How long until you learned to orbit?

[magnemoe]

Something like the third or so launch? Of course, I already knew the importance of going sideways, so it was more a matter of building up to an orbital rocket...

Think I used 8-10 tries, first building an rocket using the old demo, then I started getting orbital attitude I remembered that I had to move sideways, then an larger rocket to get into an sort of orbit.

[Gamespud]

I got orbit around my third or fourth launch. Most of the basic rocket design just came naturally to me lots of power and cutting away weight. Reached mun around 2 days later.... still working on the back part lol.

[Sir Nahme]

ran the tutorials ingame, made orbit on my 5th launch, the first few didn't have enough Dv

[Specialist290]

Don't remember exactly, but I think it took me a few tries. I knew it took more than just "burning straight up," but it took me a while to figure out when and where were best to start turning for the horizon. It didn't help that my first few rockets were a bit underpowered, either.

[FlamedSteak]

I watched a lot of KSP youtube videos at work, so I was orbiting by my 4th or 5th launch.

My first Mun landing was probably a week later, I used a command module and lander, so the hardest thing I found was orbital rendezvous and docking. The landing was a piece of cake in comparison.

That being said, once you get your head around the Kerbal instruments you can pretty well much dock a craft using instrumentation alone.

Watching other players is the best way to get a handle on the mechanics of KSP. I could barely pronounce apoapsis, let alone know what it was when I first installed the game, but after watching a bunch of Scott Manley vids everything clicked pretty quickly.

[Curs0r]

I nailed orbit right away with the demo version. I've always been a space junkie so I understood the mechanics launch trajectory. Took about 10 hours of testing and tweaking to get to Mun. I was hooked. Bought the game that day.

[Brabbit1987]

With one of the stock rockets was able to do an orbit first try. However, I already knew a bit about orbital mechanics and I have seen the game played by Scott Manley. It wasn't a perfect orbit though of course, very oddly shaped lol.

With one of my own rockets, think about 5 or 6 attempts due to faulty designs XD.

I remember the first thing I thought when I get a rocket into orbit was o.o "Well that wasn't to hard ....

... How do I fix this orbit ???"

Making my orbit more circular was like the only thing I couldn't figure out for a bit and had to watch more videos. After watching I pretty much was like, wow ... really! That's it!? >.>

[KevinW42]

I'm pretty sure I got it in my first launch that didn't blow up. Of course it was actually a solar orbit; Kerbin orbit didn't come until a couple days later since I had made it my mission in the beginning to crash into the sun.

Having played Orbiter beforehand probably helped, even though my first launches were straight up directly to escape velocity, despite knowing that this was the wrong way to do things.

Edited May 31, 2013 by KevinW42

[Finnerty]

Took me about 4 launches for orbit around Kerbin. All I've been doing since then is launching satellites everywhere. I have one each on the inner planets and moons, Kerbin-Mun-Minmus, out to Jool, with 3 in the Jool system. This has taken so far about 5 weeks. (That's 7 years or so Kerbal Klockwise.) Couple more there and one on Eeloo and I at least have orbited every place. Landing and docking are next.

[Tw1]

My first orbit was around the Mun.

I got there by just going up and up and up until I made it. It seemed simple at the time, probably because the giant firework I was flying couldn't turn very well.

I worked it out eventually, after doing a few successful landings on both the Mun and Minmus.

[lukerules117]

once I built a rocket that didn't blow up on the launch pad.

[Vanamonde]

once I built a rocket that didn't blow up on the launch pad.

That is a good first step, and a lot harder than one might think.

[KevinW42]

That is a good first step, and a lot harder than one might think.

I actually thought that I had reached a major milestone the first time I made a rocket that blew up immediately upon pressing space.

[NeoMorph]

About 2 hours... mind you that was because I was blowing up my spacecraft lol.

Longest for me was learning to dock because I kept knocking F4 and the ships would vanish.

[Kialar]

It depends, what one calls an orbit.

Getting something out of atmosphere that then tumbles in an elliptical so-called "orbit" with random inclination? Some gaming hours.

Reaching an orbit, that deserves the name and is something like near that what I wanted it to be? A week of intense playing.

Planing it, reaching AE und PE as intended and the inclination I wanted to have with ressources left for further progress? Roughly 75% of the attempts right now after 300 hours of play.

To the Mün it took me some 3 or 4 days, but with a totally unreasonable amount of fuel, fully brute force. Going to Mün or Minmus, land there and get back is routine for me now. Duna and Eve are on the edge of routine with a high chance of success. Getting to Jool has a quite random character, as with its moons.

[Uncle Mort]

Only took me a few goes to achieve an orbit, much, much longer to get a circular, equatorial one.

[Scarecrow88]

A few hours for me, and a couple more to put a Kerbal on Minmus and back. Been playing a week now, and have a station orbiting Kerbin, have put a lander with rover on the Mun, and have a craft orbiting Duna but haven't landed there yet, and the orbiter doesn't have enough fuel to get back, so a re-think of design is needed on that one.

What gave me the biggest headache was learning how to rendezvous in orbit, and I found docking tricky as I struggled with camera angles to make sure everything was lined up. The laser docking mod has helped with that. You still have to fly and dock manually, but it gives you indicators to show when all the angles are right, and how far you need to translate in any direction to get lined up.

[Stelith61]

Took me 3 days to work out the throttle.

I got into orbit relatively soon, but I sucked at actual rocket building so all my rockets sucked. Simultaneously over AND underbuilt.

I got better.

[MRab2]

About my 5th go - they were stranded there right enough. My 4th go saw the intrepid crew blasted straight out of Kerbin's SOI. On my 6th go i discovered the map view and everything made more sense after that

[lazarus1024]

Don't remember exactly. It was within the first day of game play. Maybe an hour? Two hours? Two hours probably encompasses half a dozen launches at the begining. It took me a lot longer to figure out how to put the rockets together than anything.

It probably took me 4-5hrs of game play to really figure out the nav ball and double that to absolutely master it.

It also took me about 10hrs to realize there was a map mode and then another half an hour of tinkering to master that.

I got to the Mun without the map once (maybe 7-8hrs in), though no landing at that point. Just orbit (roughly).

After I figured out the map thing, .16 rolled around shortly after. I think I had only done one or two Mun landings before I was off to other planets and stuff.

No tutorials for me.

[Kerbal01]

Bout 6 months

[Cby]

I don't really know, but I know it was ages since I didn't realise how to use the nav ball. I got pretty far considering that though since I made a Mun flyby before I learned how to use it.

[ShachonianX]

Once I learned what gravity turning was, it was easy.

[acealeam]

Wow, you people are great! (Or liars ) It took me quite awhile if you count the few days I played on the demo. On the demo, I thought the nice KSC had already planned everything out and to get to the mun I would just have to fly up. I was a bit confused when i kept coming back down, and thought maybe that's how the game loads other planets - it wasn't. But one time I got to the mun going straight on the demo. Anyways, based on that, it's pretty obvious it took me awhile...

[Tokay Gris]

It took me a day to get anything off the launchpad. After that, I read up on it, watched a few videos and it, so orbiting was pretty easy after that. Understanding why that bugger exploded on the pad or just fell over or tumbled like crazy within the first 1000m was the hard part.

After that it was just "turn to 90 at 10.000m until apogee is high enough, burn prograde at apogee till perigee is high enough. IF there is enough fuel."

Going to Mun was pretty easy as well... "burn prograde when you see the Mun until course gets intercepted, burn retrograde at Mun perigee until orbit"