Noob questions

[Swoop]

Firstly.....hello! This game is epic, discovered it a week ago and haven't been able to put it down. It's not been unusual this week to find me still up at 3am trying to land some ill conceived craft on Mun.

Anyway, I have some noob questions.

How do I tell the current weight of the craft in the VAB?

A lot of peoples screenshots on here show nav aids, etc, I can't seem to find, are these mods or am I missing a key binding?

When a Kerbal is EVA on Mun, is there a way to tell his horizontal speed when using using an EVA jetpack? (Yes, I slammed Bill into a Mun mountain at a serious rate of knotts by accident)

Why do some Kerbals have orange spacesuits and some have white?

[Mr Shifty]

How do I tell the current weight of the craft in the VAB?

You have to use a mod: Kerbal Engineer or MechJeb will give you that info.

A lot of peoples screenshots on here show nav aids, etc, I can't seem to find, are these mods or am I missing a key binding?

What kind of nav aids?

When a Kerbal is EVA on Mun, is there a way to tell his horizontal speed when using using an EVA jetpack?

No, there is no way to tell that I know of.

Why do some Kerbals have orange spacesuits and some have white?

I believe that certain iconic Kerbals (e.g. Jeb, Bill, etc) have one color and others have another.

[Swoop]

Thanks Shifty.

Nav aids like.....this one, the landing guidance ox on the left:

[Deadpangod3]

I think that's mechjeb, but mechjeb looks diferent for me,

[Mr Shifty]

That's MechJeb 1.9.8; the most current version, 2.0.9 uses a different UI skin, so the windows look different, but the functionality is pretty similar.

[bancika]

Mechjeb , but not the 2.0 version. It's 1.9.8. And I think that pod on the picture is was only available for 0.19 .

Ps.: Your questions are not noob questions , because these questions are relatively hard to answer.

[Tiron]

That's MechJeb 1.9.8; the most current version, 2.0.9 uses a different UI skin, so the windows look different, but the functionality is pretty similar.

Actually I'm pretty sure there's a setting in the options to change it back to the old skin.

And there's two mods in play there, the two windows on the right aren't part of mechjeb, only the 'Landing Guidance' is (and the little tab in the upper right that says 'mechjeb', obviously.)

[capi3101]

Yeah, that's MechJeb working. Kerbal Engineer Redux will also give you flight information if you have the appropriate computer chips on your rocket (one gives you construction data but not flight data, another gives you vice versa and the third gives you both; it's a handy set of options for those challenges that make you fly without mods). You can get some of the same data in the debug window (Alt-F12), but nowhere near as much.

And yeah, Jeb, Bill and Bob are orange; all the redshirt Kerbals are white. If you off the orange Kerbals you'll get them back, off a white Kerbal and they're permanently dead.

You can get the mass of a rocket from the map screen as well (you'll have the upper tab on the right-hand side of the screen); you can "launch" it, go to the map screen and get your data, then revert the flight to the VAB. It's a few more steps but an option if you want to measure, say, the mass of your payload before you go to launch.

[KerbMav]

TAC Part Lister for VAB counts parts, shows total mass and lists every part with its mass, clickable to highlight and identify faster on your craft.

Kerbal Engineer Redux is a really useful tool during construction and to view inflight information, I like it for its simplicity.

MechJeb is another one with loads of optional autopilots.

[Apollo13]

Another very helpful nav aid is Docking Port Alignment Indicator

Congrats on your Mun landing. Now...to the planets!!! OR, at least Minmus.

[SRV Ron]

To get the launch weight without a mod, place the rocket on the pad and go into map mode.

[Swoop]

Thanks lads, this is all good info.

And may I add: OH MY GOD I LOVE MECHJEB.

Autopilot! Now my missions can't fail due to my shoddy piloting, they can only fail due to my shoddy rocket design :-)