I am confus. Wat do?

[The Grand Baboon]

Howdy folks. At the behest of a good friend of mine, I picked up KSP on Monday of this week. I've pretty much been playing it non-stop since then.

I just finished up my second manned mission to Minimus (shown below) and have completed ~5 manned missions to Mun. I have yet to lose a Kerbal.

I'd like to start going to other planets, but I'm a "fly by the seat of the pants" kinda guy. Thus far this has worked out pretty well. Maneuver nodes have been my lifesaver. However, even after much trouble my first attempt at an IPV ended in failure (I forgot antennas and only realized this a few hundred thousand clicks away from Kerbal). Thankfully I made an Alt+F5 save prior to my burn, but still....

Where should I go from here? What would be good things to practice to become proficient at IPT? I still can't quite grasp docking, or even getting close enough to dock. My last attempt at docking resulted in two ships endlessly chasing each other around in orbit.

[drew4452862]

Setup a refuel station orbiting the moon! At first I used mechjeb to dock but now I just use hyperedit

Up to you if you like those solutions. They can also dock for you or you can do it when the crafts are close.

If you want to look it up

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/27236-Tutorial-Step-by-step-Interplanetary-Hohmann-transfer-guide-and-tips

A lot of things like that online. As far as I can tell mechjeb just aligns your orbit with the target than increases the orbit size, then decreases it to gain \ lose speed.

[Pecan]

Where should I go from here? What would be good things to practice to become proficient at IPT? I still can't quite grasp docking, or even getting close enough to dock. My last attempt at docking resulted in two ships endlessly chasing each other around in orbit.

Read as many of the tutorials as you can cope with (not mine; that's about mission and vehicle design, not flight as such), practice, be patient, take it slow - especially docking.

So obviously you have no problem with orbital manoeuvres as such since you can get to Mun and Minmus. Interplanetary is just more of the same, Hohmann transfer and lots of messing-about with the nodes to get an intercept. The big thing is you need to go at the right time, when the planets are aligned - alexmoon.github.io/ksp/ will give you all the dates and figures you need. Understanding what it's telling you is a different matter.

Red Iron Crown (I think) made the good point that practicing transfers between Mun and Minmus and back is just like interplanetary - instead of sun, planet, planet you've got Kerbin, Mun, Minmus for instance.

Most people in the forums agree that rendezvous (getting two ships to meet) and docking (actually bringing them together) are two different skills and we nearly all find one a lot easier than the other. Again, there are a lot of tutorials that explain it.

[Mitchz95]

One thing you you could practice is going from Mun directly to Minmus and vice versa. Once you have a handle on that, transferring between Kerbin and another planet -- say, Duna -- is just the same thing scaled up.

[Aethon]

Welcome! Baboon huh? Wonder if we're kin? Are you any relation to the westington baboons from down turney way?

Seriously tho docking, will change your life- opening new, before unimagined possibilities. I'm not going to explain anything. Just spend an hour a day or so here reading threads that interest you and you'll learn a ton. No matter how hard it seems to you now, soon it'll be second nature and you'll be better at it than Mechjeb (never used it so I'm guessing).

After the .24 update you might try the mods Kerbal alarm clock, and Kerbal Engineer. Very helpful in reaching the outer or inner bodies.

Ask questions. This is a safe place, no one will ever be mean to you here. Share your experiences. Help others.

Happy exploring!

[ArmchairGravy]

Duna is my recommendation. Once you've done a few of those you'll have the knack of interplanetary travel.

[tutrakan4e]

Go to Duna and Eve's moons, then you're set for Duna itself! That's what I did.

[The Grand Baboon]

Much response. Very helpful. Wow.

So...IPT is just a large scale transfer with specific time windows? That's not too bad. For some reason I was thinking it'd be a lot more difficult than that. Good news.

Anyway, I've got my IPV in what seems to be a good orbit around Kerbin and have my lander ready to launch. Both have docking ports, plenty of monoprop, and RCS thrusters.

I should have mentioned it earlier, but I installed Mechjeb to assist with the rendevous/docking for my first (failed) IPV attempt. I've read enough here to learn the communities general consensus towards it. To belay any concern, let me say this: I love stickshifts and despise automatics. My objective was to see exactly what MJ was doing to accomplish the two previously listed tasks. I only understood the first thing MJ did, which was to match the inclination of the current orbit with the target. After that, it was all a foreign language.

I find great satisfaction in doing things manually, so I really want to figure out how to do it myself.

Off to the forums. Thanks, y'all.

[Dispatcher]

Welcome, Baboon! Sounds like you'll enjoy KSP.

[Redwizard000]

Docking is really easy once you learn how. It takes a bit of practice, but once you master it you are good. I once struggled with docking, but now I can do it in my sleep.

I personally think using autopilot mods is cheating, so my advice is to not use a mod and learn the real way to do it.

Get by with a little help from every Kerbals best friend Scott Manley:

&

And I must be a weirdo because my first interplanetary mission was to Eve (it ended badly... I learned that a mun lander with parachutes most certainly can NOT take off from eve... consider that a freebee safety tip!)

Duna and it's moon Ike are certainly easier first time targets if you want to do more than just a flyby. If all you want to do is a flyby your first interplanetary mission then, in my opinion anyway, both Eve and Duna are about the same difficulty to reach.

Oh and Welcome to the Forms

[AlamoVampire]

I feel the need to say a few things here.

1. Welcome!

2. I do recommend the continued use of MechJeb. Why you ask? Well, heres why: One, it can do what reading written tutorials and videos cannot. Fly YOUR space craft and show you how to do specific things, like transfers to moons/planets. Rendezvous and Dock with YOUR vessel, that YOU made <always better to see how YOUR stuff acts in these situations rather than something another player has made>. With that being said, it also provides valuable information on your vessel, TWR, DV, Orbital Information and the like. Yes KER can do that last part, but, in the scheme of things, you will find that automation along WITH that information is more useful, especially when you end up being FORCED to babysit a LONG burn on nuclear engines because you had no automation, because you chose to not use MJ. That or launching the same ship tens of dozens of times <base building, satellite networks and so on require identical launches, which get old doing it by hand each and every time.

3. Enjoy yourself in KSP, take breaks when you think you need to

[Claw]

I should have mentioned it earlier, but I installed Mechjeb to assist with the rendevous/docking for my first (failed) IPV attempt. I've read enough here to learn the communities general consensus towards it. To belay any concern, let me say this: I love stickshifts and despise automatics. My objective was to see exactly what MJ was doing to accomplish the two previously listed tasks. I only understood the first thing MJ did, which was to match the inclination of the current orbit with the target. After that, it was all a foreign language.

I find great satisfaction in doing things manually, so I really want to figure out how to do it myself.

Off to the forums. Thanks, y'all.

Well, I would like to say feel free to use whatever mods you like. For just about any mod you will find people who love and hate it.

Truly, it's all up to you. It's your game to enjoy how you'd like. MechJeb can make a great in-game teaching tool if that's what you want to use it for. Many people (like you) find a great deal of satisfaction from doing it themselves.

I also have MJ installed. I use it almost exclusively for information, although I use it from time to time for getting a rocket into orbit. I never trust it with anything else (such as docking), but that's mostly because I haven't used it for those things. (Well, I did once, but it failed horribly and crashed a module into my space station, but that's another story.)

Anyway, I always encourage people to play the game fairly free of mods to start off with. Then you'll start to get a feel for what kinds of mods you would like to add to the game. That seems to usually work out the best, but again, it's all up to you.

By the way: Welcome to the forums!!

[Linear]

You can use a load of stuff to help you with interplanetary travel, but i love using MJ to set up the node for me, you can then carry on from there, tuning your aerobrake along the way!

Duna is definatly a great start to help you get the hang of atmospheric landing and return. I'd then suggest using aerobraking to travel to duna's moon.

After that, try landing on eve (super easy) and transmitting some science. Don't attempt at trying to return, visit some other places and get more eexperience first.

The Joolian system is awesome, i particularly like Laythe.