Just joined the forums and saying hi!

[OUScooby]

Greetings fellow Kerbonuats,

I've been playing the game for about a little over a month, and for the most part have slowly been figuring out things for myself. I started with the demo where you only have the two moons, and thought, "cool I'll build some rockets and launch them into space!" My first few rocket pretty much all exploded on launch, and the with the few that flew I pretty much shot straight up. No orbital maneuvers or anything, just hit space and watch her fly. One of these early rockets I built got as far out as about the Dres orbit in one straight up multi stage burn! I wish I'd known how the game worked then, imaging how many planets I could have seen. Eventually I discovered there were maneuver nodes you could use. Funny when I first realized I could set maneuvers I thought that the game would automatically execute them (ha!), and I could figure what I needed to do to make my ship do them!

Well I've come along way since then, although I'm still very new and still learning more and more about rocket design and piloting. Eventually I figured out how to land a craft on another planet instead of just crashing into it, and so far I've launched two satellites into orbit around Kerbin, and sent unmanned rovers to Duna, Eve, the Mun and Minmus, as well as launched Kerbonuats on one way trips to Dres Duna and Eve. Just this week I finally completed my first return trip to the Mun! Unfortunately my first attempt to land this ship crashed on the Mun due to pilot error, but the command pod survived the crashed leaving three Kerbonuats stranded on the Mun. But I had such confidence in that this rocket could make the trip and back that instead of ending that first flight, I left those Kerbonauts there and modified the original rocket, replacing the three person command module with a one person module plus the PPD-10 Hitchhiker Storage Container and set about on a rescue mission! This time I successfully landed on the Mun and within about 1000m of my first downed craft, a feat I'm rather proud of since this was the first time I'd ever attempted landing at a specific target. I jetpacked my three stranded Kerbonuts over to the rescue craft and into the Storage Container, then took off and safely returned them to Kerbin.

I then set about doing other Lunar rescues for other Kerbonuats stranded on the Mun from other one way or ill fated missions before retrying my original Lunar Return craft, which I crashed a second time when attempting to land. One more Mun Rescue mission returned those three Kerbonuats, and then on my third attempt I successfully luanched, piloted, and landed three Kerbals on the Mun and safely returned them home! This was followed up with missions to Minmus and back, and then with a quick redesign swapping for nuclear rocket I attempted two missions to Duna. In the first Duna mission I attempted to use parachutes to land only to have the craft break apart when the chutes fully opened (the command module survived however) and in the second successfully retro graded landed, but without enough fuel to make a return trip, leaving six Kerbonuats stranded (although they have not given up hope of a rescue).

So that's where I am in the game. My future mission plans are for a return flight from Duna, as well as exploring the moons of Jool. I also think I might try my hand at a lunar base as I've got pretty good at landing on the Mun, and maybe even construct a space station in orbit of Kerbin, I haven't figured out docking yet, but that seems like a good mission to learn it.

[Specialist290]

Welcome to the forums! Sounds a lot like my first experiences with the game, to be honest. I'm still working my way out to the rest of the solar system as well. I've got a few kerbalnauts around Moho who are going to need a fuel tanker sent their way to get home (on the subject of rescue missions, funnily enough).

Docking's indeed a challenge to learn, but all it really takes is patience and a willingness to learn. There's a few tutorials at the Drawing Board (linked in my sig) if you want to take a look there, and you can also ask specific questions in the "How To" section.

Happy landings!

[sal_vager]

Welcome to the community OUScooby

Wow that's a lot of missions you have there, I hope you took some screenshots for us

[Capt'n Skunky]

Happy Launching!

Arrr!

Capt'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[OUScooby]

Welcome to the community OUScooby

Wow that's a lot of missions you have there, I hope you took some screenshots for us

I' havent been taken any screenshots, but here is one of my most resent mission to Minmus. My rover broke all six wheels when I was seeing how fast it could go on a steep down hill, so I had to send a crew out to repair it. Here is a shot of the rover in front of the lander with the three kerbal repair crew. The rover is now continuing to rove around Minus and the repair crew is safely back on Kerbin.