How-to Guide and Commonly Asked Questions (And Answers!)

[DMagic]

Where can I find more information about subject X, Y, or Z?

- Your first stop should be Specialist290’s tutorial collection found here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/28352-The-Drawing-Board-A-library-of-tutorials-and-other-useful-information. This contains a range of tutorials on most subjects relevant to KSP. They come in a variety of forms, video, written, in-game, and some link to other websites. Some of it is out of date (or only pertains to older versions of KSP), but it’s a good bet that what you’re looking for can be found there.

- You can also check the tutorial subsection of this forum. It has a number of newer threads, and other tutorials not found on Specialist290’s list.

- This tips thread also has some useful, and sometimes not very obvious, advice: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/58260-Tips-and-tricks-you-found-out-yourself

- The numbers at the end of questions below are links to threads or tutorials with more details about the subject.

How can I get into orbit?

- Put command pod on fuel tank, put fuel tank on engine, make engine go. Ok, it’s not always that easy, but there are a few steps that can help you learn. (1,2)

- Start out small and simple. Many complications can arise on bigger and more complicated designs, sticking to a smaller rocket can save a lot trouble early on and allow you to learn the controls and interface. (1)

- Career mode is a good place to start because it limits you to a few basic parts until you can get the hang of things. (1)

- Another option is to load the Kerbal X rocket in sandbox mode. This is easily capable of reaching orbit and should help you learn the basics.

- Just remember to throttle up using the "shift" key and push "space" to activate the engines in the bottom stage (that orange column that’s on the right side while building your craft, but the left side while flying it).

Help, why did my probe stop working?

- First thing to check is the batteries, click on the "resources" button on the top-right of your screen. Probes require electricity to function, and if you don’t have any solar panels or generators, or you forgot to deploy the panels, you will eventually run out of juice.

- A good idea is to slap a few OX-STAT panels (the flat ones that you don’t have to deploy) on every craft you make. Just remember that these have to face the sun to get power, if you time-warp for too long, or at the wrong time, you’ll end up with your panels in the shade and no power.

- A single RTG can be a good idea if you continue having this problem; it will never run out of power.

How can I keep my rover from turning over?

- Step one: slow down. 20 m/s may not sound terribly fast, but it is actually 72kph (45mph). This is extraordinarily fast for a rover, much faster than any real life design.

- The second step is to build your rover low and wide. Keeping the center of mass close to the ground helps prevent tip-overs, and making the wheel base very wide makes the rover more stable. (1, 2)

- Other options include: putting ion engines on top of your rover facing up, this will push it into the ground, something like how a spoiler works on a car, or using RCS thrusters for the same purpose.

Use docking mode controls when driving a rover (activated by clicking on a button in the lower left-hand corner. These help minimize tilting movements caused by using the default controls.

- On very low gravity moons (Minmus, Gilly, etc…) rovers will always be difficult, there simply isn’t enough gravity to hold a reasonably sized rover on the surface.

Why can’t my docking ports just get along?

- Docking is tricky and takes some effort to learn, but the first step is to make sure that your docking ports have been put on in the correct orientation.

- One end of the port is supposed to attach to your craft, the other end is meant to dock to another craft. For the Clamp-o-tron and Clam-o-tron junior the correct end is fairly self-evident; the somewhat rough looking end attaches to your craft, the end with the protruding ring docks to another craft.

- For the Clamp-o-tron senior it’s a little bit trickier. The docking end (the end that should face out from your craft) has raised lines and a ring coming out from the center, while the other end is flat.

- Make sure that both crafts have docking ports of the same size and both in the correct orientation.

- Rendezvous and docking are a little outside of the scope of this short FAQ, there are many great tutorials on that subject in the tutorial list linked to above. blizzy78 has some especially good tutorials: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/35988-Launch-rendezvous-and-docking

- There are two common docking bugs that tend to pop up a lot. One is that your docking ports won’t connect despite being properly oriented and aligned; this could be due to the “docking port state†bug, see here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/50141-Why-these-things-won-t-dock?p=652549&viewfull=1#post652549[/url. The other is the stuck docking ports, where you can’t undock, see here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/47768-Locked-Docking-Ports.

What is this Delta-V and where can I get some?

- The simple answer is that it is a measure of your crafts total mileage, how far it can go. Space travel is a bit different from driving a car, but this value basically tells you where you can theoretically fly to/land/orbit.

- There are many "delta-v maps" floating around the forums, or a quick google search away; these will give you an estimate for how much delta-v you need to get to any given planet/moon. (1)

- There are a few mods that will tell you how much delta-v your craft has. Kerbal Engineer Redux provides this and some other basic information. MechJeb gives you this and many other things, including some limited autopilot capabilities.

- You can also calculate this yourself using some fairly simple equations and the information provided in-game.

Why won’t my rocket/plane fly straight?

- Welcome to the SAS system. This will at least attempt to keep you on a steady heading and prevent you from losing control. Turn it on by pushing "T", the little blue "SAS" light will come on above your Navball. Push or hold "F" to temporarily activate or deactivate the system (or to reset the system’s heading). (1)

- You need something for the SAS system to use for controlling your craft. The main source of control is reaction wheels, which are part of every command pod and probe core, more can be added by putting inline reaction wheels on your craft. You can also put on tail fins, vectoring engines (that make small adjustments to the direction they point) or RCS thrusters.

- The system is limited though, very large crafts can be hard to control and some aspects of the system need improvement. It is also possible to add too much control. When this happens your craft might start shaking around a lot.

Saturn V, more like Limp Noodle 7, why does this thing flop around so much?

- One word, struts. Use lots of these things.

- If you have radial engines put one end of a strut on the radial fuel tank and connect the other to the central tank, you can also strut radial fuel tanks to each other.

- Strut the bottom section of your rocket to the top section. If these two parts are the same size you can put some small cubic octagonal struts (the little cube shaped truss parts) near the top of your bottom section, and add struts going from these to the top section.

- If you have a big payload on top of your rocket put lots of struts coming from the center of the rocket out to the payload.

- Also keep in mind that parts can only be attached from a single point; you can’t connect a radial fuel tank to two radial decouplers. Struts are your only option for adding more connection points.

- Struts won’t solve everything. If you build a rocket long enough it will just about always wobble around. There are limitations to the game that make it difficult to build certain designs without having stability issues.

How can I add a mod, copy a craft/savefile, or otherwise access KSP files?

- For most systems KSP can probably found in:

Program Files (x86)\Kerbal Space Program\

- For Steam:

Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Kerbal Space Program\

- Mods go in the Gamedata folder. Screenshots (taken with F1) are in the Screenshots folder. Save files and craft files are in the saves folder. Each save has an individual folder with the persistence file (your primary savefile), the quicksave file and folders for VAB and SPH crafts. There are also default VAB and SPH folders that contain the stock crafts. Save files, craft files and mods are cross compatible with any operating system (some mods might have issues).

KSP went from a hare to a tortoise when I added the 47th component of my space station/Death Star tribute, what’s the deal?

- KSP is a very physics heavy game and every part adds to the amount of physics calculations necessary. This is very dependent on the speed of your computer’s CPU. Not having a shiny new CPU lying around, the only option for most people is to use fewer parts in your craft designs. This means that your mass relay recreation might not look as grand, but you can still make some very large, very complex designs while not blowing your part-count budget.

- A better CPU helps here, but everyone hits a limit somewhere. Some people can run with 500 parts without really slowing down, but pretty much everyone will have problems with 1000 or more parts. (1)

- The one option that can help here is the “Physics delta per frame†slider found on the first tab of the settings page. Pushing this all the way to the right can improve your framerate a bit, but will also slow down in-game time when things start to get hairy.

- KSP can also be a RAM hungry game. Adding mod parts takes up even more RAM and you will eventually hit a limit at around 3.5GB, there is not much you can do about this other than using fewer mod parts, or installing versions that use less RAM.

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I'm open to suggestions about how to add to this or what the best format is for this kind of thing. Having one question and answer per post might be the best way of keeping this thread visible without being overwhelming. Though my thinking is that we should keep this to 15 or 20 questions. A thorough guide compilation for KSP already exists and there is no need to rehash that in another thread. Limiting this to the 20 or so of the most common issues asked here or in the support forum seems like a reasonable way to keep this from getting bloated or competing with Specialist920's thread.

Edited December 9, 2013 by DMagic
Cleaned up answers, added links.

[Specialist290]

I truly do appreciate the effort that you're putting into making this. Unfortunately, we really can't let things linger outside their proper place, so since this honestly does belong in the Tutorials section, I am going to have to move it there.

That being said, I've taken notice of the same issues you have, and I'll bring it up before the rest of the forum support staff to see if they think it needs addressing.

[DMagic]

I guess all that really matters is that it remains visible. I should have room for it in my sig. If I can preempt one question a day from the questions forum I'll consider it a success.