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

[Jouni]

Knowing what MechJeb is doing isn't terribly helpful if doing it requires the kind of precision that you just can't get without an autopilot or being Scott Manley. Knowing the theory behind a Hohmann Transfer and intercepting a vehicle in its orbit and being able to do it on the fly are quite different things.

MechJeb's Maneuver Node Editor is a good learning tool for planning orbital maneuvers. First learn the theory, then watch and try to understand how MechJeb plans the maneuver, and then do it yourself by placing a roughly correct maneuver node and fine tuning it with the Maneuver Node Editor.

A good thing to know is that you usually don't need that much precision in executing the maneuvers. Just do most of the planned burn with high thrust at the right time, then cut the thrust, turn the ship to face the blue marker again, and complete the burn with low thrust. You may need to do a course correction on the way to the destination, but that usually doesn't need that much fuel compared to the original maneuver.

[Wooks]

Knowing what MechJeb is doing isn't terribly helpful if doing it requires the kind of precision that you just can't get without an autopilot or being Scott Manley. Knowing the theory behind a Hohmann Transfer and intercepting a vehicle in its orbit and being able to do it on the fly are quite different things.

You don´t need to be Scott Manley, you need to learn from his teachings and then do it yourself. Don´t be afraid of learning new things, it doesn´t hurts a bit . Also I learned how to intercept a vehicle in orbit without knowing what a Hohmann Transfer is, I just watched a couple videos from talented youtubers and BAM, renezvouz and docking unlocked.

... First learn the theory, then watch and try to understand how MechJeb plans the maneuver, and then do it yourself by placing a roughly correct maneuver node and fine tuning it with the Maneuver Node Editor....

"First learn the theory" is the best advice you can give to anyone in KSP.

[Palamedes]

Oddly, the thing that I have learned the most is how smart the folks at NASA/JPL were in the 60's when they put a man on the Mun..er.. Moon with nothing more than slide rules and raw knowledge. NASA/JPL, you guys are amazing.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Oddly, the thing that I have learned the most is how smart the folks at NASA/JPL were in the 60's when they put a man on the Mun..er.. Moon with nothing more than slide rules and raw knowledge. NASA/JPL, you guys are amazing.

Well, they are literally rocket scientists, after all.

[WhiteKnuckle]

Knowing what MechJeb is doing isn't terribly helpful if doing it requires the kind of precision that you just can't get without an autopilot or being Scott Manley. Knowing the theory behind a Hohmann Transfer and intercepting a vehicle in its orbit and being able to do it on the fly are quite different things.

Dude, you don't need an autopilot, and you don't need to be Scott Manley (who, by his own admission, isn't even that good of a pilot). What you do need is 1: To understand all the steps. 2: PRACTICE THEM.

Yes, that means you may have to spend an hour or two just launching practice ships and trying to rendezvous with them. Yes you will fail the first few times. Yes it will be a little frustrating. But it's like learning how to ride a bike, at first it seems impossible, then it's just difficult, and then it becomes so natural you could do it in your sleep.

If you don't want to take the time to learn how to do it that's fine, no one's making you give up MJ. But please stop telling new players who are having trouble that they should just give up and let mechjeb do it for them, they might get the wrong idea that you know what you're talking about.

[Max Grant]

2. Docking navball indicator mod

Docking entirely with the navball!

Actually, I usually dock with about 99% navball.

3. Kerbal engineer

I can't design a rocket without this anymore. It lets me configure the engines I need for a payload efficently. So far my space program has an unlimited budget. The efficency is for game performance. If i can make a more efficient rocket to complete a mission I should. It makes the game run better.

Engineer works for some things, but I've seen it has its limitations. Being a program, it can't think for you.

4. Asparagus staging

I never got why this is used until I started using it and setting it up. An asparagus staged rocket is more efficient than a standard staged rocket at least for the purpose of this game. It seems that rockets downstream from the fuel line will not actually increase the burn rate on rockets upstream. That is if you tied 2 tanks together and have a rocket on each the upstream tank drains as if it has only one rocket on it instead of 2. Yes it's counter intuitive to how you would think it happens. You get the thrust of the engines in the center without actually using the fuel tanks above them until the outer stages are completed.

More importantly, the idea is to only carry stuff with you that you have to have on you. I was at one point toying with doing fly-off tanks that would leave an engine below them, but separate from above the stack using sepatrons or whatever, and cutting the fuel into as many small compartments as I could. Sometimes, the results were very exciting.

I think my ideal rocket design would be more like an artichoke with the rocket in the middle and several layers of fuel tank that are shed progressively as the rocket ascends.

[HoustonDave]

I learned halfway through career mode that you can connect parts with struts even if they will decouple later.

I assumed at first that you could not, and was really fighting to make rockets that could get past Kerbin low orbit with a two-way ticket.

And Kerbal Engineer has been invaluable. I'm using no other mods and dropping probes on all planets up to Jool so far.

Love it.

[WhiteKnuckle]

I learned halfway through career mode that you can connect parts with struts even if they will decouple later.

I assumed at first that you could not, and was really fighting to make rockets that could get past Kerbin low orbit with a two-way ticket.

You can do this with docking ports too.

My main science vessel is an interplanetary mothership with a lander docked to the top, without struts there's no way it would survive launch, but with them it makes it just fine. Get to wherever you're going and un-dock the lander and all the struts disappear, get science, return to the mothership and dock and fly home.

[zxczxczbfg]

Mechjeb can't land at all in the latest versions and its docking is far from effective. I use it mostly for planning my interplanetary burns and it really saves me a lot of time and dv.

Erm, it can land . . . I know this because I've used mechJeb many, MANY times for my various Mun shots.

[theend3r]

Erm, it can land . . . I know this because I've used mechJeb many, MANY times for my various Mun shots.

Maybe it can land with some designs but surely not with mine. All goes well until I'm just a few meters above surface where it tries to slow down to landing speed. At that time it starts to spin uncontrollably whereas I can land it just fine. Maybe if I added a sas module and tweaked the MJ sas options (Tf?) it would work better but that shouldn't be necessary.

[HoustonDave]

You can do this with docking ports too.

*tips hat* Much obliged.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Dude, you don't need an autopilot, and you don't need to be Scott Manley (who, by his own admission, isn't even that good of a pilot). What you do need is 1: To understand all the steps. 2: PRACTICE THEM.

Yes, that means you may have to spend an hour or two just launching practice ships and trying to rendezvous with them. Yes you will fail the first few times. Yes it will be a little frustrating. But it's like learning how to ride a bike, at first it seems impossible, then it's just difficult, and then it becomes so natural you could do it in your sleep.

If you don't want to take the time to learn how to do it that's fine, no one's making you give up MJ. But please stop telling new players who are having trouble that they should just give up and let mechjeb do it for them, they might get the wrong idea that you know what you're talking about.

Right. Nobody's telling me to give up MechJeb, they're just snidely insisting that I don't know how to play KSP because I use MechJeb and that the advice I have for new players is, somehow, thus invalid.

Get this through your head: Without MechJeb, I would not be able to play KSP. The only sort of orbit I can make reliably is the imprecise, inefficient, straight up-and-circularize-at-apoapsis kind. I wouldn't be able to ride a gravity turn, even if I had the inclination to do so manually, let alone would I be able to do it with the computer lagging all to hell the way it is wont to do when launching a behemoth 1,200 ton rocket.

I would not be able to ride that gravity turn into the orbital inclination of my choice at all, let alone reliably put the most heavy, laggy loads with loads of stages into the inclination of my choice to within two significant figures. I sure as hell wouldn't be able to reliably change my inclination to within four sig figs, let alone do so efficiently, not would I be able to, say, launch a rocket any time and then match its inclined orbital plane to that of another inclined orbit with the same inclination but a different plane. I don't know what the heck an ascending node or a descending node is, except that when referring to a body you're orbiting, it's where your orbit passed the equator.

But I do know that I can tell that wonderful little autopilot to make it so. And it makes it so! Because, though I don't know how to pilot those burns myself, I do know that I need them. I know what orders to give MJ to get the desired result, which has allowed me to focus on other things, like designing a behemoth 30-ton lander that incorporates all the kethane mining and refining equipment I could want, all the science I could want, a science lab to clean out experiments after I've used them, a nuclear reactor with a brayton cycle generator and enough heat dissipation facillity to do what I want with it, a refinery to reprocess my spent nuclear fuel if it's a long trip, and enough dV to do single-stage-to-kerbin and land intact on parachutes

If I'd listened to the "Only lazy newbs who don't know what they're doing use MechJeb, be a real man and pilot your own damn rockets" crowd, I would have said "Arrrgh! This is so frustrating! Why am I wasting my time doing this?!" and deleted Kerbal Space Program.

But I did not listen to those people. And because I did not listen to those people, Jebediah Kerman is grinning his little face off on Minmus, piloting a gigantic mobile lander, doin' Science and refining kethane. And anything that gets Jebediah into space is a good thing.

So clearly, I do know what I'm doing. What I'm doing is running a successful space program. And like all successful administrators, I delegate the tasks I am not good at to those who are better at them and trust them to get the job done.

(And yes, MJ is perfectly capable of landing in 0.23. MJ landed that gigantor lander of mine, quite reliably.)

[Wooks]

A lot of words.

Nobody has told you anything negative. If you want to play KSP with MechJeb without knowing how to perform the maneuver yourself its okay, the mod is there and you can install it and let it play for you, no problem at all. What has been said is more on the lines of advice, you have said that you can´t understand the NavBall and everybody adviced on how to do it, where to learn it and the best ways to apply that knowledge. As I said, learning does not hurt a bit

KSP has so much more behind designing ships. KSP is an exploration game, and in my personal experience is best to know all there is to know about the mechanics of the game before delving into mods that may rob you of that experience. Is not that hard, it may seem hard but really isn´t. There are not secret arcane knowledge hidden behind some kind of taboo temple only open to the acholytes of the orbital God of doom. A little bit of fiddling here, nudging there, some exploding and failed orbits and you will be part of the crowd.

Damn, I´m not even good at math , I once tried to understand how to calculate Delta-V and my brain turned inside out, but then I found some user friendly charts made by our own community and now I have all the tools I need to do it.

Don´t take anything on this thread personal, is just advice, everyone plays the game as they wish to do it, some want to do it easy, some want to do it hard, some others like it oldschool hardcore, and that´s the beauty of the game.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Wooks

[WhiteKnuckle]

word fort

Like I said, no one cares if you're using MJ. It's become increasingly obvious by your posts that you have no desire to actually learn how to do anything yourself. But this forum, and this sub-forum specifically, is here so that people can learn how to do stuff.

So yeah, I do consider it bad form to just say "Let MJ do it" when someone asks a question. As many other people have said, you can use MJ as a teaching aid, so if you say "Let MJ do it, watch what it's doing, and then try it yourself" then no one would be giving you grief, myself included.

If you don't want to take the training wheels off your bike, well I feel sorry for you, but I won't try to change your mind. But don't tell other people not to bother learning how to ride... Cause it's a lot of fun.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Nobody has told you anything negative.

If you don't want to take the time to learn how to do it that's fine, no one's making you give up MJ. But please stop telling new players who are having trouble that they should just give up and let mechjeb do it for them, they might get the wrong idea that you know what you're talking about.

Clearly, I don't have a fluent grasp on the English language despite it being my first and native tongue. Because clearly, that is not "anything negative" implying and insinuating that I don't know what I'm talking about.

Oh wait, no, the other thing. That's right, that's exactly what that was - WhiteKnuckle telling me I didn't know what I'm talking about. Because, as I said, I clearly do know what I'm talking about.

MechJeb can't design that thing, let alone the lift vehicle required to get this behemoth into orbit, transfer it to Minmus, and put it down on the ground. MechJeb certainly can't plot a biome-hopping grand tour of Minmus. It also can't give you a short suborbital hop, and it can't bring you to a good rest on a hill. All of that requires the player.

KSP has so much more behind designing ships. KSP is an exploration game, and in my personal experience is best to know all there is to know about the mechanics of the game before delving into mods that may rob you of that experience. Is not that hard, it may seem hard but really isn´t. There are not secret arcane knowledge hidden behind some kind of taboo temple only open to the acholytes of the orbital God of doom. A little bit of fiddling here, nudging there, some exploding and failed orbits and you will be part of the crowd.

You see that picture there? I think I've got fairly unimpeachable exploration chops.

Don´t take anything on this thread personal, is just advice, everyone plays the game as they wish to do it, some want to do it easy, some want to do it hard, some others like it oldschool hardcore, and that´s the beauty of the game.

If you don't want to take the time to learn how to do it that's fine, no one's making you give up MJ. But please stop telling new players who are having trouble that they should just give up and let mechjeb do it for them, they might get the wrong idea that you know what you're talking about.

Oh, I'm sorry. Clearly, this is not a personal jab alluding to my being a know-nothing unqualified to speak on the topic of Kerbal Space Program.

Oh wait, no, the exact opposite, because that's exactly what it is.

[Wooks]

words

Dude, chill pills, you are making this a boring personal drama and this is not about you, is about what the community thinks about mods and how to use them, you are making big waves about a simple deal.

- If you like to design ships and let MechJeb do the heavy lifting, then do so.

- If I like to launch my stuff withouth mods, I´ll do so.

- If anyone asks me how to do it, I´ll tell them "do it without mods first" so you can learn to enjoy this game on a deeper, meaningful way.

- If anyone else wants to use mods to avoid the more dense parts of the game (long burns, repetitive tasks) its okay, but I´ll advise to do so after having practiced them by yourself.

I´ve heard the next update will bring new tutorials, maybe this will help new players to learn the ropes easier and comprehend the nuances and fine details of the game early on.

From the Kerbal Space Program blog: http://kerbaldevteam.tumblr.com/post/75618635102/devnote-tuesdays-the-0-24-update-goals-edition

Tutorials Revisited

It’s been a long time since we did the in-game tutorials now. They harken back to ye olden times of version 0.17, and when you consider that 0.18 was when we added maneuver nodes and docking, you start to get a sense of just how much has changed in the game since the tutorials were written. Needless to say then, they’re in dire need of a revision, and that’s what we plan to do on this update, and if time allows, also add a couple of new ones.

Edited February 12, 2014 by Wooks

[WhiteKnuckle]

I was going to post another long reply, but I think Shadowdragon is doing a fine job making my point for me

[Wooks]

I was going to post another long reply, but I think Shadowdragon is doing a fine job making my point for me

Just don´t, lets settle this issue and move on please.

[WhiteKnuckle]

Yeah yeah I know, I'll leave before I say something that gets me banned.

[ArmchairGravy]

This is the best advice I've ever seen on the forums: Drop your heaviest stages first.

This applies to onion/asparagus staging as well. Once I took this to heart the game got a lot lot lot easier.

[Vanamonde]

The discussion is getting rather heated, both sides have said their peace about Mechjeb, and new players can read those and form their own opinions. So from this point on, please discuss the game rather than each other, and consider the subject of Mechjeb covered. Thank you.

[Exize]

I've only been playing KSP for a few days now. The first and most important lesson I've learned is to set small achievable goals as well as large long term goals. Even while I was mastering (methodically) the navball and LKO, I knew these skills would serve as a foundation for all my future endeavors. It has been my experience that each goal achieved brings tremendous satisfaction no matter the scope. The level of depth ensures that you will not run out of chances to amaze yourself anytime soon.

[SSSPutnik]

The Oberth Effect is hard to understand but boils down to the fact that less dV is required for maneuvers at periapsis that at apoapsis.

[RedPine]

Remember that everyone has different brain types when they give advice about which youtuber to learn from, or which mod to use..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080729100708AAWPTj2

Because KSP is so difficult, the ways in which people handle KSP reflects how their mind works at a fundamental level. Some people are so good with maneuver nodes they don't even need the maneuver node editor, others are literally incapable of understanding maneuver nodes at a fundamental level. What's important is that you aren't ashamed of your playstyle, and that you aren't surprised when you find out that not only does not everyone _choose_ to think like you, not everyone _can_ think like you.

[Blue]

Always check your fuel lines, docking port alignment and staging order, and then double-check, before launch.