Howdy All

[Riftmann]

I thought I'd say hi.

I've been messing around with Kerbal Space Program for a couple of weeks. The Kerbal Rocket Group (a name I got from the old Quatermass movies, who is in charge of the British Rocket Group) has not been too successful to date. I'm playing the unmodified game until I get use to it. My biggest achievement to date has been landing (twice!) on Minmus, once on a slope about 60 degrees. I go kaboom when I try the Mun. I've also tried Career mode, which is fun, I'm thinking I should switch back to sandbox. I studied physics, math, and astronomy in college and absolutely love the game, grew up in the late '60s watching Apollo and Walter Cronkite, and love space (Obviously) Realistic, but not toooo realistic.

I'll be asking a lot of questions. I watch the tutorials people have put on YouTube, but they make it look sooo easy. I hit the space bar at the wrong time, but I've learned that F5 is your friend.

Thanks

[Vanamonde]

Quartermass and the Pit scared the snot out of me. And I'm usually bored during horror movies. But that giant insect face floating in the sky at the end? YIKES!

[Javin]

I've gotten to the point that I can land pretty much anywhere (even Kerbin) 100% of the time without going boom. (Well, not on slopes so much.) The trick I've found is to use CapsLock to give you more "fine" control over the thrusters, and ONLY LOOK AT THE NAVBALL. Took me forever to quit trying to look at the craft and control it through brute force. The navball gives you everything you need to land (short of the ACTUAL distance to the land - something I wish they'd add). Use your retrograde indicator to stop ALL lateral movement, and then once perfectly centered, control your speed to land at under 6 m/s and you'll be golden.

Welcome to the forums! I'm a newbie myself!

[ThinkOutsideTheHangar]

Welcome to the forums! Fly safe.

[Riftmann]

Thank you all for the warm welcome. Would you reccomend I get use to the virgin basic game before add-ons and mods? And yes, I discovered the capslock key the other day, lol. And yes Quartermass and the Pit scared the bejeppers out of me too, I was about 8 or 9. I usually don't/didn't have nightmares, but I wonder what the heck my parents were thinking when they took me to it (and I'm aging myself horribly)

[Riftmann]

I found a brilliant logo someone designed on Deviant Art for the British Rocket Group in the Quatermass Movies that I am using for my Kerbal Rocket Group(I'll go back and give him credit if I ever post the flag.) I also have a sandbox going with Dododyne Propulsion (if anyone gets the reference I'll be impressed.) It's flag is white with a clipart Dodo on it and it is hilarious if I do say so myself (I'm thinking of changing all their first names to John and just change their last names)

Parts of the game are frustrating me. I'm trying to learn how to dock, but it is going slow. Docking, I haven't even tried rendevousing yet. I sent up a small robotic space station, with a small robotic ship already docked to it. I used one of those 6 docking port dohicky mcboobs. I'm terrible. I managed to actually docked at one although i had to sit there for a while before it became one ship again. I tried undocking, and docking to another one, but it won't seem to stick. I'm perfectly aligegned and I can't get off of it with RCS (and there is only RCS). I don't know why it won't click. I read somewhere to turn off SAS on both ships, but that didn't help, and someone said you have to place the docking ports correctly or they won't work. If it's a construction problem, I'm screwed. i understand docking, the problem is learning the keys, I keep hitting the wrong ones. My 10 year old nephew was watching me, it's a great way to demonstrate Newtonian physics, it was fun explaining things to him I studied orbital mechanics in college and have a undergrad degree i math, I was planning to get a graduate degree in astronomy, but things happened. So I understand the principles and the math, its panicking and hitting the wrong keys, that is frustrating me, and i get nervous...