![]() When the pod is placed on the spacecraft, the astronauts (and the automatic probe cores) are facing North, so you have to yaw right for the Eastern gravity turn. Drag the rest of the (still selected) parts to the new stageĪs you enter the VAB, you are standing on the West side of the VAB, facing East.Click the part you don’t want to move to unselect it.When you place parts with symmetry, those move together when you rearrange them in staging. Stage 0 is for the parachute, the largest number is for the boosters. As the Cupola has its own RCS trusters, configure those too.If you used symmetry to place the trusters, the others in the same group will be adjusted, but you still need to set up the rest of the groups of the craft.Right-click the RCS truster block and select Show Actuation Toggles.Scroll down and enable Advanced Tweakables, and click the Accept button.In the space center press ESC to open the pause menu, and select Settings.We can select what actions will the RCS system perform. If your vessel has reaction wheels, you don’t need to waste fuel to rotate the craft. If more RCS blocks are needed, place them close to the Center of Mass (CoM). Place RCS blocks with 3 or 4 symmetry at the top and bottom of the craft equidistant from the Center of Mass (CoM). Navigate to clicked part in the part list The “Shift + Left-click” on any part of the ship to grab the entire craft, and release the mouse button to move it. Toggle Symmetry Method between mirror or radialĭisable surface attach/exclusively use node attach In Rotate mode: Toggle between absolute or relative rotation In Offset mode: Toggle between absolute or load centered offset Pretty pictures are nice, but being able to fly and crash your creations is infinitely better.In Place mode: Toggle Symmetry between vessel or parent part When I need some visuals, I don’t start drawing things in Blender – I create a working version in KSP. That was really a catalyst to grow my audience, and over the years, I transitioned away from primarily covering games to covering real rocket science. As KSP expanded, I was able to draw parallels between the simulated space technologies and their real counterparts. I was fortunate that, when KSP first appeared, I had a small YouTube audience and was a gamer who also had a background in astronomy, so I knew orbital mechanics and could explain a lot of the orbital manoeuvring which became essential to the game. Not many games have had that effect on me. During Apollo 11’s landing, Neil Armstrong’s heart rate was 150 beats per minute, and I’m pretty sure my heart was doing similar things when I finally landed on the Mun for the first time. Usually I’d get close and then use too much thrust, sending me back up again, a consequence of overpowered engines and crude controls. It took half an hour of manual flying to put my crew into a powered descent towards the Munar surface, and without the safety net of a saved game to fall back on, any mistake would ruin a lot of work. And again, the early game lacked many of the quality-of-life features we rely on – there was no navigation, no low-thrust landing engines, no landing gear, and no ability to save the game. New versions brought new features, including an orbiting Moon (or Mun), so of course I had to try landing there. They made you care a bit more and, sometimes, laugh a bit more. One of the smartest things it did was introduce the Kerbals – your crew Bill, Bob, and Jebediah Kerman – who would react during the flight, sometimes with concern, panic, or a huge grin. Then I deorbited, deployed my parachute, and gently touched down on the dark side of the planet, only to explode because of a bug in the game. When I made it into orbit, though, it felt like a real achievement. But equally, these early versions were so basic: there were no symmetry tools to help you keep your rocket balanced the atmosphere was so thick, it was hard to pick up speed, and the structure of your rocket felt like it was held together by rubber bands. I had degrees in physics and astronomy, and several decades of experience as a space nerd, so I knew what it took. By version 0.7.3, the first public release, there was a handful of parts, a planet, and enough physics such that you could get payloads into orbit if you knew what you were doing. You were trying to get as high as possible, balancing thrust to weight ratios, and being careful not to overheat your engines. The amazing thing is that Kerbal Space Program, or KSP, didn’t set out to be the perfect educational game – it began as a sim that had some rocket-related mechanics.
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