kerbal-space-howto
Kerbal Space Program (KSP) Info
“Crash Course in Rocket Flight”
Getting Started
After doubleclicking KSP_demo.app, choose “Start Game.” You will get a choice of “Training” or “Start New.” Teachers should start with “Training” so they know how to build and launch rockets! Eventually you’ll choose “Start New”: with the 2013 and 2015(?) demos, on the next screen try user name=“Demo” and GameMode=“(x)Sandbox” and press “Start!” (followed by “Overwrite”).
Choose the middle building (the tallest building), in which you can build rockets. If you took the “Training” on the earlier screen, you’ll know how to build and launch rockets.
Hint 1: many of the rocket parts are right clickable for extra options, including settings for rocket power and parachute self-opening.
Hint 2: “STAGING” is important--you don’t want the top rocket and bottom rocket and parachute all going off at the same time!
Keys
LAUNCH:
Rocket blast: left SHIFT = more, left CONTROL= less, “x”= stop blasting.
SPACEBAR activates (next) stage.
“T” key turns on SAS stabilizer. You can steer a little with SAS on, but have to turn SAS temporarily off again to do major steering and changes of direction.
“R” turns on RCS rocket steering which is good for stabilizing and for steering.
ESC key lets you quit a flight and restart it or go back to vehicle assembly building.
You can speed up time: “.” (period) speeds up time, “,” (comma) slows down time. (These only work when throttle is OFF.)
“M” switches between regular (look at rocket) view and “Map” view.
“C” switches between “C”ockpit view and not.
ARROW keys move the camera around. “+” (plus) and “-” (minus) zoom the camera.
ASWD keys let you steer the rocket, kerbal, and kerbal’s jet packs (the latter are turned on with “R”, as are the “RCS” control mini-rockets which use special mono fuel). PS: Quinn B. discovered that the Kerbals can climb flagpoles! (For the rocket pack, use shift and control for up and down.)
Q & E twist the rocket.
(IKJL keys supposedly make the rocket move up/down/left/right/ without tilting.)
Holding shift makes the steering keys more sensitive, while Caps-Lock causes the steering keys to be less sensitive, supposedly.
COMMAND-F toggles “F”ullscreen on/off.
Flight Info
The altimeter is at top of screen and has an orange needle to show whether you’re going up or down, and how fast.
The "Nav Ball" is at the bottom of the screen, and has a speedometer at its top.
The “Nav Ball” has some important icons:
spacecraft (orange V arms with diamond),
“prograde” (forward) (lime circle with vertical and horizontal wings)
and “retrograde” (backward) (lime circle with X in middle and diagonal wings).
Flight Tips
Flying from Kerbin (“Earth”):
In thick atmosphere (below 10,000 meters) keep speed below 200 m/s and fly straight up. (You’ll be wasting fuel if you go faster or farther in the thick air.) Above 10,000 meters you can go full throttle without wasting fuel from pushing air out of the way. Might want to tip over 45° at that point and eventually fly flat (horizontal) because the ground will drop out beneath you as you go past the horizon “edge” of the planet. To get orbit you’ll need 2,200 m/s velocity! Best direction for orbit is 90° heading on the navball: then you’ll be in the same plane as the Mün and going the same direction, so it is easier to chase, catch, and orbit.) (Atmosphere tapers off to about 70,000 m, so an orbit at 100,000 m is great and will last forever.)
To get to the Mün!
First, get into due East kerbin (more-or-less-circular) orbit between 70km and 150km altitude.
Merely orbit until you see Mün come up over horizon, and then fire until apoapsis (high spot) matches moon orbit. {For better fuel efficiency, try to set up your orbit so periapsis (low point) is 60 degrees ahead of mün -- then you can use small amount of fire at apoapsis (high point) which will be 120 degrees behind the moon.}
You'll be on collision course. When getting close, make maneuvers so that you can get into orbit, and then plan your landing into daylight. (It is really hard to land in the dark.) As you head down, fire sideways until retrograde vector
is straight down. (See “More Info about Landing on Mün” below, about eliminating the sideways motion which can tip over the lander.) Slow down, but not too much: don’t want to fly away! The surface can be at 1000m to 3000m altitude, so gauge the distance by watching for boulders, or use the precise “radar” altimeters inside the cockpit. Try to land at less then 10m/s vertical velocity.
For more info, check out Scott Manley's thorough tutorial for the demo kerbal: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xXh5pwvY20, 42 minutes long.)
Maneuver
There is a very handy tool: “Make Maneuver” on your path ahead of you: you can pull different angles and see the resulting path, and you'll get a blue guide
and you’ll get a blue guide in the navigation ball and a note about how soon you should burn rocket and how much you should burn. (In the example shown here, they say you’ll have to start the rocket burn in 16 seconds, and have to change your speed 843.2 m/s, with Estimated Burn lasting 1 day(!) and 1 hour.)
Tutorial
The built-in interactive tutorials are awesome: they appear on the first screen before you start game, and give “you try it” examples of everything from building and launching rockets to getting to the “Mün.” They teach about “apoapis” (highest point of your path) and “periapsis” (lowest). The fourth tutorial actually puts you in a rocket that is already in orbit and shows you how to get to the moon.
Saving Spacecraft in Demo KSP
If you design a rocket and save it, you'll find the saved “.craft” file in the local hard-drive’s “Applications/KSP_demo_osx/saves/Demo/Ships/VAB/” folder. (At least until somebody else runs KSP; they might over-write your new ship. PS: “VAB” stands for “Vehicle Assembly Building.”) You can drag the ship somewhere for safekeeping. You can also install it to be part of the ships under the VAB’s “Load” button for future use. Just move your saved craft file to the “Applications/KSP_demo_osx/Ships/VAB/” folder. Note: this is NOT the same Ships folder where demo does its saving.
This info might be the same for pro and educ_pro versions...
More Info about Landing on Mün
Trick for landing without flying sideways:
Get the “retrograde” indicator (
, let’s call it “R”) on the navball to be exactly on the center-of-blue dot (which I’ll call “C” in the diagram below.)
You can use the orange “S” self-indicator to push the retrograde indicator (“R”) toward the middle: put our orange self-indicator (“S”) self outside “R,” making a line S-R-C so that retrograde indicator “R” is in the middle between S (our self) and C (navball center), like this:
S-R-C
"S"
"R"
and then steer a little (arrow keys) to push “R” to the center. If you overshoot, scoot around and push back to the middle.
Super important: you do NOT have to release the stabilizer (‘t’) to make small maneuvers!!
Note: the canopy view has better altimeter (radar (sonar?), so shows real distance to surface!). Also, “caps-lock" makes the aswd (and other??) keys more sensitive.
PS: I'm not sure if there is a way to thrust sideways with rcs. Supposedly the IJKL keys do this but I haven't tested them.
Docking
Note: on maneuvers, try to match up the orange paths: one has dotted lines and the other doesn’t. Don’t try to match the orange to the purple! (Purples are 2nd intercept, like backup.)
Page by mjr, revised 2022 Jan 4.