Confuse the Newbs

[cantab]

When designing your rockets, as a new player you would do well to look at the work of the experts for inspiration. Good people to look at are Danny2642, Xacktar, and of course the aforeposting Whackjob.

[SRV Ron]

Stack doanut tanks in long strings. They make good springs to cushion your Kerbal in flight even if they are a bit hard to keep flying straight.

Launch dozens of rockets at once. That way you get more of them in orbit.

Braces are over rated. You get more interesting flights when you don't use them on Saturn B designed launchers.

Edited June 30, 2014 by SRV Ron

[Geschosskopf]

If you have to EVA while in orbit, need to make sure you apply the ship's parking brake before the Kerbal gets out or the ship will continue around its orbit leaving the Kerbal behind. So what you do is point retrograde, throttle up to about 50%, and leave the engine running while the Kerbal is flying around outside. This will keep the ship near where the Kerbal is.

Launch clamps have to be attached to every stage of a multi-stage rocket, and put into the staging list with their appropriate stages.

The staging list reads from the top down. IOW, the bottom stage is #1, just like in real life. Be sure to put your engines in this order before you launch.

Fuel lines should be connected from destination to source.

So you've heard other forum members talking about how much delta-v it takes to do something and you're wondering what delta-v is? Well, it's the in-game currency. You have to earn delta-v by doing quests, or you can get it from other players by crafting stuff for them. Once you have enough delta-v, you can spend it at the store on the KSP website to buy access to other planets, etc.

[LethalDose]

Burn straight at whatever you want go. It is GUARANTEED to get you there efficiently and quickly.

Also this:

Oh, you say Scott Manley make a working box plane? NEVER listen to ANY of his advise.

Nothing Manley says is to be trusted

Edited June 30, 2014 by LethalDose

[Moss]

Always watch the ship, never the nav-ball.

[Duke23]

If you're having problems getting off the launchpad, you may have an obese kerbal. Make sure he gets to the astronaut complex for physical training ASAP.

Bring as much monopropellant as possible, you never know when you might need it. Having more monopropellant than liquid fuel is ideal, and you can use the empty tanks to store oxygen for your jet engines!

Rovers should be short and narrow for tighter turns in low gravity.

Parachutes on Kerbin are for losers. Your final stage should have a small amount of fuel and a high thrust engine for a last minute suicide burn.

If you're a loser and you do use parachutes they can sometimes break on deployment. No sweat! Just hop out and fix them.

Stack doanut tanks in long strings. They make good springs to cushion your Kerbal in flight even if they are a bit hard to keep flying straight.

http://i.imgur.com/Aul5Riz.jpg

Oh god I just lost it

[mhoram]

More is always More!

And do not try to land on Minmus. You will encounter the Kraken.

[peadar1987]

-Don't download any mods. They are all half-assed, slapdash efforts the creators have put very little effort into, and add nothing to the stock experience.

-Squad and the community really appreciate when you ask about the release date of the next update. It shows you are keen to play the game and reminds them they should be working harder.

-Remember you need to stop your spacecraft once you get into space (this is called a "parking orbit"). You can just flip your spacecraft upside down and fire your main engines like they do in real life (do this by placing advanced canards near the nose of your rocket), but a much better way is to put a bunch of engines facing forwards. Mainsails are ideal for this job.

[peadar1987]

-Don't download any mods. They are all half-assed, slapdash efforts the creators have put very little effort into, and add nothing to the stock experience.

-Squad and the community really appreciate when you ask about the release date of the next update. It shows you are keen to play the game and reminds them they should be working harder.

-Remember you need to stop your spacecraft once you get into space (this is called a "parking orbit"). You can just flip your spacecraft upside down and fire your main engines like they do in real life (do this by placing advanced canards near the nose of your rocket), but a much better way is to put a bunch of engines facing forwards. Mainsails are ideal for this job.

Haha, just seen this has been moved to the tutorials section. This is the last thing that belongs in tutorials!

[MircoMars]

- hold shift while accelerating to maintain 100% thrust

- pro tip: use caps lock if you don't want to hold shift all the time (duh)

- turn on RCS before lift-off and never turn it off!

- use more smaller tanks instead of one large tank, it will make refueling easier

- return to kerbin with max timewarp, it will trigger autoland

- always trust the altimeter!

- spam spacebar for staging

[Shna_na]

- Never use an antenna or other comms device. They're a waste of mass and energy.

- When returning to Kerbin without a parachute, always land in the water. You don't even need to slow down for this kind of landing, liquid landings in KSP are far less harsh than ground landings.

- Lastly, no matter what, always take a Presmat barometer to every place you visit, unless it's; Kerbin, Eve, Duna, Jool, or Laythe. They're useless there.

[Tw1]

• Remember to put as much clutter on the surface of your spacestation as possible, so it looks like the real life one. Cover that thing with ladders, antennae, lights, panels, whatever else you can find.
  
• 
  
• Radioisotope thermal genorators (RTGs) and atomic engines contain radioactive material, and therefore should not ever be used ever.
  
• 
  
• Firing your engine all the way down from space to Kerbin's ground is important to make sure your spacecraft doesn't burn up on reentry.
  

[Red Iron Crown]

LOL at this thread being in tutorials.

Also, there's a 15 page forum game thread along the same lines.

[Reactordrone]

When landing always centre up in the middle of the brown side of the Navball. Easy way to remember is, when heading up aim for blue, when heading down go for brown.

[cantab]

Kerbal Space Program is hard. If you're having trouble, try Orbiter instead. You don't have to build your own ships in Orbiter, so it's easier.

[dbmorpher]

If you press space to activate the next stage make sure to press multiple times so you know the signal will go through.

Action groups are only used by people with bad hand-eye coordination, if you want to be considered a good player only rely on your mouse clicks.

[42_aerobrake_passes]

Make sure that you redo every repeatable experiment 5-6 times, because there's just barely enough science reachable at each point in the tech tree to get to the next choices.

This is partially because each new size of part is much better than the smaller one, completely obsoleting it, and is vitally necessary to go further. You'll need to have 2.5 M parts to get to Mun and Minmus; don't even think of trying to get to other planets before 3.75 M parts and Gigator solar panels!

[Helix935]

there is a way to beat the game, you just have to find the quest

[kelmv]

Whenever you build a rocket, always use SRB at the very top to stabilize it. It you want it to be really stable, point then inwards slightly.

[Red Iron Crown]

The Cupola module is the best command pod, because of its low mass and drag. Place at the top of your rocket for best results.

[kelmv]

Given that a pyramid is the most stable structure, always attempt to build your rocket to look like one. That way you have less problems with it tilting when you don't want it to. Once you are high enough, toggle engines on the side you want to drop so that you can turn over. It works really well.

[dryer_lint]

The point of the game is to send Kerbals into space, not to return them, not to do it comfortably. Kerbal Space Program. Duh.

All rockets should be built resembling a giant cone - a very small, sharp point at the top with the largest engines at the bottom.

Rocket not going far enough? Add more boosters to the side. Rocket too wide? Add another stage below it.

KSP is a game, so the aerodynamics are really exaggerated. Make sure your ships are extremely pointy, aerodynamics is the number one cause of failures.

Once you unlock the atomic rocket motor, use it for everything. Launch stage, boosters, transfer stage, landing. How could it not be good for everything, it's freaking nuclear powered!

Struts are useless. If your ship is falling apart then you are a terrible pilot and you should be ashamed of yourself

To get into orbit, burn straight up until you're going really fast. This is what they call "orbital velocity", duh. To get to a target, point toward it and keep burning toward it, eventually you will get closer.

And finally, the hardest part of space travel is always... aliens. They're everywhere! Whenever you land on another planet, be sure to heavily weaponize your ship! "Sepratrons" are good bullets. "Solid Fuel Boosters" make wonderful missiles. And if you just need to destroy the whole planet because there are too many aliens, drop a couple of nuclear engines. Anything that has a trefoil on it is good.

[cantab]

Once you unlock the atomic rocket motor, use it for everything.

Until you unlock the ion engine. Then, use that for everything, it's by far the most futuristic engine in the game. After all, the TIE fighters in Star Wars get their name from their Twin Ion Engines. If it's good enough for the Empire it's more than good enough for the Kerbals!

[WinkAllKerb'']

each time i write something that look weird @ first due to *bored hospital urgency*

[BriXman]

#1: Don't listen to this advice. Including this so you should listen to all advice. Including this so you won't listen to any advice. I've created a never ending circle you can't get out of. You welcome.

#2: Rover wheels are indestructible. Jump from as many hills as you can.

#3: Plane landing gear are very, very fragile. Never use them to land your plane.

#4: The gravity on Duna is x3 than on Kerbin. Thrust 3 times longer than you think you should. Even if it says you're going up you are not. Keep thrusting.