What are the most important things you've learned about playing KSP to pass on?

[FleshJeb]

If you're having trouble placing landing gear on a plane, shift-click it (or click the root part) and flip the whole plane upside down.

THIS. Dear Kod, I used to do it all from underneath, until I saw someone do it on youtube.

I'll add:

Get SelectRoot. It makes the subassembly manager a LOT more useful.

Don't feel bad about using MechJeb. It's good to learn how to do everything manually and practice a bit, but if you find something tedious, automate it.

[Alchemist]

1.) even on a manned mission, you need electricity. If you run out, there's no way to steer your vehicle. You may end up with kerbals orbiting between Mun and Kerbin with no way to get home but plenty of fuel left.

If your engine can generate electricity a short brst wil fix the problem (even if in the wrong direction). Even if you just have gimbal, you might succeed at steering (I once almost landed on the Mun without electricity. But there was too much of a slope)

11.) Cheap autopilot for the gamer who wants to play stock: a keyboard with "cruise control". Often a feature of gaming keyboards. I've had kerbals walk kilometers across the Mun while I spend time with the wife.

I once used a small screwdriver on the W button to make Jeb (or was that Bill that time?) walk several kimoleters across the Mun to the rescue craft (he used what was left in his original craft and most of his RCS to get closer, but still landed 10 km away. The rescue craft was sent to another biome, so there was quite some distance between them)

[Kasuha]

This came out as a BIG surprise to me.

When building spaceplane with multiple engines, you can reduce flameout problems significantly if you interleave placing engines and intakes. Such as: one engine, two intakes, another engine, two more intakes, etc etc.

Do NOT place engines in symmetry alone! Either place them one by one, or prepare a set (e.g. a wing) with engine and its intakes and place them together.

[KvickFlygarn87]

I've never seen this anywhere, its not in the wiki (AFAIK) and its nowhere in the game tutorials (again, AFAIK) but I found that if you hold Left Shift with the Right Mouse button, and drag your mouse inside the VAB, (or the spaceplane hangar) you can translate your camera left, right, forward, and back. Never knew this, just passing it on!

Nah, that's only a thing in the SPH.

[Red Iron Crown]

This came out as a BIG surprise to me.

When building spaceplane with multiple engines, you can reduce flameout problems significantly if you interleave placing engines and intakes. Such as: one engine, two intakes, another engine, two more intakes, etc etc.

Do NOT place engines in symmetry alone! Either place them one by one, or prepare a set (e.g. a wing) with engine and its intakes and place them together.

I don't think I quite get what you mean by this. Do you mean the order of placement in the SPH matters, not just the count of engines and intakes? That sounds like a bug if so.

[Kasuha]

I don't think I quite get what you mean by this. Do you mean the order of placement in the SPH matters, not just the count of engines and intakes? That sounds like a bug if so.

I added a chapter and an experiment to my fuel flow tutorial. Yes it's true and while I think the air and electricity distribution could use some improvements, at present it gives us nice workaround to existing problems.

[Red Iron Crown]

So two craft, with exactly the same parts in the same positions, can have different performance characteristics? I can see how that was an unexpected result!

It seems like a bug to me, for what problems do you see it being useful as a workaround?

[Kasuha]

I'm pretty sure it does not count as a bug. It is imperfect implementation but it works as intended by the developer.

And honestly, I prefer this (once I know how it works) over mechanic that would lead to asymmetric flameout in all cases.

I discovered it by accident, BTW. Some time ago I made an SSTO with a lot of jet engines and air intakes and it was flying perfectly, no asymmetric flameout problems at all. Now I was struggling with a different SSTO and I had such serious problems with it I thought I'll give up. Then I remembered that earlier SSTO and was wondering why was it flying so nicely when this one is not. And surprisingly, I figured it out

Edited May 24, 2014 by Kasuha

[Russoft]

If your engine can generate electricity a short brst wil fix the problem (even if in the wrong direction). Even if you just have gimbal, you might succeed at steering (I once almost landed on the Mun without electricity. But there was too much of a slope)

It was an LV909 so no electric generation. I didn't even have RCS. The ship began spinning furiously as I dried to burn retrograde to deorbit. I could've "gotten out and pushed" but I found it easier to send a grabbing claw. Luckily Jeb can survive 9 years in space

[Rickenbacker]

Here's one I found out by mistake last night: If you have a ship with RCS, activating RCS and deactivating the engines, makes your throttle control the RCS for forward flight only! In effect, all the rearward pointing RCS acts as a single engine.

[cantab]

Here's one I found out by mistake last night: If you have a ship with RCS, activating RCS and deactivating the engines, makes your throttle control the RCS for forward flight only! In effect, all the rearward pointing RCS acts as a single engine.

I couldn't reproduce that just now. Are you sure you haven't either got a mod that's doing this, or remapped the keys for RCS translation forwards and back to Shift and Control?

[Rickenbacker]

Whaa... Is this KAS, or is it Stock? I've never been able to do something like this before...

It's KAS. That and the attachable struts is the main reason I use KAS.

[roblamb98]

Always remember intakes! I have no idea how many times i went "Why isnt my plane working?" after an hour of planning and the launch.

[Korr]

Whaa... Is this KAS, or is it Stock? I've never been able to do something like this before...

Oops, guess it's one of those mods that are so essential to me I forgot it was even a mod.

Kinda like "Editor Extensions" in case I need 50 boosters wrapped around a tank.... or something hehehe

[ThinkOutsideTheHangar]

Most important thing? Never ever underestimate the chance of a failure.

[J4CKAL2014]

1. MechJeb is an incredibly useful and time-saving tool - I use it all the time - but it is important to get to grips with at least basic orbital manoeuvring first. Why bother? Well sometimes MechJeb makes errors (e.g. putting you on a Kerbin escape trajectory that sends you through Kerbin XD) and when that happens you are gonna need to know how to fly by yourself. My confession is that I probably couldn't do Munar/Minmus landings without it; orbital manoeuvring, rendezvous and docking I have done without it, but not landing :/

2. 90% of my mission restarts have probably come from forgetting deploy the solar panels/activate power source. Don't forget it

3. If the craft is Kerbal'd (i.e. has Kerbals on board), try to implement some sort of escape system (especially if you're someone who doesn't like restarting/quicksaving) and have a plan to get them back to Kerbin or be able to keep them alive if things don't go too well.

4. Locking the gimbals on your first rocket stage can be extremely useful because it greatly reduces wobble (this mainly applied if you've got a very powerful first stage or you have some potentially unstable connections in places). At the same time, it can be very helpful to have an action group set up which toggles the gimbals because - and this mainly applies if you're trying to push a lot of weight into orbit - the center of mass is going to shift as you drain fuel and lose weight. If you have a lot of weight at the top of the rocket, the directed rocket thrust from your main stage may be the only thing that stops it from spinning.

5. Try to go for a sensible reentry. I have Deadly Reeentry Continued installed, so I have to do this, but sooner or later deadly reentry is going to be implemented into the stock game anyway (as far as I know) so its worry getting to grips with it now before you start frying your Kerbals later on. Having a periapsis of about 25-30km on reentry has worked for both from orbital reentries, moon returns AND interplanetary returns.

That's all I can really think if, aside from all the stuff that's already been posted. Most importantly: have fun and play how you want mods or no mods, it doesn't matter what you choose. Be sure to play at your own pace that you're comfortable with

[Guest]

.

Edited December 30, 2020 by OdysseustheGood

[Apature rocket science]

I thing you need to learn is that struts are needed in everything

Fuel line are op

Kas is needed for everything where ever I go I allways have a toolbox filled with struts and solar pannles not to mention external comand seats

Rember 2 is 1 and1 is none allways have backups and a way out if kerbal **** hits the fan,

Don't be a ***** and just load the last quick save, kerbal on and learn form your mistakes that's what. Makes ksp ksp

[Biff Space]

This might be obvious, but I've only just found this docking technique.

When trying to dock two ships, I used to pilot the docker onto an imaginary line coming out of the target's docking port, kill all velocity, turn the docker to face the target, and move along the imaginary line to dock.

It's much easier to get the docker flying straight towards the target, then switch to the target ship, set the docker as the target's target, rotate the target to face the docker, and switch back to the docker. Now the docker is on the imaginary line towards the target, all lined up.

Doesn't work with space stations or other targets that can't be rotated easily, but for two manoeuverable ships it's great.

[Laie]

When building spaceplane with multiple engines, you can reduce flameout problems significantly if you interleave placing engines and intakes. Such as: one engine, two intakes, another engine, two more intakes, etc etc.

Do NOT place engines in symmetry alone! Either place them one by one, or prepare a set (e.g. a wing) with engine and its intakes and place them together.

All of a sudden, two intakes go a long, looong way. Goodbye intake spam. And thanks for finding out (esp. the part about how one can still use symmetry).

[Alshain]

My biggest thing I learned is don't try to be a completionist. At first I thought you had to collect all the science, but I didn't realize there was more science in the planetary system there was stuff to spend it on and attempting to grab every little thing on Kerbin is tedious. My last play through I got only enough from Kerbin to get 3 unlocks and then I was able to get high orbit over the Mun. Never went back and grabbed anything else from Kerbin.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Alshain

[Aghanim]

1. Play Realistic Solar System and weep while all of your rockets cannot go orbital

2. Use FAR and watch your rockets break in mid air

3. Use Deadly Reentry and watch your kerbal capsule explodes while reentry

4. MJ PID tuner is bad, it doesn't allow us to manually adjust the PID values directly

5. MJ spaceplane guidance is useful to stabilize an inherently unstable airplane, if you adjust the PID values correctly

[mpk10]

It's a small thing I suppose, and maybe it's super obvious, but once it occurred to me, it allowed me a lot more options for construction design. One can add an additional probe pod to any craft and flip it upside down, then during flight, you right click it and "control from here" to flip your orientation. This allowed me to have some engines in some stages facing "up" at launch and solves a lot of other tricky construction problems.

-Matt

[i like turtles]

Actually, the best way to experience KSP fully is without any mods at all. Just visual mods like Kerbpaint etc. Check out mareczex at www.youtube.com/user/mareczex333. He does not have any mods. Just kerbpaint and some visual mods. no Kerbal Engineer, no mechjeb. And yet, he still flies his plane replicas better than a real fighter pilot. Also, learn to understand the NavBall and the map. It helps A LOT. Then, you should calculate the mass of your final plane/rocket , convert the total amount of thrust on your first stage to kg, and the final result should be your thrust being more than your plane/rocket's total mass.

[Tw1]

One thing- always strut inwards from a booster. This allows you to copy the booster using alt, should you need another, without having to to all the strutting again.