I need a lot of help...

[KPV922]

Hi!

So I have been trying to be good at this game for a while now I have a lot of trouble with well, everything. I can barely get into orbit. I've only ever gotten to the Mun once, pretty much on accident. My designs JUST WON"T WORK!!! I want to go to the Mun and Jool and all the awesome places, but I can barely get to space...

Any tips?

Thanks!

[I.T Marcus]

Hmmm, well if you haven't seen his videos already... Scott Manley has some awesome beginner videos on youtube Not only will he tell you how to build your rockets, but help you understand the concepts that make it work and why some things are important Hope this helps

Just search "Scott Manley" on YouTube

And by the way, welcome

[TerrificToby]

Yep, definitely look at Scott Manley, if it hadn't been for him i never would have cracked rendevous and docking. When i docked first time, i celebrated like the guys at Curiosity Mission control.

[Taki117]

Welcome to the Forums. You're first few launches will be hard, Orbit is not easy! but the good news is, if you can make it to orbit you are half way to anywhere!

[KPV922]

Thanks for the fast replies!

I've managed to get into orbit! Not much, but I guess it's a start.

Thank you for the warm welcome everyone!

[I.T Marcus]

Np, I hope you have a very successful and inventive KSP experience! There are lots of really nice and helpful people here on the forums and will be glad to answer every question you might have

[kbatman]

The tutorials on the wiki are helpful as well.

[technicalfool]

The good news is, there's a bit of a unique trick for getting to Mün. The idea is to point prograde (in your direction of travel or where the navball has the yellow marker with horizontal lines in the middle of the view), and burn as or just before Mün comes over the horizon.

If you watch on the map view as you burn (and don't forget to have your navball visible in the map view), you'll be able to get a reasonably efficient transfer point as your orbit's apoapsis (the AP marker) rises towards Mün's orbit. The easiest thing to do there is to just keep the nose prograde and use a very low thrust level, watching the intercept's lowest point or periapsis (the PE marker on the predicted orbit). A 50KM periapsis is good enough to be able to time warp to (I think) 50x once you get into an orbit.

As for getting into an orbit, point retrograde once you're close to periapsis. That's the opposite direction of prograde, pointing your engines toward the direction of travel. Depending on how powerful your engines are determines on where you burn here. There are mods with flight computers here that will give you estimated fuel remaining in seconds, delta V remaining, and even carry out a circularisation burn for you, however in stock, the best game I think for a newbie to play is "chase the periapsis". As you burn, you'll see the blue PE marker hopefully start to move away from you. The idea is to get as close as you dare to the periapsis, but not cross over it. The nearer you are to periapsis, the harder it becomes to push the PE marker away from your ship, but the more circular your end orbit will be.

Basically, be skillful with throttle control and watching the navball markers, use map view, and stop thrusting when the periapsis and apoapsis are close enough or when the PE runs right away and ends up either halfway around the orbit from you or on the other side.

That should be enough to get you to Münar orbit given enough delta V to get there. Escaping from Mün back to Kerbin from Münar orbit is a case of burning prograde shortly before your ship reaches the point "in front" of Mün relative to its direction of travel. Basically look on map view and zoom out far enough to see Mün's orbit. It should rotate anticlockwise around Kerbin if viewed from above the North pole. If it's at the 3 o'clock position relative to Kerbin, you should start your burn to return somewhere around 12:00. Just get a fairly low predicted orbit around Kerbin, let yourself escape from Mün, and lower your orbit around Kerbin once you're there by burning retrograde at Apoapsis. If you can get the periapsis down to around 25KM, that's about the right height to re-enter without skipping back out of the atmosphere.

Other than that, take care when crossing Sphere-of-influence or SOI boundaries. The game doesn't like it when you cross from Kerbin to Münar orbit (or vice versa, or to any other orbit) at really high time warp values, and it can throw your final orbit right out. Use F5 to quicksave and F9 to reload quicksaves, Alt+F5 and Alt+F9 let you create named quicksaves, and also try the other things people have suggested in this thread. It's all good advice!

If all else fails, there's always the flight computer mods. Flight Engineer and Mechjeb 2 are popular ones. They both allow you to calculate the amount of delta V your rocket will give you, its thrust to weight and how long the fuel will last at full throttle. Mechjeb's autopilot features are both loved and hated it seems in equal measure here. Basically if you can engineer a rocket well, you can click a button and watch your rocket get itself into orbit, or land itself on Mün, and maybe learn while you watch how Mechjeb does it.

Edited June 25, 2014 by technicalfool

[Biff]

I know this is a late, as a beginner, I always stuck to LV-45's and Jebidiah's Junkyard and Spaceship Co. rocket parts, so if you are using the larger Rockomax parts, then try going smaller. Trust me, it is easier. I had this experience. Good luck!