re: Kerbal Space Program Update 0.90: Beta than Ever RELEASED

I just got around to downloading .90 last night. Only messed with it a little.

I usually move my saves over for an update but this time I deleted everything KSP related off of my computer and I am starting completely from scratch.

honestly I haven't figured out how to land on shite outside kerbin's system consistently without mechjeb to setup the intercept paths.

I landed on the moon and minmus once each without mechjeb and jool once without mechjeb (that was fun) as well as the asteroid, everything else I had mechjeb setup.

I'd download that mod once you've landed on the kerbin stuff on your own and toy around with it. Really opens the game up.

THANK YOU. that was driving me crazy. I just upgraded mission control.

What does see encounters mean?

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What does see encounters mean?

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Encounters are a when a celestial body's gravity is effecting your ship (Sphere of influence). If you're trying to get to the moon, you can plan maneuvers and if a projected burn will take you into the moon's sphere of influence, it will show up as an encounter on the map screen.

This is what it looks like.



Once you get inside the sphere of influence, you burn retrograde in order to be captured by the moon's gravity. That will put you into a stable orbit and then you can plan your landing from there.

I usually get to Duna and Ike before I just start dicking around with stuff. Still cannot for the life of me perform a successful docking. I can get real close and then BAM! Rocket parts everywhere! It would make interplanetary travel so much easier to launch a ship in parts and then put it together in orbit.

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Eve is the monster that pisses me off the most.

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I've conceded that I will never have a mission land there and return. I always send recruits there. Will not risk Jeb, Bill or Bob.

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It really is one of the hardest parts of the game for me as well.

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It really highlights the reason behind the tension of space movies around docking that I always felt weren't properly emphasized in movies to the laymen.


Knowing how tricky docking is "first hand" definitely changed the tone of many of them, even an "easy" one like the CSM-LM dock in Apollo 13.

Docking eluded me forever. At one point I had landed at least an unmanned on every planet and moon and had still never docked.

Finally, I just decided I was going to work on docking and only docking and just keep working on that alone as long as it took to figure it out. I finally did. Once you do it, it gets pretty easy.

To learn, just build a small, simple unmanned with a docking port in the front or back and put it up at a nice, steady orbit above Kerbin. After that, build a relatively small ship with tons of RCS on the front and back of the ship. You want to learn with a smaller ship as you will want as much maneuverability as possible. Once you learn how, then you can get good enough to dock with larger, more cumbersome ships.

Don't exactly match orbits with the vehicle you are chasing. You will never meet up. You will want to have your orbit coincide with the ship you are chasing for a portion of the orbit. The different orbits will allow for an eventual meet up (with adjustments). Once within a few kilometers, you just burn towards the ship and then turn and burn away from it to zero out the relative velocity. Do that several times until you have closed the distance and you will find yourself floating right along next to it.

And watch Scott Manley videos.

im finally orbiting mun, minimus, and kerbel. Too scared to try and land right now. Working on building a ship that can get me out past minimus with enough fuel to get back.