Kerbal Space Program

I might try redesigning a bit to see if I can do something similar. It would be really cool to get it working...that's half the fun of the game...seeing how far you can take things :)

At the moment the issue is that my rover is on the top of the payload stack. I discovered that with about 8 linear RCS ports I can literally lift the rover off of the ground and fly it around even on Kerbin (don't get me started on how incredibly overpowered RCS and monopropellant is)

So instead of a sky crane approach I'm planning to just land my lander with the rover on top then just jet it off :)

So I decided to test out my newest lander as a remote vehicle. Good thing I did. :)

Just started playing. I can't even get my kerbonauts to do one revolution around Kerbal! I suck and need to read more about this stuff. I haven't read any tutorials yet, but this is soo fun.

How do the space planes work? I got mine to fly straight into the ocean. The next test-pilot had a very frightened look at the attempted take-off of KX-2. It flipped sideways and blew up on the runway.

Also, Calistas, plz do an LP for .18!

Ok you have convinced me! I will. As for help, check back in this thread for linked videos and watch those people's YT channels. Should get you going.

Don't feel bad, Shake! I've committed Kerbal genocide in the name of developing a functional aerospace program - dozens of brave Kerbals sacrificed their lives on the landing pad, slightly to the left of the landing pad, in a firey ball a few thousand meters above the landing pad, halfway around the planet after failing to achieve orbit, in a space plane that eventually sheared off a wing, etc. They are brave, brave space-greasers - especially Sidming, he greets death with a wry smile - that finally have the first part of a would-be space station in orbit. Ambitious. (Sorry, I'll get pictures. I kind of want to do an LP, as if this was the planet Krikkit from "Life, the Universe and Everything".) I feel the need to mention that they first cowardly launched a massive, unmanned rocket into space that Kerbal space command, predictably, lost control of as I did not think to attach any antennas to it. This resulted in it sling-shotting around the Mun and then another planet and finally (somehow) ending up caught back in Kerbin's gravity. Now it is trailing Kerbin in the exact same orbit around the sun. Bizarre! But I refuse to close out any space junk, so it serves as a reminder to all my Kerbals that FAILURE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED BEWARE OF THE MASSIVE WANDERING FUEL-FILLED ROCKET.

The biggest thing that I had to get used to was that minor control adjustments work a lot better than jamming on a key and twirling. It took me a few minutes to work out that on my bigger orbit stages there is so much mass still left in the fuel + engines that they really have to torque the hell out of the beast to turn it... so if you turn and turn and turn it you'll just send yourself off into a spin of death. SAS and RCS are wonderful tools once you develop a feel for how to work them, though - it's really just a matter of learning to read the nav ball and fine tuning your controls and your responses to them. RCS is probably too advanced for your first few rockets, but, hey, your space program, man! :) Planning manoeuvres is equally helpful once you get used to it - it seems frustrating and counter-intuitive at first, but afterwards you'll wonder how you did without. You don't want to blast off at full strength as that wastes fuel - keep it at 100m/s at blast-off (so, for the first 500m or so) and then work up 10m/s for every 1000m until 5000m. From there you can start dialling it up to 300m/s by 12-13,000m. After that it really goes crazy and by 100,000m you can kill the engines (dunno if this is good advice?) and plan your first manoeuvre. Don't know if any of this will help, but I hope so! I'm new too, this is just what I've figured out by watching videos or experimenting myself.

The default space planes seem really hard to control, especially the smaller ones. I got the albatross looking thing to fly for a while, but the XF-looking stock planes are out of control. Sorry, can't be of any help there!

After my first successful orbit(s) I decided to see how far into the start system I could get my kerbonaut. Taking a page from Bryce, I threw away my scruples and used a poor soul to launch in to space (I haven't installed the remote stuff/satellite mods.) His trajectory is this:


90 days in he is here! In orbit of the Sun until the end of time!


RIP Jebediah Kerman.


In space no one can hear you scream! That's what I said to Jeb right before the hatch closed at liftoff.

Current obsession: slingshotting off things to get "cheep" flight to distant objects. Had a course plotted to slingshot off the Mun and swing close enough to Minmus to spat certainly plot an easy capture - all for 620dv.. But I messed it up and crashed back into Kerbin. Oops!

That's good speed advice. For getting to orbit, I usually go straight up to 10,000m, then tilt to 45 degrees and burn until my apoapsis hits 70-80km. Then I shut off the engines and coast up to apoapsis, then I burn prograde until I'm orbiting.

With these hints I got my first satellite in orbit! No kerbonauts lost (none were on board).

How do those comsat plugins and parts work? I installed them but the utility flower deploys and liftoff. Also, how do the folding solar panels work? All I know how to do is launch rockets into space -- the comsat stuff eludes me. I really want to send probes into deepspace and have relay networks and all that jazz!

First of all you need to use the comsat parts. Primarily either one of their bodies (1m disk or the little control antenna or similar).

Control element are for remote controlled things (satellites, rovers, etc), the "command" pieces are for when 3 Kerbins are maning a spaceship allowing them to remote control nearby objects (reducing delay time).

From there you should put some unipolar antenna on whatever you wish to remote control, there are some options under science - if you have deployed the modifications to default parts from spaceport that the author created the extendable antenna will do the trick. This will automatically give you comms to anything within 9,000k.

From there, slap a bunch of dishes on something along with the solar panels to power them. When ready "activate" the dishes and click the interface for RemoteTech to align the dishes with other objects. My four comsats are daisy-chained back to KSC and also point to the high and low orbit comsats. These then point to (and are pointed at by) my Munar and beyond explorers. You now have a comms network!

This seems appropriate: http://xkcd.com/1133/

Also: this game intrigues me. It's $23.00 right now; but I also gather that some mods are required. I also get the impression that you have to pay for mods? Am I just high on cold meds on that one? How much will it cost to actually get setup with this game?

jeffd : $23, that's it, no more is required. Mods aren't even required, but it is a lot of fun adding more parts from kerbalspaceport.com - although entirely optional.

Also, mods are free.

Oh, my current KSP Let's Play. "Orbit All the Things!"

I have no idea where I got the idea that one had to pay for mods. Must have been addled by cold medicine.

Goddammit I just read through this thread. I'm buying this game today, soon as I'm done with my paper. The good news is the game is cheaper than Dark Souls (which I was previously going to get...)

I cannot stop playing this game. Anyone who doesn't love it is a cretin. I wish I was at home launching rockets right now. I resent my family and friends and job for taking any of my free Kerbal time.

Enjoy!

Heh, I got the demo. My second rocket achieved escape velocity; who knows where that one is going to end up. Then I build a rocket and tried to get it into orbit; I failed but nobody died so that's something. Does anyone have any tips on achieving orbit? Also, in the full game, can I launch unmanned test rockets, so as not to waste Kerbin brothers?

In the full game the RemoteTech addon allows you to remotely control a ship as long as you have communications to it via the sat network. In practice this means your first satellite may need to be launched with a crew, the second maybe not, the third one probably not, etc. (Depends a bit on how good you are at getting into orbit before Mission control goes out of sight.)

As for tips for orbit, the tip is go vertically up to probably 10-20k meters, tilt over to say 45 deg, then when your Apoapsis is at maybe 100-150k meters you can shut off your engines, coast up to about T minus 30-60 seconds from apoapsis, point 90 deg (east) then burn until your orbit circle Kerbin and your periapsis is at at least 70k meters.

This is admittedly not very easy to do at first, especially not in the demo.

Ah, I gather then that controlling rockets is a bit easier in the current version?

Big tip: put fuel lines from the bottom tank of your liquid boosters to the central, final stage. This is called onion staging and will give you a good boost to the distance your rocket can travel as when you dump the booster stages your central stack will still be full of fuel.

In time you can learn about asparagus staging - which is more efficient again.

What? Huh?

Right now I'm basically just building shitty ballistic missiles. They happen to have Kerbins on top instead of warheads. SUCKS FOR THEM.

I'm not sure I would describe it as "easy" in any version. It's a constant vexation to me for one. :)

I think I would merely say that with practice and with some of the changes in .18 it's certainly easier to create a rocket that isn't as unstable.

Jeff - spend a bit of time watching YouTube tutorials is my advice!

The Up-Goer project has thus far been a mixed success. And by mixed I mean mostly fatal failures, with one accidental escape velocity-related loss of crew. SCIENCE.

The game was so much more fun before they added them structure reinforcement connectors.

And your rocket would sort of look like this as it launched into space.

http://youwillnotgotospacetoday.tumblr.com/

First serious attempt at an orbit: I accidently inserted myself into a solar orbit. Orbiter is out of fuel. The margin there is narrow!

I think you may have made a mistake somewhere in there. Getting into a solar orbit should be pretty hard—much harder than getting to the Mun.

On the plus side, you have enough delta-v to get to the Mun.

It turns out if you just burn REALLY hard it happens. Probably something wacky was going on as well; maybe I'd accelerated time without realizing it. But I definitely ended up in solar orbit.

Anyway, my second real attempt at orbiting Kerbal was a success. I'm going to try it again, but it doesn't seem like getting into orbit is all that hard. OMINOUS MUSIC.

Second orbit: entered. Getting off Kerbal, it turns out, is pretty easy!

Now go look up Hohman transfers so you can learn some orbital mechanics! There are some good YT videos on this.

Will do!

The next thing I'd like to try is putting a satellite into orbit... How do I go about doing that? Do I build the satellite? Or are they the stuff of mods?

edit: woot, looks like the current boosters stages of Up Goer I support a larger fuel tank on the orbiter. Bartley Kerman has now set the record for going the Uppest! And I did a Hohman Transfer to get him there.

Hrm. I do not think my current orbiter has enough fuel for such things; even a deorbit burn takes up most of its fuel reserves. I believe Up Goer I may have reached the end of its operational lifetime! On to Up Goer 2!

My communications satellites are RemoteTech dishes, girder sections, solar panels, probe cores, batteries, and a junior-sized docking port. All of those except for the RemoteTech dishes are stock parts.

Is there a repository of common design patterns for this stuff? As it is I have no idea how to even begin building a satellite. There are youtube tutorials, but they're a) rather long and b) often excruciating to listen to. :(

I just want like some step by step instructions to build basic stuff. Satellites, space stations, etc. In a non-youtube format, if possible! Google helps me little. :(

A RemoteTech satellite can be as simple as a box of some kind with a dish or two slapped on it. Drive it into position, decouple it, land your transfer vehicle. Voila, satellite! Most of us like to make our lives more complex by adding solar panels and engines and all kinds of junk.

And I am tempted to record an instructional video detailing the mod and building a sat network. And why you bother (no reason other than fun, really). Would that be nice?

Text would be better. For a variety of reasons I find YouTube tutorials to be extremely unhelpful; the trend toward them is really unfortunate.

Actually here is exactly why they're not helpful:
1) They're impossible to play along with. Play-alongs are the best tutorial form; but Youtube really makes this tough. Either you've only got one screen and you're constantly having to pause and alt-tab and crap did I just do that right let me alt-tab back and rewind a bit and then... Or alternatively you're lucky enough to have two screens and you have the same unpleasant experience as above, only sans alt-tab.
2) Public speaking is hard. Youtube tutorials are essentially public speaking, only heavy on the visual aids. I've seen very very few good Youtube tutorials. Most I'd classify as below-average to awful. The worst are ones that are obviously not rehearsed, with lots of uhh and ummm and giggling and all sorts of distracting digressions and Christ can you just get to the fucking point already!?!??!

Your DF tutorials are, IMO, the gold standard in explaining a complex sandbox game. If you want to do something useful, do something like that.

I think Youtube has its place if actual realtime in-game footage is helpful to supplement a point; but other than that it's awful.

Incidentally, this game does have some bizarre behavior. The first stage on Up Goer I is a giant liquid booster; for funsies I decided to replace it with 4x solid boosters. As I suspected they're more efficient; they get me higher before I discard them... But now, for some bizarre reason, the second stage is virtually uncontrollable! I have no idea why; nothing has changed and I've taken this thing into orbit a half dozen times now; but SAS or no it ends up just flopping all over the place!