# Kerbal Space Program



## Jontain (Sep 21, 2012)

Kerbal Space Program

I came across this game a few months ago and I have sunk hour after hour playing it. It is such a great idea for a game where you build space planes and rockets out of component pieces in a sandbox universe. I love pretty much everything about it and thought I would share its wonders with you guys on here.

It is still being made at the moment with patches coming with new content as fast as they can get them out, you can already pre order it which will give access to the current build of the game and any updates that come, I believe all the way up until the launch. Please bare in mind as it is still in production it is not yet polished to perfection, expect the odd bit of slowdown.

It has a great following with folk from NASA and people working on the Mars rover playing in their downtime, it makes rocket science simple enough to be fun while teaching important physics for space flight etc. 

The latest update will add more planets to the current universe, which up until now has been Kerth (Earth), the Mun (Moon) and a 2nd moon further out which name escapes me at the moment. The sense of achievement you get from building a rocket from scratch, firing it into orbit and then catching the orbit of the moon, landing you final stage on the moon, going for a moon walk and successfully making the trip back to earth is HUGE! It may seem quite geeky for some but it is the most pure awesome kind of geeky

Personally I am not sure which part I enjoy most, the designing, the launch or the inevitable crashing...

Prepare to sacrifice Kerbal after Kerbal in the pursuit of perfected space travel.

Enjoy!


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 21, 2012)

Downloading that. If its half as cool as your review seems, I'm already sold.


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## Jontain (Sep 21, 2012)

Its pretty cheap for such a cool game, everyone of my mates I have shown it to seems to enjoy it a great deal.

Also I'd imagine there are plenty of you tube vids showing off what it can do. Will hopefully download the latest build tonight after work and see what the new patch brings, suppose to be many more planets and construction parts etc so will be very exciting!

As mentioned though there are still a few teething problems as it is still under development but the last build was stable on my machine and only suffered slow down when my crafts got either huge or very complicated.

Rockets are one thing but I also have alot of fun making in atmosphere jets to fly around in, trying to make them as stable and controllable as possible. However I have to admit I am yet to get a space plane into orbit of Kerth as I havn't built one that can build up enough speed so that it can enter orbit once it leaves the last layer of atmosphere. 

Poor Kerbal's, so many have fallen in my quest for better craft... although to be honest I feel more for those ones that get fired off into deep space with no hope of return....

EDIT: its also worth noting there are lots of addition ship parts that users have modded into the game, a lot of them look very cool but I have to admit I havn't bothered modding the game yet as I have enough fun with what's already there!


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 21, 2012)

Had the time to do a quick test. God my computer sucks, lagging is horrible with it (reason why I own a PS3 lol). Beside that, I still hadn't left Kerth's orbit but I made it up to 120,000m before I ran out of fuel. Poor few Kerbals how barely got over 100m before they crashed. Science is a bitch.


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## Jontain (Sep 21, 2012)

Haha nice, the tutorials are really helpful with getting your head around the basics as each different engine etc has pros and cons, SAS modules will help you to keep the ship flying in a straight line, setting up stages is key (always amusing when you try and detach some outer engines with the stages set up wrong and your rockets propel themselves through the rest of the ship)... etc.

This evenings flight for me ended with my final stage being blasted out of the orbit of Kerth and into an orbit around the Sun, then I ran out of fuel while travelling 3500m/s on the wrong path, so after 100 days (kerbal time, i.e. can be sped up once you are not making changes to speed etc) into the flight my Kerbal is aimlessly floating around hoping that one day he will catch the orbit of Kerth to make re-entry, however I sped it up to maximum speed and he is still out there floating....

Onto MkII then...

P.S. I have to run my game on really low settings to get a good frame rate, again its something they are working on with each patch so should become more streamlined as time goes on.


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 24, 2012)

Update!

Last time I posted, I was trying the demo, v.0.13 of the game. After a while of trying, I thought it was well worth the 18$ to get the full version. Shit, v.0.17 is totally awesome. I was totally lost with all the new parts and it took me an evening to sort everything out lol. 

Then I began to work on V-ROY-x, a 1 Kerbal spaceship that has been my first to get in orbit around Kerth (V-ROY-II) aswell as my first to enter the sun's orbit (V-ROY-III). I was able to get there with some fuel, but it was my last and less powerful stage so I couldn't really do anything, so V-ROY-III is into an orbit wider than Mars (don't recall the game's name for the planet) and V-ROY-IV is into an orbit that goes near Mercury and near Mars at some point. Its a 3 stage spaceship (not counting boosters and blastoff rails). First stage got 3 blastoff engines and can get the ship out of atmosphere. Second stage is a singe engine that bring it into orbit. Last one allow me to control a small orbit. I have yet to really master the control on my orbit lol.

I'm also working on a 3 Kerbals ship, codenamed MSTDN-MKx. This one is trickier, I made is with 4 stages so I could have one stage to bring it into orbit and one last stage to actually land on something. Right now, I'm working on MSTDN-MKIV and I have yet to bring it into orbit (though MSTDN-MKII made it to the moon's orbit in a straight line). Stage one got 7 blastoff engine (each with 3 tanks of fuel), 6 big boosters and 6 blastoff rails. This carry the ship up to 30-40km, 350m/s avrg) Stage 2 got 3 blastoff engine, 4 big boosters, it brings the ship up to 140-300km up to a speed of 2500m/s (MKII). Then there is a small engine to allow me to control the orbit and, as I said, a little stage with a parachute and some retrograde engine.

I'll take a screenshot of them two during my lunchbreak. God this thing is addictive and I still haven't got into the moon's orbit outside the tutorials. But I'm getting closer and closer


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## Jontain (Sep 24, 2012)

Nice! It takes a little bit of getting your head around (and a few poor Kerbal's!).

I managed my first proper Mun landing over the weekend followed by landing on Minmus, which I am pretty chuffed with, however getting to another planet looks a tad more complex... (the new nuke engines are for travelling longer distance but I believe effect planet travel with require timing the Kerth escape orbit just right.)

I have to say even after playing this game for a while the tutorials they have added in recently are a real help to affirm some of the orbiting techniques etc.


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 24, 2012)

Check that thread (and so far, its the best example of the strenght of the game when you are a master at it): 
How Edley Kerman walked the sands of Duna and returned home to tell the tale

Dude used stock parts, dunno if he used some mods (I'll probably take some, will help me to understand some physics where there's no gravitiy).

I'll get on the Mun this week. Its my goal.


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 24, 2012)

Began to work on a new design, called TRO-II-A. Using the MSTDN-IV's monstruous liftoff stage but with a more lightweight, nuclear engine based stage 2. Also downloaded an addon wich gives *a fucking autopilot*. Thanks God, now I can plan my flight and not just fly away, crossing my fingers that I'm going in the right direction. It shall help me to get the motion in space. Can't say much about it though, had 1h to make my lunch, eat and do the modification, but I can say that the new stage 2 is so light in weight, its looking good so far.


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## Jontain (Sep 25, 2012)

For heading for the moon take off dead straight up until you leave the last layer of atmosphere, at this point turn to 90 on the gimbal and then accelerate along this path, this should push your orbit out to be perfectly inline with the Mun.

Good luck!


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 25, 2012)

Jontain said:


> For heading for the moon take off dead straight up until you leave the last layer of atmosphere, at this point turn to 90 on the gimbal and then accelerate along this path, this should push your orbit out to be perfectly inline with the Mun.
> 
> Good luck!


 
Using the MechJeb autopilot, I was able to fly near Minmus. I saw it from my cockpit, but I just felt short from catching its orbit lol

Tried to stabilize TRO-II-A a little bit, seems that the first stage is too overkill now that I use nuclear engines, the ship weights a lot less (I got enough fuel in stage three to make it to another planet, I'm just not ready for that part ). But this morning, all I did was blowing up mid-first stage, so I will probably use my 6 primary boosters 3 at a time, and I'll also revise the stage 2/3 linkage because it break quite a lot of time during the orbital turn point (mostly because I was getting there during the 1 stage, it was way too much power for that stage, learnt my lesson lol)

I'll take a picture as soon as the ship makes it to Kerth's orbit. At this point, it should be ready to get itself in a moon's orbit and back to Kerth, but I will also work on a landing unit so I could land and get back to Kerth.

Shit I love that game lol. Kinda sucks that its that heavy to play though, my home PC is crying for mercy and my job laptop, meant to run the bases of AutoCAD is having hard time with the lowest graphics. I need a new computer lol


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## Jontain (Sep 25, 2012)

Yeah the running speed can be an issue for me too, its something they have improved with every patch out though which is good.

Next time I am playing I will try to remember to get some screen grabs of my ship in its different stages and some mug shots of my Kerbal's that are standing on the Mun and Minmus.

The next version of my ship is deffo going to need more fuel for getting to a new planet, would love to get to the gas giant with all its different moons.

EDIT: I am sure you can get on without the auto pilot (never tried it personally), but using the map and the gimbal is one of the best ways to set up a decent orbit, again if you havn't tried it yet give the tutorials a go, there is ALOT of useful info there.


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 25, 2012)

Actually, I watched a couple of videos with my morning coffee, I know understand some of the manoeuver the autopilot was doing, so both kinda shown me the path to take to get a good orbit and how to control the apoapsi and periapsis. I also watched the video explaining how to catch an orbit. At that point, I should be able to get in orbit of Mun and even land on it (I practiced landing a lot when my ship was exploding in the upper layers, so thorically, I should do well lol).

Once I get there, I'm aiming to get on Eve.


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## axxessdenied (Sep 25, 2012)

Bring it to steam and I will buy it!


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## Jontain (Sep 25, 2012)

Well this evening I tried for Eve and Duno, I got some pretty good orbits but not in time to catch the planet.... well at least not after 2000+ Kerbal days so I gave up for the evening...

Got up to around 13,000 m/s which was fun, did loose an engine in deep space though, not sure if this was a glitch or something I did wrong lol.


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 26, 2012)

I've worked a bit on TRO-II-B, since TRO-II-A was able to catch Mun's orbit, I decided that it was time to improve the ship and make it ready for a safe landing. my orbital stage ain't powerful enough right now but the ship is quite stable on the liftoff and I've achieved some landing on Kerth at high speed (over 500m/s), but I have yet to try my landing legs as I landed in water. So right now, the ship is built that way:

Stage 1: MSTDN-V (7 blast-off engines w/ 2 fuel tanks, 6 boosters)
Stage 2: TRO-II-B (6 nuclear engines w/ 4 fuel tanks, 1 blast-off engine w/ 2 fuel tanks)
Stage 3: TRO-II-B (5 nuclear engines w/ 3 fuel tanks)
Stage 4: TRO-II-B (SAS module, chute, 3 retrograde engine w/ 1 fuel tank)

Since I got no rehearsal for the rest of the week, I'll be able to finish that ship

And I also got up to that speed once with V-ROY-IV, one of my ship is lost in an elliptic orbit that goes from Eve to Duna lol


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 26, 2012)

axxessdenied said:


> Bring it to steam and I will buy it!


 
Actually, just found out the point under developpment (its still in Alpha state):


*Multiplayer.* If multiplayer ever gets implemented, it will be after the main single-player game is mostly completed. For the time being, no multiplayer implementation of any sort is planned.
*Weaponry.* Developers have stated military will never be a part of this game, no weapons or other military equipment will ever be added to KSP.
*Aliens.* Apart from Kerbals not being humans in the first place, there will be no random aliens in the game.
*Docking.* It's coming. Docking is planned for one of the upcoming releases, the team already knows how it will be implemented, no further input is required.
*New parts list/VAB interface.* Same as docking, it's coming soon.
*More planets, moons and asteroids.* Planned, some will appear in 0.17, some in later updates.
*Re-entry heat.* Planned.
*Wind and atmospheric conditions.* Planned.
*Clouds.* Planned.
*Cities and general features on Kerbin.* Planned.
*Better sound.* Planned.
*Flight plans and scenarios.* Planned and in the works.
*FTL drives.* Ignoring the fact that there's nowhere to go at FTL speeds yet in KSP, devs have talked about their plans to include faster-than-light travel in the game eventually.
*Anything regarding the demo version.* At least until the first full game release, the current demo version will remain as it is, with no further improvements from the full version applied to it.
*Publishing the game on Steam or other similar platforms.* Developers have confirmed that they are in talks with Steam about distributing KSP there, when this will happen is currently unknown.
*Parachutes for Kerbals.* An idea that has been suggested many times over, it has surely been noted.


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## axxessdenied (Sep 26, 2012)

fuck yeah 
I'll wait until the game is a bit more complete.


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 27, 2012)

Sup!

So, I finally manage to do some shit. I'm pretty much damned to use the MechJeb autopilot because the game lags so much on the blastoff, its plainly impossible to drive it. Anyway, my fun with this game is to actually build a ship that can go somewhere, its not being a master in driving it ahaha. Anyway, decided to go back to my V-ROY-IV ship, heavily modified it, V-ROY-V was then ready for a test drive. After a woobly transfert from stage 1 to stage 2 (the ship tends to do a frontflip in this stage, pretty rad but kinda slow down my ascent lol), might remove a tank from stage 1 and move it to stage 2. So the ship went to orbit as planned, I was on stage 3 with almost 90% fuel. Time to try MechJeb's Mun transfert. I tried it before but set the final periapsis too far so I couldn't cath the orbit. This time, I set the periapsis to 30km, was able to circularize the ship and BAM! My first Munar orbit is done (thanks to MechJeb).

Then I wonder, there is a landing module aswell, might try it at this point. Activate it, the ship began to trust retrograde. Began the descent on Mun, I try to detach stage 3 from the SAS landing module, my separator didn't worked. Gotta land directly on the engine, in a hill. Here's the result:






Its a small step for Siggard, but a giant step for all the Kerbals dead to get to this point!






Quite sad, I got there with even less than 1/3 of the fuel of stage 3. Might had have enough to get back to Kerth, but as Kiggs is realising, an unplanned landing result to an impossible return to homland.






So Kiggs is now lost on Mun, wondering if a rescue team will ever come to get him back. Since this mission was quite a success, I decided to try again and send this ship on Minmus. Pictures got lost in my copy/pasta history, but long story short, made it to Minmus orbit, once I activate the landing module, 2 engine exploded, tried to detach the SAS pod and it failed again (I don't understand how the 3 legged detach thingy works it seems), the 2 remaining engine got destroyed while the ship was spinning out of control. So it now orbit Minmus for ever.

Here is a picture of Jebediah in space, pushing himself in a reverse orbit (for a test). The ship still has the stage 2, stage 1 is now crashed on Kerth at this point.






Cheers, been a fun evening!


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## axxessdenied (Sep 27, 2012)

man that looks so fun from the screen shots!!!


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 27, 2012)

axxessdenied said:


> man that looks so fun from the screen shots!!!


 
Believe me. If you are into math, space and brainfucking puzzles, this is a freaking addictive game.

EDIT: Btw Jontain, my girlfriend hates you


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## axxessdenied (Sep 27, 2012)

Vostre Roy said:


> Believe me. If you are into math, space and brainfucking puzzles, this is a freaking addictive game.
> 
> EDIT: Btw Jontain, my girlfriend hates you



AMAGAD, challenging games are awesome! I'm going to buy this after I play the shit out of Faster Than Light... haven't played this good of a strategy game in a LOOOONG TIME!


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## Jontain (Sep 28, 2012)

Great pictures man, apologise to the misses 

My first mun landing went surprisingly well but landing on minmus I ended up in a very similar situation to you, except the only thing that actually broke off was the parachute, so after ages of small rcs adjustments I got the ship upright on its legs again but would have no hope of surviving a re-entry to Kerbin

And my latest attempts to get to Eve or ... (Mars like planet, name has slipped my mind) also ended without success, however one of the ships I managed to fire out into an orbit round Jool (Jupiter like gas giant with many moons furthest from the sun), although the very moment I locked in that orbit I was out of fuel, so now that Kerbal will live for ever circling that planet....

Going to try some more this weekend to get a more successful trip to either Eve or "Mars" but it has proven fruitless so far, although I am using no mods to help which might be a flaw as alot of you tube vids of guys doing it have heavily modded their game.

As a bonus though I made a really tight orbit round the sun and managed to reach 25,000 odd m/s which is the fastest I have ever travelled yet.


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## theo (Sep 28, 2012)

This looks really cool! Downloading the demo right now, Highly likely that I will be buying the full version.


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## theo (Sep 28, 2012)

Ok I need some help. I have a rocket that I can get out into space and then successfully splash down in the water. But then what? Nothing happens.. is something supposed to?


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 28, 2012)

Are you still playing the demo version (0.13)? If so, with the parts you have, you can barely make it into orbit (well, I couldn't do so myself lol).

Also keep in mind that this is more of a simulation than a game. To successfully get it to Mun (the moon), you need to:

1: Lift off
2: Get into orbit
3: Circularise the orbit
4: Position the ship to intercept Mun
5: Full prograde throttle until your orbit match Mun's orbit
6: Once you reach the orbit periapsis, you do some retrograde throttle to bring the apopsis closer to Mun

Then you are in orbit!

The newest version got more engine and fueltanks options, wich will be enough to get you anywhere in the Kerbol system. I warn you though, on one hand, you'll pay 18$ for an unstable game with glitch and bugs. On the other hand, the game is stable enough to be played (though crash are sometime frustrating) and you also pay for every version that will be out after. That include the futur beta and even more futur full game.

So, just as an update, I had the time to lunch V-ROY-V into space yesterday, in a clockwise orbit (if you know where I'm going). Align myself with Eve, push the apopsis to match Eve's orbit, warp until mid-course, align my orbit with Eve's one, get an orbit match (first time I do it by myself!) reach the epipsis, close the orbit at 120km above Eve and... no fuel left. I made it to an interplanetary orbit just to be fuel short that close . Needless to say, I will do it this weekend. Eve and Duna (maybe Laythe, who knows?), here I come!

And Jontain, here is my two cents about the mods. Currently, I'm using MechJeb (for the ascent autopilot and the Smart A.S.S.) and the Protractor mod (wich is not absolutely vital, but I don't have a protractor at home so its useful lol). I don't consider those mods has cheating for a simple reason: real spaceship, to my knowledge, has such devices (afaik, they don't really let the astronauts or anyone else pilot the spacecraft lol). ANd even by using them, its still hard, Smart A.S.S. really just orient the ship, you gotta do quite a lot of job on your behalf. If your fun is to drive the ship, play as you do, mine is more to make a ship that can do the longest and safest trip, so having some help to drive it is very welcome lol.


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## theo (Sep 28, 2012)

Yeah still the demo version. Thanks for the info.
I was under the impression that there were things to achieve in order to unlock new parts etc.


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 28, 2012)

theo said:


> Yeah still the demo version. Thanks for the info.
> I was under the impression that there were things to achieve in order to unlock new parts etc.


 
Nah, the demo is really just a way to see how you build a ship and how the games works, basically. The real fun comes after quite some time, the first Kerbin orbit is a task in itself the first time, now its as easy as it gets (I use MechJeb, but I done it myself when my ships were simple enough that I could drive it without much lag lol). For an example, my ship in the demo version had roughly 50 parts I think. My last one got 239 and it still need some modification (once the fuel tanks are going empty, the ship loose balance and do a frontflip at 10kms...) lol


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## Jontain (Sep 28, 2012)

^ May have to look into some mods to aid successfully travelling from planet to planet then.

Theo as mentioned this is still at an early stage of the game, so alot of what we are doing is playing in a big sandbox (which will also appear in the final version also) however by the final version they do plan to have particular objectives to achieve etc.

Even with version 0.17 I would suggest spending alot of time staying in Earths orbit (given up on the Kerbal names as I keep getting them wrong!) My ship testing went something like so:-

1: Gain enough height to leave the atmosphere of the planet completely and try landing back using a parachute, for this you will only need a very basic craft, its a good point to familiarise yourself with the different engines and fuel parts etc (i.e. how qquickly do they burn through fuel, what can each engine offer you and in what stage is best to use, for instance I always use the solid state rockets to help my ship break through that first layer of atmosphere.

2: Create an orbit around Earth, here you will learn how to adjust your orbit in a controlled way as well as learning how that planet can effect that orbit (for instance if the lowest part of your orbit is under a certain height you will automatically being to fall back to earth, for this stage the most useful advice I can offer is to strictly use the gimbal and the map screen (looking at the ship can be disorientating leading to over corrective movements etc. 

Using the gimbal you have a green circle which is you current trajectory, accelerating at this will expand your orbit, however where in you orbit you choose to accelerate will also effect this. The green circle with a cross is always the opposite to your trajectory and can be used to slow the ship. You should be able to get into orbit using these icons on the gimbal. There is a great tutorial on how using these at both the AP and PB can effect your orbit (this tutorial is in 0.17 and even after I understood how to play it still helped to cement certain aspects of perfecting an orbit).

3: Naturally this is the stage that you want to try and get to the Mun, not to land just to get to it and create an orbit, using what you have learnt from the previous flight this should now be easier, as a hint though if you stick your ship on a perfect 90 degree heading from take off you should enter a nice flat orbit that matches the Mun. Once successfully in orbit you can either leave the ship in flight or attempt the return trip.

4: Now its time to land, you will notice in the builder you have different legs etc which can be extended by using 'g' (this is the same for space plane wheels) or by right clicking on them in game to switch them on. For this stage you want to enter an orbit that will bring you down on the Mun, as you approach you will want to decelerate (green circle with cross) most of the way down to slow you entry and bring yourself into a more vertical fall, due to the lack of gravity on the Mun its best to try and land dead straight. You should notice the effect this has and can even try it in an orbit of earth. Once down then using EVA is fun to start exploring the moon, each Kerbal has a jetpack with a use of the button 'r' which controls are the same as you ships, be warned though it is very easy to build alot of speed with the jetpack and end up knocking out you Kerbal leaving him to ragdoll uncontrollably, sometimes even leaving the planet and drifting back off into space. Once done you can either try to return back to earth or again leave the ship there. (WARNING, never try and land on the darkside of the moon, the altitude meter is from "sea level", I have crashed into the surface as I couldn't see it coming up so fast countless times, best to try the light side until they add in lights for the ships).

5: Time to go for minmus, by this point you will know most of what you need to know and will learn how even less gravity (Minmus is a smaller moon than the Mun) makes it harder to land and will also require a more conservative fuel effort, especially if you plan to return.

6: Well from here I have been trying to travel to a new planet, Once you break the orbit of Earth you will be pulled into an orbit by the sun, same applies here as before however the distances are much much greater meaning that it is much much harder to accurately cross paths with a planet, It involves much more timing that the Mun or Minmus as the Orbit times are much longer (trust me I have got my orbit to perfectly cross the path of a planet but the spent ages waiting to meet it, sometimes you can be lucky and catch it on the 3rd or 4th orbit, most times you will have to complete your orbit hundreds of times over for it to work and this is not advisable.

Oh and as a final note, landing on the sun is a no no....


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## Jontain (Sep 28, 2012)

Vostre Roy said:


> Nah, the demo is really just a way to see how you build a ship and how the games works, basically. The real fun comes after quite some time, the first Kerbin orbit is a task in itself the first time, now its as easy as it gets (I use MechJeb, but I done it myself when my ships were simple enough that I could drive it without much lag lol). For an example, my ship in the demo version had roughly 50 parts I think. My last one got 239 and it still need some modification (once the fuel tanks are going empty, the ship loose balance and do a frontflip at 10kms...) lol



On the bottom left of the builder window and to the right of the parts bar are 3 buttons which will show centre of lift and of weight etc which can help with this. 

Otherwise I would advise to ensure you ship uses RCS, this needs both fuel and rcs boosters but gives you much more control of your ship once you leave atmosphere, it is turned on using "r".


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 28, 2012)

Jontain said:


> On the bottom left of the builder window and to the right of the parts bar are 3 buttons which will show centre of lift and of weight etc which can help with this.
> 
> Otherwise I would advise to ensure you ship uses RCS, this needs both fuel and rcs boosters but gives you much more control of your ship once you leave atmosphere, it is turned on using "r".


 
Actually, my problem (as I read some stuff this morning) would be the lack of RCS and SAS module (I think I only got one, might put one or two other to reduce the woobling at the blastoff). Thats the reason I'm learning fast, at work I can read everything on KSP's forum, then I get home and mod the shit out of my ships . Also burnt the candle at both ends by making a ship that can go to another planet before I made it to Mun ahaha.

The center of mass of my ship ain't bad at liftoff stage, problem is mainly when the fuel tanks are going empty and the center of mass shift to the top of the ship. I'll probably be able to fix that aswell with the SAS and RCS


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## Jontain (Sep 28, 2012)

Ahh, yeah your crew's cabin will have SAS to a certain degree but it is not very effective unless the ship is quite small. RCS is a god send but as it runs on fuel you have to be careful with its use, I find the best time for using it is to adjust trajectory once left the atmosphere to form a decent orbit to start from and then using it for re-entry as it is soo very useful for fine adjustments when landing.

Be warned with using too many SAS units, especially with wings, as it can try and correct itself so frequently that it can actually cause the ship to become unstable. Also 't' turns on SAS (or off) but you can use 'f' to toggle it off (or on if its off) to make adjustments, you can also make adjustments with SAS on but they will very fine adjustments.

I really do love this game, its such a great idea and leaves me with a much higher sense of achievement than any other game I've played in a long time, do for sorry for all the lost Kerbals though... poor buggers


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 28, 2012)

I have some spot between my 4 nuclear engine, there I'll put a new ASAS and an RCS fuel tank, with probably 2/3 RCS around (depending on how they'll adjust with the 4 nuclear engine). If it can control the ship right before the orbital turn, this ship will be ready to go anywhere in Kerbol. I'll then have to think about a way to get a ship go forth and back to a planet, but even the hardcore players seems to think that its pretty hard lol. Anyway, one step at a time ahaha.

And yeah, I had several exploded ship because the SAS was steering the wings too frequently, now I just don't use any wings, only fixed winglets. Since then, I had no trouble at all (the ship has so much trust on liftoff that it goes in straight line). Might have to try and put a pair on the orbital turn stage, just thought that I never tried that.

And yeah, I'm totally with you there. The satisfaction I had yesterday when Eve was taking all my screen was probably the biggest satisfaction I had in a video game since forever. Even my girlfriend saw it and said "wow! I love the colors!". My computer at home is dying right now, so I might have a better computer soon, wich means I will be able to play with less lags


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## Jontain (Sep 28, 2012)

Vostre Roy said:


> And yeah, I'm totally with you there. The satisfaction I had yesterday when Eve was taking all my screen was probably the biggest satisfaction I had in a video game since forever. Even my girlfriend saw it and said "wow! I love the colors!". My computer at home is dying right now, so I might have a better computer soon, wich means I will be able to play with less lags



Ha, yeah I get that, on my current ship "Kyser MkIII" (name stolen from a bottle of fretboard oil lol) I basically don't get a playable frame rate until the first stage (12 solid rocket boosters) is separated. To be fair to the developers though the game play speed has improved with every patch. 

They actually also came up with a real neat idea to fix the Kraken bug. This would be when people would get up to very high speeds in space the joins on the ship would just tear apart for no good reason, well other than the amount of data required for such speed on each part being huge, so to get round it they made it so when you reach near the Kraken bug speed that the whole of space moves around your ship which solved the error.

Really do love small time developers as they seem to come up with such great ideas on such a small budget, rather than the giant developing companies that just rehash the same idea and put a new face on it.

EDIT: for the lols, I just found out where the name Kyser comes from... its a german name for Cheesemaker... pretty apt then that this was my first ship to touch down on the Mun... sorry I will get my coat...


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 28, 2012)

Jontain said:


> To be fair to the developers though the game play speed has improved with every patch.


 
I know right, just when I switched from v.0.13 to v.0.17, the speed improvement was surprising, especially since the graphics are even better! I can only raise my hopes when the final game will be out, might be one of the biggest independant game to come out (probably the biggest after minecraft). IMO, this game has that potential. I just imagine myself building a colony on Eve or Laythe and damn it sounds fun. 

Also, I'm lurking the KSP's forum, and damn that I'd like to bitshlap some people. People complaining about crashes, bugs and because docking isn't planned for v.0.18, for fuck sake its an alpha version of a game run by a bunch of passionate people. Its frustrating to see that kind of human being, but its the internet eh... Gotta deal with assholes and teenagers lol.


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## Jontain (Sep 28, 2012)

Vostre Roy said:


> Also, I'm lurking the KSP's forum, and damn that I'd like to bitshlap some people. People complaining about crashes, bugs and because docking isn't planned for v.0.18, for fuck sake its an alpha version of a game run by a bunch of passionate people. Its frustrating to see that kind of human being, but its the internet eh... Gotta deal with assholes and teenagers lol.



I have read people going on with that exact same attitude, complaining that because they have paid for the game that they deserve more etc. I just tell them that if you can program it better and faster then to let the developers know, usually shuts them up lol.


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 28, 2012)

Jontain said:


> I have read people going on with that exact same attitude, complaining that because they have paid for the game that they deserve more etc. I just tell them that if you can program it better and faster then to let the developers know, usually shuts them up lol.


 
Yeah, thats what I'm thinking too. The argument "I paid for it, give it to me" is worthless since you pay for an UNFINISHED product that will still allow you to play the finished product in the end. 

Anyway, did some modifications during lunchtime, stage 2 is still frontflipping like crazy. Might have to redesign it entirely. Not a big deal actually lol


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## axxessdenied (Sep 28, 2012)

Gonna buy this really soon I think. My finger is itchin' to hit that purchase button


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 28, 2012)

axxessdenied said:


> Gonna buy this really soon I think. My finger is itchin' to hit that purchase button


 
Well, if after all the warning and and recommendations, you still think that you'll love that game, then you'll probably do. Either way, 18$ ain't that big to spend to know


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 29, 2012)

Who want some pictures? Here some picture!

Here is KYNG-MK1, my lastest ship. One Kerbal capacity, this ship can go anywhere in the Kerbol system. Its my most stable, most powerful ship to date. This picture was taken just after the liftoff







Orbital turn






In orbit, time to aim for another planet!






This looks like a good orbit match to catch Duna






Here she is, in its glorious orange and white!






Time to try my first planetary landing






Out of fuel. My fuel linkage need some rethinking. Also, took the wrong fuel tank for my landing engines, so its freefalling time. Poor Jeb, and he's so happy, probably that the thought of being the first Kerbal to die on another planet rejoice him






The last picture sent, right at the crash site. At least, this gave me a quite epic last shot from that mission. 






Time for KYNG-MK2 to go to another planet. The first to come to the rendezvous point is Jool, so lets set for that distant gaz giant.

On this picture, look at the left corner at the bottom. Seems that one of my booster/engine got lost from last mission and went to the Jool system, and actually LANDED on something. Not crashed or orbiting, landed. How the hell is that possible? I'll never know as it disapeared during the mission.






Rendezvous point to Jool is reached, time to get into orbit at 150km from Kerth






To get there, I need to accelerate madly. It takes a lot of fuel to match Jool's speed and catch it. Nothing impossible though.






Close enough






Oops, a "little" under it when I am close, gotta pump upward, I'll aim (as I did with Duna) a polar orbit then. Nothing bad, but I'll have no chance to geton Laythe if I do that.






Getting at Jool at a speed of 7611m/s, thats problematic when it gets to the time to circularise the orbit, takes a shitload of fuel to do that lol... I still have plenty (I believed), seems that my fuel linkage have yet failed me lol, Still, say hello to the green gaz giant!






Finally managed to get a quite circular orbit around Jool. End of the mission, I'm out of fuel. I'm quite happy of the result, now I'm sure that I can go anywhere in Kerbol!






This morning, I went for another launch, this time aiming for Eve. I achieved an orbit on thursday, but didn't had pictures of that feat, and I went short of fuel while in orbit, this time, I took pictures AND I went for a landing try. I'm confident with KYNG-MK3, still need some improvements but its a solid ship.

So, long story short, I go into a clockwise (counter-earth) rotation, match Eve's orbit, blablabla, I'm into an orbit inclined to 150° (not flat, but not a polar one, I'm improving lol). So here is Eve in all her beauty






Time to try an aerobrake manoeuvre, I'll use the air of the atmosphere to slow my fall down a bit, then I'll use my engine to get into a landing speed. Its also the first time I actually try to land without using MechJeb's landing module.






SLOOOOOWW DOOOOOOOOWN!!!!






I really need to improve my landing skills, but this time, Jeb survived the crash!


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## Vostre Roy (Sep 29, 2012)

My first Kerbal that had layed his foot on Eve, my second to lay a foot somewhere else than Kerth (Siggs being the only other one). Jeb is the fucking shit.







And here is Jeb, enjoying a nice weather on Eve, even an epic sunset. And thats it for now, I'm far from being done with that game. Until then, cheers!


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## Jontain (Sep 30, 2012)

Haha awesome pictures man, I managed to get into a nice orbit of eve last night but didnt have much left in the way of fuel and the parachute broke when I was so very close to landing, no Kerbals survived...

Been honing my flying skills though and getting pretty good at setting up entry orbits, may go for Duna this morning.

Looks like youve cracked it with that ship though, will have to upload pics of mine if I ever get round to it...


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## theo (Sep 30, 2012)

The parachute can break? I'm still on the fence about paying the 18 dollars.
Whilst the demo was fun, I didn't know what to do after I got into space. And right now and money I spend is money that doesn't go into my axe fx 2 fund.


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## Jontain (Oct 1, 2012)

I am not sure if the parachute broke or if it was just a glitch. again the game is still in development so there are bugs to be worked out.

However yesterday I managed to successfully navigate to and land on both Eve and Duna!

My landing on Duna went really well however I managed to land in the ocean on Eve. So now I currently have:
3 Ships on the Mun, 1 single man and 2 three man.
2 Ships on Minmus, 1 single and 1 three man.
1 Ship on Duna, three man
1 Ship on Eve, three man
1 Ship orbiting Jool, single man

All in all yesterday was a good day for expanding my space mission, question is what next, maybe the moons of Duna and Eve?


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## Brill (Oct 1, 2012)

When i had good internet i watched Northernlion's lets play.. It was great.


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## Vostre Roy (Oct 1, 2012)

Jontain said:


> I am not sure if the parachute broke or if it was just a glitch. again the game is still in development so there are bugs to be worked out.
> 
> However yesterday I managed to successfully navigate to and land on both Eve and Duna!
> 
> ...



Damn, you are sending three kerbals, thats neat man, I'm sticking with 1 kerbal right now because its lags way too much with the animation of the 3 guys in the bottom of my screen 

And to answer your question, you can go big or you can go home; there is still Moho (wich is apparently a bitch because of the heat) and Laythe (orbiting Jool) that are worth a visit. But as you said, Ike and Duna's moon (name is slipping right now) are also worth a visit.

Just to add, if you didn't knew, you can just pres F1 to get screenshots, they'll be saved in the screenshot folder, in the game's folder. I then mass upload them with imageshack. You probably knew it, but its just in case that you don't. I really want to see your ship


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## Jontain (Oct 1, 2012)

Vostre Roy said:


> Damn, you are sending three kerbals, thats neat man, I'm sticking with 1 kerbal right now because its lags way too much with the animation of the 3 guys in the bottom of my screen
> 
> And to answer your question, you can go big or you can go home; there is still Moho (wich is apparently a bitch because of the heat) and Laythe (orbiting Jool) that are worth a visit. But as you said, Ike and Duna's moon (name is slipping right now) are also worth a visit.
> 
> Just to add, if you didn't knew, you can just pres F1 to get screenshots, they'll be saved in the screenshot folder, in the game's folder. I then mass upload them with imageshack. You probably knew it, but its just in case that you don't. I really want to see your ship



Actually I didn't know I could use F1, that is very useful to know! Thanks!

I will pull my finger out soon and get pictures of both my 3 man and my single man.

Pretty much the same design mind but with a different final stage, although I have to say I am pretty proud of with some of the design features.


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## Vostre Roy (Oct 1, 2012)

I'm pretty much proud if my interplanetary stage aswell, though its quite heavy due to the high amount of fuel I carry, MechJeb needs my help while he's ascending because he always goes full throttle and at some point, the heavy head part makes it flip. So mechJeb is now only doing the steering control, I have to do the throttle and stage decoupling myself.

This morning, I was able to lunch it into an orbit close to Moho. Problem is, Moho is very inclined so I'll have to correct that during the travel (had to go at work, saved right after the injection burning point. I'll see if this planet is really that hard to get to.


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## Jontain (Oct 1, 2012)

Ok so this evening I decided to get some pictures of both my decent ships, so first up was the single seater heading for Ike (Moon around Duna):-






Liftoff! Here you can see the main 6 take off engines coupled with 2 large Solid Rocket Boosters, Ontop you can see the final stage.






After shedding the weight of the outer rockets, and the lag for that matter, we can start plotting an orbit. You can see here the later stages hidden inside the main six engines.






All is revealed, the large stages come apart to reveal a 3 stage section, the first is to help get the escape orbit, the second is to navigate to a moon and the last is to land on said moon. You can see the cross section on the second to last stage, using this and the two types of decoupler gave me a perfect way to mount the six outer engines.






Here is a more detailed view of the 3 stages on the way to Ike.





And finally touch down, I do have a few more pictures of this flight but dont want to bore you! Enough fuel left here to leave the moon but probably not enough to get home.

The next flight was for my planet to planet 3 seater, so I went for Eve again, this time hoping to not land in the ocean.






Ok so were up, as you can see the design is very similar but just bigger all round, also had to use actual rockets as apposed to solids so that they last longer, this beast is a bit of a slow starter!






In this picture you can see the outer engines have been removed, all of these engines are removed at the same time for this larger rocket as both the main 6 and the smaller set of 12 run out of fuel just about the same time.






Setting an orbit...






One lap of the planet and its off to the escape, you can see here the nuclear stage for the rest of the distance...






Here is the final stage making its decent, parachutes are deployed and with the engines we slow to a suitable speed.






Parachutes now open we slow right down to 6m/s, the final touch down was slowed right to a smooth 2m/s and...






Were down and on dry land! However this Kerbal is now doomed to never get back into the ship as the gravity is so high on Eve's surface that the jetpack does nothing and I forgot to put ladders on that reach low enough.... whoops, lesson learnt.

So now:
3 Ships on the Mun, 1 x single man and 2 x three man.
2 Ships on Minmus, 1 x single and 1 x three man.
1 Ship on Duna, 1 x three man
1 Ship on Ike (Duna's Moon), 1 x single man
2 Ships on Eve, 2 x three man (one on land, one in the sea)
1 Ship orbiting Jool, 1 x single man

All in very happy with that! 

EDIT: Just noticed you got Bill and Jeb in your pictures! These are two of the original three Kerbal's they made in the game, hence the orange suits...


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## Swyse (Oct 1, 2012)

I'm still working on the mun. I always just kinda hope i end up close enough with my flawed design space craft. Works pretty well getting to space if it doesn't shake itself apart. I think I need to add another stage to have something left over to move around once I'm up there.


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## Vostre Roy (Oct 2, 2012)

Jontain: I really love your ship's design, pretty sure its waaaay more stable than mine ahaha. ANd man, kudos for the three kerbal ship landing on Eve, thats awesome. I failed my attempt at catching Moho yesterday (that little bastard goes fast around the sun and you gotta plan the approach while Moho will do a complete turn before you get to it). Maybe I'm not using the correct technic, but I'll try again. I also tried to aim for Laythe this morning (I sent the ship to catch Jool yesterday before going to bed), missed the ejection point, had to burn waaaaaay too much fuel to get out of Kerbin's orbit, catched Jool's orbit, even catched Laythe orbit will adjusting my Periapsis around Jool, but out of luck, I arrive backward to Laythe's orbit, so I needed to slow down by over 5000m/s, needless to say I ran out before I could circularise around Laythe, but I was near enough to take a solid picture, will upload later.

Swyse: Are you still playing with the demo? If so, thats freaking good already, I could barely get off Kerbin using the demo version ahah. Even if you are using the full game, thats pretty good already. Getting to Mun the first time is hard, don't worry


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## Jontain (Oct 2, 2012)

Thanks man, my technique for getting a nice shallow orbit into a planet is as follows:-

1. Leave Kerth Orbit
2. Start matching the orbit of the desired planet until one side of your orbit touches the orbit path of the planet, looking top down on the map helps with this.
3. Now depending on the position of the planet I adjust the other side of the orbit, for instance if I am too far ahead of the planet I will make my orbit match but leaving on side of the orbit slightly wider so that the planet can catch up after a few complete orbits. If I need to catch up to the planet then the orbit must be slightly smaller that the planets. For planets like Eve where the orbit is not flat I find the point where the two orbits meet and then adjust to get the angle, burn North on the gimbal to raise and at 180 to lower.
4. Then just wait for the planet to get closer, the closer it gets the more I match the orbit, always leaving it slightly off depending on if I still need to catch a bit or slow a bit.
5. Then you should meet the orbit of the planet.

Its not the most economical way (mainly on time) but is guaranteed to work most of the time, and as you enter the planets orbit at a very similar speed to the planet it is usually not to hard to slow the ship enough to create the orbit around the planet.


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## Vostre Roy (Oct 2, 2012)

Yeah I'm doing pretty similar things:

1: Warp until the target planet is well aligned with Kerbin
2: Launch and get to a 150km circular orbit
3: Warp until the ship is correctly placed to speed up and catch the orbit (usually look from above too here)
4: Adjust the orbit angle (this part, I failed it a lot, now I'm getting the hang of it)
5: Wait until the periapsis shift to get the planet's orbit
6: Circularize my orbit

Roughly this is how I do, neither is it better than your technique, but I usually can get into orbit quite easily, but I have a lot of things to practice still. I'll try to get on Moho and Laythe again sooner or later. Nothing is impossible in this game


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## Jontain (Oct 2, 2012)

Haha you can say that again, a few builds back I saw a video of a developer answering complaints that people struggled to get pods back to Kerth from the Mun, so without doing it the simple way of building a rocket that can land and then take off and head home, he built a special rocket using only the stock parts that would:-
Land on the moon, fire the last stage which was basically a rocket with landing legs facing up from the pod. Then he flys his contraption upside down carefully manoeuvring so the legs on the pod act like a claw from one of those arcade machines, he then lands ontop of the pod destined for Kerth, clamps it, returns to an orbit around the mun, builds speed to get back to Kerth, releases the pod and then slows the craft down so it stays in the Mun's orbit firing the pod off into the distance.

Then he switches to flying the pod which is essentially free falling back to earth, triggers the parachute and lands safely.

Genius...


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## Vostre Roy (Oct 2, 2012)

Jontain said:


> Haha you can say that again, a few builds back I saw a video of a developer answering complaints that people struggled to get pods back to Kerth from the Mun, so without doing it the simple way of building a rocket that can land and then take off and head home, he built a special rocket using only the stock parts that would:-
> Land on the moon, fire the last stage which was basically a rocket with landing legs facing up from the pod. Then he flys his contraption upside down carefully manoeuvring so the legs on the pod act like a claw from one of those arcade machines, he then lands ontop of the pod destined for Kerth, clamps it, returns to an orbit around the mun, builds speed to get back to Kerth, releases the pod and then slows the craft down so it stays in the Mun's orbit firing the pod off into the distance.
> 
> Then he switches to flying the pod which is essentially free falling back to earth, triggers the parachute and lands safely.
> ...


 
Yeah some guys are just freaking too good at that game, I posted a thread on the first page, some guy made it to Duna and back using 2 ships and only stock v.0.17. The ship transfer in orbit around Duna totally threw me off my chair


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## Swyse (Oct 2, 2012)

I made my closest attempt to landing on the mun today. I had a brand new design unlike any of my previous ones. This new one wasn't symmetrical and had rcs boosters to help me know which way was up and steer it. This is as close as I got.










Fuel linkage had a problem so one of my tanks didn't work. so I puttered out that close. I was trying to force my way in and crash land, since I hadn't remembered to put on landing gear haha.


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## Vostre Roy (Oct 3, 2012)

KYNG-MK4 was shot into space for his first mission to Moho. Once again, couldn't find a way to catch that sneaky little planet's orbit. I'll need to try again and find the right way to get her, right now I'm playing cat and mouse and I'm loosing lol. That being said, its the first time that no fuel is wasted by a flip or anything, I finally managed to get this ship into orbit with all the inter-planetary fuel left (I had to use some before because I was loosing too much speed doing freestyle spaceplane breakdance in the sky). It shall probably be the last version of this ship.

And swyze, nice design, pretty Star Warsish ahaha


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## Swyse (Oct 8, 2012)

Made it to the mun with MechJeb. Good times had by all on board.








After 11 different ships I finally did it. Shelrim Kerman will forever be remembered for his brave journey as the first astronaut to make it to the mun.


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## Vostre Roy (Oct 12, 2012)

Gratz dude!

Had to put the game aside for a while, changed my job so I don't have the laptop I used to play... Until I get a new pc, I'll put the game on hold, maybe there'll be a couple of updates later on


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## Tang (Oct 26, 2012)

I accidently sent my first spacewalking Kerbal on an escape trajectory from the sun.

Lars, your contribution to science will never be forgotten.


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## Vostre Roy (Oct 26, 2012)

Tang said:


> I accidently sent my first spacewalking Kerbal on an escape trajectory from the sun.
> 
> Lars, your contribution to science will never be forgotten.


 
Ahaha space is wide, his journey is just starting.

Also, fuck I miss playing this game. Should get my first paycheck from my new work next week, probably will buy a new computer and play KSP with all graphics to the max


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## CM_X5 (Oct 29, 2012)

I know what I'm playing tonight


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## Tang (Dec 21, 2012)

I got my first Kerbal into Mun orbit and promptly crashed when trying to land.. this was all that was left of my ship.. this landing strut will remain a memorial for all Kerbinkind. RIP Bill.. rip.







EDIT: no mods! I only the super-awesome trajectory maker that comes stock with KSP. Makes spaceflight so much easier.


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## Vostre Roy (Dec 21, 2012)

Tang said:


> I only the super-awesome trajectory maker that comes stock with KSP. Makes spaceflight so much easier.


 
What? There is now a stock trajectory maker? Sick.

I downloaded the v0.18, damn what an upgrade. Quickly made myself a 3 kerbals interplanetary spacecraft, tested my new computer with it and had some fun. Didn't had the time to play much though, I plan to get back to it during christmas.

And congrats on the (almost) mun landing, its a good step already


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## Tang (Dec 21, 2012)

Vostre Roy said:


> What? There is now a stock trajectory maker? Sick.
> 
> I downloaded the v0.18, damn what an upgrade. Quickly made myself a 3 kerbals interplanetary spacecraft, tested my new computer with it and had some fun. Didn't had the time to play much though, I plan to get back to it during christmas.
> 
> And congrats on the (almost) mun landing, its a good step already



Yeah, if you go to map mode you can click anywhere on your orbital trajectory and plan out a new one. It's really convenient.


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## Tang (Dec 22, 2012)

great video for all the noobies, including myself  You can also see him using the maneuver maker several times in the video.


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## axxessdenied (Dec 29, 2012)

Downlaoded the demo


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## axxessdenied (Dec 29, 2012)

This game is cool. I made a triple rocket booster ship which made it out to 6+ million kilometers haha!
Now to get into orbit 

My best attempt at hitting the moon


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## Vostre Roy (Apr 25, 2013)

Bump! 

Got back into the game this week-end. Had to get through all the new stuff in the VAB, and to my surprise there's two new planets! Dunno if I will ever be able to get on the farthest one, but the one between Jool and Duna should be doable at least. 

Anyway, I'll post pictures of my new ship design, the G.B.MK1 (G.B. stands for "Grosse Bertha" (Big Bertha)). Its a 3 kerbals ship, still has to be tweaked a bit but 2/3 times it can get into orbits without exploding. Once in orbit, there's not much trouble and so far I got more than enough fuel to get where I wanted. For the first real test, I decided totry and land on Duna as my last attempt failed miserably. As I was getting closer, I noticed that I was crossing Ike's orbit. So I thought: What the hell, I'll get on Duna another day. Ike is much more of a challenge! Once again (I never learn), the landing system of my ship wasn't working and I had to notice that as I was in orbit around Ike ahaha. Will it stop me? Of course not. Given the little gravity that this moon has, I tried and achieved an emergency landing using and landing on my nuclear engine. The pod survived the crash and tonight I'll post a picture of Jeb proudly standing on the pod while looking at Duna in the sky.

Anyway, next step: Duna and an achieved landing, this time!


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## Orsinium (Apr 25, 2013)

I didn't realize this had been out that long, I am really interested in this game.


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## i-iz-hulk (Apr 25, 2013)

Man, I bought this ages ago and now I'm feeling the need for..... space! 

All this new stuff...


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## Xaios (Jun 7, 2013)

I was home sick yesterday, so I decided to buy it off Steam and give it a go.

HOLY CRAP IS THIS EVER FUN.

I still haven't successfully landed on another space body yet, but I've at least done a flyby of Mun and successfully returned to Kerbin. My next project is to get into a stable lunar orbit. Then I will attempt to land.

You guys have given me some really good ideas for rocket designs to try out as well. Definitely going to be playing this tonight and well into the morning.


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## Xaios (Jun 11, 2013)

Still playing this, loving it. I've successfully done my lunar orbit now, but I keep crashing when trying to do a landing, coming in just a few meters per second too hot. Doesn't help that the craft I'm trying to land really has no business being a lunar lander. If I try with something a bit smaller and less ambitious, I'm sure I'll be able to pull it off just fine. Once I accomplish that, I'm gonna try docking!

One thing that's kind of a bummer is that, because the game uses a physics model that's more of a loose approximation and less of a fully realistic simulation, there are no Lagrangian Points. I was hoping to build a big as station to stick at one. Oh well.


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## Xaios (Jun 13, 2013)

Haven't given up on this thread yet. 

Completed my first lunar landing yesterday. Then tonight, I orbited my first space station! 

I call it... Kerbalus Maximus.
















Nothing much to it currently, orbiting at 135-136km. I'm going to bring up some large fuel tanks hooked up to nuclear engines to serve as an interplanetary drive. They'll get docked to the large docking rings on the rear side. The smaller rings on the frontside will get smaller things attached like landers and rovers.

Had to build a helluva rocket to get it into orbit, let me tell ya.


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## Vostre Roy (Jun 14, 2013)

Is that station from stock game parts? Holy shit, I got to get the new update. Keep us updated, I'll post picture of my new ship tomorrow.


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## Xaios (Jun 14, 2013)

Yup, all stock.


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## Vostre Roy (Jan 16, 2014)

Bump!






I'm back playing the game. Played the missions a bit now I'm upgrading to 0.23.

Space is fun


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## Xaios (May 27, 2014)

Bumpeh!

Patch 0.23.5 was issued on April 1st and brought some really awesome changes, such as the introduction of a large-sized liquid fuel boosters where the tank and engine are integrated. Unlike solid fuel boosters, they can also be thrust-adjusted. They've also introduced EXTRA LARGE engines and fuel tanks which look awesome (I haven't had the chance to try them yet, but I just found out this morning, and you can bet I will when I get home). Apparently there are also asteroids now that can also be captured, placed into orbit of a body and even de-orbited.


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## Vostre Roy (May 27, 2014)

Haven't tried the asteroid mission but I've tried the lastest patch and some parts. I still play from time to time


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## StevenC (May 28, 2014)

I loved this game, and it helped me understand Hohmann transfer orbits, but my computer won't run it anymore, sadly.


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## Xaios (May 30, 2014)

New engines are wicked. You can lift some crazy shit into orbit now without even breaking a sweat. Some people on the KSP forum were decrying it as "the end of asparagus staging" until other people pointed out, "no, it just means even BIGGER asparagus staging!" 

Was watching a Scott Manley video on Youtube. Right in the middle of deep space between planets, he came *that* close to accidentally hitting his own probe with another spacecraft.


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## Vostre Roy (May 30, 2014)

Xaios said:


> Was watching a Scott Manley video on Youtube. Right in the middle of deep space between planets, he came *that* close to accidentally hitting his own probe with another spacecraft.



That close, in a distance between planets, can be anywhere between meters and thousands of kilometers  (I guess you meant pretty close, but thanks to KSP, lenght relativation as been taken to a whole new level in my poor human mind)


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## Xaios (Jun 1, 2014)

Fair enough. By close, I mean "within meters" close.


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## Vostre Roy (Jun 2, 2014)

Xaios said:


> Fair enough. By close, I mean "within meters" close.



Thats actually an awesome feat. I mean, I can barely get myself to another planet or barely land where I want on a moon before getting back to Kerbal, but I still have hard time having two objects meet inside a planetary orbit, having them meet in the enormous emptyness between planet... thats awesome

Man I'll play me some Kerbal today


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## Xaios (Oct 15, 2014)

Started playing again. While I'm glad to say, I'm also a bit ashamed to say that I've only just within the past couple days achieved a succesful Munar landing. I'm not sure that successful is really the correct word either. I couldn't get that sucker to land straight up so it ended up coming down on its side. Thankfully it was a very soft landing so nothing broke. Through a combination of torque generated by the capsule, RCS thrusters and strategically deploying and retracting the landing struts, I managed to get it right side up. 

That wasn't the worst of it though. I didn't have much fuel left in the tank, so the best I could achieve on liftoff was a low orbit. So, how did I get home? Over the course of several orbits, I used RCS thrusters to raise my apoapsis until I achieved escape velocity back into Kerbin's SOI. I then starting burning at apoapsis to lower my periapsis, but I figured out "crap, I'm not gonna have enough RCS fuel to pull this off and get landed again."

Then I got REALLY lucky.

I kept burning anyway and discovered "oh hey, I've got another Munar encounter coming." AMAZINGLY, that Munar encounter was going to spit me out on a trajectory that would place me much closer to Kerbin. And then by burning at apoapsis after that encounter, I finally lowered my trajectory to inside Kerbin's atmosphere. I managed to do so with only 4 units of RCS fuel left in the tank.


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## Vostre Roy (Oct 16, 2014)

Ahaha awesome man!

Sometime, a mistake can lead to a epic mission

My first successful Munar landing playing the career mode wasn't that good either, I misjudged the landing legs lenght and landed on the landing engine, destroying it and therefore leaving my poor Kerbal stuck on the Mun.

I decide to build a new ship, 3 kerbals capacity but with one seat empty. Achieve an orbit that pass over the crash site of my first kerbal and make a decent landing "near" the poor guy who as been stuck there for over a week. Using his personnal RCS system, I brought him back to the rescue ship and brought him back to Kerbin. That was a payful trip and quite a nice mission to plan.

I've played again like 2 weeks ago but then I found Robocraft and kinda drifted away lol


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## Xaios (Oct 17, 2014)

My space station is coming along nicely. I've managed to get three orange fuel tanks docked to it. I'll get one more docked to it, then I'll be docking a module full of all the science stuff and a communotron in the center docking port. After that, I'll be launching up the other half of "the sandwich", which will dock with all other sides of the orange tanks (it'll also bring up some more battery banks and RCS fuel for the station). Finally after that, I'll be launching and docking bays of nuclear engines.


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## Xaios (Oct 18, 2014)

Space Station "Kerbalus Maximus" is coming along great. I tell you though, docking the rear section where the drive bays are gonna be was pretty harrowing. But, it had to be done. There's no way this thing would have been stable enough otherwise.


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## Xaios (Oct 21, 2014)

Well, I'll have to retool my approach to engine bays. I tried launching up what was essentially a pod of 4 nuclear engines packed close together. The docking went fine, but when I tried to decouple the lifter stage from the bay, they all kinda blew each other apart.

Thank God for quicksave. 

One other thing that annoys me is that the docking of the rear section looks like it's slightly misaligned on most of the tanks, even though I docked this thing *perfectly*. I wonder if that's going to cause problems in the future, perhaps by throwing the center of mass off.


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## Vostre Roy (Oct 21, 2014)

I have yet to try to dock to anything, that space station is sick man!


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## Vostre Roy (May 3, 2015)

Well, version 1.0 is finally out. Received a 96% by PC Gamer: http://www.pcgamer.com/kerbal-space-program-review/

I'll give that version a try tomorrow


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## leftyguitarjoe (May 4, 2015)

Its completely different now thats awesome. I've been playing since 0.17 and the new aerodynamics are fcuking my sh!t up and I love it. We get to experience learning to play this game again!

Here is how I've been spending most of my time in 1.0


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## asher (May 4, 2015)

Vostre Roy said:


> Well, version 1.0 is finally out. Received a 96% by PC Gamer: Kerbal Space Program review - PC Gamer
> 
> I'll give that version a try tomorrow



In the context of Kerbal mission control, it makes sense that my moon lander was crudely bolted to the top of a barely functional ship. It makes sense that there's a Kerbal stranded in orbitand that, years later, he's still wearing a big, ....-eating grin.



I don't play, but I've seen friends do it. It's not really my thing, but it's fantastic.

And the Kerbals are so kittening adorable.


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## leftyguitarjoe (May 4, 2015)

asher said:


> I don't play, but I've seen friends do it. It's not really my thing, but it's fantastic.



You should fix that!


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## asher (May 4, 2015)

leftyguitarjoe said:


> You should fix that!





Honestly, sandbox games just don't do very much for me. I won't play them very long.


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## Xaios (May 5, 2015)

I've been playing lots of KSP since 1.0 dropped. Loving every minute. The last thing I did was send a probe off towards Duna, my first interplanetary effort (even if it is unmanned).


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## leftyguitarjoe (May 5, 2015)

Xaios said:


> I've been playing lots of KSP since 1.0 dropped. Loving every minute. The last thing I did was send a probe off towards Duna, my first interplanetary effort (even if it is unmanned).



I'm still having a rough time with the aerodynamics. I've made it to the mun and back though. On launch, my rocket kept flipping so I just let it happened, flipped it back over, and continued. It wasted a ton of fuel 

Before this I had a refueling station in HKO and a station with a bunch of probes orbiting Jool. I figure once the space travel is the same, its getting into orbit I need to work on.


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## UnderTheSign (May 7, 2015)

Kinda kicking myself for not getting it on a previous sale since prices now pretty much have doubled


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## flint757 (May 7, 2015)

Yeah, same here. Kind of good for me though, as it means I won't be purchasing it. So my free time is not at risk.


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