KSP "A HA!" moments

[rottielover]

Great vid nhnifong! Loved it.

[SunJumper]

I just wish Shift wasn't both THRUST and switch. It has caused me some major issues on interplanetary burns!

I changed the throttle keys to the right shift/control to alleviate this.

[allmappedout]

I changed the throttle keys to the right shift/control to alleviate this.

Oh my god. You may have just changed the entire way I look at KSP.

[Whirligig Girl]

Turning off an engine to do more precise maneuver nodes when low on fuel WASTES dV.

[ThreeMartiniLaunch]

When docking, don't look at the ship, look at the nav ball.

[AIux]

My only real 'A HA! Moment' was when I figured out that I don't need to switch to docking mode to get translation. (Before then I just kept switching between regular movement and docking mode to get rotation as well as translation.)

[aeTIos]

Thanks, thanks a lot for that video! Learned new stuff

[Pwnstarr]

Hey guys, I've got the new tip video up

thank's all for the suggestions!

Excellent video! Short and sweet

[FellipeC]

My favorite KSP A-ha moment was when I played Take on Me during launch.

HAHAHAHAHA Laughed a lot now!

[inigma]

that u can delete a maneuver node by right clicking on it to get the red x to delete it.

[Psykikk]

last night i wondered why the heck my space-Tug wouldn´t dock on my station core (I thought Mechjeb failed)..

even manually i couldn´t do it , even if my life were dependent on it.

then it hit me: maybe the docking ports (Sr.clamps) were "broken" ??

the seemingly simple "AH HA" moment: when you mount the docking port the wronf way around, nothing can dock...

so i scratched the whole mission (in fact the whole save) and corrected all my ship designs (it were a few ....)

[Roman_legion]

When I figured out that rover wheels can have rotations that look like they are correctly placed, and then being insanely frustrated when the rover will just sit on the pad and not do anything!

[blizzy78]

When I figured out how to do rendezvous and docking (separately at that time), that was quite an a-ha moment for me. Obviously that was before I created my in-game tutorials (see signature.)

[kiwi1960]

when you build an awesome lander which is so high up (tall) but, oh so VERY stable when landing it that it cannot tip over....

then realising I forgot to attach any kind of ladder to the fecking thing.....

Edited October 10, 2013 by kiwi1960

[allmhuran]

Not exactly an A-Ha moment, but useful and seemingly not well known information.

When most people finish off their orbital intercepts (ie, you've already done the manoeuvre node stuff) they usually do it "incorrectly" (inefficiently), following a procedure that looks something like this:

Step 1) (Optional): Put the nose chevron directly over target-relative retrograde, like the image below, and burn until your relative velocity reads zero:

Step 2) Put the nose chevron directly over the "straight at the target" marker like below, and burn again:

Step 3) Repeat steps 1 and 2 as often as required until you meet up.

If you do this you are basically burning in a big, jagged curve all the way to the target. This is kinda like "pure pursuit" or "lag pursuit" in air-combat terms.

The better way is more like "lead pursuit", and understanding how to do it only requires remembering two basic concepts on the navball: When you burn, you "pull" the prograde indicator towards the nose chevron, and "push" the retrograde indicator away from it.

Step 1): "pull" your prograde vector towards the "straight at the target" marker by burning like this:

Step 2) When you get very close, if retrograde and target-retrograde have drifted apart, "push" your retrograde marker towards the "away from the target" marker by burning like this:

This is also a good way to do the next step: setting up for a docking once you have a particular docking port selected as target.

Edited October 10, 2013 by allmhuran

[SirJodelstein]

My latest A-HA! moment was when i discovered that the "Del" key works in the VAB/SPH! it deletes the stuff currently attached to the mouse.

[jinxville]

the moment (in 0.13) when I realised that I could fix my orbit apoapsis/periapsis by burning at those 2 little markers on the nav ball, then all I had to do was burn straight up and I'd land.

yes quite a lot aha of moments have followed since.

[Kasuha]

Step 2) When you get very close, if retrograde and target-retrograde have drifted apart, "push" your retrograde marker towards the "away from the target" marker by burning like this:

It's okay to do that to keep your speed proportional to your distance from the target. I wouldn't recommend doing that when close to the station, though, because if you're just a bit too fast, you will destroy your station instead of just overshooting.

I did that twice >_<

[allmhuran]

Yeh, you've got to keep adjusting your heading so that, ideally, your speed drops to docking speed just as your retrograde and away-from-target markers line up

[3_bit]

Several months ago I figured out how to do pinpoint landings, deorbiting and aligning with just one burn. also, when coming in, to assist in lateral and vertical deceleration whilst still getting to your target, burning upwards slightly of your retrograde marker (which should be on the node OPPOSITE your target indicator!) would allow you to slow down in both planes and still make it to your target.

[G4S3FR]

Burning prograde makes you go faster...

But that was a LOOOOOONG time ago

[Gailardia]

I can use parachutes on EVA by picking them up using KAS.

[Longsok]

Maneuver Nodes. I kept trying to dock, but i was spending tons of fuel just trying to get a rendezvous. I kept thinking that there had to be a way to see what a certain maneuver would do to my orbit, and Lo and behold when I watched Scott Manley do it, I saw the maneuver nodes, and suddenly everything became much easier.

[Death Engineering]

If you do this you are basically burning in a big, jagged curve all the way to the target. This is kinda like "pure pursuit" or "lag pursuit" in air-combat terms.

The better way is more like "lead pursuit", and understanding how to do it only requires remembering two basic concepts on the navball: When you burn, you "pull" the prograde indicator towards the nose chevron, and "push" the retrograde indicator away from it.

Excellent explanation of a skill well-worth mastering, especially in tight delta-v missions.