Attention NERDS!
 

...you will enjoy this:

http://www.kerbalspaceprogram.com

Build and fly home-made rockets... do it right and you can even park them in a nice stable orbit.

Don't bother if you're not nerdy enough to enjoy an open sandbox, alpha quality "game" with no goal.

PS: get the Wobbly Rockets 3rd party parts-pack: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/forum/...php?topic=79.0

http://www.seccs.org/images/misc/korbit_01.png

After several amusing failures my highest altitude was 242,771m.

I haven't had any great failures, but am out of vertical space in the assembly building. Any way to zoom out?

Middle click and move the mouse in/out to zoom (or +/- keys if you've got the 0.8.5 experimental build). Scroll wheel to move up/down the rocket.

My brothers and I have been having a blast with this! We've noticed that the guy in the middle is just about always having the time of his life while the guys on either side are terrified.

Jebediah is the man. Or on crank. Or both.

Cory built one last night, and only half of it left the launch deck.

OK, except I don't have a middle button or scroll on my old laptop trackpad. :(

Version 0.8.5 is released. :)

...and their server is promptly getting hammered. :lol:

3,300k and still over 1,000m/s. Slowing down slowly.

Damn. I keep having stability/control problems and often crash and burn.

I didn't do very well at all. My rocket crashed and spilled its cargo on Uranus.

was the cargo.........butt worms?

Klingons

I reached 4,500K after an hour, and was still going. I consider it a successful mission, although I had no boosters left in which to return the crew. Dasvidaniya comrades.

On missions like that... you can save weight by not packing a parachute.

I tried that last night, the problem is when everything goes wrong you have no chance of saving the crew. I tried to slow the command module down by launching the last booster right before it hit the ground. It didn't go well.

I've actually been able to tail land a rocket very gently. But then it fell over and the ensuing blast killed everyone.

:picard:

Has anyone played the most recent version? It looks awesome.

Just tried the demo and this is pretty sweet. My kid is all into it too. I think I'm going to get the full version for spaceplanes, etc.

I've got the latest installed, but haven't have time to play it yet.

Dropped this guy into an orbit around the far moon just to check it out..

Are you space walking as well? That's it I've got to buy the full version.

Hellz yeah. I landed another guy on the near moon (one way trip - destroyed rocket getting the capsule down) and popped him out to walk around on the surface. He'll be there a while.

Better send a rescue mission!!

He knew the risks.

Managed to escape Kerbin and land another guy on the planet Eve. I'm slowly populating my solar system with lonely Kerbals.

:lol:

I love this game. I got the engineer redux mod which gives you a ton of actual data which I'm surprised they don't give you access to with the core game. Stuff that is kinda essential to rocketry like thrust/weight ratio, delta-V potential of your stages, radar altitude above surfaces, etc. :lol:

Did you build a little rover as well? I'm still having trouble obtaining a solid orbit. I tried recreating an old rocket design of mine called Apollo Creed MK3, and it made it into orbit but my use of solid fuel boosters kept it right on going. I need to find a design that allows me to save a liquid fuel engine for getting around once I obtain orbit, or just build a space station...

...that's no moon, its a space station.

I know you can build refueling space stations but can you put one on another planet?

Moon or interplanetary travel is solidly achievable with 2-3 stages if it's built right. Like if you have a 3 stage design, 1st stage needs to do the heavy lifting to get you up out of most of the atmosphere, then 2nd stage you use for a mostly tangential burn to establish a circular Kerbin orbit, then 3rd stage would be for your transfer burn to whatever body you're trying to visit.

Make the core stages of the rocket all liquid fueled so you can modulate thrust, and use solid boosters to help the heavy lifting down in the atmosphere. Then you can blow off the boosters when they flame out which lightens you up and makes getting into circular orbit easier.

Using the maneuver tool in orbital map mode helps plan your burns & predict resultant orbits a lot. The KSP wiki site also has a lot of good info, recommend visiting. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Main_Page

And yeah I hauled a rover up to the moon too. :lol:

Man, I haven't played this game since before there was any of these features. You want to get into orbit... you just had to point the ship and guess that you're doing it right. That maneuver tool is like cheating! Also, to do nearly anything without building a massive shaking pyramid of solid boosters, you *had* to use the 3rd party add-ons.

I really need to fire this game up again. It looks like it's way better than the last time I played.

I'm entertained by this thread. And honestly, the thread title makes me laugh when I see it bumped.

This is a 3 stage design that got a satellite to the far moon without needing to even get into the 3rd stage, so really it's overbuilt for moon travel. I'm going to try to see if I can get to one of the outer planets with it.

Checking out the sun close up.. it takes a ton of delta-V to get into a tight circular orbit around the sun, but far less for a highly elliptical orbit that just swings close on one end.

I don't really care that I'm the only one posting in here now. :lol:

Version 0.20 is out for download FYI, and I landed a probe on the inner moon of the gas giant. It's got atmosphere and sand dunes and everything.

I enjoy your posts. I wish I had more time to play that game.

Keep posting...

Much like the real NASA, we all can't be astronauts and have to live vicariously through your space program. :lol:

I'm pondering what my next 'mission' will be. Any requests? :lol:

I hear Mercury is just lovely this time of "year". :)

Have you built a space station? You should try to create an orbital platform that can house 100 Kerbals. :lol:

I have not built a station yet. I think rendezvous & docking in low orbit might be harder than interplanetary travel. Could be a good project.

Have you been able to get anything out of the solar system yet? Go chase down Voyager 1. Have you tried space planes? All my test pilots died horribly. I was sure to send their widows a nice fruit basket.

This.

I don't think there is anything modeled outside the solar system right now, not sure if it's even possible to escape the sun. Only one way to find out..

I started working on a space station system last night and got the core of it parked in a 150km orbit. Sent up an add on stage after that and tried to rendezvous a couple times unsuccessfully. It's tricky stuff.. I need Buzz Aldrin to come dock my ships for me.

I noticed there's a whole new (to me at least) set of "docking controls" that can be configured. I wonder if you're not using the proper controls to dock with?

I still haven't had a chance to play since before docking was even added to the game though, so I'm likely just talking out my ass.

I didn't even get close enough to try docking, just rendezvousing with another orbiting object at the same point at the same speed is the hard part. I think once you get close enough to use RCS for actual docking that's the easy part.