New Member Hoping to Enjoy KSP to the Max

[vaironl]

Hello All!

I'm new to the forums, but have owned KSP for about 3 months. However, I'm a college student who also works and time is very limited on most weeks. I've been able to do a couple of successful launches in about 20 total hours of gameplay. When I heard about the game I was initially thinking of waiting for a sale and couldn't resist so I bought it a full price. I still don't mind as I believe this game is worth every penny, however time and knowledge have limited my enjoyment on the game.

By time as I explained previously work and school keep me very busy. By knowledge I mean I'm not good at building aircrafts, etc at all. I've watched some videos and read certain parts of the wiki, but I guess I didn't learn all subjects needed to be successful in the game.

If you guys have a path you followed to learn how to properly play the game please link me to it! My goal is to eventually build my own model aircrafts/spacecrafts without the aid of someone's video. I also would love to apply what I'm learning in my Calc class to the game.

Cheers!

[Vanamonde]

Learning KSP is the process of crashing closer and closer to your destination. There is no formal way to do it. Welcome to the forum. (I suck at planes, too.)

[Lhathron the Elf]

The tutorials in-game as well as Scott Manley's youtube channel initially really helped me. My mindset at first when playing this game in the Demo version was basically this: "I just gotta make the next stage bigger den da first and den I can get to space!" It turned out that this helped me figure out the mechanics quite well, because it often didn't work. But I've recently been a lot more efficient in my designs.

Another thing that really helped me a lot more in my effort to build is this... Say you're going to build a small rocket that's going to go into orbit and then return to the surface. First you have to think, "Okay, first I need a stage that's going to actually land on Kerbin." Maybe that's a Mk1 command pod with a radially mounted parachute. Then you have to think, "How am I going to get this to the surface from orbit?" Once you have that, you can figure out what you need to get all of that up into a circular orbit from ascent. Then you need a stage to get all of that off of the launch pad and up into the sky. It's the same basic idea if you're trying to land on Mun or even get a permanent base to Laythe.

[Frank_G]

Welcome to the forums vaironl.

Dont worry about the learning curve in KSP. It either comes naturally by crashing a lot or you take a look at some youtube channels as mentioned above. I can recommend kurtjmac and simgamerstv f.e..

Some tips that helped me a lot... Start small, use a sandbox game beside your career game to test yor designs, keep your designs as simple as possible.

Enjoy the stay and the game

[vaironl]

Thank you all for the warm welcome and for the tips!

I have at times watched Scott Manley's videos and applied some of his models, so I guess I simply need to keep taking in information and eventually I'll be able to design space ships knowing the possible outcome they might have (crashing, too slow, unstable, etc.).