Difference between revisions of "Tutorial:Template"

Revision as of 19:03, 21 February 2014

This is a template tutorial

You can use this for creating a new tutorial later on. Here you'll describe what this tutorial will learn and how to accomplish it.

Specifications

• Length: 5-30 minutes
• Difficulty: Easy
• For version: Every version

Steps

Step 1 - The weird step

This is step 1, everything about this step is weird, that's why I don't write this so long.

Step 2 - Finish the weird step

This concludes step 1, the weird step. Hopefully, step 2 isn't as weird as step 1 but still a little weird.

Step 3 - This is no weird?!

Exactly, this isn't any weird at all!

Finishing word

Tada! Now you've read a full tutorial. Congratulations!

Walkthrough for Ye Compleat Beginner

Step 1 - Start Kerbal Space Program

The very first step is "launching" the game, obviously. Be prepared; loading Kerbal Space Program (KSP) can take a very long time. That yellow dot you see near the lower-right corner of your screen (near the cute sayings such as, "untangling space tape; inventing witty loading hints; testing springs," etc.) is actually the beginning of a long progress bar. Depending on your PC, it may take 1-3 minutes for the game to load.

Choose 'Start Game'. If you wish, you can detour into Settings first and change things like your keyboard bindings -- but doing so will complicate this and other tutorials, which assume you're using the default keyboard setup.

Choose 'Start New'. Give yourself a name. Choose 'Sandbox' (not Career) Click 'Start'.

(The next time you play, you'll choose 'Resume Saved' instead of New Game. This will resume your game from where you left off.)

Step 2 - On the Launchpad

Now you get a nice overhead view of the massive Kerbal Space Center complex. We're going to start right in by launching one of the game's premade rockets. Click on the launch pad near upper-right of your screen. You'll know you've selected the launch pad because it says 'Launch Pad' in lower-left corner. Click once on 'Kerbal 2 (Stock)'. The "Stock" label means it's one of the game's premade rockets. Later, you'll build your own rockets and they'll appear on this list. Click the green Launch button near upper-right corner.

Now you see your stubby little rocket on the launch pad. Almost ready to go! Before you do, let's play with some of the basic controls. Click and hold the right mouse button and move the mouse to move the camera viewpoint. Press + and - keys on your numeric keypad to zoom your view in and out. If your mouse has a scroll wheel, you can also use it to zoom in and out. Your three happy Kerbalnauts appear in lower-right corner, ready for launch. Take a look at your rocket. The three spindly towers are not part of rocket itself; they're support structure holding it up.

Step 3 - An Abortive First Launch

Tap the space bar once. Your rocket drops to ground and... nothing. What happened? Every rocket launch happens in stages, and each stage is triggered by tapping the space bar. The Kerbal 2 rocket is designed with xx stages. The very first stage releases the rocket from its supporting structure and ignites the rocket engine. However, the engine is currently set to 0% power. We forgot to throttle-up the engine. We'll fix that and try again.

Step 4 - A Good Launch

Press the ESC key to pause the game. Choose 'Revert Flight' then 'Revert to Launch'. This rewinds time and resets everything back to the start of the launch procedure. Hold down the left Shift key for a few seconds. This increases the throttle settings on your rocket's engine to 100%. When you're fully throttled-up, tap the Space bar once. Now your rocket launches!

In about 5 seconds (at about 1500 meters of altitude), your rocket runs out of fuel. Tap Space bar once to trigger the next stage. You may hear a bang as the explosive bolts fire, but not much else appears to happen. Press the A S D W directional keys. Your capsule should move away from the now-empty booster engine. Both are coasting free.

Tap Space a third time to trigger your parachute. Depending on your altitude, the chute may open on partially; it will open the rest of the way automatically when you reach 500m above ground level (not sea level).

If you're sharp-eyed and pan the camera around (hold right mouse button) you may see your booster rocket fall to the ground and shatter into pieces. (If it still had fuel aboard, it would explode, too).

Your capsule and its three happy Kerbalnauts will drift down until touching down gently at about 68 meters (that's the ground level of the Space Center). Your parachute will disappear automatically. Move your mouse up to the very top of the screen and click green 'Recover Vessel'. Done! Congratulations on your first suborbital flight!

Getting Into Orbit

Can't you just aim straight up? No... Choose Kerbak X (Stock) Taller rocket. More stages this time, numbered 0 through 8. Same girder support structure to hold it up. The differne is, Stage 8 is engines, but Stage 7 releases support. What happens? Tap T once to enable SAS stability system. Hold Space to throttle up, press space once to fire engines, quickly press Space again to release supports. Notice seven engines burning at once, but middle two are using fuel faster than the others. Watch their bars, and when they're empty (about 600-700m), press space to jettison just those engines. Remaining five engines are also burning at different rates. When bottom two are empty, jettison them. Niow you have three, which are - yet again - burning at different rates. Wathc and jettison the dead weight. Should be about 6000 m running on one engine. Kerbin is starting to look curved. Click text above blue navball, from Surface to Orbit. When you get to about 10,000 m (don't sweat the exact altitude), start tapping D until rocket tips over at a 45-degree angle. Blue navball will start to rotate and center gold V-marker will get closer to yellow circle "target." Make small adjustments with D to keep more or less on target. When you get to around 30,000 m and fuel is about two-thirds spent, repeatedly press Ctrl to throttle back to about halfway. Press M to switch to Map view. Right-click and hold to rotate planet enough that you can see Blue marker labeled Kerbin apoapsis: your highest projected altitude above planet Kerbin. Note blue line shows trajectory going back down. Not good. Click to raise navball in map view. Hover mouse over apoapsis marker. Watch its altitude rise. When it gets to 100,000 or so (keep it under 120,000), cut engines completely with X. (If you happen to run out of fuel before then, tap Space to jettison that engine stage, then tap Space again to fire up the final-stage engine). You are now drifting, but your momentum carries you upward ; for a while. When you're drifting, your heading/orientation is irrelevant. Unless engines are firing, heading is irrelevant. This isn't a car or bicycle with steering wheels. Only the orientation of your enigne(s) matters, and only when it's firing. Notice controls are very sluggish. that's the onboard inertial-stability system still working, even when the engine is off. Once you re-fire the engine, control will beocme much more snappy. If you've got time, tap M to swithc back to "normal" (staging) view and enjoy the view from near-space. With about 10 seconds to go before reaching ap, point directly at yellow circle, which is probably straddling the blue/brown horizon line on the navball. Make sure you're not accidentally pointed at the green mark with the X through it; that's the reverse (retrograde) marker. Throttle up to half speed again. Watch trajectory line grow to reach around planet. Need to zoom out to see entire planet. (If you notice your progress suddenly stops even though you're throttled-up, you probably just ran out of fuel. No problem; jettison tank by tapping Space and fire final-statge engine by tapping Space one more time.) Keep craft aimed at prograde marker while getting ready to cut engines with X. Poof! Periapsis marker appears on far side of planet, with an alitidue of around 20,000 m. Hooray! You're now orbiting the planet Kerbin! There's one problem: atmosphere. Kerbin's atmosphere is about 65,000 m thick/high (we just know this), so any orbit below that altitude will pass through the air, slow down, and eventually burn up. We need ot raise the low point (periapsis) to at least 70,000 m. Keep aimed at prograd marker and keep engine on low throttle, and keep mouse hovered over periapsis marker until it reads 70,00 or more. Periapsis and apoapsis markers may move or rotate around planet like the hands on a clock while you're doing this. That's fine, and just reflects the irregular shape of your orbit. When both per and apo are above 75,000, cut engines wth X. You're golden. You will now orbit literally forever, with no fuel and no input required whatsoever. That's the beauty of physics. If you want to leave this craft in orbit and start over with another rocket and anoher spaceflight, just press Esc and choose Space Center. This flight will remain in orbit indefinitely until you choose to return to it another day. You can track its progress from the Space Center's Tracking Station at any time. Before long, you might have dozens of flights in progress all at once, and the Tracking Station allows you to jump in and control any of them at any time. Note that time doesn't stop when you're away from your other spacecraft; they'll continue to orbit (or whtever they were doing) while you're commanding another mission. This will be important when you start doing two-craft rendevous, or long-duratiuon missions to other planets. You can speed up time by tapping > (actually .) to watch yourself orbit. You cans press M to revert to staging view and enjoy the view. Note that if you're on the dark side of the planet (whcih you will be for half the time), it'll be hard to see your spacecraft. You can speed up time in this view, too. Watch the sun rise over the panet. Notice that, even though your engines are off, the ship is more maneuverable than it was before. That's because it's smaller. When you jettisoned the previous engine stage you lost about half the dead weight of the spacecraft, making it easier for the inertial-stability system to turn what's left. Click on one of the Kerbalnauts and select IVA (intra-vehicular activity). Do not click EVA! Right-click once and move mouse around to look around inside the cockpit. Press C to return to normal outside view.

Extra credit

Your orbit is likely not a perfect circle; more of an ellipse. That's fine, and often even preferred. Speed vs. orbit

Return from orbit and splashdown

When you're ready to return to Kerbin, you'll need to force your orbit to "decay" enough that you drop back into the planet's atmosphere. From there, the air will slow you down and cause you to drop to the surface, where your parachutes (you did remebmer to pack a parachute, right?) will ensure a soft landing. You'll need about one-eighth of a tank of fuel to de-orbit. If you're completely out of fuel, you're screwed, and doomed to orbit Kerbin forever. Assuming you do have adequate fuel, wait until you reach your apo marker. Although you can de-orbit from anywhere, it's more fuel- and time-efficient to start your de-orbit burn from the highest point on your orbit: ap. Make sure navball is set to Orbit, not Surface. Turn so you're facing the retrograde marker (the green circle with the X through it), which is probably straddling the blue/brown horizon line. It makes no different whether the blue side is up, down, left or right; only that you are now facing "backwards," against the direction of travel. Swithc to map view. Watch periapsis marker. Throttle up gently and watch as peripasis drops. Keep engine running until it's about 25,00 meters. This is well into Kerbin's atmosphere, so even though the trajectory line still shows you circling that plenet, that won't actually happen. If you've got enough fuel, you can continue your retrograde burn until the trajectory line really does dead-end on surface of the planet instead of circling it. Either way, you're going to land. Now sit back and wait for your orbit to decay. (You can speed up time by repeatedly pressing > to hasten things along. the game will automatically revert to 1x time when your altitude drops to 70,00 meters and you begin to enter the atmosphere.) Be sure to jettison your final engine! Don't want a firey re-entry with all that fuel onboard. Press space one last time to lose your only source of propulsion. You're in gravity's hands now. Your speed is probably around 2000-3000 m/s and increasing. You're falling -- fast. For a proper NASA-style re-entry, you can orient your capsure back-end first by aiming at the retrograde marker on your navball. (It doesn't actualyl matter, but it looks cool.) Somewhere around 30,000 m you'll notice that your speed is decreasing, not increasing. Even though you're still falling like a rock, the atmosphere is now slowing you down. Also at about 30,000 meters you'll start to see the reentry glow as your capsure heats up in the atmosphere. The glow dies away at about 18,000 meters, as your speed drops to about 1000 m/s. You're hurtling Kerbin-wards at a few hundred meters/sec, but slowing down due to atmospheric braking. At some point, you'll need to open your parachute. KSP parachutes are pretty flexible: you can open them almost any time and they'll do their job. Obviously, you want to open it above ground, but not so early that it burns up during re-entry, and not so late that it doesn't slow you sufficiently. Somewhere between 10,000 meters and 3000 meters is a good choice. Remebmer that your altimimeter shows height above sea level, not ground level. If you're coming in over mountains, be sure to mentally subtract a few thousand meters from your apparent altitude. Go ahead and press apce one last time to pop your parashute. It will deploy in the partially closed "grogue" mode and start slowing you down. When you reach exactly 500 m above ground level, it will automatically open the rest of the way. If you pan your camera around, you might be able to see your jettisoned engine re-entring on its own, then exploding on the surface. Once your capsule has a safe spashdown/splatdown on water/land, you can click Recover Vessel (at the very top of the screen) to end the mission successfully. (If you're on dry land and feel like showboating, click one of the Kerbalnauts and select EVA to have him exit the capsule and walk around.)