Vocab?

[9911MU51C]

Hello, as you can see (and undoubtedly guess) I'm new here, and I was wondering what all the local lingo is? such as the planets and what not (mun, etc) and what terms are used

thanks in advance for any help, and hey you where all noobs at some point too

[yoyo478]

Planet: Kerbin

Mun: First moon of Kerbin

Minmus: Second, smaller moon of Kerbin

Kerbol: Sun

Other names: Planned planets

Retroburn: Burning in the opposite direction you are going to slow you down (useful in reentry)

Proburn: Burning in the direction you ARE going (Useful when you want to increase your orbit to enter the Mun's or Minmus's

Delta-V: Force required to escape the planets pull and achieve stable orbit.

That's all the ones I can think of.

[KAO]

dV(aka Delta-V) = change in velocity

LKO = low kerbin orbit

[simplemunrockets]

Sundive: getting VERY close to the sun.

[lucidLemon]

Jebediah: A kerbal that laughs in the face of danger, his favorite things are those likely to explode.

Navball: The sphere you use to navigate, located in the bottom center of your screen

SOI: Sphere of influence, the radius where the game will simulate an object's gravity

[Clouds]

SRB: Solid Rocket Booster

LFR: Liquid-fueled Rocket

Magic Turbine: a ship that overwhelmingly exploits the free energy supplied by inaccurately-simulated control surfaces (eg. canards) for fuel-free acceleration.

SSTO: Single Stage To Orbit, a craft that achieves orbit without any detaching parts.

Aerobraking: using atmospheric drag to slow down.

Lithobraking: using contact with the ground to slow down.

Grand Tour: a mission that lands on all landable bodies at least once, before returning to Kerbin.

[sp_blazer]

Just do some snooping around youtube, and the welcome aboard section. There is some differentiation in terms, such as "pro-burn", which is also pro-grade, or even forward. There are also various other items listed below.

decoupler- staging unit used to separate used part of a rocket to reduce weight

winglet- fins used on the rocket while in the atmosphere to maintain the rocket on a straight trajectory and to give a higher level of control

RCS- (reaction control surface) multi direction rockets placed about the vehicle to allow better control in space

SAS- (Stability Augmentation System, Spin Auto-Stabilizer, Sickness Avoidance Solution. Whatever you choose to call it, it makes the ship stop spinning around.(courtesy of the ksp wiki) Also helps to maintain a heading while you do other things.

SOI- Sphere of influence, celestial body that has predominate gravitational influence over you

Apogee or Apoapsis (Your largest displacement in your trajectory from your SOI)

Perigee or Periapsis (Your smallest displacement in your trajectory from your SOI)

Normal- Facing Northward

Antinormal- Facing Southward

Delta-V- Change in velocity

Drag- Level of air resistance a part has

Thrust to Weight Ratio- ratio of thrust to weight which must be over 1 in order to achieve liftoff

Gravity Turn- The process of transferring from liftoff, to orbit by means of turning into the direction that you wish to begin to orbit

Gravity Assist- Using a pass by a celestial body to augment your trajectory

Gravity Well- The gravitational field surrounding a celestial object

Oberth Effect- Principal based on gravitational fields that states that since gravity grows stronger the closer you get to an object, that it requires more delta-V to alter your trajectory inward the closer you are to a planet and vice-versa. Also shows that when orbiting slowly far from an object, you can cause great changes in your trajectory with much less delta-V

EVA- Extra Vehicular Activities, anything performed outside of the spacecraft by the Kerbinaught

IVA-Inner Vehicular Activities, anything performed inside of the spacecraft by the Kerbinaught

Monolith- Easter eggs planted throughout the game

Impulse- change in momentum of an object

There are probably quite a few more that I left out, but this should help to get you started. The terminology in this game follows relatively closely to the lingo used in actual space exploration, so study up on that and you should be good to go. Also there seems to be a trend of players dubbing things with the first letter K, or the prefix Ker, just so you know (i.e. Kerpollo 11)

Good luck, and I hope you fall as in love with this game as the rest of the community and myself have!

[UmbralRaptor]

Apoapsis -- The highest point in any orbit. Variants on this term will be used for orbits around specific bodies.

Eccentricity -- How far your orbit is from a perfect circle. 0 is a circle, 1 < e < 0 is an ellipse, 1 is a parabola, and >1 is a hyperbola. If e >= 1, your ship is on an escape trajectory from the current body (assuming that it doesn't crash into anything first).

Inclination -- how 'tilted' your orbit is. An orbit around the equator has an inclination of 0° or 180°, depending on which way you're going. One over the poles will be 90° or 270°.

Isp -- Specific impulse (amount of impulse provided per unit mass of fuel). Essentially how efficient a propulsion system is. Technically this should only be in seconds, but many people (myself included) will use it interchangeably with the m/s version (see below).

LFE -- Liquid Fuel Engine. Compare with LFR in the post above mine.

Periapsis -- The lowest point in any orbit. Variants on this term will be used for orbits around specific bodies.

Prograde -- The direction that an object is moving in.

Retrograde -- The opposite direction from where an object is moving. Non-obviously, something will be described as having a retrograde orbit if it's moving the opposite way from most other bodies.

Semi-major axis -- the overall size of an orbit, sort of. With circular orbits, this is the same as the radius. For elliptical ones, this is half the distance of the longest axis (hence the name), or (Ap+Pe)/2. For circular/elliptical orbits, The semi-major axis is directly related to the orbital period via Kepler's Third Law. The semi-major axis of a hyperbolic orbit is negative, though.

TWR -- Thrust Weight Ratio, how much thrust something puts out compared with its weight. If this is below 1, the rocket will be unable to land/takeoff safely.

Ve -- Effective exhaust velocity, effectively how fast the propellant is moving when it exits your rocket. Like Specific Impulse, a measure of rocket efficiency. Typically measured in m/s. Ve == Isp * 9.81

edit: Hohmann ellipse/Hohmann transfer -- an elliptical orbit to get between two circular orbits. Generally the simplest way to get from the Mün to Minmus, from a low Kerbin orbit to the Mün, etc. Typically one of the lowest energy approaches.

Bi-elliptic orbit/bi-elliptic transfer -- a slightly more complicated way of getting between two orbits that is in some situations lower ÃŽâ€V than the Hohmann approach.

Edited September 16, 2012 by UmbralRaptor

[Zephram Kerman]

It's already been partially covered, but just for organization and clarity, I'll do these together.

Six directions of movement:

prograde - in the direction of travel

retrograde - opposite the direction of travel

normal - perpendicular to the direction of travel (in a standard easterly equatorial orbit, this would be northwards)

antinormal - opposite of normal (in the standard orbit, this would be southwards)

radial - perpendicular to the direction of travel, again, but this time away from the orbit foci (not necessarily straight up)

antiradial - opposite of radial, not necessarily straight down

Plug: by the way, Togfox wrote a nice description of delta-V in Issue 3. (Link below.)

[SteevyT]

Normal- Facing Northward

Antinormal- Facing Southward

*only when in an equatorial Eastward orbit.

Technically, if you want to be exact on what normal and antinormal are, take your velocity vectors at two points on your orbit and do a cross product, the direction of the vector you get should be the normal direction (as long as the points were within 180º of each other), antinormal will be the opposite direction. Does anyone know what the actual correct way to do this is? I know this works, but it seems to be a very odd way to do it.

For a quick estimate, take your right hand, make a fist with your thumb pointed up. Imagine your fingers are pointed along the direction your ship is orbiting, your thumb is pointed in the normal direction. Antinormal will be opposite to this.

[9911MU51C]

Thanks for all the help everybody! I know the basic ship parts because I've played the demo extensively but thanks for the more forum-related and planet/moon terms!

[robly18]

I'm surprised noone has yet talked about...

Deep Space Kraken(AKA Space Kraken):A weird happening that causes your ship's parts(And sometimes your poor kerbals) to go crazy, mostly do to extreme velocities. Luckily, in the next update, the devs are going to slay this mightly horrible beast