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Kerbal Space Program : like model rocket building but better and [no longer] free

Imagine if someone took the concept of KSP, but with you in the rocket instead. You could build/fly to space stations where other players are. While there, you could walk around, do EVAs, etc. You could also fly to the moon/other planets and explore or build bases/spaceports. It would be a KSP/Minecraft/Space Engine/Star Citizen mash-up, allowing players to colonize the universe and create their own worlds. I doubt many computers today would be able to run a game such as this, but I would love to play it.
 
Imagine if someone took the concept of KSP, but with you in the rocket instead. You could build/fly to space stations where other players are. While there, you could walk around, do EVAs, etc. You could also fly to the moon/other planets and explore or build bases/spaceports. It would be a KSP/Minecraft/Space Engine/Star Citizen mash-up, allowing players to colonize the universe and create their own worlds. I doubt many computers today would be able to run a game such as this, but I would love to play it.

KSP + Space Engine planet rendering tech = HNNNG.

gas-eclipse-moon.png

moon_dusk2-small.png


Twist: Space Engine runs better on my PC than KSP.
 
is that still correct?
On the website it says "purchase now"..

the free version is now the demo listed on the steam store page I think. Less parts and less planets. The physics may not have been updated since it was created as well, not positive on that one.
 
is that still correct?
On the website it says "purchase now"..

It never was free. However they always had a demo. It's great if you want to try out the game but it's very limited. Not all the parts, only 1 (or maybe 2? not sure) moons instead of all the planets/moons and it's often an old version of the game. They update the demo only once a year or so when they update the full game every two months.
 
Damn that looks fantastic. That's Space Engine? What do you do in that one?

It procedurally generates an entire universe and you can fly around and explore wherever you want. There's not really any gameplay to it, but the graphics are incredible and the whole thing runs really smoothly. You can click on a star in the sky, press a button, and the game will warp to it with barely a stutter.

Here's what Earth looks like:
scr00075_stitch2_small.jpg
 
It procedurally generates an entire universe and you can fly around and explore wherever you want. There's not really any gameplay to it, but the graphics are incredible and the whole thing runs really smoothly. You can click on a star in the sky, press a button, and the game will warp to it with barely a stutter.

Here's what Earth looks like:
scr00075_stitch2_small.jpg

Why can't we make Kerbal look like this? :(
 
Whelp, I've made permanent boon bases on Mun and Minmus using disposable skycranes.

Now to make a giant space station. probably significantly harder than a Mun landing.
 
I'm making some progress. Admittedly it doesn't look much like a station yet.

spacestation1.jpg


Left to right:
- Small third stage used to dock modules. I haven't detached this yet as it has extra thrusters.
- Fuel module 2 (upside down - oops)
- Fuel module 1
- Control module (SAS + remote guidance unit)
- Utility module (solar + batteries)

Rendezvous got a lot easier/quicker once I discovered that the intercept gets closer the further you boost your orbit past the target. I'm able to get to <1km of the station within 1-2 orbits compared to 10+ orbits the first couple of times.
 
Why can't we make Kerbal look like this? :(

To be fair on KSP they have improved it a lot, they really need cloud cover but I can only imagine the KSP guys would want to simulate a full weather system before they add that.
 
YES YES YES! I finally managed to land on the Mun guys! :D it took me 50 rocket design but I finally found one that was good enough to land on it! Now the problem is to fly my 3 boys home :(
 
Does anyone have a good design for a rescue-type rocket to get my boy Bill off the Mun? I just failed horribly killing three Kerbil heroes in the progress. Aside from Bill feeling kind of awkward that three of his friends died rescueing him, I can't keep justifying shooting random Kerbins into space and into certain death.

So I need schematics or an example of a vehicle that can get to the Mun, land, can take Bill and has enough fuel to make the trip back.
 
Hum my trip to Eve did not go well...

Getting a intercept was hard and a 140(ish) days later managed this travesty.



Ok lets try that again, ah better.... ok those mountains in the distance look kinda big, how low can your orbit be around Eve again?



And my entire ship slammed in the atmosphere of Eve, much panicked maneuvering later...


Jebediah I salute you and your sacrifice, forever lost on the harsh planet of Eve.
 
Aw, too bad man. Maybe a rescue mission can save him? I'm landing an unmanned probe and rover on Eve as I type this.

I made it to Laythe last night, after three attempts. The first two attempts, each time the parachutes would deploy and hit the Laythian equivalent of air, the rover would violently detach and fall to the surface, and the RTG attached to the probe would go with it. So I have two dead probes with a lot of debris around the surface. For my third attempt I went with a drogue parachute to slow down first, and added some support struts to keep the rover attached and, miraculously, it worked. I now have a fully working probe and rover on Laythe, and apart from the gravity it seems like it's not too bad a place to send Kerbals too!

I've already got probes and rovers on Duna (again, two attempts that failed and one that worked, but with a damaged and dead rover), so tonight I'm having a go at Eve. After that, it's time to adapt my unmanned payload to account for a manned mission to Duna, then likely off to Laythe again.


The previous, dead probe with destroyed rover sitting on Laythe, with Jool and the moons Vall and Tylo sitting faintly in the sky on the left, as the sun begins to rise. This is my favourite screenshot, which is why I didn't post one with the working probe and rover.
 
Aw, too bad man. Maybe a rescue mission can save him?

I wouldn't know where to begin designing a lander that can land on Eve then take off and rendezvous with the "mothership". Might give it a go though, saying that I managed to land on a small island in the middle of the purple sea it's gonna be hard hitting that target.
 
Got this game recently and now landed on the Mun. Problem was he didn't have enough fuel to get back. So I sent a rescue ship. The rocket broke off on landing. Then I had two that needed rescue. Then I got smart and sent a unmanned ship to the Mun so if it failed no biggie. And successful landing! And I have plenty of fuel to get back.

Edit: And splashdown. Got them back safe and sound. It was a little scary on reentry though not having a heat shield.
 
Finally, FINALLY got an unmanned rescue vehicle towards the Mun, but now I'm nearing Mun orbit and I've suddenly lost all control over the vehicle.

Please tell me this isn't because I'm out of signal reach or something..
 
Finally, FINALLY got an unmanned rescue vehicle towards the Mun, but now I'm nearing Mun orbit and I've suddenly lost all control over the vehicle.

Please tell me this isn't because I'm out of signal reach or something..

You're probably out of electricity. I usually put a reactor somewhere onto to have a basic level of electricity. Solar Panels are an alternative but they need exposure which you might not have in certain situations (orbit etc.) so you'd need enough battery capacity...
 
Steam Chat: It kills Kerbals.

Steam chat is a great excuse :P
I tried to send an unmanned orbiter to the mun and as I set up maneuver nodes I try to hold shift to pan around. Thankfully the stage ran out of fuel and I could work my way from the new elliptical orbit.
 
You're probably out of electricity. I usually put a reactor somewhere onto to have a basic level of electricity. Solar Panels are an alternative but they need exposure which you might not have in certain situations (orbit etc.) so you'd need enough battery capacity...

Thanks for the quick reply. It was a bug, restarting the game and now I have full control again.


Almost abandoned the entire mission because of this. Weird.
 
Can anyone post a pic of what they use to get to planets all my ships come apart before take off.


I use a modified version of the stock Kerbal X ship for random orbit flights and Mun landings. The stock version is missing a crucial part [ASAS module]. I also added some lights because lights are awesome. This version is missing a battery pack/solar panels though.


Anyway, I got my unmanned craft to the Mun, I even landed 2km next to the rescue site which was a pretty solid accomplishment but guess what.. I don't have enough fuel to escape the gravitational pull of the Mun, so I can't get back to Kerbin.


This is beginning to look like Hot Shots part Deux: send a rescue mission to rescue the rescue mission.
 
I use a modified version of the stock Kerbal X ship for random orbit flights and Mun landings. The stock version is missing a crucial part [ASAS module]. I also added some lights because lights are awesome. This version is missing a battery pack/solar panels though.

This confused me as well, but in 0.21 they removed ASAS, made the old parts into torque wheels and gave command modules ASAS.

Scott Manley explains it here.
 
I finally decided to give interplanetary travel a shot. I slapped together a craft with two unmanned landers to send to Duna with the hope of putting them at the poles.

Orbital insertion burn around Duna (landers are on the right, top and bottom):


Something went wacky around this burn, or I lost track of something. The burn was supposed to take a smidgen over 1000 m/s delta V and according to MechJeb I had 1600 m/s in my craft before the maneuver. After a nearly perfect burn, it reported a total of 44 m/s delta V. Thankfully I had brought along a ton of RCS, so I was able to use that to get the cruise stage + landers into a decent, albeit highly elliptical, polar orbit. I didn't quite know what I was doing while attempting to bring down the landers though, so the first came down near the equator.

First lander coming in:


Chutes deployed!


Due to Duna's wisp of an atmosphere, even 4 heavy duty parachutes were barely enough to slow the craft down. I had some RCS on the landers for a semi-powered descent though.

Success!


I did a much better job aiming for the north pole with the second lander. Here it is beginning the descent.


Chutes deployed over the north pole!


And a successful landing at the pole!


I attempted to use aerobraking to bring the cruise stage down into a closer orbit, but due to the thin atmosphere it took a long time. But it is now drifting comfortably at a 80 km x 75 km orbit, "communicating" with the landers below.


I just used MechJeb to lay out the maneuver nodes, then did the burns myself (with the exception of the fine tuning burn on the way to Duna).
 
Finally rescued the first Kerbal I stuck on the Mun! Feel so proud. Was touch and go (several times) but ultimately stuck the landing about 7 km from the original landing site, and had just enough fuel to get home!

Mission highlights:

- Landing close enough to my Original Mun landing site, after accidentally entering retrograde Mun orbit (felt like a hero)

- Realising I forgot a ladder (felt like a nob)

- Raising the landing struts to lower the pod further to the ground, putting the hatch just within reach for a "jump & grab" entrance (felt like Ed fucking Harris at the end of Apollo 13)

- Re-entering Kerbin at ~3000m/s and somehow landing safely with 1x blue chute.

This is the most fun I've ever had in a game. Thank god I didn't have this as a child, would never have left the house.
 
i recently got back into KSP in a big way based on the idea of constructing stuff in space. A space station is the obvious first step, but ideally i'd like to build a sick-ass interplanetary ship that gets the initial advantage of not having to escape kerbin's gravitational pull.

So I've gotten docking down and started some kind of space construction - right now i'm mainly attaching girders to a station core via clamp-o-trons. This has revealed that the wobbliness of ships built in the VAB still applies to stuff built sans-atmosphere.

Is there any way to apply struts to stuff after you've launched it? I'd love to be able to clamp-o-tron components together and then actually secure them with struts. Without that, how is it even possible to build anything of meaningful size outside of the VAB?



EDIT: Here's a sweet picture of the first rendezvous i did with my space station core. Totally forgot to put a clamp-o-tron on the nose of the visiting ship. After bumping nonfunctional uglies for a while and realizing the problem, my Kerbal Commander said "fuck it" and EVA'd out into the Hitchhiker Storage Container:

 
There was an article about the game on Joystiq today. Interesting tidbit about 0.22:

Felipe couldn't say when the game would officially launch, though a new update, version 0.22, will arrive as soon as the team's finished it, adding space research missions and a career mode designed to slowly introduce more high-level mechanics to players in a less sandbox, more regimented experience. Version 0.22 also adds a pre-staging area where players can construct and save custom spacecraft for more streamlined assembly.

I found it interesting that Squad is more of a marketing company. This is their first foray into games.

i recently got back into KSP in a big way based on the idea of constructing stuff in space. A space station is the obvious first step, but ideally i'd like to build a sick-ass interplanetary ship that gets the initial advantage of not having to escape kerbin's gravitational pull.

So I've gotten docking down and started some kind of space construction - right now i'm mainly attaching girders to a station core via clamp-o-trons. This has revealed that the wobbliness of ships built in the VAB still applies to stuff built sans-atmosphere.

Is there any way to apply struts to stuff after you've launched it? I'd love to be able to clamp-o-tron components together and then actually secure them with struts. Without that, how is it even possible to build anything of meaningful size outside of the VAB?



EDIT: Here's a sweet picture of the first rendezvous i did with my space station core. Totally forgot to put a clamp-o-tron on the nose of the visiting ship. After bumping nonfunctional uglies for a while and realizing the problem, my Kerbal Commander said "fuck it" and EVA'd out into the Hitchhiker Storage Container:

That is a nifty looking station. I think the Quantum Struts mod might be what you're looking for, but I'm not all that familiar with it.
 
Official subassembly support is fucking great.

Science collecting is cool.

Not so hot about unlocking parts via research, I love more always having all the parts. But I can live with it.
 
Official subassembly support is fucking great.

Science collecting is cool.

Not so hot about unlocking parts via research, I love more always having all the parts. But I can live with it.

The unlocking stuff is just for career mode. I am pretty sure sandbox mode will always remain. I think it is a good idea to limit parts over time. With anything, restrictions catalyze creativity. I find myself defaulting to the same launch systems since I know they are tried and true. It will be fun trying to push the limits of a limited part set in the early game. Earn that mainsail!
 
The unlocking stuff is just for career mode. I am pretty sure sandbox mode will always remain. I think it is a good idea to limit parts over time. With anything, restrictions catalyze creativity. I find myself defaulting to the same launch systems since I know they are tried and true. It will be fun trying to push the limits of a limited part set in the early game. Earn that mainsail!

The free version was great in this way. It had few parts and you had to use those creatively to reach a goal.
 
I'm waiting for 0.22 to start again, after I think 0.20 broke my main save badly I decided to take a break from the game and only occasionally do a mun landing or something to relax. I probably will get back to it when 0.22 releases. The game was probably one of the best gaming investments ever not even 20 dollars and already over 150h spent building and flying rockets.
 
That display.
Dat shit cray and I approve. I love when people loving the game do something like this. IRL immersion.
 
So yeah, just published my first episode of a KSP Let's Play that I'm doing. I've been working on learning what all the parts do and practicing on getting into orbit after I recorded this, so I'm a bit better than the derping I did here.

Absolutely loving the game so far, though! I've always had an affinity for space but I've never had the computer that could run this game until recently.

I also toggled on infinite fuel in the debug menu a few nights ago and sent a rocket into deep space just to see what it would do. Yep, learned never to do that again pretty quickly.

I did have a question regarding setting up a Munar rocket: are the larger engines of any use once you escape Kerbin's atmosphere or should I be using them to give myself a push to the Mun (and thus, adding on more fuel tanks/weight to do so)?
 
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