Tips and tricks you found out yourself

[Mitchz95]

Always retract your solar panels before entering an atmosphere.

If possible, design your very last stage to consist of just the command pod, science module, and some RCS. This should have enough delta-v to get you back to Kerbin, even if you run out of liquid fuel during the final burn. Dumping your spent stage will also give you a small boost.

The closer you get to your target, the more accurately you can refine your trajectory.

When all else fails, get out and push.

[Lunaran]

Piggyback drop tanks on radially attached SRBs to buy d/V without greatly complicating the lifter.

- Do a test fire on the pad without unclamping, and note exactly how much fuel your first-stage LFEs use in the time it takes the SRBs to exhaust themselves

- Divide that by the number of SRBs, and pick whatever fuel tank is closest to that quantity

- Stack one on top of each SRB and run fuel lines into your main tank

The tanks will go dry just as the SRBs do, and you can jettison the SRBs and the empty drop tanks together. \o/

[Liowen]

If you want more stable lift-off, you should attach more aerofoil, more, more and more!

Seen this tip when I was making my small lifter craft, best thing since apple pie!

One I learned this morning

-Do not leave KSP running with a craft in flight while you sleep, or the Kraken will break your ship. I woke up this morning to see my lander hand had an unhappy accident.

Edited November 28, 2013 by Liowen

[Commander Jebidiah]

That holding shift and X at the same time cycles from larger to smaller symmetry

[spikeyhat09]

cubic octagonal struts can make anything stable.

[Liowen]

That holding shift and X at the same time cycles from larger to smaller symmetry

And now I know this too!

[ammonia_ocean]

I just discovered a super lazy way to rendezvous with something. Just set your target, make a maneuver node behind your ship and then timewarp while dragging the maneuver, it will move behind you so you can see the intersect points get closer and closer, not making random nodes and stopping the time warp.

My god, I love you.

The stuff I've worked out on my own game has been pretty basic, but:

1. Pointing retrograde and translating forward with H does the same thing as pointing prograde and translating backward with N. When I figured that out, I was overjoyed that I would no longer need to frantically change my ship's orientation from prograde to retrograde as I tried to get my relative velocity down to 0 during docking maneuvers – I could just pick one and then press H and N until the velocity was right.

2. A cluster of four LV-T30s attached to a quad-adapter weighs 0.8 tons less than a single Mainsail and has a specific impulse 50 s higher at 1 atmosphere and 40 s higher in a vacuum. It also doesn't overheat so readily, so you can run it at full throttle with no problems, and it's far less likely to tear your ship apart. (However, it only has about 60% of the thrust.)

3. It helps to put small, detachable radial engines on rovers or large ships designed to land by parachute. Throttle them up briefly to ease the shock when the chutes open, and then again just above the ground to ensure the gentlest landing possible. After you land, decouple them to reduce takeoff weight/make driving easier. This is especially helpful on high-gravity worlds like Eve.

4. Large amounts of solar panels aren't really necessary, even if you're transmitting data with one of the antennae. Two of the medium-sized deployable ones are good enough. If you're not interested in communications, just slap a few of the static ones on and you're good. (Just make sure that they're in areas that will get sun.)

5. If you're low on delta-V and have spare monopropellant lying around, you can reduce your mass by turning on RCS and mashing the maneuvering keys until you've used it all up. Going from a full 2.5m monopropellant tank to an empty one can easily give you a couple hundred m/s thanks to your ship's reduced mass.

[Mitchz95]

That holding shift and X at the same time cycles from larger to smaller symmetry

You don't actually have to hold shift. Just pressing X is enough.

[CalculusWarrior]

You don't actually have to hold shift. Just pressing X is enough.

Pressing X cycles you from small to large (like x3 -> x4), while pressing SHIFT+X takes you from large to small (x4 -> x3).

[Vanamonde]

SHIFT+X takes you from large to small

So does right-clicking on the symmetry button.

[Superfluous J]

So does right-clicking on the symmetry button.

I didn't know that, but that's mostly because I haven't used the button since I learned about "X"

[Traches]

5. If you're low on delta-V and have spare monopropellant lying around, you can reduce your mass by turning on RCS and mashing the maneuvering keys until you've used it all up. Going from a full 2.5m monopropellant tank to an empty one can easily give you a couple hundred m/s thanks to your ship's reduced mass.

If this is the case, you probably brought way too much monopropellant in the first place. 100 units or so is plenty for several docking operations for any reasonable sized ship.

[ammonia_ocean]

If this is the case, you probably brought way too much monopropellant in the first place. 100 units or so is plenty for several docking operations for any reasonable sized ship.

I did. XD This was back when I was still using MechJeb's docking autopilot, and its tendency to waste monopropellant led me to bring along a lot more than I'd need today for manual docking. I still brought more than necessary, though.

[RocketPilot573]

Just found out a new thing:

Whack-a-Kerbal works in IVA...

[agentKmurph]

1. Using two Rockomax Brand Adaptors combined with a TR18 Stack decoupler saves weight over using a Rockomax Decoupler. Not very useful on boosters since it is a weaker junction but its great for shaving off 200 kg from a Mk2 Lander Can or Mk1-2 Command Pod based ship.

2. Especially when lifting off from high gravity worlds like Kerbin, a series of 3 - 5 small burns close to the apoapsis rather than one long orbital insertion burn after reaching the desired altitude creates a more circular orbit and saves fuel.

3. Holding ALT while using the warp buttons will allow you warp up to 4x no matter where you are or if your engines are throttled up. Very helpful for long interplanetary orbital transfer burns.

4. When executing a burn that is longer than 60 seconds while in any orbit around any object other than the Sun, you will more accurately achieve your projected course as described by a maneuver node if you distribute the burn time about 1/2 before and 1/2 after the node. This is because nodes represent instantaneous changes in velocity and do not compensate for the required burn time.

5. Instead of building a booster every time, just figure out the weight of the craft without the parts it needs to get to a Kerbin parking orbit. Then save the detached parts as a sub-assembly. Guess what? You now have a booster that you can use every time whose lifting capacity is exactly known.

[hugix]

I've made a screen to illustrate my trick I explained on the first page.

when Going to Minmus, launch when KSC is (more or less) directly under the path of Minmus like so :

Then adjust your heading according to the Orbit of Minmus. When You are on the ascending(Minmus is going north) side of the orbit make your heading 84 degrees. When Minmus is going south (descending) set your heading to 96 degrees. This way you don't have to do a plane change, or at least a very small one.

[magnemoe]

I've made a screen to illustrate my trick I explained on the first page.

when Going to Minmus, launch when KSC is (more or less) directly under the path of Minmus like so :

Then adjust your heading according to the Orbit of Minmus. When You are on the ascending(Minmus is going north) side of the orbit make your heading 84 degrees. When Minmus is going south (descending) set your heading to 96 degrees. This way you don't have to do a plane change, or at least a very small one.

Smart, I have used it to meet motherships in orbit around other bodies but never thought about Minmus

[Xephirious]

I've been subject the effects of the LV-N being the only engine in the game to have fairings which actually have collision meshes.

I found another solution to this problem. Decouple the previous stage and leave the engine un fired, you can manually jettison each shroud THEN fire the engine. I think the thrust from the engine ejects the shrouds laterally as the vehicle accelerates past them and causes all the damage.

Install two small engines pointing prograde (towars the tip of your rocket) for decelerating large ships in orbital rendeavous. This will keep you from wasting RCS to turn cumbersome ships retrograde for a trivial burn. Even small engines running for a while can slow the largest ships in time for a rendeavous.

Always fit your space stations with both types of docking ports. If you forget one you can always build an adaptor and fit the station with it.

Ion drives take a ton of power and you'll most likely be burning parrallel to the sun if you're on interplanetary burns so be sure to consider solar panel placement in that context.

Click the small box showing your velocity to switch between surface (speed in relation to a fixed point on the ground), target (velocity relative to target) and Orbital.

Groupings containted in the staging while in VAB can be separated by first clicking the box (for radial decouplers it would be the || icon with a number in the bottom right of the box), this will select all grouped parts and split the combined group into seperate parts, you can then select a single part from the grouping and seperate it for individual staging. This was especially usefull on my probe carrier as I built the probes in 4x symetry but launched them seperately.

[SebLavK]

5. If you're low on delta-V and have spare monopropellant lying around, you can reduce your mass by turning on RCS and mashing the maneuvering keys until you've used it all up. Going from a full 2.5m monopropellant tank to an empty one can easily give you a couple hundred m/s thanks to your ship's reduced mass.

Instead of messing around with the maneuvering keys you could use for fine tuning your orbits and helping with your burns (i.e. translating forwards/backwards).

This way will not only help you maximize your available dV but also decrease the amount required in the first place.

[Tank Buddy]

I changed my RCS translation controls to the arrow keys and right shift and control. This is much easier to use and memorize. I also changed rover steering and throttle to the arrow keys, as this allows you to use torque and drive separately and at the same time.

Also for docking, I change the view to chase and/or use the navball. You only need to use one or the other.

Edited February 27, 2014 by Tank Buddy

[Liowen]

I just found out you don't have to go to the space center when doing multiple evas, you just need to use ] and [ to switch between the Kerbals and ship. Helped doing a 24 man eva mission.

[LethalDose]

During docking, if you're not perfectly aligned when the two vessels are trying to mate, just kill SAS and they snap into place real quick and real easy.

Oh, also Eve is a purple h3^$ that devours probes' solar panels

Edited December 5, 2013 by LethalDose

[Kelmoir]

Rovers:

I remapped the rover wheel movement keys to JKIL instead of ASWD. Learned that from Bobcat, as the rovers used these keys.

No reaction wheel interference any more, when not needed.

But additional reaction wheel steering avaiable if needed. This is most useful, when your control device faces forwards. Saved me a lot of rovers.

Note: If rcs is turned on, it will still boost.

Landing:

activate SAS just before touchdown.

On Slopes it will immediately try to counteract the forces, and reduce the chances of tipping over.

After sitting safe you can turn it off.

[PPR]

Simultaneous landings in atmosphere.

There are 2 basic problems with this:

1) You can only control 1 vessel at a time in an atmosphere.

2) Parts more than 2.5 km away in an atmosphere will disappear.

How to get around this.

1) You need parachutes on both ships.

2) They need to be separated by a decoupler.

3) SAS

4) Keep the parts together going into the atmosphere until you are just above parachute deployment (2-5km).

5) Orient the ship to a bearing of 0 degrees or 180 degrees. (You may need the extra torque of the SAS for this.)

6) Set the staging so that the decoupler and parachutes deploy all at once.

7) Stage

This will fire the attached stage sideways, but not so far away that it will disappear. Depending on your altitude when you fire the decoupler and the power of it, they may land within a few hundred meters apart. I use this when the ship is so large that it risks breaking apart when the parachutes deploy. I've never had a collision, although it is often unnerving to watch when the parachutes fully deploy.

[7499275]

This should really be stickyed!

And aero breaking can be VERY useful when coming back to Kerbin from another planet. You can get the PE to drop into the atmosphere from a manuever node before you are even the Kerbins SOI