Straight on 'til Morning!

[metl]

So am I the only person who upon firing up the game for the very first time, built a generic looking rocket using minimal parts, launched and pointed the thing straight at the moon thinking that would get me there? Then when I started going backwards until I crashed and realized something was wrong, I built an even BIGGER rocket and attempted to repeat the entire process? Orbital mechanics were consistently lost on me for the first few launches! As the moon continued to move out of my firing line and I would try my hardest to correct, but just never could seem to catch up before running out of fuel.

With a few thousand launches now out of the way, I finally have most concepts at least understood. Interplanetary transfer is still a lost cause though. Getting out of Kerbin's SoI is easy enough. timing is a whole different matter! Lol!

[CalculusWarrior]

I checked out the tutorials before attempting any big missions, and Scott Manley taught me the rest!

[Geoff-AU]

haha it's an amazing learning experience eh?

here's a neat website for calculating transfers. basically, to make transfers easy you should start from LKO (low kerbin orbit, 70-100km equatorial circular orbit). You can then use this calculator to work out the correct time to transfer to another body.

http://ksp.olex.biz/

I highly suggest you break down the process into easier steps, eg:

1) Establish a nice circular LKO, and then return your craft to Kerbin without killing your Kerbals.

2) As above, but transfer to the Mun using the above calculator. Circularise your orbit around the Mun, watch it zip by underneath you for a few minutes and then return home.

3) As above, but land on the Mun.

Basically follow the steps a real space agency would take, they do it that way for a reason (although I gotta admit, strapping a large amount of propellant under you and blasting towards a distant object does sound like a fun idea!).

This game is very rewarding once you start figuring out how things work. Landing on the Mun is going to drive you crazy but once you've conquered that (and docking, which is also hard), you really can zip anywhere in the Kerbol system and explore.

[Roastduck]

Also check out the Protractor mod. It'll show you the phase angles of all the different planets.

[The Destroyer]

Back in ye old 0.13 days I thought if I pointed at mun I would go there.

No manvuer nodes/SOI Warnings back then, so I timewarped for awhile and got there! And then missed it.

[metl]

Exactly! The darn Mun always moved! lol!

[6.forty]

I learned how to do most things by watching MechJeb do it for me. Maybe not the best way, but I've got most everything down, but can't manage interplanetary transfers half the time.

[AmpsterMan]

Going straight up for the first dozen to one thousand first missions is tradition. If you don't do it you aren't playing KSP correctly xD

[G'th]

Funnily enough, when I started the game it occurred to me that just going straight up wouldn't work (mostly because living less than 5 minutes from Kennedy Space Center for 21 years tends to embed that bit of logic into you) so when my first couple of launches mostly focused on getting as high up as I could first, decoupling my first stage (again, proximity to KSC has taught me about rockets despite never having that much of an interest until after getting into KSP), and then going from there.

It actually wasn't that bad of a strategy and I imagine if it weren't for the internet, I'm sure I would have eventually figured out the gravity turn on my own.

[SkyRender]

I recall that getting to space was not really my goal at first. Mostly I just wanted to see things blow up in spectacular ways. Once I did get around to leaving Kerbin, well... I count myself as one of the few who knew already that going straight up constantly was not the right solution for getting into orbit. (ProTip: "orbit" means "circular"!) What I did not understand was how relative velocity was being calculated for objects in orbit. Fixed that misunderstanding right quick, at least!

[Markus Reese]

I guess I was lucky in how I used to do it. Launch, then orbit, abouts... then I would sorta estimate and get myself approximately out to mun orbit. Tweaking the distance past, duration past, etc and let the mun catch up to me. Was that 0.13 or 0.14... shrug.

Anywhoo, cannot remember who posted it, but noticing that burn at munrise made things so much easier ^.^

[FenrirWolf]

This is my favorite way to work out interplanetary transfers

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[Duke23]

Well I don't think I tried to go straight up except for the first couple that I didn't intend to get into an actual orbit... But I did build some fail-tastic rockets that looked far better than they functioned when I was learning the mechanics of it all (the balance between fuel capacity and TWR)

On the other hand I did build a couple of probes that were designed to (and did) go straight up and out of Kerbin's SOI to transfer to another planet. Maybe not the most efficient way but hey I was just seeing if it would work. One of them as I recall did an accidental flyby/slingshot around the Mun within 30km of the surface and at a very high speed just because I wasn't paying attention.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Duke23

[Kinglet]

I checked out the tutorials before attempting any big missions, and Scott Manley taught me the rest!

I learn by watching mech Jeb.

[celem]

Oddly enough, pointing at the mun (as it rises above kerbin) and burning will actually take you to the mun.(more or less) Though of course you wouldnt want to burn all the way there, i can totally see how that went wrong.

Cant say I had these issues, being from a classical physics background. But knowing what not to do, did not really help much when it come to what to actually do. KSP has a learning curve that just keeps on curving

Edited January 9, 2014 by celem

[xnorb]

KSP was the only game in 2013 (and maybe even of the last 3 years) that made me sit down for a few hours on first launch.

I did the tutorials (although i completely forgot about the manuever node on my first few travels) and later on i watched

some youTube videos to get the hang of how to space.

Started career mode twice and in the meantime i managed to successfully land and return to Mun and Minmus.

I even managed to get a Kerbal rescued from Minmus.

So many things left to do ...

[Aphobius]

What are you guys talking about? Do you mean burning straight towards the Mun is not how you get there?

I did it and works pretty well.

[Sof]

I actually got to the mun using the method described by OP.

This was way back when before career, so it was done using nuclear rockets when in space.

Managed to reach 5000ms-1 before lithobraking...

[Seret]

Maneuver nodes were an absolute revelation. I first played the game before they existed, but left for a few versions. Had no idea about maneuver nodes until I saw Scott Manley using them in one of his videos. I still sometimes do simple maneuvers without them just for old-school lols.

[lajoswinkler]

If we had insanely powerful engines, we might go straight to our destination, but we don't, so we just change our orbital parameters and try to catch on with the body.

[Javster]

No. I knew little about orbits when I started, so I went straight up, pointed sideways, and made that orbit.

[ComradeGoat]

I was fortunate enough to have done orbital mechanics in secondary school maths, so I already knew about conic sections, thrusting prograde/retrograde, etc.. I expect it would have been a very steep learning curve otherwise!

The space station in the orbit above you is going slower than you, so in order to match its speed, you speed up. Makes perfect sense!