Newbie questions - Flight Details Window and others

[Check Six]

As I am quite new to this game, I have many questions that require an answer. I do understand how the Forum search engine works, and I HAVE checked for the answer, but could find nothing.

1) I have seen many YouTube videos and Tutorials (yes, already! doing my homework), and after each and every flight, whether it achieves its mission objective (ie achieve orbit, land on Mun etc) a window pops up with the Flight Details. I have yet to see this, and have checked my settings for an unticked "Display Flight Details Window" or something similar, and have no idea why I do not receive this valuable information. At the moment, I'm writing them all down by hand and keeping records to try to achieve small steps in mission objectives. How do I get this window to appear?

2)In "asparagus staging", is it more efficient to fire up ALL of your engines initially, burning through fuel until your first stage empties and is jettisoned, then the second etc until you have achieved your orbit (or achieved weightlessness) or is it more efficient to fire up your (for example) four external tanks with their respective engines, leaving your central final stage intact until just before the last stage exhausts all its fuel, then initiate that stage by firing up the engine, and jettisoning the penultimate stage when it expires, then throttling back to sit back for the final stage of your journey? I have seen both methods used. I guess, whilst there is no "career mode" (yet!) and we don't have to pay for fuel, it is a moot point, but perhaps it might enter into calculations when attempting to transit to the outer planets of the Kerbal System.

3) My Nav Ball is inaccessible from the Map screen. A tutorial vid showed that I need to click on the arrow, but there is no point on there where I can click to expose it. I know that I can toggle it on or off with the Num Pad period key, but I just would like to know why I can't just "grab" it. I think it might be that I am running in full screen mode. Up the top right of my screen is a dull red glow, and when I "cursor over" it, it says "close" or nearby it says "minimise" so I guess that the three buttons that normally appear on each screen (close, minimise, maximise) are hiding just off screen. Should I just go with a windowed screen (for such a beautiful game game, it seems a shame) or leave it as is and live with the Num Pad period Nav Ball?

4) I haven't yet tried to use a joystick in this game (I have seen threads where it is mentioned how to set up your joystick) despite the fact I first tried terrestrial (err...Kerbal) flight in an airplane and successfully took off and landed back at the Space Centre using WASD. Are they easier to use for finer movements? I have seen some people stressing out badly whilst trying to dock. It seems as if it might be easier with a joystick if you could adjust your deadspots.

I have purchased the full version of the game from Steam, and downloaded it from there if that helps you to understand why these things are a mystery to me.

I have many, many more questions, but I tend to go on a bit (as you might have realised) trying to explain EXACTLY what I need/want. I will ask those questions in due time.

Thanks in advance for any that assist by answering any of the above questions.

Check Six

[check]

1) When you catastrophically crash the stats window should pop up. Otherwise, if you land safely (or at any other time in the mission) you can tap F3 to bring it up.

2) Haven't done the math, but I'm assuming if you're not firing your core stage engines and just the boosters, you're just carrying the dead weight of the core engines that aren't doing anything until you stage your boosters, wasting fuel. If your boosters alone are able to lift your rocket without the core stage firing, then they're probably overpowered. You'll want to find a balance where a) the core stage without boosters can lift itself and the core stage with boosters can just barely lift itself. Again, I haven't done the math, but that seems reasonable to me.

3) There should be a little grey square with a dark triangle in the middle, at the bottom centre of your screen in map mode. Clicking that will bring up the navball. If you cant see it then maybe your resolution is set wrong for your display.

4) Only used the joystick a few times, but I'm more comfortable using WASDQE to control my spaceplanes. Lots of people swear by joysticks or gamepads though, so it's up to each individual user.

[Jananton]

Being very new to this myself I can only address your third question.

If you're using fullscreen you should set the display sizes to your monitors native resolution, otherwise parts fall off the screen display. I noticed this myself when I thought of using a lower resolution so I could use windowed mode from time to time when I need a calculator or spreadsheet to assist me. ;-)

Maybe there should be two resolution settings, one for windowed- and one for full-screen mode in the future.

Greets,

jan

[Person012345]

There is also some bug I've noticed where the navball arrow is unclickable (the game acts like your cursor is many pixels above it's actual location). Another way to bring it up is to hit "." on your numberpad (make sure numlock is on)

[Person012345]

By the way, on point 2, in almost all circumstances, yes it's better to fire them. Although as said above, if you don't need to fire them then you've probably over-engineered it.

[SRV Ron]

A lot depends on rocket design as to weather one method is more efficient then another. I have found that an SRB cluster works best on the first boost stage which should take you up to about 5,000 meters. From there, an asparagus or onion stage to orbit. The rest, to the planets and beyond.

The example below is an eight rocket asparagus with booster ring. Bracing is important for stability. This is a simple design added to the ultimate conclusion as a lander for any planet in the Kerbal System

This rocket in orbit. (Note, the LV-N is not used in launch due to overheating, the asparagus supplied enough thrust. I used it due to the efficiency in the fuel for interplanetary flight. I may modify it further to use the leftover fuel in the asparagus by staging the no longer needed less efficient LV-T45.

[Check Six]

Thanks for the quick response chaps. Perhaps it wasn't clearly stated enough that the little box with an arrow indicating there was something on the bottom of the screen I could access by clicking that arrow. The box with the arrow IS there, but I can't utilise it for some reason. Anyway, if it comes down to running this game in a windowed mode all the time to enable me to click on that arrow and access the nav ball when I am in Map mode, it is not going to happen. I CAN use Num Pad period key, and that will suffice.

I think you answered my question on whether or not to fire all my engines at once. Generally I will feed fuel from the outer tanks to the inner tanks so that my final stage is full (or almost full) when the last jettison occurs, however, if I have one engine that is not running, all the others will be carrying its dead weight. A good reply.

Thanks again.

[Person012345]

Anyway, if it comes down to running this game in a windowed mode all the time to enable me to click on that arrow and access the nav ball when I am in Map mode, it is not going to happen.

It doesn't help. I run in windowed mode for ease of alt tabbing anyway and if I'm getting the issue (which I haven't had since 0.21 incidentally) I still can't click it, since the arrow button is right at the bottom of the screen in either case. I always use the period on the num pad now anyway, out of habit.

I should also note that I wasn't thinking of SRBs when I made my reply. Since those can't feed fuel in it may be a different matter.

Edited October 12, 2013 by Person012345

[SRV Ron]

SRBs are just a cheap and easy way to lift a rocket through the densest part of the atmosphere. It can make quite a difference in overall performance of the same design without the SRB stage. Without them, the two side mounted rockets would have used almost all of their fuel to get the core into orbit.

Otherwise, feeding fuel to the core stage of an asparagus design with all engines in use is the most efficient way for launching a rocket into orbit. Test it some time. One with just the ring as pancake, one as onion stage feeding the center, and one as classic asparagus.

Edited October 13, 2013 by SRV Ron

[Vanamonde]

#2. An engine that isn't burning is dead weight, holding the other engines back. It's not always possible to have them all burning right from launch, but that's an ideal to aim for.

#4. Joysticks are much better for controlling aircraft (where gross and sustained input may be needed), but I find them clumsy to use with spacecraft (where discrete and precise control is needed).