"Systems to go aaaaannnnnnd another astonaught lost" Hello everyone!

[TaizerBeam]

Hello and nice to meet you. I've been playing around with the demo and it's a lot of fun. Also a bit erm taxing in a good way. Lost a lot of pilots T_T Anyways still playing around to see if this game is right for me before buying. I like challenges and simulations yet math isn't my strong suit. I also have a few questions that may seem dumb so answer at your own discretion.

1) what moment made you say: "I have to buy this"?

2) How hard was it to really get going?

3) Setting up space stations and bases by what I read seem a real challenge, are they?

4) when exiting the planets atmosphere should you go at a angle to get a semi circle orbit?

5) Is it possible to make an actual "spaceship"? i.e can enter/exit orbits and have interplanetary travel.

6) general tips?

Dont answer all of them if you don't want to. I'm really just curious of the possibilities with the game and how hard is it to reach those goals. Thanks for reading!

[NASI Director]

1.) After I saw Kurtjmac play it.

2.) Very. I had to watch at least 5 videos before I even knew how launch an SRB

3.) Depends. Stations are hard if you plan to do stock and bases are even harder requiring the ability to precision land.

4.)If you're asking about how to get into orbit, then I suggest watching Scott Manley's video

.

5.) Of course! It's what every advanced space program does after establishing a keosynch comms array, a space station, landing on every planet/moon, and establishing a base on at least one body.

6.) All the planets and moons are yours except Vall. Attempt no landing there. Anyway, YouTube and the Forums will become your right-hand men.

[That guy who builds stuff]

1) what moment made you say: "I have to buy this"?

when I played the demo

2) How hard was it to really get going?

Not too hard. you can set your own goals. If your first objective is to land kerbals on the moon you wont have fun

3) Setting up space stations and bases by what I read seem a real challenge, are they?

The amount of mass in a station or base launch makes it more difficult to make efficient launch vehicles, that coupled with docking or precision landing makes them more of a challenge

4) when exiting the planets atmosphere should you go at a angle to get a semi circle orbit?

sort of. Eventually you'll need to raise the periapsis the atmosphere

5) Is it possible to make an actual "spaceship"? i.e can enter/exit orbits and have interplanetary travel.

Search grand tour

6) general tips?

rendezvous: down is forward up is backward backward is down forward is up

[Pursuedtank]

1) what moment made you say: "I have to buy this"?

When I first found out about the game. I knew I would enjoy it.

2) How hard was it to really get going?

Well After I got over my initial trouble of putting the decoupler in the same stage as the rocket engines it was fairly easy.

3) Setting up space stations and bases by what I read seem a real challenge, are they?

After you play the game for a while it is quite easy. The real challenge in space stations is learning to dock and that only takes an afternoon at most

4) when exiting the planets atmosphere should you go at a angle to get a semi circle orbit?

Yes You should, On Kerbin after about 8000 to 12000 meters you should slowly tip over, called a gravity turn.

5) Is it possible to make an actual "spaceship"? i.e can enter/exit orbits and have interplanetary travel.

Yes

[Vanamonde]

1) Poking around the demo for a few minutes.

2) Getting into orbit was kind of hard for me, reaching Mun was cinch, landing on Mun seemed impossible, getting to other planets was not terrribly hard, but airplanes are still just about impossible. So it's different at diferent times, and for different people.

3) Building a station requires docking, which can be kind of hard, and building large launchers can be hard, but you only need large launchers if you're sending up big chunks of station at a time. Send small pieces, and it's not hard.

4) You'll need to leave at an angle, as I explain in this tutorial: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25008-How-to-reach-orbit-and-a-rocket-that-can-do-it-a-walkthrough-for-newbies

5) It's possible, and there's a discussion about it here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/37952-Round-trip-ships

6) Smaller is usually better. If you're ship isn't getting where you want it to go, try removing things instead of adding fuel.

(And this forum is messing with my post formatting again. AAARGH!!)

Edited July 29, 2013 by Vanamonde

[TaizerBeam]

Thanks for all the help! I may just need to buy this game. Finally go t a ship into orbit in the demo! Though I must add its an orbit that goes over the north and south pole =P

[Tw1]

If your first objective is to land kerbals on the moon you wont have fun

I did. Stacked bigger clumps of SRBs until I got there, brute force style. My first orbit was around the Mun.

I decided to by it when I wasn't satisfied with just crashing into the Mun with no legs. (old demo).

Getting going is not the problem, it can sometimes be hard to stop...

[Capt'n Skunky]

Happy Launching!

Arrr!

Capt'n Skunky

KSP Community Manager

[Scarecrow88]

Someone asked in another thread if it was possible to build a rocket capable of going to the Mun and back using just the parts that are available in the demo. As it was a while since I played the demo, and only then for a very short while before buying the full version, I downloaded it again to see what it was capable of. And yes, the demo indeed has the parts necessary to build a Mun capable craft. As a taster, the demo allows you to practise a variety of options that the game is capable of, which is usually more than enough for most people to move on to the full version.

[Jean Deaux]

Hello and nice to meet you. I've been playing around with the demo and it's a lot of fun. Also a bit erm taxing in a good way. Lost a lot of pilots T_T Anyways still playing around to see if this game is right for me before buying. I like challenges and simulations yet math isn't my strong suit. I also have a few questions that may seem dumb so answer at your own discretion.

1) what moment made you say: "I have to buy this"?

2) How hard was it to really get going?

3) Setting up space stations and bases by what I read seem a real challenge, are they?

4) when exiting the planets atmosphere should you go at a angle to get a semi circle orbit?

5) Is it possible to make an actual "spaceship"? i.e can enter/exit orbits and have interplanetary travel.

6) general tips?

Dont answer all of them if you don't want to. I'm really just curious of the possibilities with the game and how hard is it to reach those goals. Thanks for reading!

1) For me, almost an instant grab. This was a game I tried to make some 30 years ago when the PC first came out and lacked the graphics and memory to do so. It encompasses everything I wanted to do and then some, very impressed here dev's!

2) It's a mutha, very high learning curve. But once you finally get it figured out, you feel like you could actually fly the real thing. And at some point it become tedious and irritating to spend so much time to get so little done.

3) In space not so much, once you figure out docking, it's really not so bad. The big headache is simply system performance. The more parts there are in proximity, the slower/laggier the game becomes. You'll want a very high-end machine to attempt anything "big".

4) You'll definitely want to start your angle, I like to start at about 10km and tilt about 45 degrees in my desired direction.

5) Absolutely, though I do believe we are currently limited to the single solar system.

6) Sooner or later you're going to try out Mods, mainly because you're going to be looking for more parts, more realistic parts, and/or more game play options (such as mining for fuel). I've found mods generally cause some type of game play issue and if you remove any mod, any ship you have out there that has a component loaded with any mod part that was removed will lose that entire ship and anything that may be docked to it. So when you're ready to try some, pick the ones out you "really" want to have and add them one or two at a time to see how it's going to affect your game play (if at all).

[sjwt]

1) what moment made you say: "I have to buy this"?

When I first saw it!

2) How hard was it to really get going?

Realy hard, back in my day, we didnt have no rockmax parts, nore a fancy map.. just getting an orbit was an achievement.. No one even bothered to go to the moon, thats right, i'm so old the moon hadn't even been created then!

3) Setting up space stations and bases by what I read seem a real challenge, are they?

As easy or as challenging as you like.. to a point..

LEarn to get into an orbit, then learn to match orbits and rendezvous ..

[Fyzzi]

Hello and nice to meet you. I've been playing around with the demo and it's a lot of fun. Also a bit erm taxing in a good way. Lost a lot of pilots T_T Anyways still playing around to see if this game is right for me before buying. I like challenges and simulations yet math isn't my strong suit. I also have a few questions that may seem dumb so answer at your own discretion.

1) what moment made you say: "I have to buy this"?

2) How hard was it to really get going?

3) Setting up space stations and bases by what I read seem a real challenge, are they?

4) when exiting the planets atmosphere should you go at a angle to get a semi circle orbit?

5) Is it possible to make an actual "spaceship"? i.e can enter/exit orbits and have interplanetary travel.

6) general tips?

Dont answer all of them if you don't want to. I'm really just curious of the possibilities with the game and how hard is it to reach those goals. Thanks for reading!

1) Right after I saw few videos by "Kurtjmac" (btw. best regards to Kurt if he sees this) - I NEVER REGRET THAT!

2) By the time I bought it, there were only 2 places to go to (The Mün and Minmus), so it took me about 3 or 4 days of crashing, watching tutorials, learning how the orbital mechanics work (thanks to Scott Manley (see his Youtube channel)), until I landed on the Mün and Minmus right after...

3) It probably is, at least for newbies, but once you figure out how do the orbital mechanics work and watch few tutorials on "how to dock" (Scott Manley has that one as well) it's not that hard at all (It gets more and more of a challenge for your computer though )

4) You should start to go at angle soon after the launch (it's called gravity turn)... it depends on your ship, but if you start straight up (90° angle), you should get to approx. 60° angle at altitude about 7 or 10 km and slowly turn more and more (you should do your gravity turn to the right of the launchpad to get speed boost from Kerbin's rotation), until you are picking up altitude AND speed pretty well at the same time... then, as you reach your desired apoapsis, stop the engines, warp to the apoapsis and burn prograde to circularize your orbit and voila

5) Of course that IS POSSIBLE! Actually that's probably the most interesting thing about the game (I'm not sure if it's available in the demo though), but YES... the Kerbol system has actually 7 planets + Kerbol and these planets have their moons as well (there are 9 moons orbiting some planet in total) this makes you able to visit 16 different worlds (including Kerbin) + Kerbol (= the Sun) in addition, many of these bodies are actually real-life analogies, so there's lot of fun with them

6) My absolute tip would be to watch youtube videos, from which I prefer mentioned Scott Manley (he's making science easy to understand, so that you could more easily learn how the things work) and Kurtjmac for his... emmm... well... for being Kurtjmac basically it's very funny to watch him play the game

Anyways, WELCOME TO THE COMMUNITY

[Grim187]

1. when i realized i could build my own ships. (the 15mins i spent trying to get back in the capsule was awesome)

2. not very, rocket science has always been one of my interests tho i dont know the hard math of it (i'm starting to learn now), its fun to fail...until its frustrating then i take a break and build a different craft or drive a rover or something.

3. space stations are a bit challenging, i haven't gotten to put down a base yet, i'm just about a month in and i'm taking my time, this is a game i want to be still playing regularly a year or 2 from now.

4. i do my gravity turn early (9.5km) and probably a bit stronger then most (or i try to), i like to have a half circle orbit before i reach 70km.

5. yes.

6. stay away from mods until the game gets boring or feels repetitive, IJLK w/rcs, how to get to other planets, HOC, you will use this a lot and remember to Have fun.

Edited July 30, 2013 by Grim187