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KSP Abbreviations, for the newbs :P

BasOne
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BasOne

BasOne

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Hi all.

I'm new on the forums and i have trouble understanding some of the abbreviations you guys use.

That is, if i can actually be troubled to read the posts and not look at the pictures and picking my jaw up from the ground :P

Seeing the stuff some of you guys get into space... wow...

Anyway...

KSP is simple enough

LKO, Lower Kerbal Orbit? I'm guessing here.

But what is an SSTO?

Or what does FAR, KIDS, TWR mean.

And there are loads of other abbreviations that make my head spin :')

My humble apologies for my ignorance.

I googled and searched the forums, but couldn't find a complete list :X

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Vanamonde

Vanamonde

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Yes, LKO is like "low Earth orbit," but around Kerbin. Single Stage To Orbit is a ship that discards no parts between launch and attaining orbit. Thrust to Weight Ratio is the ship's thrust divided by the ship's weight in the local gravity, which is a measure of its ability to accelerate. I believe FAR and KIDS are player-made mods, but I'm not familiar with them.

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celem

celem

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Couple occur to me upon reading this that are not mentioned. If someone is gonna update any missing to the wiki then useful to have em gathered.

Some stuff I use without thinking about whether any readers understand;

KAS (kerbal attachment system- mod)

LKO - was explained earlier, but worth mentioning that you occasionaly see something like LDO. Which planet it is should be obvious from context

HKO - High Kerbin/whatever Orbit

SAS - cant actually recall the acronym, its something like stability and attitude control system. the large version is actually called S.A.S ingame, but use in a forum post probably refers to activating the system with the 't' key (could be any combo of torque parts on the ship)

CM - command module, refers to a transfer ship that delivers a lander to orbit around some body, then waits there and takes it/pilots home again

LM - less common, lander module, paired with a CM (above)

Isp - mentioned earlier as Specific Impulse. Worth mentioning for newbs, this is fuel efficiency. Higher/Better

SA - only seen this one a few times. From context I'm sure this is sub-assembly (in VAB)

Ap - Apoapsis - highest point (ingame and forum abbrev.)

Pe - Periaps - lowest point (ingame and forum abbrev.)

SoI - Sphere of Influence. The frame of reference. The body that your trajectory is plotted around in blue on the map

Edited by celem
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Superfluous J

Superfluous J

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Now that is usefull :D

I'm missing a few but it's a good start :P

VAB not mentioned, Vehicle Assembly Building.

KISS, Keep it simple stupid.

RB, Rocket booster.

BMBOB, Balistic Missles BasOne Builds...

VAB's there. KISS is a generic acronym and we can't add all billion of those so I'm not adding that one :). I've never ever heard RB used. I almost added LFB for Liquid Fuel Booster but didn't know if it'd ever been used either :)

Also, it's a wiki. I signed up in about 10 seconds and started editing. I encourage others to do the same :)

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BasOne

BasOne

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VAB's there. KISS is a generic acronym and we can't add all billion of those so I'm not adding that one :). I've never ever heard RB used. I almost added LFB for Liquid Fuel Booster but didn't know if it'd ever been used either :)

Also, it's a wiki. I signed up in about 10 seconds and started editing. I encourage others to do the same :)

You sir are a Kerbalnaut and a gentleman :) .

So an TSTO is a two stage to orbit...

What do you call it if you have 8 stages to reach orbit XD

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Superfluous J

Superfluous J

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You sir are a Kerbalnaut and a gentleman :) .

So an TSTO is a two stage to orbit...

What do you call it if you have 8 stages to reach orbit XD

Hah! I debated not putting TSTO on there, but figured it was significant enough to count. SSTO is more impressive, but a spaceplane with a little bit of help by some SRBs or something to get into orbit is still pretty impressive.

A space plane on the top of a regular, 5-8 stage rocket is less impressive and doesn't deserve its own acronym :)

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Ravenchant

Ravenchant

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I salute you, sir. But delta-V really shouldn't be abbreviated as dV. Maybe d-V, DV or ÃŽâ€v.

dV is easy to confuse with either the speed, or volume differential. Which usually wouldn't be a problem, but since this game is intrinsically tied to some mathematics, it may lead to a confused newcomer or two.

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Taki117

Taki117

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I salute you, sir. But delta-V really shouldn't be abbreviated as dV. Maybe d-V, DV or ÃŽâ€v.

dV is easy to confuse with either the speed, or volume differential. Which usually wouldn't be a problem, but since this game is intrinsically tied to some mathematics, it may lead to a confused newcomer or two.

The reason dV became the popular acronym type thing is it is much easier to type on the forums. ÃŽâ€V is so much more difficult to type if you don't have a handy copy/paste reference. (I spent about 15 minutes to find the alt code to no avail. Mac users, it's Alt+J.) It has since become almost the defacto abbreviation for Delta-V

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