Kerbal Space Program (PC/XB1)

[BaneTheBrawler]

A friend of mine introduced me to this through his letsplay video:



Not a tutorial, since he fast-forwards through all the meaty bits in favor of the cool looking flashy bits. But as a game introduction, I thought it was great. I made it a whopping 1:50 before I started trying to find the game.

Get it here for $23 ($25 if you also get the Kerbal-maker app). I don't think the app is worth $2, but whatever, the game more than makes up for it.

A lot of the science is done for you, so you don't need to be a rocket scientist to get stuff in the air... but I would imagine it would help, especially with docking (hard as hell). You build rockets and aircraft and fly them. I highly recommend doing the tutorials first, though unless I missed one, they missed one VERY helpful tool: the Orbital Maneuver tool.

Once you're high enough in space that you have time to use it before you come crashing back to earth, you can set up maneuvers, which help you figure out how long to burn at which angles to set up the orbits you want. You simply click on your orbital path (usually a light blue line/ring) and select "Create Maneuver" then adjust each of the directions you think you might want to burn in until you get the projected orbit you want (Dotted line/ring). It will show you the direction you need to burn on your navball with a blue marker, with the required burn time along the right. You should do it while watching the map, though, so you know exactly when you want to cut out.

So far I have managed to put three space stations in orbit, and I've gotten progressively better at it each time. Eventually I hope to move one out to the moon and build the other two into refueling/construction waypoints. Oh, and I also smacked a lander into the moon. I didn't land; I ran out of fuel to decelerate. But I hit it, which is progress.

[BaneTheBrawler]

This is my first really successful lifter. It is MONSTROUS. You know the big orange tank the Space Shuttle used to get into orbit? This has fourteen of those. The space station is the "little" (It is itself huge, hence the huge lifter) bit between the nose cone and the orange tanks. As I've been tweaking the design, it gets a little bigger, but not much, and it's getting increasingly efficient, so that I end up having the main orange tank still attached with some fuel left.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c6...KSPstation.png

This is the second space station I put into orbit. The orbit is weird, since I left my orbital burn going too long and the ACS lost control (no atmosphere) and it drifted counter-spin. I was going to push it out to the mun, but it wouldn't have have enough fuel. Eventually I hope to dock a tanker/booster with it and move it the rest of the way out.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c6...SPstation1.png

I launched another one after this, with a more normal orbit. That one has extra fuel in its orange booster, but not much. I'm going to tweak the booster and put some more up today. I'm also going to try to get a lander on the moon.

[Eleven19]

Probably the funniest man on Youtube, been watching him for months now his stuff is hilarious. He's done 10 of these so far and they're amazingly funny.

So, here is the Viking Space Program, from the man who brought you Skyrim's Unarmed Badass.

[BaneTheBrawler]

I found a neat add-on called Quantum Struts, which has these electrical struts that you can turn on and off. This allows for connecting two docked ships. So I wiped my previous save so that I could include them in all my future designs.

This is the new lifter/station. The station itself is where the top orange tank in the center stack would be. This one only has 9 orange tanks. It let me fit more structural supports in, and prevented the separation motors from causing damage to other parts.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c6...SPstation2.png

I've made it into space, but I need to round out my orbit, or else I'll plummet back to earth. Waiting to hit my apapsis (Highest point of my orbit, which at this point is only an arc).
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c6...SPStation3.png

I'm in a stable orbit, but can't see shit!
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c6...SPStation4.png

Finally made it out to the bright side. Replenishing my batteries (not like they got low, but whatever) while I wait to hit my new apapsis.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c6...SPStation5.png

Raising my periapsis with a short burn.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c6...SPStation6.png

In my final (For now) orbit, rotated to soak up as much sun as possible.
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c6...SPStation7.png

[Waraji]

I've, since recently, jumped on this game. Best way to burn gaming hours holy shit, if you are the creative/sci-ency type.

[Purrrfect]

That looks really awesome. Loved the first vid. Not sure if I have the creativity to do it, but I really want to try.

[Waraji]

That looks really awesome. Loved the first vid. Not sure if I have the creativity to do it, but I really want to try.

If you have a little patience, and give the game an hour or two a day, you can really make some great progress. Anymore than that and I find myself frustrated with not getting everything perfect. I've only managed to get little satellites into orbit so far.

[Grey Jorildyn]

God we have some nutters in my community that stream this like all day. They even talked about it on our last podcast. What a weird game...

[BaneTheBrawler]

Glad to see interest picked up! I've been working steadily on my projects (The pictures from my previous posts are still on my photobucket but have been reorganized) and have wiped my main save a few times, but I've made a second one for practicing and research/development, so I don't accidentally clutter up/destroy my current projects.

The mods I'm currently using:
MechJeb
MechJeb Pod (Not sure if that's the actual name, but it eliminated the need to attach specific modules for MechJeb to work, as it's built into the pods)
Payloader
Ion Engine sounds. Because I don't like silent engines, even if it isn't sciency.

[Maaglin]

Just picked this up on steam. I have no idea what I'm doing, but it's fun.

[BaneTheBrawler]

Do the tutorials! It helps get you familiar with basic maneuvers and terminology. Of course, it doesn't cover actually launching things, iirc. You want to start going straight up, then turn east (Heading of 90 degrees) gradually, until you get into space (Atmosphere ends at 70km). once you get to your apoapsis burn prograde to circularize your orbit.

The official forums have quite a bit of material for tutorials etc, and youtube has a lot as well. Always remember: Explosions are part of the fun. Seeing something fail spectacularly is just as fun as seeing it work perfectly, imo.

[Maaglin]

I can get a straight up launch pretty good now, but getting something actually up in orbit is what I'm working on.

It seems there are pre-loaded designs for different things, so I don't want to use those. I also did the tutorials, but it kind of cheapened the experience as it puts you in stages you'll never be in on your own for awhile, i.e., orbiting the planet and then intercepting the moon later on, etc.

My best moment was typical of the youtube posted above, when I just put as many rockets as possible on a ship and then watched it invert itself and crash back into earth pretty quickly.

[BaneTheBrawler]

lol, yeah that's always fun. I would suggest using the pre-built ships just to get a feel for how to fly things, and then set about designing your own stuff to do it "for real." I tried just doing everything myself first, too, and while it was fun, I wasn't able to make orbit. The Kerbal X is a complete system which can take you to Low Kerbin Orbit (It's supposed to be able to get to the mun and back, but idk if it actually can). It also has an interesting staging technique which I found useful, and incorporated into most of my designs since.

[Waraji]

My best moment was typical of the youtube posted above, when I just put as many rockets as possible on a ship and then watched it invert itself and crash back into earth pretty quickly.

What you want to be doing in the early stages of the game, if you want to forgoe watching videos on youtube, is buliding up 3 stage rockets. A 2 stage rocket can get you into orbit, but a more solid 3 stage rocket will give you room for error and rentry. Make use of the SAS controls, and possibly RSA if you think you'll be doing a lot of moving up top, although I think if you're just doing orbits you won't need it terribly. Magic numbers are 10km/45 degrees of your desired direction, while making sure to stay under 200km/s during your ascent, that way you don't overspend fuel trying to get out the atmosphere.

Once you get a nice Apoapsis of about 80-100km, it is advisible to always make use of the Manuever Node system. At the point of desired Apoapsis, cut engines with X, and setup your Manuever Node to make a pretty orbit with Apoapsis and Proapsis are within a good range of each other. When you set your node, you'll have all the information you need, burn time, time till node. Use that time till node to align your nav to the Blue cross/dot thing, and wait till about BurnTime/2 of your Time Till Node and start burning all full thrust (if your burn time is 32 seconds, start burning 16 seconds before you get to the node). As soon as your burn meter gets as close down as possible, cut engines with X, and voila, orbit. Might have to adjust with little thrust to desired orbit though.

Manuever Nodes are your friend, use them. In my opinion once you learn that, and got a good chunk of launches with successful orbits, go and download MechJeb and learn to use that so you won't have to go through the trouble of doing it manually, like some heathen.

[Necronus]

I have to admit, some of those YouTube videos are hilarious (Viking Guy and Markiplier)... I haven't laughed that hard at let's plays in a while. And I tried the demo because of this thread and its fun ... but once you do the Mun thing and have nothing else to do, you just have to slam a pile of solid boosters on a ship and engage/decouple them simultaneously and watch the fireworks fly. What's scary is my "USS Mother of God" (let your imagination picture that one) actually is space worthy if I help the SAS, though its so powerful it can only go straight up and zoom out into a solar orbit.

[Maaglin]

Put a satellite in oribit over the weekend. But then I "ended" the flight and looks like it's gone. But the debris is still there.

[djzombie]

I just started playing this and im pretty terrible at it. I havent been able to break out of earths atmosphere yet. ive had engines explode n ive had fuel tanks crash into the rest of my craft when I decouple them. hell ive blown up a few rockets on the launch pad before I understood what all the staging stuff on the bottom left was for and how to manipulate it. my biggest problem seems to be construction. there are alot of parts that seem like they are just for show. any construction tips? stuff I could use to strengthen my craft and make sure it holds together even when decoupling other pieces? the other prob im having is that some pieces dont fit together. I cant seem to find the proper engine to fit at the bottom of the mk2 fuselage.

I have done sll the tutorals but no scenarios. they seemed a bit too advanced for someone that cant even get a rocket into orbit

[BaneTheBrawler]

Struts are your friend! Strap everything together with struts (First click places one end, second places the other). The Mk2 Fuselage doesn't have an engine that matches it's base. You can use WASDQE to rotate parts (Hold shift for a finer degree of rotation), so you can use the MK2 adapter to bring it back down to a normal shape. Or you can use the Stack Bi-Coupler to split it into two, and attach TWO engines! The Mk2 only has liquid fuel, no oxidizer, though, so you can't use rockets unless you have other fuel tanks elsewhere. Jet Engines (There are only two in the game right now) use only LF and IntakeAir. Each engine needs at least one intake feeding it (Placement doesn't matter as long as the fuel lines reach everything), more if you plan on going to higher altitudes. Fuel lines function similarly to struts, except instead of structural integrity, they transfer fuel. The arrows on the line itself show you the direction fuel will flow. Fuel already flows vertically along a stack, so you only need to link multiple stacks.

Also, NEVER decouple engines while they're running, unless you've decided to abort your launch. It will almost invariably fly up your rocket's kilt, or otherwise collide with the rest of your rocket. If you really HAVE to eject an engine and it's stack, cut your throttle for a second (Press X), decouple it, then throttle back up.

Up on the top of the screen, to the left of your ship's name, you should see two buttons. These switch between the Parts editor and the Action Group editor. You can bind actions to various UI buttons, as well as 1-10. This lets you do things like re-deploy parachutes after you repackage them, turn specific engines (Or groups of them) on or off, open solar panels all at once, etc. Anything you can do by right-clicking a part after launch, you can set up an action group to do.

If you click the "Brakes" button in the UI, it will stay on, acting like a parking brake. You can repair rover wheels and repackage chutes if you go EVA. You need to be within a certain range of them, but once you are, right-click and you'll see "Repackage Chute" and "Repair Wheel" You can transfer fuel between two tanks by alt-right-clicking them (Hold alt the whole time, not just during the clicks).

That's everything I can think of right now.

[djzombie]

question, if i have struts attached to fuel tanks that are going to be decoupled, does decoupling break those struts?

I have been building so that every vertical fuel tank has its own engine. Do I still need to use fuel lines to connect the fuel tanks if I continue to do this? or is what im doing a bad idea?

[Franzer]

I think the question is, have you watched any of the tutorials? Here's a couple of series that helped me tremendously.