So I kind of want to keep playing this game vanilla for a while. Am I going to be pounding nails into my dick to try to do a space station/ get to other planets?
Space station isn't bad without mods. You have to get a bit creative to have a good looking one with stock parts, imo, but it isn't hard once you know how to do it.
I can't comment on other planets, but getting to the Mun/Minmus shouldn't be too difficult sans mods, especially with maneuver nodes.
Speaking of mods, I've been playing around with MechJeb a bit (mostly grabbed it to test out a friend's all-too-top-heavy design) and it's pretty neat. Landed on the Mun with it quite easily. I'm going to attempt a return trip home, then try the same thing without MechJeb. Might even start a new save.
+2
firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
So I kind of want to keep playing this game vanilla for a while. Am I going to be pounding nails into my dick to try to do a space station/ get to other planets?
Hardest part (for me, anyway) about putting a station up is figuring out how to rendezvouses in orbit and dock without burning up all your monoprop and fuel in the process. Funny thing is that once you do it right once, it becomes almost trivial.
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
+2
grouch993Both a man and a numberRegistered Userregular
I am still running vanilla (and not really getting anywhere due to lack of time more than anything).
Last night I found that my save files somehow were destroyed with the latest update. I attempted to recreate my successful rocket, did pretty well, lifted a three man pod into orbit with a lot of fuel left, fiddled with getting my orbit circular and out to 120K. Then I decided to try to reach Mun orbit. Worked out a nice elliptical path that would coincide requiring a 44 second burn. Got myself out there and realized my plentiful fuel stores were now down to empty.
So I kind of want to keep playing this game vanilla for a while. Am I going to be pounding nails into my dick to try to do a space station/ get to other planets?
There's not a whole lot you can't do with the stock parts. You can easily brute-force your way to any planet in the system with enough fuel and nuclear rockets.
The only thing that 90% of mods do is add extra parts that look better or are useful for very niche/non-essential tasks. Case in point is the winches for Kerbal Attachment System. Not necessary, but any means, but it can turn a rover from exploration vessel to something much more, if you're creative enough.
0
ShogunHair long; money long; me and broke wizards we don't get alongRegistered Userregular
So I kind of want to keep playing this game vanilla for a while. Am I going to be pounding nails into my dick to try to do a space station/ get to other planets?
No. I would not even bother with any mods until you easily have a grasp of how to get around space and planted a few flags.
So I kind of want to keep playing this game vanilla for a while. Am I going to be pounding nails into my dick to try to do a space station/ get to other planets?
No. I would not even bother with any mods until you easily have a grasp of how to get around space and planted a few flags.
People recommending Mechjeb as a first mod are dumb. It just encourages you to be lazy, since you can use it to do literally everything for you.
Okay, cool mod for those of you (like me) who hate the default universe skybox. The little swirly galaxy things are fuzzy and weird-looking, so this guy's texture replacer is awesome:
The first page of the thread has skybox textures created by Rareden, since you need textures to put in place of the default ones. Rareden is the genius who makes stuff like:
The skybox just replaces the starfield background, so obviously your stuff won't look like those insane screenshots. But he does quality work, as you can see.
Ain't nothing wrong with that. Real astronauts don't sit there on the yoke and throttle for every maneuver, either.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
So I kind of want to keep playing this game vanilla for a while. Am I going to be pounding nails into my dick to try to do a space station/ get to other planets?
No. I would not even bother with any mods until you easily have a grasp of how to get around space and planted a few flags.
People recommending Mechjeb as a first mod are dumb. It just encourages you to be lazy, since you can use it to do literally everything for you.
Shrug, I installed mechjeb almost immediately, but that's because I don't find the vagaries of actually controlling a spacecraft to be terribly fun with WASDQE. The VAB info and Orbital/Surface info are super useful, and Smart A.S.S. is the only way to fly a spacecraft imo. Sure you can tell it to do everything for you, but there is tons of utility in mechjeb that doesn't involve autopilot.
0
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
So I kind of want to keep playing this game vanilla for a while. Am I going to be pounding nails into my dick to try to do a space station/ get to other planets?
No. I would not even bother with any mods until you easily have a grasp of how to get around space and planted a few flags.
People recommending Mechjeb as a first mod are dumb. It just encourages you to be lazy, since you can use it to do literally everything for you.
The stock UI also leaves out lots of vital information that you need to make certain design decisions and understand the base mechanics of spaceflight. Vessel mass, surface horizontal/vertical velocities, delta V calcs, phase angles, etc. should be at the player's disposal once you get beyond Minmus.
I recommend the "do it manually once, then use MJ" method for maneuvering, but some people care more about building than piloting.
If you're using vanilla the best advice I can give is split your rocket into 3 stages, liftoff stage into orbit, transfer stage, and return stage.
Try to design the ship backwards. Think "how much do i need to get back?" and slap that on there. Then think "how much do I need to get there?" then throw that on the bottom. Keep in mind the heavier your top two stages are, the more your bottom stage is going to have to work.
Then the really fun part is "how the hell am i gonna get all this weight into space?!" This is where you don't have to be as limited on how much you throw on there, but there is a line between just adding more fuel without adding more thrust. Just add mo' rockets.
Here's a design issue i recently ran into: I was making a rover and satellite to go to Laythe. I'm using mods so I have a bit more flexibility than vanilla, but basically I needed to make a rover that was 2.5m wide, and a satellite underneath. Jool is a ways out, so I knew I would need quite a bit of transfer fuel, or a really efficient engine on the transfer stage. The second stage I knew was going to weigh quite a bit, so I needed a beast of an initial stage. My first design was this beast:
It weighed almost 800tons (725,748kg) and had about 12,800kN of thrust, meaning I was going to have about ~17 m/s^2 of acceleration on the launch pad. Which was enough to get me to orbit, but once the SRBs went away, I didn't have quite enough to lift the rest of the fuel into orbit on my lower stage, and I had to dip into my transfer stage a bit to get there. It was also inconsistent, and really bad design of the second stage, so i ended up making my satellite a LITTLE bit smaller, so the whole upper stage was 2.5m.
This was the second design:
This dropped the weight by 40%, and added 50% more SRBs for some insane thrust on the launch pad. The SRBs topped out at about 40 m/s^2 of acceleration were enough to lift me to 10,000m on their own. Here at the "Fuck It We're Going to Space" division of KSP, we described the rocket as "bookin' it." I even had to add more struts because the fairings around the rover just couldnt handle the 4g's of acceleration.
So to simplify, think of your design in stages, and in reverse. Build the rocket from the top down, starting with your deployment stage which could be a lander, a rover, a satellite, or a space station expansion; which may or may not include your return. Then think about how you'll get from Kerbin to where ever, and THEN think about how to get all that from the ground into space. With vanilla I think manned missions to other planets would be pretty difficult with one mission, especially if you plan on returning. But a trip to Mun and back, while not the easiest thing in the world, is more than possible with vanilla parts.
This is what I sent to the Mun and back, using only vanilla stuff:
Ain't nothing wrong with that. Real astronauts don't sit there on the yoke and throttle for every maneuver, either.
But again, it takes all of the game out of it.
It just becomes a Delta-V simulator at that point.
For you, perhaps.
For me, it is satisfying enough to build something unrealistic, ignite the fuse and see how far I can make my insane design go into the air.
That's my game.
+4
grouch993Both a man and a numberRegistered Userregular
Is there any particular reason to use multiples of the white 1440 tank versus the larger orange 2880 tank? I see a lot of builds that have four of the 1440 where two oranges would give the same numbers with less parts.
Is there any particular reason to use multiples of the white 1440 tank versus the larger orange 2880 tank? I see a lot of builds that have four of the 1440 where two oranges would give the same numbers with less parts.
You will not overheat nearly as quickly when stacking up smaller tanks. You may have to employ more struts for stability.
Is there any particular reason to use multiples of the white 1440 tank versus the larger orange 2880 tank? I see a lot of builds that have four of the 1440 where two oranges would give the same numbers with less parts.
You will not overheat nearly as quickly when stacking up smaller tanks. You may have to employ more struts for stability.
You can also put the smallest 2.5m tank between the Mainsail and the 2880 tank to avoid overheat. A little more weight, but fewer parts.
Mainly, people use rings of the smaller 1.25m tanks as booster stages with T30/T45 engines. They increase overall efficiency with their higher Isp and allow you to use asparagus staging - drop pairs of tanks along the way instead of being stuck with the weight of a single giant one until it's completely empty.
Ain't nothing wrong with that. Real astronauts don't sit there on the yoke and throttle for every maneuver, either.
But again, it takes all of the game out of it.
It just becomes a Delta-V simulator at that point.
Still a game, it's just a game about building sweet ass rockets and taking them to awesome places instead of also wrestling with a flight simulator via my keyboard.
I'm sure people have fun with actually controlling their spacecraft, but I'd much rather click prograde on Smart A.S.S., or type in my pitch/heading/roll than try to hold it on the ball with wasdqe which is an exercise in frustration for me. Both ways are valid, it's silly when people say that one way is abject better than the other for new people.
Is there any particular reason to use multiples of the white 1440 tank versus the larger orange 2880 tank? I see a lot of builds that have four of the 1440 where two oranges would give the same numbers with less parts.
You will not overheat nearly as quickly when stacking up smaller tanks. You may have to employ more struts for stability.
You can also put the smallest 2.5m tank between the Mainsail and the 2880 tank to avoid overheat. A little more weight, but fewer parts.
Mainly, people use rings of the smaller 1.25m tanks as booster stages with T30/T45 engines. They increase overall efficiency with their higher Isp and allow you to use asparagus staging - drop pairs of tanks along the way instead of being stuck with the weight of a single giant one until it's completely empty.
Hmm... this kinda makes me want to make stacks of smaller tanks on top of a larger one, then jettison them when they empty. Should make for an interesting design (though I doubt it would be very effective).
Ain't nothing wrong with that. Real astronauts don't sit there on the yoke and throttle for every maneuver, either.
But again, it takes all of the game out of it.
It just becomes a Delta-V simulator at that point.
And building, and planning. WASD+Ctrl+Shift is only a small part of the gameplay.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Arriving at Jool, about to adjust angle or orbit to match Laythe (almost)
After final burn, in Laythe orbit, satellite exposed ready for deployment.
Satellite exposed, used RCS to let satellite pass us to avoid collision during descent burn
A shot of the lander and Jool, Tylo, and Vall. This was during descent.
The lander mid-aerobrake, notice we see land here.
Shot of the lander with the rover exposed, ready for deployment. Remember that land we saw?
SPLOOOOSH!!!!! I ran out of fuel and used every last bit of RCS to get into the atmosphere, where i could aerobrake. I missed land by a couple hundred kilometers, but the rover still works so the lander and rover can flop around like a dead fish. I feel pretty proud of actually getting an orbit around Laythe even if its a sloppy orbit. Sadly I landed on the side of Laythe that faces away from Jool, and Laythe's rotation is synced with its orbit. I was really excited about seeing a Joolrise, but I suppose thats for later missions with better planning and more efficiency!
Jool is amazing and there's so much stuff to see out there. I recommend anyone thinking of sending something up there to just do it. It takes a good amount of fuel to get there, and you can even use Jool itself to aerobrake, which i havent mastered yet
So I kind of want to keep playing this game vanilla for a while. Am I going to be pounding nails into my dick to try to do a space station/ get to other planets?
Completely devoid of modding, the game is, and always has been, remarkably random at times--it may be an accurate reflection of reality, but be completely prepared for a design that was worked 10 times in a row flawlessly to behave in a completely different matter. You can have a catastrophic break-up once, fly the same device in the exact same manner, and never repeat it again.
Now, a lot of people enjoy that. However, it does present something of a problem when it comes to manual rendezvous launches (MechJeb is hardly great at this either) when you will have multiple things beyond your control even after you become familiar with the game.
If you're just landing on Mun and planting a few flags, and not planning to do any rendezvous or under ~100 meter interception, this is all entirely possible without MechJeb. Whether or not it's more fun is completely you to you. For a while, I used to manually program torpedoes in Silent Hunter III, while people thought I was insane (no U-boat commander ever manually set their own torpedoes, it'd be like asking Karl Donitz to personally calibrate your drive system).
When you know what you want to do, then you can decide if you want to mod (a lot of people play even games like Skyrim or Arma 2 unmodded). For me, I need brutally realistic components, conditions, on top of an flat-out refusal to sacrifice kerbonauts. I even do technology progress over time and heated reentries. This is not for everyone, and a lot of people want to leap right into interplanetary cruises from the bat. You may fall in between.
Okay, cool mod for those of you (like me) who hate the default universe skybox. The little swirly galaxy things are fuzzy and weird-looking, so this guy's texture replacer is awesome:
The first page of the thread has skybox textures created by Rareden, since you need textures to put in place of the default ones. Rareden is the genius who makes stuff like:
The skybox just replaces the starfield background, so obviously your stuff won't look like those insane screenshots. But he does quality work, as you can see.
FYI, that sexy piece of probe is using AIES parts.
Synthesis on
0
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
You know why I haven't used Mechjeb yet? Because I really, really enjoy manual control.
I still have no idea how those screenshots above look that great. I max the game out and don't even get in the ballpark.
Is he rendering them in another program? I know there's a lot of photoshop work going on there, but I assumed at least the kerbal parts were from the game. But the more I look at it the more I think otherwise.
I still have no idea how those screenshots above look that great. I max the game out and don't even get in the ballpark.
Is he rendering them in another program? I know there's a lot of photoshop work going on there, but I assumed at least the kerbal parts were from the game. But the more I look at it the more I think otherwise.
My completely uneducated guess is that he rendered the models elsewhere.
I still have no idea how those screenshots above look that great. I max the game out and don't even get in the ballpark.
Is he rendering them in another program? I know there's a lot of photoshop work going on there, but I assumed at least the kerbal parts were from the game. But the more I look at it the more I think otherwise.
He is, in fact, rendering the backgrounds moons/planets/etc., adding a bunch of effects around existing spacecraft. They're beautiful, but except for the craft parts, they're no more 'authentic' to KSP than the most interesting kerbal in the world.
I still have no idea how those screenshots above look that great. I max the game out and don't even get in the ballpark.
Is he rendering them in another program? I know there's a lot of photoshop work going on there, but I assumed at least the kerbal parts were from the game. But the more I look at it the more I think otherwise.
He is, in fact, rendering the backgrounds moons/planets/etc., adding a bunch of effects around existing spacecraft. They're beautiful, but except for the craft parts, they're no more 'authentic' to KSP than the most interesting kerbal in the world.
Yea, I knew there was photoshop replacement going on, but even the craft parts look way nicer than when I play KSP at 2x my screen resolution and downscale.
0
Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Man, if Kerbal looked like that......
0
firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
Re: mechjeb - I'd agree that using the auto pilot when you're getting started isn't a great idea, but the metrics that you get in build mode are crazy useful. As much fun as trial and error is, not being able to easily see your thrust to weight and total/stage deltaV is rough sauce.
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
+1
0Replace4DisplaceThe best girls are ships and guns.Registered Userregular
Re: mechjeb - I'd agree that using the auto pilot when you're getting started isn't a great idea, but the metrics that you get in build mode are crazy useful. As much fun as trial and error is, not being able to easily see your thrust to weight and total/stage deltaV is rough sauce.
I agree there. Kerbal Engineer does that without the autopilot though.
0
firewaterwordSatchitanandaPais Vasco to San FranciscoRegistered Userregular
edited August 2013
Yeah I was using engineer when .21 broke mechjeb. Pretty cool.
But I went back to mechjeb because I'm lazy, and after god knows how many launches it's just easier to flip on ascent guidance and go grab a beer.
*Heh...
firewaterword on
Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
+5
0Replace4DisplaceThe best girls are ships and guns.Registered Userregular
So uh turns out my Munar lander doesn't have enough fuel to get back into orbit. But the Kerbonauts down on Minmus made it back home safely. Jeb and Bob will just have to wait a while on the Mun, I guess, while I come up with an automated rescue ship! But first I'm sending a probe to Eve.
Posts
I can't comment on other planets, but getting to the Mun/Minmus shouldn't be too difficult sans mods, especially with maneuver nodes.
Speaking of mods, I've been playing around with MechJeb a bit (mostly grabbed it to test out a friend's all-too-top-heavy design) and it's pretty neat. Landed on the Mun with it quite easily. I'm going to attempt a return trip home, then try the same thing without MechJeb. Might even start a new save.
Hardest part (for me, anyway) about putting a station up is figuring out how to rendezvouses in orbit and dock without burning up all your monoprop and fuel in the process. Funny thing is that once you do it right once, it becomes almost trivial.
Last night I found that my save files somehow were destroyed with the latest update. I attempted to recreate my successful rocket, did pretty well, lifted a three man pod into orbit with a lot of fuel left, fiddled with getting my orbit circular and out to 120K. Then I decided to try to reach Mun orbit. Worked out a nice elliptical path that would coincide requiring a 44 second burn. Got myself out there and realized my plentiful fuel stores were now down to empty.
Just needs more rockets and fuel
There's not a whole lot you can't do with the stock parts. You can easily brute-force your way to any planet in the system with enough fuel and nuclear rockets.
The only thing that 90% of mods do is add extra parts that look better or are useful for very niche/non-essential tasks. Case in point is the winches for Kerbal Attachment System. Not necessary, but any means, but it can turn a rover from exploration vessel to something much more, if you're creative enough.
No. I would not even bother with any mods until you easily have a grasp of how to get around space and planted a few flags.
Shogun Streams Vidya
KLF
Mechjeb (Never actually used it yet)
Kerbcam
No parts mods yet because I haven't run out of stuff to do with stock and they add parts faster than I grow bored of the game.
People recommending Mechjeb as a first mod are dumb. It just encourages you to be lazy, since you can use it to do literally everything for you.
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/44135-0-21-x-Universe-Replacer
The first page of the thread has skybox textures created by Rareden, since you need textures to put in place of the default ones. Rareden is the genius who makes stuff like:
and
and
http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/25231-kerbin-art
The skybox just replaces the starfield background, so obviously your stuff won't look like those insane screenshots. But he does quality work, as you can see.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Shrug, I installed mechjeb almost immediately, but that's because I don't find the vagaries of actually controlling a spacecraft to be terribly fun with WASDQE. The VAB info and Orbital/Surface info are super useful, and Smart A.S.S. is the only way to fly a spacecraft imo. Sure you can tell it to do everything for you, but there is tons of utility in mechjeb that doesn't involve autopilot.
But they should! :P
The stock UI also leaves out lots of vital information that you need to make certain design decisions and understand the base mechanics of spaceflight. Vessel mass, surface horizontal/vertical velocities, delta V calcs, phase angles, etc. should be at the player's disposal once you get beyond Minmus.
I recommend the "do it manually once, then use MJ" method for maneuvering, but some people care more about building than piloting.
Try to design the ship backwards. Think "how much do i need to get back?" and slap that on there. Then think "how much do I need to get there?" then throw that on the bottom. Keep in mind the heavier your top two stages are, the more your bottom stage is going to have to work.
Then the really fun part is "how the hell am i gonna get all this weight into space?!" This is where you don't have to be as limited on how much you throw on there, but there is a line between just adding more fuel without adding more thrust. Just add mo' rockets.
Here's a design issue i recently ran into: I was making a rover and satellite to go to Laythe. I'm using mods so I have a bit more flexibility than vanilla, but basically I needed to make a rover that was 2.5m wide, and a satellite underneath. Jool is a ways out, so I knew I would need quite a bit of transfer fuel, or a really efficient engine on the transfer stage. The second stage I knew was going to weigh quite a bit, so I needed a beast of an initial stage. My first design was this beast:
It weighed almost 800tons (725,748kg) and had about 12,800kN of thrust, meaning I was going to have about ~17 m/s^2 of acceleration on the launch pad. Which was enough to get me to orbit, but once the SRBs went away, I didn't have quite enough to lift the rest of the fuel into orbit on my lower stage, and I had to dip into my transfer stage a bit to get there. It was also inconsistent, and really bad design of the second stage, so i ended up making my satellite a LITTLE bit smaller, so the whole upper stage was 2.5m.
This was the second design:
This dropped the weight by 40%, and added 50% more SRBs for some insane thrust on the launch pad. The SRBs topped out at about 40 m/s^2 of acceleration were enough to lift me to 10,000m on their own. Here at the "Fuck It We're Going to Space" division of KSP, we described the rocket as "bookin' it." I even had to add more struts because the fairings around the rover just couldnt handle the 4g's of acceleration.
So to simplify, think of your design in stages, and in reverse. Build the rocket from the top down, starting with your deployment stage which could be a lander, a rover, a satellite, or a space station expansion; which may or may not include your return. Then think about how you'll get from Kerbin to where ever, and THEN think about how to get all that from the ground into space. With vanilla I think manned missions to other planets would be pretty difficult with one mission, especially if you plan on returning. But a trip to Mun and back, while not the easiest thing in the world, is more than possible with vanilla parts.
This is what I sent to the Mun and back, using only vanilla stuff:
STEAM!
But again, it takes all of the game out of it.
It just becomes a Delta-V simulator at that point.
For you, perhaps.
For me, it is satisfying enough to build something unrealistic, ignite the fuse and see how far I can make my insane design go into the air.
That's my game.
You will not overheat nearly as quickly when stacking up smaller tanks. You may have to employ more struts for stability.
Shogun Streams Vidya
You can also put the smallest 2.5m tank between the Mainsail and the 2880 tank to avoid overheat. A little more weight, but fewer parts.
Mainly, people use rings of the smaller 1.25m tanks as booster stages with T30/T45 engines. They increase overall efficiency with their higher Isp and allow you to use asparagus staging - drop pairs of tanks along the way instead of being stuck with the weight of a single giant one until it's completely empty.
Still a game, it's just a game about building sweet ass rockets and taking them to awesome places instead of also wrestling with a flight simulator via my keyboard.
I'm sure people have fun with actually controlling their spacecraft, but I'd much rather click prograde on Smart A.S.S., or type in my pitch/heading/roll than try to hold it on the ball with wasdqe which is an exercise in frustration for me. Both ways are valid, it's silly when people say that one way is abject better than the other for new people.
Hmm... this kinda makes me want to make stacks of smaller tanks on top of a larger one, then jettison them when they empty. Should make for an interesting design (though I doubt it would be very effective).
And building, and planning. WASD+Ctrl+Shift is only a small part of the gameplay.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
There's also saying "FUCK" and pressing F9.
Arriving at Jool, about to adjust angle or orbit to match Laythe (almost)
After final burn, in Laythe orbit, satellite exposed ready for deployment.
Satellite exposed, used RCS to let satellite pass us to avoid collision during descent burn
A shot of the lander and Jool, Tylo, and Vall. This was during descent.
The lander mid-aerobrake, notice we see land here.
Shot of the lander with the rover exposed, ready for deployment. Remember that land we saw?
SPLOOOOSH!!!!! I ran out of fuel and used every last bit of RCS to get into the atmosphere, where i could aerobrake. I missed land by a couple hundred kilometers, but the rover still works so the lander and rover can flop around like a dead fish. I feel pretty proud of actually getting an orbit around Laythe even if its a sloppy orbit. Sadly I landed on the side of Laythe that faces away from Jool, and Laythe's rotation is synced with its orbit. I was really excited about seeing a Joolrise, but I suppose thats for later missions with better planning and more efficiency!
Jool is amazing and there's so much stuff to see out there. I recommend anyone thinking of sending something up there to just do it. It takes a good amount of fuel to get there, and you can even use Jool itself to aerobrake, which i havent mastered yet
STEAM!
I've done that... except AFTER pressing F9 when my latest quicksave was about 3 launches prior
No one plays Kerbal Space Program to design rockets and actually see them do things. That's stupid.
They play it to do do a burn, then do another burn, and then do another burn in a slightly different direction.
Completely devoid of modding, the game is, and always has been, remarkably random at times--it may be an accurate reflection of reality, but be completely prepared for a design that was worked 10 times in a row flawlessly to behave in a completely different matter. You can have a catastrophic break-up once, fly the same device in the exact same manner, and never repeat it again.
Now, a lot of people enjoy that. However, it does present something of a problem when it comes to manual rendezvous launches (MechJeb is hardly great at this either) when you will have multiple things beyond your control even after you become familiar with the game.
If you're just landing on Mun and planting a few flags, and not planning to do any rendezvous or under ~100 meter interception, this is all entirely possible without MechJeb. Whether or not it's more fun is completely you to you. For a while, I used to manually program torpedoes in Silent Hunter III, while people thought I was insane (no U-boat commander ever manually set their own torpedoes, it'd be like asking Karl Donitz to personally calibrate your drive system).
When you know what you want to do, then you can decide if you want to mod (a lot of people play even games like Skyrim or Arma 2 unmodded). For me, I need brutally realistic components, conditions, on top of an flat-out refusal to sacrifice kerbonauts. I even do technology progress over time and heated reentries. This is not for everyone, and a lot of people want to leap right into interplanetary cruises from the bat. You may fall in between.
FYI, that sexy piece of probe is using AIES parts.
Some people don't.
We can both exist together! Harmony!
This is flat out great though:
Is he rendering them in another program? I know there's a lot of photoshop work going on there, but I assumed at least the kerbal parts were from the game. But the more I look at it the more I think otherwise.
My completely uneducated guess is that he rendered the models elsewhere.
He is, in fact, rendering the backgrounds moons/planets/etc., adding a bunch of effects around existing spacecraft. They're beautiful, but except for the craft parts, they're no more 'authentic' to KSP than the most interesting kerbal in the world.
Yea, I knew there was photoshop replacement going on, but even the craft parts look way nicer than when I play KSP at 2x my screen resolution and downscale.
I agree there. Kerbal Engineer does that without the autopilot though.
But I went back to mechjeb because I'm lazy, and after god knows how many launches it's just easier to flip on ascent guidance and go grab a beer.
*Heh...
Good to see Kerbals don't run seatbelts.
Or airbags.
Or windshields.
It says Thrillmaster right there. What more do you want!
Mine too. High five!
I think my problem was I designed it all to be one stage, instead of having a descent stage AND an ascent stage. Oh well, live and learn!