My first impressions

[Sivert3]

I'm not quite sure where to put this one. It's a description of how a first time player reacts to the game when playing it. With the player being me.

I found this game in a reference in Xkcd's What If #68. It describes how a planet the size of Little Prince with 1 G gravity would behave. In particular, the very small orbit would cause strong tidal forces that would send bodies spinning in all sorts of weird ways. This was describes as "This is KSP on nightmare mode".

It caught my interest, and soon enough I had the demo running on my computer. I looked for "tutorial", as it was my impression that this was the kind of game that would be brutal to anyone who did not have a decent understanding of the mechanics. Calling it training confused me a bit. But soon enough I had completed all four training missions. It gave me some directions as to how to control orbits with prograde and retrograde burns at the apoapsis and periapsis. It had some basic rocket designing too. But it left me clueless as to how to get a rocket into orbit.

I bought the game shortly after, and the leap from the demo to v.22 was a pleasant surprise. And with the availability of career mode, I figured it would be a good place to start. Only the parts that matter for a basic spacecraft would be available, and I could learn the game progressively as new stuff would be available. And there would be a clear defined goal, with good directions as to what I was supposed to do. Or so I thought.

What presented me was a few beautifully modeled buildings, with functions that was self explanatory. I looked at the Research and Development, and saw 2 nodes. One of which I could research using 5 Science points. Okay, so I need Science points to get better stuff. Makes sense, there was however no indications as to how one could get science points. So I carried on. The first thing I tried to do was to launch a rocket. The logic being that since the demo had some pre-built rockets, the career has too. Nope. To the Vehicle Assembly Building then. And whoa, you start with only 7 parts. There isn't even an decoupler ring in there.

I built my first rocket, the V-Explorer 1 (V is for Vertical). Consisting of a command module, a parachute, a fuel tank, a rocket engine, and an antenna. I had no clue what the antenna was for, but guessed that it could be used for science. I launched it. It flew a bit up in the atmosphere. I clicked around of the craft and found out that you could do a crew report by right clicking on the command module. The fuel ran out and I deployed the parachute, and watched in horror as the engine and fuel tank exploded as soon as it touched the ground. How am I supposed to recover the rocket when it explodes as soon as it touches the ground? I don't have a link decoupler, so I can't drop the engine. I thought the solid fuel rocket would be stronger, and proceeded to make V-Explorer 2 with a solid fuel rocket instead of a liquid one. "LaunchPad not clear. V-Explorer 1 is already on the LaunchPad". Huh? My previous rocket exploded, I'll clear the launch pad then (at this point, the process of recovering of a rocket was an unknown to me). I launched my V-Explorer 2, it descended and Bang! Same result. I was dumbfounded. I could make landing struts with the Modular Girder Segment, but I had a parachute to slow down the decent. Making linkages that break to simulate a decoupler would be more of creative bypass of the rules given. (I don't fancy abusing the game physics to achieve something that you don't have the tools to do. It's career after all)

I launched yet another V-Explorer 1, and watched as it exploded when it hit the ground. Wait, the command module actually survived. Cool. But still pretty silly. Okay, I then pressed Esc and clicked on Space Center. My two crew reports had given me enough Science points to get Basic Rocketry. And with it a stack decoupler and science part. Yes! Finally some progress to be done. And thus V-Explorer 3, with 2 stages, Mystery Goo containers and a decoupler on the command module to make for a landing without explosions. Launch! It flies high up, I do some crew reports, study the mystery goo and sends the result with the antenna. But the scientific returns was abysmal.

The Keep report option confused me, as it appeared to do nothing. At around V-Explorer 5 I managed to add two and two together. You could send the results with an antenna or recover the craft and the goo container to get the science points from the studies. Recovering of the space craft was both logical and intuitive, yet I had no clue how to actually do it. In the tracking station I found 3 of my former rockets listed up as in progress. And there was button called Recover. Bingo! The most important way of getting science points, some 10 rockets launches into the game. More so I figured that there had to be a way to recover a vehicle while controlling it. I found it pretty quickly. Hovering the mouse over the center top UI element and a button with recover vessel appeared. How the heck was I supposed to find that?

With this in mind I created V-Explorer 6. With the goo module attached to the command module, so that it could be recovered. It flew high up, but I couldn't get it to orbit. It was not a goal, but it did not even come close. It went straight up and then straight down. But worse still, the Science points gained by it was even more abysmal. The diminishing returns of experiments prevented me from getting anything more out of it. Worse still I had no idea what kind of experiments and reports that I had done, or what reports and experiments that I could do. It was clear that in order to progress I would have to make a vessel capable of orbit. And I would have to figure out how to pilot to orbit as well.

And thus the O-Explorer series was born. (O for Orbit). The first, O-Explorer 1 carried a whooping 4.5 t of dead weight. Needless to say, it did not reach orbit. But with the discovery of EVA, surface samples and crew reports on the ground of Kerbal having great scientific value I managed to get enough points to get a radial decoupler and a large solid fuel booster rockets. Two of 'em and a simple 2 stage rocket should be sufficient? I still had no clue how to pilot a rocket into orbit. I flew straight up until I reached about 10.000 meters and rotated gradually towards the horizon. When I was out of fuel the trajectory was an parabola going almost straight up, and the straight down again.

When I doubt, more boosters. Eight of them. O-Explorer 3 was bound to have enough power to reach orbit. It flew straight up and then fell straight down. I was already browsing up several pages to find some explanation of what I was doing wrong when I realized that my parabolic orbit was actually elliptic. The part that stuck down into Kerbal would actually go around the center of the planet had there not been a planet in the way, and the periapisis would be there as well. I remembered form the tutorial that the best way to raise the periapisis is a prograde burn at the apoapisis. So I did just that in the next Launch. Traveled some 5,000 meters up in the air and started turning. I waited until I got to the apoapisis at 10,000 meters and did a full throttle. Success! My orbit was circular at 10,000 meters. A few drops of fuel left and, eh oh, red flames from air compression on my rocket. I looked at the atmosphere indicator. Half way to frictionless vacuum. Ouch! I watched helplessly as the rocket dropped back into the atmosphere.

Watching the Kerbal Rocket School I learned about booster configurations, calculating delta V and a lot of other useful things. With the knowledge I designed the Orbiter I to reach an orbit around Kerbel with the Science Jr. It achieved that goal with 1500 m/s delta V to spare. That might have been enough to get to the Mun and back again, but just to be sure I made the Orbiter II to do the job. It made the trip with a few overshots and mises, getting back to Kerbal with a full stage worth of thrust to spare.

So to sum up my experience as a first time player:

• The rocket I made with tier 1 parts exploded upon touching the ground.
  
• Career mode gave absolutely no directions for what to do. And has no goals other than collecting science points for conducting research.
  
• The science point system works great, when you know how it works. Which you don't. The diminishing returns explained nowhere (through somewhat logical) and indicated nowhere results in frustration. The game know what science experiments you have conducted, but sinisterly keeps it hidden from you.
  
• The training section does not cover piloting a rocket to orbit. The actions required are unintuitive for anyone that is not a rocket scientist.
  

[macegee]

You see, Squad guys think that they shouldn't put pressure on the new players with a lot of stuff, like with lots of parts for example. Or any other information on the screen, like advanced tutorials and info readouts (said delta-v). Unfortunately, lots of parts isn't what new players are being confused with, it's the lack of said information. I didn't play orbiter before KSP, so unlike you I didn't know what delta-v was until like 1 year after I started playing. But at day one I was at least being able to calculate easy stuff like TWR by hand, on a paper (like out-of-the-game guides told me to). Took me some time, but I was being able to. Then I realized that I HAVE TO install mods just to show me information I want the game to show me. And it's really sad (cuz I want vanilla game). So I feel ya.

And the thing is, you should better send this to their e-mail (available on the main site), so they actually have to read it. More people would keep telling them that this game has to give player more basic and advanced information, the better. Maybe some day they'd get that it's kinda important for some and should be made a priority.

Edited November 1, 2013 by macegee

[boomerdog2000]

Welcome to the forums! I'm glad to see you did manage to get into orbit. I will agree that the game definitely needs more tutorials, however career mode has just had the initial groundwork set a few weeks ago. The current tutorials have been there for a long time because the devs have been focused on adding new features. So once Squad knows things are working they will surely implement some tutorials, or text boxes or cut-scenes or something.

[Kasuha]

Welcome!

The game is still in development, what you are playing is something like a public alpha version so it's to be expected that not everything will be in place. The fact that you endured that initial blast of learning and discovery needed to play is a very good sign. Everything will become way easier over time.

And no, you don't have to install mods. They help, they make the game easier or more interesting but none of them are really necessary.

It's funny how many people started playing this game thanks to XKCD.

[AmpsterMan]

Welcome aboard!

Most of us around these parts have been around for some time so our impressions of KSP 0.22 and the direction the developers have taken with it can be a little skewed at times. So thank you for your honest appraisal of the situation.

May you have many more orbits ahead of you.

[FITorion]

If it was chute, pod, tank, and engine... And you opened the chute... (which is a mistake I've seen many new players make)

Then PART of your rocket exploded. Not all... and not the most important part... the Pod.

Career mode isn't done yet. The game isn't done yet. Tutorials and instructions are things you add right before final release. If you add them before then you have to keep updating them over and over again as things change. It wastes time that they could otherwise spend making the game systems that they'll add tutorials for later. In the mean time you have these forums and a wealth of youtube videos at your disposal.

The game does have a steep learning curve. I do expect there will be some sort of pop up tutorial later on in development. But your memory shouldn't be so bad that you can't remember where you've been and what you've done... I do think the UI for reviewing stored experiments could use a little work.

You used knowledge from the tutorial to make it. There are certain bits of knowledge I expect everyone ... even those who are not fans of space and scifi... to know. Orbits are round or oblong. You need to be outside of the atmosphere. These two things should be sufficient knowledge to make orbit.

If they add too much hand holding then the sense of accomplishment and self discovery are ruined. I agree there should be some initial hand holding... The key is striking a balance.

[OrtwinS]

Welcome!

And congratulations for archiving orbit and doing science despite the complete lack of any explanation whatsoever.

It was my first thought as well, if I was new to this game, how the **** would I know what tot do?

I actually hope there will be a short ingame explanation video that explains the basics of science and rocketry. Can be done in under a minute.

About mods/plugins, if you ever think about adding some, I suggest you start with a few that actually extend the vanilla gameplay (as opposed to overhauling it).

My favorites:

- Procedural fairings (lets you create protective aerodynamic cones around probes 'n stuff)

- SCANsat: Give your satellites a use by letting them map planets and moons!

Never fear to ask anything on the forums (though searching before asking is apriciated). 99% of the people here would love to help.

Edited November 1, 2013 by OrtwinS

[TMS]

You see, Squad guys think that they shouldn't put pressure on the new players with a lot of stuff, like with lots of parts for example. Or any other information on the screen, like advanced tutorials and info readouts (said delta-v). Unfortunately, lots of parts isn't what new players are being confused with, it's the lack of said information.

Agreed. Been saying this for a while.

[Pipcard]

This is why I don't like it when people think of career mode as a "tutorial".

[dharak1]

There is a tutorial, it's just very hidden. I don't like it either.

[Jon Tash]

Welcome aboard!

It was an interesting read and I agree with you on most of your points. It's good to see newcomers evaluate the game. People like me who are aboard the KSP community since the beginning don't usually see those points or forget that we too had hard times when we start. It's good to see new perspectives about the game.

As people above me have said, the game is till in development and lots of features are missing, Squad is working on it, it will come when it's done. Until then, as already said, there is mods (parts and plugins) that could help you achieve bigger things.

Feel free to ask questions, we have a great community for that.

[Guest]

This is why I don't like it when people think of career mode as a "tutorial".

Maybe Squad shouldn't have foisted it off on us as such then, hrm?

[EtherDragon]

Part of the charm of KSP, especially career mode, is that it requires you to figure certain things out on your own. However, you aren't given any hints along the way - only a nice explosion at the end if you did things wrong. If I were in charge of the world, I would make the following additions to Career Mode.

1. The first career mode mission needs to be a simple walk-through of making a rocket, launching it, doing a bit of science, and recovering it.

The first launch should go through step by step, key press by key press, how to make your first rocket.

Then walk you through launching.

While in-flight, walk you through doing some science (gathering a crew report, in this case).

Deploying the parachutes and then recovering the craft after it lands.

And lastly, spending your science points.

Have an option to skip the tutorial, of course.

2. As soon as any rocket comes to a stop in such a way that it's recoverable - that "Recover" button on top should automatically slide out and be displayed. That will give a strong hint that you can recover the craft - even if most of it blew up (which is always the case... on your first launch).

3. I think that learning how to make orbit is a fundamental skill which should be learned in the game. Sure you can watch tutorials, but it's not the same as getting it done yourself. That said, the game gives you few clues to help (and the ones that are there are in disconnected training missions). Whenever a career mode game has not yet made stable orbit (Periapsis above 70,000m) the game should watch your ascent profile and offer hints on how to do better when you recover the craft. It could say helpful things like, "It seems like you didn't go high enough, try waiting longer before pitching over." or "It seems you didn't have enough lateral velocity, try pitching over a little earlier." or even "Your flight path was good, but this rocket ran out of propellant before reaching orbit. Try changing your design in the Vehicle Assembly Bay."

[Sirrobert]

Welcome aboard.

I'd like to point out that, once you have landed on Kerbin, you can recover the rocket (or commandpod In KSP, if the pod survives, it's concidered a succesfull landing).

Recovering will net you all the science points you 'kept' (that's what the keep result option is about), + some science from the rocket itself (a bit for surviving flight, little more for sub-orbital flight, little more for orbital, and so forth).

Since this is still an alpha, there are indeed quite a few parts missing. I'd recomend heading to youtube for the tuturials. There are some VERY good ones around.

My personal recomendation (and I'm sure that of many others) is Scott Manley:

He has tuturials on everything you can think of, but this link is for getting into orbit (includes building a rocket that can do it. The parts he uses may not all be available to you yet, but I'm sure you can adept).

It's actually quite simple once you get the hang of it.

Have fun. And don't forget: A spectacular explosion is a succes in it's own way

[zxczxczbfg]

Clarification on how to recover things for Science gain: Two ways.

1) When your vessel (not even the whole thing, just the command pod and/or any science-bearing parts) is landed on good old Kerba Firma or splashed down in the ocean (as is the case with most very short suborbital flights), there is a semi-hidden button on the top of your screen, above the altimeter. Mouse over the small glowing green triangle you see over the altimeter and it should expand and display a button marked "recover" or somesuch. Click it, and mission complete!

2) To recover a vessel without having to manually switch to it, you can go to the Tracking Station (the building with the big radar dishes) and find the vessel in the list. It should display something like "Landed/Splashed-Down on Kerbin", just select it and hit the green button, the tooltip of which should read "recover". You can also self-destruct vessels from this screen, if they're out of reach of the recover function (i.e. not on Kerbin's surface). IMPORTANT to note: You can recover debris as well, including science-bearing parts like the Goo Canister, if they're splashed down or landed safely (emphasis on safely--it doesn't work if you just drop them, since physics unloads past a certain limit, at which point they are considered to have crashed).

[Lheim]

It's very much a game in progress. The science system itself was released just weeks ago, and there's a lot of features to go.

The tutorials are very basic, but from the developer's standpoint I can't see the use of working them up when even basic features of the ship editor are slotted for a revamp. The best resource right now is youtube.. but it's an awesome resource!

[Seret]

This is why I don't like it when people think of career mode as a "tutorial".

The tech tree is part of what will eventually be the tutorial for the game. It's not finished yet, and has a lot of rough edges, but it very much was designed by the devs to provide progressive disclosure of the parts.

FWIW the devs did fret about the visibility of the science experiments, too. I would expect that to change in a future update, as many people have commented on how opaque the science system is.

[Col_Jessep]

I agree with the OP. A lot of extremely valuable - if not necessary - information is unaccessible for new players. The tech tree is great to slowly introduce you to a wider range of parts. Splendid idea since I felt rather overwhelmed when I looked at the available parts the first time. Maybe squad should add science missions with specific goals soon to help new players to find the science points in career. How is a new player supposed to know about biomes? A tutorial on how to get into LKO would be a good idea, too.

[Tobbzzzz]

First, welcome!

Second, this was a very nice read and i understand you

May you have a base around Jool

[Johnman]

I suppose the problem is the game is still unpolished in terms of giving feedback to the player. Squad has focused on gameplay (and for that I thank them greatly) while keeping information given to the player to a minimum. Since most of the player base has been around for a long time, they have gradually learned about the new elements and have little trouble knowing what does what and why.

For a new player, starting to play with .22 for the first time, the learning progress is very different. As the game matures I suppose Squad will focus on addressing this. Feedback from new players such as yourself is very valuable.

All in all though, I envy you. Although it may have been frustrating at times, you sound like you had fun gradually discovering how everything fell into place. You should be proud of your progress! Right now, KSP is not the best game in terms of tutoring new players, you depend a lot on the community for that.

Welcome to KSP!

[Sivert3]

Thank you so much for the response, I'm completely overwhelmed. It certainly comes to prove that you greet newcomers with a helping hand, keep up with it. To all of you that have come with suggestions regarding things such as the pod surviving when my initial rockets exploded, how to do a recovery of a space craft and getting into orbit. Thanks, but as I said in the original post, I managed to figure out how to do.

The journey past those initial troubles have been a lot more rewarding and fun. After the success of the Orbiter I, I made the Orbiter II, which I made a flyby of the Mun (or is it Mün? I keep seeing both in use). I overshot, took an extra obit, messed up the return, but got safely back to Kerbal again without even using the final stage (which I calculated to have 1475 m/s delta V). With the science and experience I gained from it I made the Mun Lander I. Which did this:

It was an absolutely thrilling journey. The landing was the most nerve wrecking, I didn't know about the Quick save/restore feature when I did it so I genuinely believed that it was a land or bust operation. I didn't explode when I hit the surface, but my lander tipped over. Thanks to the magic angular power of the pod I managed to roll it upright again. At which point the fuel gauge said "just enough" to get back to Kerbal. The fuel left on the lander when I entered the atmosphere of Kerbal was about 5%.

All in all the game is very well made. The thing that would have to be greatly improved however is how the game introduces itself to new players. Most notably the science part is not trivial to understand, but it turns out that this is already in the progress of being sorted out.

<p><strong>Jim (Romfarer)</strong><span><strong>:</strong> This week i designed the new gui addition for the Research & Development building. The bar has been set high and if everything goes after the plan, there will be a list with science reports, sorting options including the planets in the game and some other options. Wernher Von Kerman may make an appearance in there as well.</span></p>

All that would be missing then is some basic instructions of how to conduct science, how transmitting the results work and how you recover a space craft with the results.

I don't feel like the game should give out instructions down to every mouse click. Part of the fun is trying and figuring it out for yourself. But no instructions will leave players dumbfounded. Having to find out how the science point system works just leads to frustration. Especially when you realize after having spent hours on trying to get science that you can get some 50 point without even launching a rocket. A list of science wanted such as "conduct an EVA on Kerbal" or "Report from the upper atmosphere" could improve this. Especially in helping new players set goals that they can realistically make with the parts they have available.

There is a tutorial, it's just very hidden. I don't like it either.

Is this the training section? Or is there a hidden part of the game I don't know about?

Have fun. And don't forget: A spectacular explosion is a succes in it's own way

Ah, yes. My Orbiter III launched, traveled to the Minimun and collected science with the Science Jr. Went back again, entered the atmosphere of Kerbal. And halfway in the decent I discovered that the last decoupler dropped the Science Jr module. Oops there goes that science. Then at about 2000 meters I discovered that I had forgotten to mount a parachute on the pod. AAAAAAaaaaaaaa, *gasps*, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, *bang*, "Jebediah Kerman died", Nuuuuu! I reverted the save, but the ship was already in orbit around Kerbal at that point, so I preceded to land without a parachute.

[Goldham]

Welcome, I remember my first days when i thought getting into orbit was just going up into space.

Also Welcome to one of the finest online communities I've ever been a part of.

Edited November 3, 2013 by Goldham