The Kerbal Space Program (KSP) Thread

[Maximilian]

My ships usually fall apart too quickly

 

[Chaotic42]

My ships usually fall apart too quickly

Support struts really make a huge difference.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Kerbal Space Program - Tutorial For Beginners 1 - Building, Flying, Acquiring Science

a new scott manley tutorial, updated for the current version

 

[greenhawk]

My ships usually fall apart too quickly

I had a large / fast ship that did that. I had to learn to build up the speed on stage change as leaving the throttle open on ignition was instant explosion.

though I also had to learn to throttle down in flight as I was generating too much heat and would explode from that as well

I enjoyed one rocket with multiple solid boosters. lighting them all at once was death, starting some off , then about 1/2 way used, starting the next off (then separating from the first lot when they ran out of fuel) made for a fast rocket

Timing of separations and throttle control I found to be a must.

This was all before the release that had the plans in it so I have had it for a while (just play now and then). Still can not get a plan to work worth a dam though

 

[shortylickens]

My ships usually fall apart too quickly

Its a learning process. Some of us have been playing since the alpha and figured out the basics a while ago.

Watch youtube vids, loads of help there.

 

[JamesV]

Its a learning process. Some of us have been playing since the alpha and figured out the basics a while ago.

Watch youtube vids, loads of help there.

I went to every planet in the system, and landed where possible with a tiny little ship; basically a small fuel tank with a nuclear engine, and the same tanks on the side that I decouple as they refill the main tank.

When I started, I had huge ships with hundreds of RCS units (rarely touch RCS at all now). My Mun landers were 400 part affairs.

My super-efficient entire system explorer lander (doesn't need landing legs with good control descents, just lands on the nuclear engine).



Edit* here it is landed on Moho

 

[Maximilian]

I went to every planet in the system, and landed where possible with a tiny little ship; basically a small fuel tank with a nuclear engine, and the same tanks on the side that I decouple as they refill the main tank.

When I started, I had huge ships with hundreds of RCS units (rarely touch RCS at all now). My Mun landers were 400 part affairs.

My super-efficient entire system explorer lander (doesn't need landing legs with good control descents, just lands on the nuclear engine).



Edit* here it is landed on Moho

Hows it getting home?

 

[shortylickens]

I can make orbit with 3 long solid boosters and perfect the orbit & come down with a short fuel tank and medium liquid engine. Dont even need RCS and the SAS can run on just the command module and its included battery power (which I think is only 50).


Its doable, but you need to learn how. Starting off with 18 boosters and a super long fuel/engine setup is fine too. Dont be afraid to experiment.

I also like the included ship that has one super huge engine and lets the 6 smaller modules drop off in pairs. That was very clever.

 

[shortylickens]

GOD DAMMIT!


If I download a CRAFT file where am I supposed to put it so I can use the thing in my Default Sandbox game?

 

[ViperXX]

My Moon Base. I ALT+F12 cheated to get that monstrosity to the moon.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

GOD DAMMIT!


If I download a CRAFT file where am I supposed to put it so I can use the thing in my Default Sandbox game?

kerbal space program/your name/ships/VAB

VAB - vehicle assembly building, for rockets
SPH - space plane hangar, for...planes

 

[shortylickens]

Yeah I put them there, but they dont show up in game. In fact when I hit LOAD nothing happens, I dont even get a list of my own ships or the games installed ships.

 

[shortylickens]

NEED HELP WITH BASIC CAMPAIGN!


New problem, started coming up yesterday and I dont know whats causing it.

For some reason lately when I send up a single pilot in the mk1 pod (one man only) he frequently disappears while the rocket is accelerating off the planet. Nothing explodes. Nothing falls off. No indicators of a problem. Just all of a sudden I dont have a man in the lower right corner and I realize I cant control my craft.

I dont see any options to control the amount of breathing air or heat on a mk1 command pod. Nothing seems to be going wrong that I can locate.

Can too much acceleration from the ground kill them? I've not noticed this before in other crazy designs of mine. Can they black out?

 

[The Boston Dangler]

hell yeah!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nT4E164CeA

 

[The Boston Dangler]

New problem, started coming up yesterday and I dont know whats causing it.

For some reason lately when I send up a single pilot in the mk1 pod (one man only) he frequently disappears while the rocket is accelerating off the planet. Nothing explodes. Nothing falls off. No indicators of a problem. Just all of a sudden I dont have a man in the lower right corner and I realize I cant control my craft.

I dont see any options to control the amount of breathing air or heat on a mk1 command pod. Nothing seems to be going wrong that I can locate.

Can too much acceleration from the ground kill them? I've not noticed this before in other crazy designs of mine. Can they black out?

if the rocket breaks up (even slightly) you'll lose control to anything no longer actually connected to the command pod. depending on the parts used, i think the camera focus can stay with the broken parts and not the command pod, thus giving no kerbal and no control.

 

[shortylickens]

if the rocket breaks up (even slightly) you'll lose control to anything no longer actually connected to the command pod. depending on the parts used, i think the camera focus can stay with the broken parts and not the command pod, thus giving no kerbal and no control.

No the kerbal disappears. And you can still issue commands to the command pod itself if he's in there. Thats how you control the thing when its on its final descent and has nothing else.

The problem is he's not there at all.
When I right click on the pod I cant execute orders and it says "Crew 0/1".

 

[The Boston Dangler]

did you find out why you can't load ships? maybe your installation went wrong?

 

[shortylickens]

did you find out why you can't load ships? maybe your installation went wrong?

No I put custom mods in the wrong folder at first, it disabled everything in the Ship Builder. Got that corrected right away.




Campaign and Sandbox have the same problem: When my boys get to 14,000 feet they disappear. No pics in the lower right corner. I dont see them bailing out. They are just suddenly gone. And of course I cant control my craft or even recover it properly cuz I cant deploy the chutes.

I think its a serious problem and may need to reinstall.

 

[BrightCandle]

Sounds like something has gone really wrong with a mod or the removal of a mod. My little guys don't fall out of their spaceship.

Its also worth testing a basic ship that comes with the game just to confirm its not an error in what you have built in some way.

 

[shortylickens]

I'm building them the same way I always have, just started getting this issue.

Gonna have to delete and reinstall.

 

[shortylickens]

Alright, uninstalled, deleted the whole directory, reinstalled. Everything was fine then.
Had to start my career over, but it worked. Ran a bunch of missions got all the tier 1 and 2 techs, and a couple tier 3.

Getting hard to find new things to do. I think at this point I can orbit Mun and maybe even land on it.

 

[JamesV]

I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think the picture of the Kerbal goes all to static if you run out of power.

Might be what happened to you before; run out of power and you have no control.

 

[Chaotic42]

Getting hard to find new things to do. I think at this point I can orbit Mun and maybe even land on it.

That's the key right there. EVAs, reports, soil samples... those will take you to the next tier. Don't forget Minimus.

 

[shortylickens]

I can't remember off the top of my head, but I think the picture of the Kerbal goes all to static if you run out of power.

Might be what happened to you before; run out of power and you have no control.

Nope, I have run out of power on plenty of landings and can still see my pilot and make reports and such.

It was a bad file somewhere. Like I said a complete reinstall fixed it.

 

[Harrod]

Here are some of the basic things that I have realized with starting the campaign.

1. It has been my experience that you should try to max out the science side of the tree first, starting with anything that has a sensor you could unlock, the reason for this is to be able to go the shortest distance from Kerbal to activate the various sensors. Also IMO it would stink to fly out to another planet without a sensor due to spending it on space plane parts.

2. When you are first starting out, you really don't want to transmit anything but an EVA report back. I've found that while you can transmit back a soil sample once transmitted, you've lost a large majority of the points you could have had. One thing that I've done is made landers with multiple crew quarters. This will allow you to store much more stuff and it really doesn't seem to add too much weight that you can't get it to the moon. Doing this I've been able to get a couple thousand points out of a single flight versus a couple hundred. The only reason I put a transmitter on anything is incase I fly out to some place, get a bunch of research and crash my ship to the point that it can't fly back to kerbin.

3. The other thing I've done, is made craft with close to 50 mystery goo containers, you can get a craft into orbit and get quite a few points just by observing them above the various continents, I try to get around 4 on each orbit say at the 12, 3, 6, 9 o'clock positions around kerbin. Then do the same thing at the moon, and then return to kerbin.