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

[Popestar]

There is no "can't" in Kerbal Space Program.  Just because the solution isn't right in your face means it can't be done.  The Caveman challenge taught me that.

1 hour ago, jwenting said:

Rovers are too much of a PITA to be worth building.

I wholeheartedly disagree.  I may have had problems building my first one, but it was so worth it.  Even I never use it beyond the Mun, the lessons learned in the actual building of it and how to get payload off Kerbin is priceless.

Edited January 18, 2021 by Popestar

[jwenting]

12 hours ago, Popestar said:

There is no "can't" in Kerbal Space Program.  Just because the solution isn't right in your face means it can't be done.  The Caveman challenge taught me that.

I wholeheartedly disagree.  I may have had problems building my first one, but it was so worth it.  Even I never use it beyond the Mun, the lessons learned in the actual building of it and how to get payload off Kerbin is priceless.

So you never use them, proving my point. 

 

[Popestar]

5 hours ago, jwenting said:

So you never use them, proving my point. 

You didn't read what I wrote.  I said:

5 hours ago, jwenting said:

Even I never use it beyond the Mun,

Which means I am using them on the Mun.  If you are going to quote me, at least get the quote right.

[Dr. Kerbal]

You can’t (shouldn’t) use Solid Fuel Boosters to orbit

Pack a load of DV

Quicksave

more boosters

[Spricigo]

14 hours ago, Dr. Kerbal said:

You can’t (shouldn’t) use Solid Fuel Boosters to orbit

Should may be open to debate but one surely can do it.  Just take a look at the Ōsumi challenge

[Curveball Anders]

15 hours ago, Dr. Kerbal said:

You can’t (shouldn’t) use Solid Fuel Boosters to orbit.

 

38 minutes ago, Spricigo said:

Should may be open to debate but one surely can do it.  Just take a look at the Ōsumi challenge

You can use SRB's all the way to orbit.
The main problem is that they aren't throttleable so it's hard to handle Max Q losses.

 

[Popestar]

I learned today that you can upgrade buildings while you are in flight and get the benefits of them.  I started a new career on Moderate, and I forgot to upgrade the Astronaut complex before getting into orbit the first time.  So while I was in orbit, I thought "Let's see what happens", and upgraded the AC.  And got the benefit of being able to EVA even though Val was nowhere near Kerbin's surface when I upgraded.

[Daedalus3000]

An easy way to get to the mun before you have access to maneuver nodes is to wait until the mun appears on the horizon (when you are in orbit) and then raise your Ap to its orbital height. 

Note: every time I have used this method I have ended up on an impact trajectory, so save some fuel (~80 m/s) for a radial burn to avoid hitting the mun. 

[Popestar]

Today, in my Moderate career, I learned that setting a Pe of 1000m above the surface of the Mun can and will mean that you are going to crash into the side of a crater.  Apparently, this is not high enough.  Poor Jeb; we knew ye well.

[ricikap7]

 Big craft are cool and all, but they make the game laggy and are more vulnerable to the Kraken. Learn to minimize your part count and mass, especially in the upper stages.

[Mikenike]

• Always pack at least 2 parachutes... Even on sats. Especially those orbiting places like Laythe, Kerbin, or Duna. If I put a sat in orbit around places like Dres, Mun, Minmus, I will forget the chutes and pack at least 200m/s extra fuel if I eventually want to deorbit the sats to replace them with new ones. I will also use that fuel to reposition them as well. 
• Always pack more fuel than you need, as unforseen problems will always present themselves, whether it's the Mun interferring with your Duna transfer, causing you to have to adjust for a few hundred m/s, or a part giving trouble because of your ascent profile.
• Always bring your engineer along, as well as a scientist.  Unless I am using a 3-4+ person capsule, then I will use just those two specialties.
• Always over engineer crafts, not too much, but enough to help success
• Make a way to get home fast, if it's an emergency, then I say screw fuel/craft costs, lets get 'em home as fast as possible
• Change crews often in stations
• Add areas to stations before you need too, do it before you need to. Add fuel before you use the station for a fuel depot. 

[Dr. Kerbal]

More boosters.

In trust we trust.

More DV.

More Fuel.

More Kerbal.

[Owenmck]

• Test your designs if you are going interplanetary
• However, don't  be afraid to fail. Failing really is the best way to learn
• Watch Youtube. Watch Matt Lowne, Stratzenblitz75, Scott Manley
• For probes, go smaller
• While using maneuver nodes, activate "Extended burn indicator" in settings. Tells you when to start a burn

Really, just don't get intimidated. If something isn't working, take a step back and re-evaluate. Ask questions.

[bcqJC]

Whenever you get the chance, do a "Full Save".  Go to the Space Center, press F5 to save.  After the save completes, re-load the saved file.

When you do a full save, you're saving the game state with the vessels not active.  So KSP is just saving the last location and state of each vessel.  Re-loading the save effectively resets the game.  For me, this minimized Krakens, letting me enjoy the game longer without restarting.  I have about 100+ mods installed.  So restarts are a big deal for me.

Keep your part counts low.  This makes for smoother gameplay.  Less parts for your PC to keep track of in flight.  So any mod that allows me to minimize part count, is a plus.  TweakScale lets me size up parts - why use 3 engines when you can size 1 up to give you 3x the thrust?  Hangar let me carry vessels in a packed state.  When you carry a docked vessel, each and every part of that docked vessel is simulated even though it's not in use.  Configurable Containers lets me partition 1 tank to carry multiple types of resources vs 1 tank for each resource.

Related to keeping part counts low...  Avoid docking ships if you can.  When you dock, 2 ships become 1.  Ergo, more parts.  Also, I read somewhere that KSP uses 1 thread/vessel.  So by keeping vessels separate most of the time, you're using the multi-threading capabilities of your machine.

Autostruts.  Almost always, Autostrut to Grandparent (I use FullAutoStrut to enforce this).  This gives a part 2 or more "attachment" strut points - the point of attachment, and its grandparent - making it less likely to detach when stressed.  The "or more" occurs when the grand parent is symmetrical.  When the grandparent is a symmetrical part, each occurence of the symmetrical part IS a strut point.  You can see this by displaying autostruts - from Cheat menu/Physics, select visualize autostruts.  Experiment using Radial Symmetry and using at least a 3 part symmetry - the lines overlap when you use a 2 part symmetry so you don't see the extra strut lines.  By doing this, you are adding additional struts that act as a scaffolding around your ship WITHOUT increasing part count.

Edited March 1, 2021 by bcqJC
added some bits.

[Lisias]

Somehow, this post came to my timeline, so I thought to myself it would be a good idea to add my bits on it!

On 3/1/2021 at 7:45 PM, bcqJC said:

Keep your part counts low.  This makes for smoother gameplay.  Less parts for your PC to keep track of in flight.  So any mod that allows me to minimize part count, is a plus.  TweakScale lets me size up parts - why use 3 engines when you can size 1 up to give you 3x the thrust? 

Scaling engines on Career can potentially spoil your game. Make things too easy - in real life, economics and limitations on material engineering prevents us to resize engines at our will, so if you want to follow a "plausible path" on your game, avoid scaling engines.

Wheels, tanks, wings, control surfaces, fuselages (a pity we can't scale crewed parts correctly, but this is hardlocked on KSP's guts, nothing I can do), lights, even parachutes, that are the things I scale up and down without a second thought.

On the other hand, on my SandBox games, dude...

(I'm TweakScale maintainer, by the way  )

Edited March 8, 2021 by Lisias
Anotehr tyop!

[SpaceMinion7]

I suppose I can also pass on some important info too

1. No matter any of the cheats you enable, your craft still gets demolished at -250m on the Sun, but in the flight log, it says “crashed on the surface of the sun”

2. When using a maneuver node, instead of burning exactly right when you hit the maneuver node, you have to burn half the time it costs to get there(or maybe it’s the other way, like how long it takes to burn and half it), and right next to your nav ball it shows when you should start burning, instead of having to split a number in half, the game already does that for you

[JB182]

what important thing i learnt is getting to orbit is hard

[Rambow_Ninja94]

Cutting costs and cutting back on excessive craft is key.
Its much cheaper to send many small craft of a standardised design then one extremely large one.
(eg: packing all the scientific instruments on your first probe to a planet)
That and also the oberth effect... (something that MJ doesn't understand...)

Edited April 7, 2021 by Rambow_Ninja94

[Ben J. Kerman]

Always turn on rigid attachment (Or whatever it is called, I don't have KSP open right this second). This is especially important if you have the Breaking Ground DLC, since on many parts turning on autostrut will make it not work right.

[adsii1970]

There's no such thing as "let me finish this mission; it will only take five more minutes..." in KSP.

[GuessingEveryDay]

You guys didn't mention the Engineering report, that's the most important part for me. And it has stopped so many reverts and quicksaves when I realize I forgot the solar panels, parachutes, batteries, engines... I'm good at flying them, but building skills are shaky. I'll focus on one thing and completely leave out another. So it's good to have it to help remind me of things that I need.

Edited April 15, 2021 by GuessingEveryDay
Spelling

[Max von Kerman]

For me, the most important things are:

REMEMBER TO QUICKSAVE

KSP is a very glitchy game so remembering to save is very important.

[Curveball Anders]

2 hours ago, Max von Kerman said:

For me, the most important things are:

REMEMBER TO QUICKSAVE

KSP is a very glitchy game so remembering to save is very important.

I would add: and backup your saves.

My startup script creates a snapshot of my current saves every time I start the game.

So whatever happens I'll never loose more than the last session.

[king of nowhere]

On 1/18/2021 at 6:35 PM, jwenting said:

Rovers are too much of a PITA to be worth building.

hey, I run well over 5000 km on rovers! exploring surfaces can be a lot of fun, and rovers are great if they are properly built. By "properly built" I generally mean "capable of surviving and overturning themselves if they tumble".

I can point to my dancing porcupine rover; cruises at 30 m/s, is virtually indestructible at that speed, and it has rockets and isru. it can explore the whole system on its own except laythe, eve, kerbin (atmosphere gets in the way), tylo, moho (too much deltaV to get there from anywhere). and it has a nice cupola as a pilot post, so you can drive in first person.

 

which makes me think of what i could contribute to the thread: a space vehicle must not just perform its function, but also be fun to drive, or you'll get bored.

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by king of nowhere

[editor99]

Theorem: sufficient thrust can overcome any amount of bad aerodynamics.

Corollary: if you are having trouble with aerodynamics, you are using insufficient thrust.