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[Girlinhat]

Finally gave in and bought the full version, I'm hoping to finally learn how to do orbital transfers and actually land somewhere before .22 comes out.

I might suggest getting Mechjeb 2.0 so you can figure out how it's supposed to look, then perform manual orbits once you know what the turns look like.

[IronTomato]

This game is difficult. I have a butt load of boosters on my rocket and it goes wicked fast, but I still don't have enough fuel to get to the mun and back (Or even land on it without running out of fuel mid brake and dying).

[forsaken1111]

This game is difficult. I have a butt load of boosters on my rocket and it goes wicked fast, but I still don't have enough fuel to get to the mun and back (Or even land on it without running out of fuel mid brake and dying).

can has ship file? I'm curious.

[IronTomato]

Maybe, when I get home later todai. I hope the lag during the first phase doesn't kill your computer though.

Also, I made it designed so that there's no command module per se, just the small(er) part that lands and lifts back off for re-entry.

[forsaken1111]

Maybe, when I get home later todai. I hope the lag during the first phase doesn't kill your computer though.

Also, I made it designed so that there's no command module per se, just the small(er) part that lands and lifts back off for re-entry.

My computer should be okay. PM me the file when you get home and I'll take a look.

[Anvilfolk]

You don't need to go too fast in the initial stages of ascent. I tend to go about 150m/s until 5k, and then slowly let it increase. There's just too much air density causing drag, so it's a waste of fuel to try to push harder and harder.

Another really important thing is nuclear engines, which are crazy efficient in space (look at their ISP). You should also severely limit the size of the ship that's in space.

I've been managing to get fairly heavy things into space with 1-6-6 mainsail engines, with 4 boosters attached to each tank on the outside layer.

Also, learn about asparagus staging. And here's a more heavyweight ship I was using a while back. Notice that it has nuclear engines on top. That's the space stage, though usually I think the main mainsail engine survives until I hit moon orbit.

G'luck!

[MarcAFK]

The tutorial should help,  I still don't know how to use the navball or maneuver thingy properly.

[Girlinhat]

This game is difficult. I have a butt load of boosters on my rocket and it goes wicked fast, but I still don't have enough fuel to get to the mun and back (Or even land on it without running out of fuel mid brake and dying).

Understand how Specific Impulse works - essentially 'fuel efficiency'.  When it comes to space, you don't want to go fast at all.  You want to go slowly for a long time.  The higher the specific impulse (labeled ISP, literally written I_sp but most formats don't support subscripts) the higher the fuel economy.

You want heavy, inefficient thrusters for escaping atmosphere.  Once you're in an orbit, you want lightweight, highly efficient engines to make burns.  Ion engines actually have INCREDIBLE efficiency, but don't have enough power to actually do anything for anything larger than a tiny probe body.  Nuclear engines (the LV-N) is fantastic for long, patient burns, but doesn't have enough thrust to get out of orbit without trickery.  The LV-30 is also pretty decent, as is the Toriadal Aerospike (which is also a great engine since it works the same in deep atmosphere as it does in vacuum).

Getting more specific, what you want is Delta Velocity, how much you can change your speed.  This depends on your weight, your fuel amount, and how efficient your engine is.  You want to shave off as much weight as you can, add as much fuel as you can, and get the most efficient engine.

[Anvilfolk]

You want to shave off as much weight as you can, add as much fuel as you can, and get the most efficient engine.

On a slightly off-topic note, this reminded me a ton of a boardgame called Galaxy Trucker. If you're into KSP, I highly suggest you try it at some point! It's hilarious, and the experience not too far from the KSP one... in particular, build a horribly inefficient spaceship that gets blown to pieces in dangerous space situations

[Sean Mirrsen]

As an addition to Girlinhat's advice above, remember another thing about rocketry.

"Less is more."

It's easy to get caught in the trap of grossly overbuilding your rockets. You can go surprisingly far with relatively small designs, provided the overall capabilities of your rocket still hold - the Delta-V parameter Girlinhat mentioned, plus another important one called TWR, or Thrust-to-Weight Ratio.

Essentially, your rocket has to have enough fuel to go where it needs to go (delta-V), and it needs to be just powerful enough that it does not waste any of that fuel to forces like air resistance and gravity.

As a primer, aim for a TWR of no higher than 2, and no lower than 1.5. That is, when you throttle up fully and fire your engines on the launchpad, the little G-meter on the right side of the navball must jump to roughly the second notch, showing acceleration of 2G. You will notice that it drops fairly quickly from there, but it will build up again when you gain some altitude.

If you keep that acceleration of around 2G until around 20000 meters off the ground, then you're doing good. Higher up it's possible to accelerate even faster, but you should watch out so as not to overstress the rocket.

From there it all depends on what your rocket is and how much fuel your upper stages have. I recommend having at least a TWR of 1 for achieving orbit from that point, though it's possible to have a powerful but short-lived secondary booster stage to shove your ship up into space, and then stabilize the orbit with a weak but efficient engine like the NERVA (LV-N).

[miauw62]

Or, if you use Mechjeb, there's a menu that lists of your TWR on Kerbin & Delta-V for each stage.

[Girlinhat]

Or, if you use Mechjeb, there's a menu that lists of your TWR on Kerbin & Delta-V for each stage.

Highly suggest anyone get Mechjeb and then not use the autopilot.  The simple TWR and Dv are critical information, as are the vast array of orbital information.

[LoSboccacc]

Or, if you use Mechjeb, there's a menu that lists of your TWR on Kerbin & Delta-V for each stage.

Highly suggest anyone get Mechjeb and then not use the autopilot.  The simple TWR and Dv are critical information, as are the vast array of orbital information.

the engineering plugin does the information part without the piloting part

[sluissa]

None of it is really critical. Helpful for fine tuning more advanced rocket designs for sure, but not critical at all. The vanilla game gives you MORE THAN ENOUGH information to go on and if you just look at a few of the example designs and play on your own from there, you're certain to be at least designing functional rockets, if not flying them into orbit quite yet.

Orbit itself isn't all that complicated either, just requires a few basic pieces of knowledge such as where the atmosphere stops, and that you actually need sideways motion once you get above it.

As the Russians are credited with saying(although variations I'm sure are much older), "Perfection is the enemy of good enough." Don't aim for perfect. Go to space today, learn something. Go to space better tomorrow.

Don't forget, there were some of us that were managing orbit and even Mun landings before we even had a proper map with trajectory displayed on it. Velocity, Direction and Altitude was all we had. And we learned a lot as a result of having to deal with so little.

If Jool had been in before the map system, I'm sure people would have made it there, as well.

[forsaken1111]

Or, if you use Mechjeb, there's a menu that lists of your TWR on Kerbin & Delta-V for each stage.

Highly suggest anyone get Mechjeb and then not use the autopilot.  The simple TWR and Dv are critical information, as are the vast array of orbital information.

the engineering plugin does the information part without the piloting part

The autopilot is the least of what I use mechjeb for. It can plot a transfer without me tediously calculating phase angles and warp me directly to an SOI change without my stupid fingers overshooting. I still pilot manually, its just a glorified calculator.