Getting Started

This guide is intended to help you through your first few hours with Kerbal Space Program. Although it's far from comprehensive, you should have a decent understanding of the basics.

Buying

Squad provides a fairly straightforward storefront from which you can buy KSP.

1. Visit http://kerbalspaceprogram.com
2. Click on the store

Downloading

Squad, the makers of Kerbal Space Program, have a simple download tool used to download, update, and repair the game. It can also choose to download the game from the powerful Amazon S3 cloud when the main servers are under load.

1. Go to the store.
2. Log in with your username and password.
3. Click on the Profile button.
4. Scroll down to the bottom and select the download link next to the purchase invoice.
5. Download the patcher for your platform into an empty folder.
   • Mac users:
     1. Ensure the execute permission is set on the Patcher.command file.
     2. Install Mono from the bundled .dmg file, if needed.
     3. Run Patcher.command.
   • Windows Users:
     1. Install .NET Framework 4.0 or above, if needed. (New versions of Windows already have it.)
     2. Run Patcher.exe.

Running the Game

Once the game is installed, it is time to run it. This is done by browsing to the folder the game was unpacked in and running KSP.exe. A shortcut can be made on the Desktop to this file which will make running the game a bit faster, unless you want to run it from a USB drive and have all of your game information with you for playing on any computer.

Figure 1 : KSP v0.18.1 Main Screen

The main screen has the following links:

1. Start Game
2. Settings
3. KSP Community
4. Credits
5. Quit

By selecting the Start Game menu item, the Start and Load Game menu will appear.

Figure 2: Start / Resume Game Menu

When starting a new game, which is what this portion of the WIKI is assuming, the save game name does not have to remain 'default'. Change this to what ever name you want the save file to be.

Figure 3 : New Game Window

Once the new game is started, the Launch Compound with the two assembly bays, tracking station, and launch pad will appear.

Figure 4 : The Launch Site

Since a rocket is needed, select the middle structure, it will say Vehicle Assembly Building. From here we will begin the first rocket using a stock rocket.

Figure 5 : Assembly Menu

By selecting the Orange Folder in the top right section of the window, the menu shown in Figure 5 will appear. Find and select the Kerbal X (stock). This will load up the rocket, Kerbal X. This rocket is fairly simple and can easily achieve orbit around the planet.

Still To Do

1. Launching the Rocket
2. Getting into an orbit with enough fuel for re-entry
3. Getting back down safely
4. Links for additional tips, tricks, and guidance