Kerbal Space Program Tutorial Series - Open Access to 1.7

[Xforce]

A KSP-based topic on physics Forums? Too good to be true!
Why did everyone build rockets instead of spaceplanes? Before getting it, I spend a lot of time watching videos, and get heavily influenced by the SSTO spacecraft s, especially spaceplanes (of course their are more exotic designs, like helicarriers and submarines, but by my poor piloting skills, and plus these stuff are not designed for flying)
But turns out that there are reasons why people launch rockets instead of planes... I got into a stable orbit (with no fuel left) on my third launch in career mode. And I didn’t successfully got a plane into orbit until nearly 2 months and 40 game hours later...
And getting into a perfect circular orbit is hard, especially when I don’t know to have a circularisation burn at apoapsis.
Later on, I’m not satisfied with stock, including parts and physics (I want N-body gravitation, SR and GR)
This is my first interplanetary mission (before then I don’t even got a soft landing on the mun), and I missed the target by 7000 kilometers (rocket science was never that easy)

 

[linuxgurugamer]

This looked like an excellent series for me to recommend, unfortunately, most of the following threads don't exist any more

 

[Borg]

FYI, the original Kerbal Space Program will be free for a week on the Epic Games site starting Jan. 5th. If you snag it that week, you get to keep it the same as if you paid for it. I've been wanting to play it for some time so I'll definitely be getting a copy. I'm guessing that it's free because version 2 is coming out in the next month or two.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

@collinsmark are you up for a KSP 2 tutorial series? :)

 

[collinsmark]

@collinsmark are you up for a KSP 2 tutorial series? :)

Oh, my! I'll definitely be playing it at least!

 

[Borg]

@collinsmark & @Greg Bernhardt A lot of the links at the end of the first post are in a black hole. I'm not sure what the reason is but can they be recovered or recreated? W.R.T. recreating, I'm hoping that collinsmark has backups in a word doc or something like that.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

@collinsmark & @Greg Bernhardt A lot of the links at the end of the first post are in a black hole. I'm not sure what the reason is but can they be recovered or recreated? W.R.T. recreating, I'm hoping that collinsmark has backups in a word doc or something like that.

The threads are still here, look at the bottom where the suggested threads are.

 

[Borg]

The threads are still here, look at the bottom where the suggested threads are.

9 of the 33 threads appear to still be good. The other 24 can't be found. For example, this one (part 4):
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/kerbal-space-program-rocket-design-and-orbital-mechanics.970334/

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

9 of the 33 threads appear to still be good. The other 24 can't be found. For example, this one (part 4):
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/kerbal-space-program-rocket-design-and-orbital-mechanics.970334/

I'll track them down, I know they exist, I created them

 

[Borg]

Correction. Looks like only 8 working links based on the hyperlinks showing up.

 

[Borg]

I'll track them down, I know they exist, I created them

Any luck finding them?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Any luck finding them?

Haven't looked yet

 

[Bandersnatch]

I'm going to express my snobbishness here, and say that I've always been team Orbiter. Orbiter was doing orbital mechanics before Kerbal made it cool.
But seriously, check it out if you're looking for something more like a simulation and less like a game. That is to say, with clunkier UI and less fun - what's not to love. It's free, too.

 

[collinsmark]

Kerbal Space Program 2 (KSP2) is available now (albeit in early access)!

I must say though, that I can't in good conscious recommend it to anyone just quite yet. Maybe later after an update or two.

Figure 1. Bill Kerman, Nedemone Kerman, and Nesbell Kerman celebrating their successful landing on the planet Duna, shortly before they were collectively sacrificed.

If you're someone who would enjoy taking part in the early access, possibly giving feedback to the developers, then by all means get started. I've been playing it a lot, and having fun with it. But it's been rough. It's not just a matter of encountering a bug once in awhile, rather it's difficult to tell where one bug ends and the next one begins.

If you're a normal gamer, or specifically if you are new to Kerbal Space Program, I'd suggest waiting a little bit, at least until this new foundation gets its cracks repaired.

I'll try to keep you posted though.

 

[collinsmark]

'Just wanted to post this, because I thought it was pretty cool. Dres, the planet who's orbit is between that of Duna and Jool, has rings now! The ring system is rather small and narrow (think Uranus' or Jupiter's rings, not Saturn's).

You can see them both in orbit and from the surface of Dres. In the image below (see Fig. 1), from the planet's surface you can see the rings arch across the sky.

Figure 1. Bob Kerman (left) and Valentina Kerman (right) on the planet Dres, gathered around the totem, secretly conspiring to ritualistically sacrifice Bill Kerman (center) according to custom.

Although the ring system is pretty narrow, they look pretty big when you get close up (see Figs 2, 3).

Figure 2. Close up of Dres' ring system. Also, it seems Bill gets to live another day after all.

Figure 3. Another close up of Dres' ring system during flyby.

If you're wondering how Bill survived the previous Duna mission, that was from a different campaign. Save files get corrupted pretty easily given the state that KSP2 is presently in (one awful bug among others), so it's sometimes easiest just to start over from scratch, from time to time.

Again, unless you're a glutton for punishment, like me, you might want to wait a little bit before playing KSP2.

 

[Flyboy]

Started back into KSP1 recently. Built a big Skylab-esque station, launched it with the big solar panels tucked inside the inventory, and used an Engineer to install and deploy the panels. It's now cranking out frankly ridiculous amounts of science points with the full crew of three scientists, two pilots, and an engineer.

 

[berkeman]

It's now cranking out frankly ridiculous amounts of science points with the full crew of three scientists, two pilots, and an engineer.

Which one is this little guy?

 

[Flyboy]

The engineer. I can't remember which of the Kerman Brothers is the engineer, but it's him.

 

[collinsmark]

Kerbal Space Program 2, "For Science," (version 0.2.0.0) was released this week. I've been testing it out.

• Does KSP2 still have bugs? Yes! But it's much better than it used to be. But yeah, there are still some bugs. Keep in mind it is still in early access.
• Is it worth playing now? I would also say yes.

And it's on sale now, 20% off, until January 4th, 2024 at 1PM ET.

Figure 1. Jeb and Bill on the Mun (in my playthrough), admiring the scenery, shortly before Jeb sacrifices Bill, as is the custom.

Figure 2. Jeb and Bill are investigating something quite unusual.

Spoiler: Zoomed out view of above figure.

Figure 3. Zoomed out image of the previous figure. It's not that much of a spoiler: if you play the new "Exploration Mode," (added in this new release), you'll come across this quite early in your playthrough).

The "For Science" update adds missions, progression, science gathering parts and such. There seems to be a bit of a storyline of sorts, too. Playing it for a day or two, I think they did a pretty good job so far.

The initial rollout of KSP2, in its first release earlier this year, was a bug-ridden disaster. In my last post I couldn't recommend it unless you were an enthusiast or just wanted to help the developers out by pointing out the myriad of bugs. But it's in a state now with this new update that I would say it's pretty close to what I would expect for an early access game.

And at 20% off, I can cautiously recommend it now. So if the game was something you're planning on buying in the future anyway, hey, 20%.

Here's where things are on the roadmap. Right now, we're at the "For Science" phase:

Figure 4: Roadmap.

(Jeb didn't really sacrifice Bill. All kerbals made it home just fine.)