Kerbal Space Program.

[Geo]

No idea what the transit time between stars might be.

Well, appearantly Deep Horizon's velocity (15 km/sec) is sufficient around Sol.

[Buster's Uncle]

Kerbal Space Program - 'Orion' Nuclear Pulse Rocket

[Unorthodox]

Booted this up last night to kill some bank frustration. 

KSP released an update back in April...

That changed the game engine. 

I've never even heard of a game doing this before.  Anyhow, all those random explosions and ships disappearing on me should be a thing of the past. 

Burned through a bunch of early crap, at the point where, science wise, I need to head to the moon.  Money wise, I can't afford it yet and there's no contracts for it, either. 

So, space tourism for a bit. 

I've been doing really hardcore efficiency this time through, tiny little throw away vessels for the specific contract as much as possible.  One of the amusing side effects is a satellite built just to hit an altitude test for 200 KM suborbital trajectory going to smack back into the planet in a few months.  Technically, it should burn up on reentry. 

I can put up a 2 passenger tourist ship for a net profit of about 30k a pop.  Time to see if I can expand it to 3 passenger. 

[Spacy]

I was never able to get the hang of KSP

[Unorthodox]

Which part?  Surely you could put things in space? 

[Unorthodox]

Self funded Mun flyby, yielded 115 science...



Just barely enough battery to keep the heat shield pointed in the safe direction through re-entry. 

[Spacy]

Which part?  Surely you could put things in space?

I got 600 km up into space, but always fell short of sustainable orbit and crashed and burned.  Tried paying attention to the direction of orbit, changing direction to make sure I had good speed, etc.  Just, everything went up then came down.

Never really did get the science thing and how I had to earn it.  I would always get some science - unlock a few parts and after 3-4 unlocks get stuck.  No more science, no ways of figuring out how to get any more, and 70%+ of the stuff still locked. 

And the rocket airplane stuff just was a distraction - never was able to build one that did anything but make a mess. 

[Unorthodox]

Having never played the demo, I'm going to chalk that up to poor demo.  I never got a rocket plane to work properly myself, and mostly ignore that stuff. 

Ya know what, I'm not that far in, I'm going to do a play by play of the early stuff to hopefully help anyone else out. 

This is 1.1, career mode on Normal.  (I normally play hard)

Your first launch:

First stop is mission control. 



At this stage, you can only have 2 active missions, so pick the launch first vessel and gather science from Kerbin missions.





Then head over to the VAB (big building in the middle).

Your first rocket:

Pod, engine, parachute. 



*MAKE SURE TO ADD A STAGE IN THE LOWER RIGHT AND DRAG THE ENGINE TO IT* 


Hitting the launch button in the upper right will bring us to the launch pad with good ole Jeb in the pilot seat.  But, don't get excited just yet.  We first want to do a crew report, right click on the pod, and select crew report. 



Then keep experiment.



We're not done yet, down on Jeb's portrait, click EVA. 



Right click on Jeb to do an EVA report. 



*THEN RIGHT CLICK ON THE POD AND TAKE DATA* This will let us do a new report from the pod later. 



Climb back in the pod and hit "T" to tell Jeb to assist your flying.  Then hit space bar to fire the engines.  Just leave it pointing straight up and enjoy the ride.  In flight, right click the pod and do another crew report. 



You should hit the 10K mark and start falling back down.  Hit space again to deploy the chute.



In the upper left, go ahead and hit time warp to max and enjoy the landing.



23 science for that first little launch!

[Unorthodox]

With that science, go ahead and buy the first tier of tech, both of them. 



Check the mission control again to see if any missions are going to work for the second launch.  Any "Haul this to altitude" (that is under 10000) or "Test part at launch" contracts are good targets for some extra cash.  I got lucky here.  *But, figure on Launch 2 being self funded.*  You can afford it.   



Our goal for launch 2 is to get us some science for another tech.  Head back into the VAB, and we're going to modify our last rocket a touch. 

We're adding the science Junior part right under the pod, a decoupler under that, then the engine.  (Theoretically, the chute MIGHT be able to land this without the decoupler, but I'm used to not taking risks)  (Note the launch cost of a mere $2502 lower left.  We can afford a few of these without contracts if needed.)

*NOTE TO MAKE A THIRD STAGE AND DRAG THE ENGINE DOWN TO IT IN THE LOWER RIGHT*

If you have a 'test part at launch' mission, add the needed part and a decoupler to the bottom of this rocket.  Stage it so that our Engine, the test part, and the bottom decoupler are all on that third stage, so hitting space leaves the test part and decoupler at the launch facility while your engine flies you off.  You'll need to go back and recover those parts after you land through the tracking station. 



For this launch, all you need to do is hit "T" then space to launch straight up.  Once the engine burns out, hit space again to jettison the engine, then right click on the science junior to run an experiment. 



Space bar again to deploy the chute and enjoy the landing, and we've gathered another 18 science. 

[Unorthodox]

KSP 1.2 released today. 

Added communication networks to the game, making a need/use for comm satellites. 

Improved mapping and biomes for planets/moons. 

Overhauled the fuel system

And improved wheels (which traditionally had ISSUES.)


Sounds like the undocking bug might be fixed as well (which killed my above 1.1 playthrough)