Anyone play Kerbal Space Program?

[feedback]

It's basically an evolved version of those old rocket-building sims you played on your Apple II in monochrome. You build your own rocketship, launch, and fly it as far as you can. Northernlion has done a number of LP's with it if you're interested with how it looks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goTg8l0Y ... plpp_video

Website here: http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/

[seremtan]

amusing video

[Eraser]

That looks sweet. Not sure how long it stays fun though, if it has some depth on offer. Would be cool if you could fly to the moon and land some astronauts on there

edit: looks like you actually can. There's a video on the site showing it. I am sold. And those little green fellows are so adorable.

[feedback]

Yup, I think the ultimate goal is to land on the... "Mun" and then get back.

[fKd]

downloading, looks fun

[Eraser]

Yeah so my first attempt was a rocket that ended up crashing nose first into the ground, never going higher than 200 - 300 meters

[Eraser]

Ah, discovered the T key to activate SAS. Got up to almost 700km now (just a few 100 meters short). Shame the moon, sorry, Mun is 11000 km away.
I saw on the tracking map (hit M) that there's a 3rd celestial body even further away than the Mun. Ah, one can dream.

[fKd]

heh the best part of the game is the spectacular failures.

[feedback]

I don't think my kerbals had proper psych evaluations to handle the stresses of space launches.

[Eraser]

They're totally honking backwards. Mine have been screaming their brains out when slowly gliding back to the surface while they were happily enjoying the view while plummeting down with half a tonne of booster rockets strapped to their ass.

[Eraser]

I've been messing around with this some more recently. There's a new 0.16 update out which adds the option of EVA's, or "extra-vehicular activity", which is just a fancy term for having your Kerbals do space walks or moon walks (or Kerbin walks if you fancy that). They're equipped with a jetpack so you can float around neatly.

Anyway, I've learned a lot of stuff about space flight and inter-planetary travel. Somewhere before I said I got up as high as 700km which felt like an achievement but god, that is just the totally wrong way to go about it. I've learned about orbits, about periapsis and apoapsis, transfer orbits and how to get your spaceship up in a stable orbit with a small "eccentricity".

While I guess it's not incredibly hard to get a spaceship to the moon, there is a lot of stuff to take into account and quite some physics knowledge required to understand what you're doing.

Oh and the best thing I discovered is that you can build space planes as well, that take off like normal planes, fly through space, and land again. I don't think they're suitable to fly to the moon though.

And if you don't plan on playing this, but would like to experience it, definitely check out Northernlion's set of videos where plays this. He absolutely sucks balls at it and has no clue what he's doing, but it is hilarious.

[Eraser]

Can't get enough of these guys

[feedback]

I've been messing around with this some more recently. There's a new 0.16 update out which adds the option of EVA's, or "extra-vehicular activity", which is just a fancy term for having your Kerbals do space walks or moon walks (or Kerbin walks if you fancy that). They're equipped with a jetpack so you can float around neatly.

Anyway, I've learned a lot of stuff about space flight and inter-planetary travel. Somewhere before I said I got up as high as 700km which felt like an achievement but god, that is just the totally wrong way to go about it. I've learned about orbits, about periapsis and apoapsis, transfer orbits and how to get your spaceship up in a stable orbit with a small "eccentricity".

While I guess it's not incredibly hard to get a spaceship to the moon, there is a lot of stuff to take into account and quite some physics knowledge required to understand what you're doing.

Oh and the best thing I discovered is that you can build space planes as well, that take off like normal planes, fly through space, and land again. I don't think they're suitable to fly to the moon though.

And if you don't plan on playing this, but would like to experience it, definitely check out Northernlion's set of videos where plays this. He absolutely sucks balls at it and has no clue what he's doing, but it is hilarious.

Yes, the game continues further than you'd think, how to do orbits and land on other planets and get back with enough fuel, there's such a plethora of goals you could have in this game. Once you can do rockets, you can try space planes. Really cool idea and I'd like to see it succeed.

[Tsakali]

is maneuvering for setting up a trajectory kind of a blase thing or am I missing something? I managed to create a monstrosity that had more than enough juice to get me to the mun, where I crash landed. And what's with the mun's gravity effects not showing up on the trajectory only until you're right on it? I'm basically freeballin all my attempts.

BTW, this makes setting up an orbit seem like a very trivial thing...granted you don't care about details.

[Eraser]

Yes, the game continues further than you'd think, how to do orbits and land on other planets and get back with enough fuel, there's such a plethora of goals you could have in this game. Once you can do rockets, you can try space planes. Really cool idea and I'd like to see it succeed.

Over at the forums on the KSP website there's a "challenges" subforum, where people come up with challenging things to do. There's some hilarious challenges in there that actually are quite challenging. It's fun to see.

[Eraser]

rofl. Was going to be the perfect landing. And then I fucked it up by accidentally pressing the spacebar instead of the X key when I wanted to shut off my engine... doh!

Hey look! I can see my engine from here

[Tsakali]

so I paid the 18 bucks, got the full version and now things make a little more sense with the improved trajectory calculations. This project can just keep expanding out!

I both like and dislike the fictitious solar system. I wonder why they chose to go that route. is our solar system copyrighted ? lul

[Eraser]

I think it allows them to be a bit looser in how they implement things. People tend to be more critical about unrealistic physical properties when they recreate our solar system. I also think these little aliens and word jokes that come with it are funny. Better than boring old humans.

[Tsakali]

word jokes? is there supposed to be sound coming out of them? all I see is 3 little boxes at the bottom with 3 diff. facial expressions.

[Eraser]

No I mean like the community using terms such as apokee and perikee instead of apogee and perigee. But you've got to understand where that comes from to enjoy it.

[Tsakali]

I was just about to touch down but my slight horizontal speed tipped it over and destroyed my return plan, lol. but the capsule made it just fine so i took one of 'em out and jetpacked around a bit till I met a rock mid flight at high speed and my kerbal fucking disintegrated or something lol.

I'm guessing there is no way to save progress and then reload in case you mess up?

Also, how do I get more than one kerbal out for a spacewalk? looks like you can't.

[Eraser]

You can quicksave and load actually. Look up the keys for it in the controls configuration.

My problem is getting an orbit under the right angle. I have no problems setting up an orbit around Kerbin, but it's usually at an incline compared to the Mün's equatorial orbit. Not sure how to rotate the orbit around and axis.

[Tsakali]

Yeah I just realized quick save / quick load are on there

To change angle maybe thrust perpendicular to your current orbit's angle? Like if your orbit line represents x you should thrust towards y... sounds like it would adjust the angle of the orbit in relation to Kerbin's axis.


Also, I can't get it to land on the moon, prolly have an unstable setup since it keeps spinning around its y axis, and throws off my horizontal adjustments. Can't get the damn thing to stop from moving side to side. Are you using a joystick?

[Tsakali]

scared?



apparently my roll axis needed some adjusting, and then it was stable.

now to see if it can lift off and head back

[Eraser]

lol, you landed a penis on the moon