Returning player - essential add ons / mods?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

It's been so long since I played that I'm pretty sure all I ever had was Vanilla KSP.  With the quarantine dragging on I've discovered that I have white space on the schedule where KSP might be a good fit. 

 

With that in mind... If you active players were to join now - what expansions / mods do you suggest? 

[Superfluous J]

How much have you done in the game? Mun/Minmus landing? Left Kerbin's SOI? Jool 5? Eve SSTO?

I would personally suggest both DLCs. Making History has some good parts and Breaking Ground has robotics stuff and a great controller, plus some EVA science doodads. If you only want to get one, get Breaking Ground for the robotics stuff. If you get Making History, also install the great mod Missing History.

Check out Restock and Restock Plus, and if you have the beef (and patience for load screens) for it look into EVE or SVE. Not sure which one is what but they're visual mods.

The rest of the suggestions depend on your answer to my first question

[archiebald]

41 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

It's been so long since I played that I'm pretty sure all I ever had was Vanilla KSP.  With the quarantine dragging on I've discovered that I have white space on the schedule where KSP might be a good fit. 

With that in mind... If you active players were to join now - what expansions / mods do you suggest? 

First, stick with 1.8.1 max for now as 1.9.1 still has some "essential" mods not updated.

 

Absolute essentials are;

• MechJeb
• Kerbal Alarm Clock
• World Stabilizer

 

Plus, in no particular order;

• Kerbal Planetary Base Systems
• KIS
• KAS
• Chatterer + extended
• Scatterer
• Planet Shine
• TAC Fuel Balancer

 

Many more, but these would be my reccomendations.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

15 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

How much have you done in the game? Mun/Minmus landing? Left Kerbin's SOI? Jool 5? Eve SSTO?

I would personally suggest both DLCs. Making History has some good parts and Breaking Ground has robotics stuff and a great controller, plus some EVA science doodads. If you only want to get one, get Breaking Ground for the robotics stuff. If you get Making History, also install the great mod Missing History.

Check out Restock and Restock Plus, and if you have the beef (and patience for load screens) for it look into EVE or SVE. Not sure which one is what but they're visual mods.

The rest of the suggestions depend on your answer to my first question

I recall landing on both moons and doing some science - rover driving etc. I had built a couple of good planes and gotten to one of the other planets with some goo and a lab, and probably had a ton of stuff waiting to accomplish - but then I had a kid and no time. 

 

It's also a couple of comp builds ago - so I will have to repurchase the game 

[Superfluous J]

18 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I will have to repurchase the game 

There are worse things to spend your money on but if you bought it from Squad you should be able to get your password reset with the email address you signed up with.

For mods, you can't go wrong with Kerbal Alarm Clock when going interplanetary so you can run multiple missions at once. But if I were you I'd start again on the stock game and slowly add mods as you feel their lack, so you don't get overwhelmed with new info all right away.

[N_Danger]

They have done a lot of quality of life improvements. Just off the top of my head.

Delta-V read outs, orbital parameters read out accessible while in flight and a maneuver node editor inspired by the Precise Node mod.

 So try the base game to see what has changed. I've been able to take so many mods off my game it's not funny.

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

31 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

There are worse things to spend your money on but if you bought it from Squad you should be able to get your password reset with the email address you signed up with.

For mods, you can't go wrong with Kerbal Alarm Clock when going interplanetary so you can run multiple missions at once. But if I were you I'd start again on the stock game and slowly add mods as you feel their lack, so you don't get overwhelmed with new info all right away.

Hah! - I found it on my old STEAM account!  (Don't have to rebuy)

 

Okay - anyone know if STEAM will allow me to only patch to 1.8.1?

 

Edit: NVM - it starts me out at 1.9...

Edited May 1, 2020 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Okay - now more advice, please: should I just run Sandbox or go for the Science / Career mode?  (*feeling nooby all over!)

[Cavscout74]

15 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Okay - now more advice, please: should I just run Sandbox or go for the Science / Career mode?  (*feeling nooby all over!)

I started in sandbox to get the hang of things, then I tried Science (I didn't like it much) and finally moved to Career, which is where 99% of my KSP time is spent - I just use sandbox to test some new designs before using them in a career save.   A lot of people, however, recommend starting in Science so you don't get overwhelmed with all the parts to choose from.   Go with whichever works best for you.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 minutes ago, Cavscout74 said:

I started in sandbox to get the hang of things, then I tried Science (I didn't like it much) and finally moved to Career, which is where 99% of my KSP time is spent - I just use sandbox to test some new designs before using them in a career save.   A lot of people, however, recommend starting in Science so you don't get overwhelmed with all the parts to choose from.   Go with whichever works best for you.

Wow - I had forgotten so much -- like just how minimalist it is!

I started a "Science" run just for kicks; ease into it kind of thing.  Spent the first several minutes wondering what to do: there were no pop-ups, missions, etc.  Again -- I've forgotten so much it's insane.

So I just loaded up a Command Module with the Engineer and did science on the launch pad.  Guess that's what I'm 'supposed' to do?  Guess it's starting to come back to me...but for some reason I thought there were missions last time.  Maybe I ran a Career... just don't remember.

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Okay - anyone know if STEAM will allow me to only patch to 1.8.1?

If  you right click KSP in your Steam Library and select Properties and then the Betas tab, you can set it to many different versions including 1.8.1.

However unless you have an essential mod that's not updated to 1.9.x I'd go with the newest version.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

If  you right click KSP in your Steam Library and select Properties and then the Betas tab, you can set it to many different versions including 1.8.1.

However unless you have an essential mod that's not updated to 1.9.x I'd go with the newest version.

I'm chuckling: I followed your advice about just starting off (again) with the basics... no mods.  And already I am confused.  So much forgotten 'muscle memory' stuff.  Like even how to launch the durned rocket.  How to manage stages / deploy the chute.  

 

I'm back to killing Kerbols again it seems.

 

SMH.  Tutorials, here I come... Of course, IIRC - the fun was just learning from mistakes!

Edited May 1, 2020 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[purpleivan]

For me it would be Kerbal Engineering Redux (KER), Kerbal Alarm Clock (KAC), Hyperedit (for testing), Vessel Mover (again for testing... honest).

Beyond that if you're interested in visual mods then Stock Visual Enhancements, Scatterer, Planetshine and KS3P are a great set.

[RealKerbal3x]

53 minutes ago, purpleivan said:

For me it would be Kerbal Engineering Redux (KER)

For the basics (dV and orbital information) this mod isn't really needed anymore, as that information has now been added to stock. Though a lot of the other info KER provides is still quite useful.

[purpleivan]

1 hour ago, RealKerbal3x said:

For the basics (dV and orbital information) this mod isn't really needed anymore, as that information has now been added to stock. Though a lot of the other info KER provides is still quite useful.

I prefer the way that KER provides dV info compared with stock in the VAB, additionally it provides a lot of info while in flight that can be very useful, that the stock game doesn't provide.

[RealKerbal3x]

5 minutes ago, purpleivan said:

I prefer the way that KER provides dV info compared with stock in the VAB, additionally it provides a lot of info while in flight that can be very useful, that the stock game doesn't provide.

Fair enough. I used KER for quite some time but I found that I rarely used most of the information it provides. I don't use it anymore because I like the way the essentials are now included in stock - it's all I really need.

Edited May 1, 2020 by RealKerbal3x

[Cavscout74]

16 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

but for some reason I thought there were missions last time.  Maybe I ran a Career... just don't remember

Yeah, that's career - you take contracts from the Mission Control building.  Two of the first ones available are to gather science at the launch pad and launch your first vessel.

[Vanamonde]

This discussion of add-ons has been moved to Add-on discussions.