Overview
This guide is to help you learn and understand how to build and fly your rockets, planes, and other space craft or land vehicles…It will also help you under stand the game more and make you a better pilot and a better engineer. No matter what you want to do in this amazing game, this guild will teach you how to do it.(This guild is getting updated all the time, so check back with use from time to time as we will have new stuff coming soon)To keep up to date with what up with this guide, follow us on Twitter
What is Kerbal Space Program?
KSP is a game where the players create and manage their own space program. Build spacecraft, fly them, and try to help the Kerbals to fulfill their ultimate mission of conquering space. There are 7 planets, and 9 moons. All of 1 you are able to land on.
How to fly: The Basics
Most of the new players will be playing with the “Stock” crafts as a start to learn how to fly. But in my opinion, thats not a good idea. Using your own craft help you get a different grasp on the flight controls and how to game mechanics work. I will teach you how to fly in this section of the guide.
Flying Space Planes:
Fly can be very easy, or very difficult. Its all depends on how you fly, and what craft your using. Fly in space can be easier but it can also very hard as well, this also depends on the craft your using. Back to flying lessons, the flight controls are very simple to remember as they are all very close to each other; W is pitch down and S is pitch up, like in any simulator that has planes. (Note that this rule changes in space due to the games controle mechanic changing from surface, to space). A is to yay left, and D is to yaw right. Q is to roll counter clockwise, and E is to roll clockwise.
Your most important controles are you Pitch and your Roll, because you needs to use both of these to make a quick turn. To make a quick right turn, roll your plane to be between 45 degrees, to 90 degrees clockwise, then you want to pitch up using S. The same applies for making a quick left turn. Now if your flying a small, light plane, this shouldn’t be a problem to make a turn like this. But with larger, heavier planes, you might have a problem with falling out of the sky. To make a efficient turn with a bigger plane, you want to roll about 25 to 45 degrees and the slowly pitch up to make the turn. both applies to both turning right, or left.
Now, flying planes that are fast and are built to go up high into the atmosphere, are more efficient the low flying aircraft (ie, try using the Tech Inc. Sonic) but making turns in high atmosphere, are nearly impossible because of the lack of airspace. This is very hard to do, so to turn with a faster aircraft, wait till you get into the lower atmosphere, and then make your turn. Also, note that flying at high altitudes, it is easier to “flame out”. A Flame out is when you run of of air to fuel your plane, and it puts itself into a flat spin. The reason for the flat spin, is because if you have more then one engine, the first engine placed on your plane, will be the first on to flame out. This is a game mechanic that Squad has put in place to make the game harder. Getting out of a flat spin requires to have tons of control surfaces, or to kill your engines, and then hold down ether A, or D depending of the direction your spinning. Now some people just don’t want to be in a Flame out. To avoid flaming out, slow your engines down when they are running low on Intake air, slow them when they hit about 1 unit of air, this gives you plane plenty of time to adjust itself and will keep your plane from the flat spin. It also keeps your plane from falling out of the sky, and keeps if from getting damaged from the G force that it will take from spinning.
(Note, to slow down and speed up for plane, Shift is to speed up, and control For mac, and alt for PC, will slow the plane down)
Now, a big part of flying, is that you need control all the time, if you want to have your plane on “Autopilot ,” then when building, add a ASAS module to you plane. But to fly with one installed, press T and you will activate the ASAS ether the part, or the built in ASAS in the cockpit. If you have built a space plane that you want to go to space, make built it with RSC fuel and ports on it so you can control it easier in the higher altitudes. To turn RSC on, just click R.
Now some of your plane will wobbles during flight, this is because either of an imbalance, or a design flaw. It might be fixable by using Caps Lock, witch enables very fast reactions, but most of the case, it calls for a redesign.
There are a few videos for reference to help you more in-depth.
Also if you want to play some pre built planes, see the Tech Inc. website. There is a link on are Steam page.
Flying Rockets and launch vehicles:
There is a huge difference between a space plane. For firsts a rocket takes off on a launch pad, and a space plane off of a run way. But rockets are faster and can make it to space quicker as well. Rockets are easier to master and make, but getting them up to space is a entire different topic. They are mostly heavier but faster to get to space with, and are easier to dock in space with.
When flying such a massive rocket, you need to think about it begin a balance; to much power will waist fuel, to little power and you’ll be dropping out of the sky. It all has to do with how much power, and fuel your giving your Rocket. Rockets can also be a pain to make turns to put into an orbit. You always want to have some control surfaces on you rocket, so it doesn’t tip one way and kill your rocket, or rock back and forth like it would rip itself apart (It has happened to me trust me, it sucks).
This part of the guide is not so much on how to get to space, but how to fly a light/heavy rockets. Using RCS and ASAS is needed in all take offs and orbiting manoeuvres. Using ASAS and the gimbal of your rockets, you can control were the top of your rocket is pointing. A problem with taking off with a rocket is that the first stage is always the least efficient, because it is trying to launch it with all the weight of the fuel and payload. Also make it so all your rockets HAVE A PURPOSE TO FLY. Because nothing is going to fly without reason.
During take off, the first few seconds are critical for the entire well being of the mission, no matter what it is. Even one mistake can destroy the entire mission, and in KSP, things can go bad very fast.
Orbits/Traveling
There are a key things that you should know about getting to orbit and being able to maintain a good, proper orbit. For Space stations, I recommend an orbit of about 500.000 meters so that you have lots of fuel to get to the station, as well as being able to control its orbit, as 500 thousand meters is perfect for Mun missions
Mun Orbit
Getting to the Mun for the first time can be a challenge, because not knowing where the best encounter window is, can cost lots of time.
The picture bellow shows were the best window for getting to the Mun is. Just as the Moon is creeping out from the horizon of Kerbin.
Other Transphere’s
This chart is what i use for getting to other planes, basiclly,
Building like a pro:
Building in KSP can be a ton of fun. It is one of the most important parts of the game, being able to build a space craft to your design. But at the same time as being fun, it is also very important to you mission, because 1 broken part, can destroy the likely hood of your mission. So i created this guide to help you make a good ship, so that you can fly as long as you want, when ever you want.
Building Space Planes:
When building a Space plane, there are many things you have to take into consideration;
1. Center of Lift:
– This is the point of the aircraft were all of the lift is generated. With out lift, your not going anywhere anytime soon. A plane needs air surfaces to lift off the ground, using Wing flaps, wings and ETC. Your center of lift, should be slightly behind the center of mass for the most efficient take off and flying experience.
2. Center of Thrust:
– The center of thrust, is were your space planes thrust is at its most. Most designs have them at the back of the aircraft, (Matching the center of lift and mass,) and this design is very correct as instead of pulling the craft, it will push the craft making it more effective.
3. Center of Mass:
– This is the most important information when building a very well done space craft. Use this information to make a more effective and fuel efficient aircraft.
Building Rockets:
Rockets personally are on of the easier to build the space planes. But if your a new player, it can be much harder then other players. Here are things you have to look at when building a rocket;
1. Weight to thrust
– You need a good thrust against your weight. There is nothing in the VAB that tells you how much your rockets weight is, but it just be sure that your using strong snuff engines that you feel will get it off the ground. I personally use the Solid rocket boosters as the first part of lift off, to get myself into a lower gravity area of the plant, around 15.000 meters, then i reject them and burn my first stage of liquid fuel engines. This makes it more efficient by using less parts. Don’t under estimate your rocket.
2. Control over your craft
– You need to be able to turn your space craft while it is flying ether in space or in atmosphere. On the lower stages of your rocket, us control surfaces like fins and elevators flaps. At about 30.000 meters, us RCS (Reaction Control Surfaces) Make sure you have the little RSC thrusters all over your craft. You can turn the trusters on by clicking R. Make sure your rocket has a fair amount of RCS fuel onboard the craft. so you can control it.
3. Strength
– Your rocket has to be able to stay in one piece while taking off. This all depends on what your payload is. If you have a lot of payload, then you are going to be using more struts. One of KSP mottos is: “if it doesn’t work, then add more struts.” And that is what you must do. Always strut down your payload to the top and bottom of your craft. And make sure it never is bigger the the craft itself. because it will not take off.
Modding/Adding Ships:
]Modding:
Modding in KSP is very, very easy to do, as there is only a few folders you need to look for. For mac it is very easy but for PC, if you not familiar with your program files folder, then your going to be having a very bad day. (i.e., Im a mac user, so idunno, I will be installing a PC partiton soon)
Adding Ships:
Adding a ship is one of the easiest thing to do in this game, its like modding, but you place the ships in different folders. The second video is a guide on how to do it, or you can read the text below.
Adding a .craft file will reqire you to locate you KSP game folder, in the folder there will be a folder called ships. Open it and there will be 2 other folders; One called VAB, and one called SPH, all rockets and things built inside of the Vehicle Assembly Building go inside of the VAB folder, and any ship built inside of the Space Plane Hanger, will go into the SPH folder. Its as easy as that.