Giving up.

[Anglave]

Pebblegarden Also has some very helpful videos that introduce some basic concepts.

If you have more specific questions, I'm sure people would answer them in this thread. The simplest orbital plan is to go straight up to 10,000m. Throttle at 100% to start, then throttle down to keep your speed barely climbing between 100m/s and 200m/s as you ascend. At 10km, pitch over to 45° along the 90° heading. If you haven't rotated, this is the "D" key. Proceed at a 45° pitch, and return to full throttle.

Switch to map view and watch your apoapsis until it's around 80km. Then cut your throttle (the 'X" key) and drift up toward apoapsis. Turn your craft toward the horizon (where the blue hemisphere and brown hemisphere meet on the nav ball), still on the 90° heading.

As you approach apoapsis, you'll want to throttle up. This part takes some guess work and skill, you'll want to aim just below the horizon, and start thrusting just before apoapsis. The amount you aim down and how soon before apoapsis you start your burn depend on your craft's thrust to weight ratio. Try starting your burn a minute or so before apoapsis and see what happens. If your apo rises, aim down a bit more. You'll want to burn until your periapsis rises up out of the atmosphere (at least 75k), which will require an orbital speed somewhere near 2,200 m/s.

This may require several small burns, as it's likely your apoapsis will drift away from you as you burn. That's ok, just aim down below the horizon a little more, and wait for it to get closer again before your next burn.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Anglave

[The Flying Ham]

Don't give up! The feeling of accomplishment is unreal when you pull this stuff off. You will need lots of patience and definitely some Scott Manley videos (his trip to minmus tutorial helped me alot). Also just fiddle with rocket designs, I tried some other people's rockets and took them apart to see how they worked. Start with the smaller ones or even the stock rockets to get a feel how a good one works.

Don't miss out on such a rewarding experience!

[Xenophobe]

If you're new to the theory of Orbital Mechanics (like I was), it can be incredibly frustrating. I would suggest viewing Pebble_Garden's "Orbital Mechanics 101 Guide" in the "How To" Forum. He has a tutorial series called "The Phoenix Project". Part 1 shows you how to build a stable launch vehicle easily capable of achieving orbit. Part 2 shows you how to launch and achieve a stable orbit. Once achieving stable orbits becomes old hat, you can begin experimenting with your own rocket designs.

[Mishkin_007]

He's only been here since May (it's the 10th ) and he's already given up? He barely even tried to learn! This isn't rocket surgery, the concepts are easy to understand. I don't think he actually tried that hard.

Kids these days require instant gratification in video games and IRL which is why the state of gaming is so horrible right now. KSP does not provide that, one reason that keeps me interested in it. I like the high difficulty factor.

[3_bit]

Did you watch some tutorials? KSP is a bit hard at first, but becoming a pro is as easy as...

-Remembering it took humans more than a decade to get to the moon

-Killing innocent kerbals to bring you sadness then avenge them with legitimate missions

-Watching Scott Manley's tutorials. He's the best Youtuber role model you can have for playing KSP.

[Felsmak]

If you're unfamiliar with orbital mechanics, try and install the mod called MechJeb. It can do basic things like getting to orbit automatically, which offers a great opportunity to learn by simply watching. Do some automated launches and then try to manually imitate MechJeb when you feel ready.

[Toxic9813]

Don't MechJeb until you know how to do it yourself- it takes away the fun of achieving something yourself.

I currently use MechJeb now after I've learned how to land on other planets. I feel confident that I can do the same job as my Autopilot so I don't feel disappointed

Anyways, don't give up just yet. I've seen others say before me, and I'll say it again. Scott Manley!

[PeteMcCartney]

Don't give up! You'll be depriving yourself of that one, magical moment when your design works, you understand why it works and all the cogs click into place. Suddenly, you're an astronaut and you have an entire solar system to explore!

[Ryan.]

Don't give up man. KSP is a beautiful game once you grasp even the basic concepts of it. It's been advised, but check out Scott Manley on youtube, he's great at explaining things, and overall entertaining to watch.

Hopefully I see you posting your creations soon and hear that you're still playing.

[Aphox]

I raged like an arse at this game for several days and kept having to come back to it to understand it. It takes a lot of getting used to. It is, if you will, an acquired taste. But I got used to it and love it now. It's one of the major contributors toward my decision to go into astronomy.

[thederper121]

Possibly the best thing to do is to take things more slowly, and advance from one thing to another.

Such as: Airplanes, to experimental rockets, to working probes, to satellites, to manned pods, to docking, to real space ships, to space stations, interplanetary rockets, etc.

[Technical Ben]

KSP does require a certain familiarity with the concept of orbital mechanics and the mathematics behind it to play well. I'm personally grateful for this and appreciate the challenge, but understand not everyone has that in their background.

I knew none of these when I started to play. I could get things in orbit (before mods and before even persistence), and that was about it. Still was amazing.

Aim for the moon, but don't expect to hit it on your first try... or the second... or the 15,734th either.

[Tobmaster]

I burned like 20 hours before I figured out how to set up the liquid engines... I never looked to see if there was a throttle key... yeah, silly me. Many explosions later and I'm still blowing up kerbals. For me the most fun was the frustrating parts where you couldn't get anything to orbit but had just one more idea to try out. Before long I was wasting half a day flying a lagging mothership to Jool with 144 kerbals onboard. Failure is part of the plan here...

[Sir Nahme]

You really want to give up when there are threads about 8 year old kids managing it? Yeah it took her a few weeks but come ON! If a kid can figure it out you just need to keep at it

If everyone gave up just because something was hard we'd probably still live in caves and bash each other with tree limbs XD

[Asheron04]

Youtube is your best friend. Just find a good tutorial like the pheonix project and follow it step by step. After you accomplish that you will find doing it on your own much easier. This game is one of the best out there and its still in Alpha. Dont give it up, trial and error.

[sal_vager]

Guys, one step at a time......

skipper8472, reaching the Mun is easy for us old timers as we've done it so often, especially those of us from before planets were added who had no-where else to go, and the guys before that didn't even have a Mun.

We forget how things were back then when we started out, we forget all the terrible failure rockets that we'd never consider building now, we forget the little steps we took as we learned to fly.

People coming to KSP often think that it's all about the Mun, it's the "easy" bit, the "beginners" planet and if you can't get there you're not "good at KSP".

It takes a lot of work to get to the Mun....

We started off small, just taking off and going straight up to see how high we could go, improving our designs and getting a little bit higher each time, learning from what worked and what didn't.

Then we tried to get to orbit, there were lots of failures, early splashdowns, high altitude flights then sub-orbital, then orbits so eccentric they looked like fried eggs but they were orbits.

And with every step we learned more.

Eventually, magically, something just clicks, and you then realize what you need to do to get to orbit (nearly) every time, you understand how to move in space.

It's not something anyone here can teach you, you can't learn it from a youtube video or a written tutorial, you'll know it when you get there though, you'll feel it.

And the sense of satisfaction is amazing...

Then you start again, but this time the goal is the Mun, you now have the tools you need to get there, you just have to put them all together in your first Mun flight.

You used to have to practice the transfer burn at different times, the manoeuvre nodes help a lot with that now though, then you'll have to land.

It wont be easy the first few times, there's going to be failures, but you will get there, you have to persevere.

KSP is about the learning as much as the building and flying, no-one is born knowing how to orbit, nothing on the ground can prepare your mind for it, but once you manage that everything, everything in this game becomes possible.

There really needs to be a word for this, "orbit" isn't grand enough, it's more like a dance with everything moving around everything else, and it's your gateway to the Mun and the planets beyond.

[Spatzimaus]

A week and a half just isn't long enough to really get the hang of ANYTHING. The only reason most games these days can be learned faster than that is that at their cores, they're just retreads of previous games. When nearly every FPS uses the same control scheme, when nearly every RTS has analogous units, etc., it makes it feel like you've mastered it quickly. KSP has no obvious predecessor. So, if you're feeling lost, it just means you haven't played long enough to get the hang of it, but giving up now means you NEVER will. It's not going to get any easier if you come back to it a month from now.

You don't need to know orbital mechanics to succeed here. The game TEACHES you orbital mechanics. Now, watching a tutorial or two helps greatly, but it's really more about YOU paying attention to what does and doesn't work in your own launches. If you find yourself with too much vertical velocity and not nearly enough horizontal, you'll know to tip over sooner. If you're tumbling in-atmosphere, add more flaps. If your rocket shakes itself apart, add more struts. We've all had dozens of failed launches, even when we were sure we knew the basics.

Once you start succeeding, it'll all progress quickly. You'll get to orbit, and within a couple days you'll be landing on the Mun. A couple days later and you'll be landing on Duna. Within a couple weeks you'll be sending probes to Jool. It might still be several months before you can return from Eve, or pilot a spaceplane to Laythe, but you'll steadily progress. As a wise man said, low orbit is halfway to anywhere; you might not feel like you're making any progress if you can't get into orbit, but the truth is you're getting steadily better, and once you cross that threshold, things'll happen extremely fast.

[Tw1]

I went straight for the Mun, just my making rockets go higher and higher. Similar to what Sal described, just without the orbit part. I lernt to orbit later.

Everything's hard at first.

Edit: Things still blow up on the way to space sometimes. It's still hard.

Edited May 10, 2013 by Tw1

[Bekiekutmoar]

Aah, reminds me of the days when I began playing KSP. I knew nothing about orbital mechanics and related phenomena, and just started creating makeshift rockets and probably killed more than 100 Kerbals before I managed to get into Kerbin orbit. Nowadays, I've got a basic understanding of orbital mechanics and can reach other planets without too much trouble, although I still screw up many times.

The point is: this game has a higher difficulty than most mainstream games, but is very amusing to play when you (more or less) get the hang of it ... !

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

As with everything you learn in life, you need to have a genuine interest into the matter. Once you really want to learn something, you'll start gathering information, can't stop thinking about it and swear an oath to yourself that someday, somehow you will succeed! KSP doesn't come naturally, at least to me it didn't. I'm no math genius and certainly no Einstein, yet I was able to learn the very basics of this game. Why? By reading these forums and wiki, by watching tutorials and documentaries... it took me over a month to understand what I was doing; even the simplest of things like reading the nav ball were obscured by shroud of mystery.

All it takes is patience, a long attention span and the genuine will to tackle this game... as by magic there will come a point where you say: now I understand! And after that, new problems emerge 'cause the more you know, the more you start paying attention to, the more failures you get. If you like that, KSP is for you... if you don't, you probably give up pretty soon.

[Vanamonde]

we forget all the terrible failure rockets that we'd never consider building now,

"And I'm going to KEEP adding landing legs until you stop tipping over, dammit!"

[DMagic]

It takes a lot of work to get to the Mun....

It really does, and planning a successful land-and-return trip is even harder. In some ways I think Minmus is an easier target. It takes a little bit more to get there, but it's so easy to get into orbit, land, and take off again. But I rarely see anyone trying to achieve that before going to the Mun. It seems so much further away, that might be part of it, and that inclination can be tricky, but it really is a lot easier in my mind.

[shand]

Guys, one step at a time......

[snip]

There really needs to be a word for this, "orbit" isn't grand enough, it's more like a dance with everything moving around everything else, and it's your gateway to the Mun and the planets beyond.

every word of this post is golden (even those i've snipped)

Good on you Sal, and well said!

[Conarr]

"And I'm going to KEEP adding landing legs until you stop tipping over, dammit!"

Bwahaha! I did something like this yesterday

[skipper8472]

Thanks for all the replies. I have not given up yet actually I have just built my 1st proper small rocket. Its stable and gets into orbit. The problem im having when getting into orbit is my AP and PE when I do the way point node is that its perfect and sometimes matches the same distance apart but when going to thrust to get to the way point there is a massive gab. This is my problem. The pic here is a complete burn when you get the the path node waypoint what you made.

1st pic is is the Blue AP and it reached it target of 103.361 Slightly off as seen in Pic 2 by the Orange PE Node. which is also 103.367. But the big problem is the Orange PE Node as the target is 98.883 but on the Blue PE its at 34.550 which is way off and its this what is getting me mad lol. Why does this not match like the AP?.

Sorry use full screen and 1080p as im new to uploading things on youtube and movies upload is very slow as I would have recorded it.