I've added has been mechjeb, carts+OA lights (mostly to get flood lights for my landers) and camera pack. The stock parts will take you anywhere in the game and beyond, everything else is for fun or special purposes.

[jayajamaica]

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/15652-Orbital-Mechanics-101-A-Kerbal-Space-Program-Tutorial

watch that! it's very helpful information

[UmbralRaptor]

For beginners? Go simple, and stay close to stock. Big complicated designs with tons of mods make it hard to tell what's going wrong, and harder for people to help you. It's possible to get to orbit with a relatively small single stage vehicle, and land on Kerbin's moons with a two stage one. You also might want to avoid the size 2 parts (especially the big engine and decoupler), given their fragility.

Oh, and about 4), there are some mods (eg: ZOxygen, Kethane) that partially provide it.

[EndlessWaves]

I can't answer 1 and 4 but other solar systems looks likely and there will be no other alien races:

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/showthread.php/17168-What-not-to-suggest

[Ki11aWi11]

In regards to 3 I think the there was some discussion amongst the Dev's about a FTL drive that can only be used out of system that allows you to warp to other star systems, which I think would be procedurally generating or something. But don't quote me on that.

[Nibb31]

I would see #3 as an end-game accomplishment. Once you've mastered interplanetary travel, you have pretty much finished the game. You would no longer be playing KSP, which is a game mainly about mastering orbital manoeuvers and building rockets. As soon as you start playing with FTL drives, building colonies, and contacting alien civilizations, you're in a totally different game.

[Stilgar2300]

I would see #3 as an end-game accomplishment. Once you've mastered interplanetary travel, you have pretty much finished the game. You would no longer be playing KSP, which is a game mainly about mastering orbital manoeuvers and building rockets. As soon as you start playing with FTL drives, building colonies, and contacting alien civilizations, you're in a totally different game.

Maybe it could be for KSP 2?

Thank you for all the suggestions! I finally made a rocket that allowed me to make it to orbit, unfortunately i'm not sure how to orbit so the good ship Orbit or bust fell back to the planet

[tsakali]

did you make it to orbit, or just out of the atmosphere? if you actually did make it to orbit, you really shouldn't have fallen back. you might need a little more juice in your rockets to make it out far enough in order to really get into orbit. When you actually do make it to orbit, under the map view, you should be able to see your trajectory complete a full circle / oval.

[Arkasai]

If you were able to get above the atmosphere, your rocket may be sufficient for a stable orbit. Mind that navigation compass, try to keep your vessel totally vertical for at least the first 10,000 meters of ascent and gradually lower the nose of your ship to the horizon. Much of my difficulty early on stemmed from inefficient use of the compass, I compensated by making rockets that were many times more powerful than they needed to be.

Huge tip: if you haven't already noticed, the yellow markings on the compass correspond to your direction of travel (pro grade and retro grade) you should see the pro grade marker bouncing all over the compass when you launch. Once I payed close attention to these it was saving tons of fuel, fuel you can use very efficiently once you're out of the atmosphere. I didn't know what these meant till after I had landed on the mun, it was one of those sudden clarity clarence moments...

[EndlessWaves]

Orbit requires you to be specifically falling forever - i.e. your trajectory goes all the way around the planet. If you get into space but aren't going fast enough sideways to acheive an orbit (~2200-2300m/s for kerbin) then your craft is sub-orbital.

I wouldn't worry about fancy tilted flight paths to begin with. Get above the atmosphere then point your ship at the horizontal and burn until a Periapsis appears on the map view - a 'proper' orbit is generally considered one with a PEriapsis of over 70km so it's out of the atmosphere all around - anything lower than that and you're passing through the atmosphere at the lowest point of your orbit - which will eventually slow your craft down and bring it back down to Kerbin.

You save a little energy by orbiting in the same direction as Kerbin - the 90 mark on your navball's horizon.

p.s. The direction of orbit markers are green, not yellow.

[Arkasai]

p.s. The direction of orbit markers are green, not yellow.

That's odd, they're yellow in my game and in every version of the game I've seen in videos.

[spikeyhat09]

1) I would think so. Seems like a logical thing to add to the game (as long as its relatively realistic-looking and not corny and stupid like allot of mods I've seen are).

2) If the devs keep expanding the game (which I hope they will), and it becomes more than just about orbital mechanics and atmospheric physics, I would think that eventually they would add other species to the game (highly dependent on question #3)

3) I dearly, sincerely hope so. As cool as they sound, the new planets will eventually become old news and boring, just as the mun and minmus have. At that point, I believe the only way to keep the game interesting is to either add more star systems, or randomly generate the starting one (unique to every "save" file). If they decide against other star systems, I hope they at least allow modders to create their own.

4) not sure. If they do so, the primary objective of visiting extra-terrestrial worlds will shift from simple exploration to monetary gain. Or at least somewhat anyway.

[hebdomad]

Make a multi stage rocket with more than three tanks per engine. Use the 'ASAS' part. Look up some basics of how an orbit works.

1) Yes, it should come when docking comes... don't ask when docking will come. Nobody knows.

2) Highly doubt it. It's not within the scope of this game.

3) Again I don't think It's within the scope of this game, BUT this might happen far off in the future.

4) Maybe. We will have to see what the campaign mode offers first.

[spikeyhat09]

That's odd, they're yellow in my game and in every version of the game I've seen in videos.

change your monitor settings perhaps?

[EndlessWaves]

That's odd, they're yellow in my game and in every version of the game I've seen in videos.

Looking at them again I suppose they are on the yellowish side of green and it will depend on monitor calibration/gamut as to the exact shade they are.

[vexx32]

Yeah, you might want to run a calibration on your monitor. Sounds like your color balance might be off a bit.