- Altitude is not your distance from the ground (at all).

- Atomic reactors are really not practical for low orbit node-based maneuvers. By the time you finished the burn you're supposed to make at that spot, you've circled around the planet three times.

- Gravity differences means different weight deformations on your rover/lander depending on the planet. You'll never know how high above the ground this or that part will be, and tests on Kerbin will only mislead you on that.

- If you lost the launch window for a given interplanetary travel, just wait for the next one. Do not insist on finding another trajectory.

- Time acceleration does not process landings.

- There is not enough room for a kerbonaut to pass between a material bay and the inner wall of a service bay. Don't get stuck there.

- Weightless items (structural pieces, struts, etc) get increasingly unpredictable when piled up. They make good kraken bait, though.

- The mouse wheel can be used to zoom on the map and to change a node's throttle. You won't always know which in advance. Make sure to click outside the node before zooming, in doubt.

- Do not accept solar orbit rescue contracts. At least not without having checked the direction of the target's orbit.

- The space bar does not increase the throttle.

- Water is more deadly than hard rock. Better crash on dry land.

- When you accelerate time in-game, it accelerates time irl aswell.

- Orbit speed and surface speed are different, and the game does not make the switch automatically when you are trying to do a munar landing. So learn to do the switch yourself, or learn to love the "cheesegrater landing"

- A rocket is not a sled. If you landed on the flank, do not accelerate in the hope that you can use a munar crater as a ski-jump to get in flight again.

- If you want to make a space EVA, do it from a stable orbit, especially if you're not accustomed to it yet. An athmospheric reentry is NOT the place where you want to learn how to use your jetpack.


- Getting a kerbonaut to set foot on the Mun is easy. Getting him there ALIVE, and with that foot still attached to the rest (and not in the middle of a new rocket-shaped crater) is trickier.

- Getting him back home AFTER he set foot on the Mun is even harder.

- Oh, and don't forget the chute and landing gear, or else that rocket shaped crater (with a fine dusting of munar sample) will be on Kerbin.

Okay, now I totally want to put wheels on the sides of my rocket and try that.

I almost succeeded, too. The ship had its "exothermic spontaneous disassembly" around 2/3 up the flank of the crater. If I had been lighter on the thrust, it might have worked and saved mission "Munwalker 2"

But I didn't have anything to lose on this one : The flank with the door was the one facing the ground, so no EVA and no rescue mission possible, not even a "I'm here for a long time, but at least the view is nice" flag planting. For my first "succesfull" Mun landing, it was quite frustrating ^^

- Do not forget to unfold your solar panels (for an automatic probe) before you run out of electricity, because once you do, the craft is unresponsive and you can't unfold them anymore.

- Kerbals fall easily when you try an EVA while your rocket is accelerating (even weakly).

- On low-gravity bodies (like Minmus or Gilly), just getting out of the command module can make your rocket to fall.

- This is not an Infinity Engine game, do not press "space bar" when in panic, I repeat, do NOT press "space bar" when in panic.

- When you do a "get tourists/VIP around and back" mission, do not forget to load them in the spacecraft before takeoff.

- Orbit missions have a direction, if you're on the "right orbit" but backwards, it doesn't work.

- When you send a rescue ship, check if Jeb didn't sneak into the empty crew compartment. The man tries to get on every launch.

Speaking of rescue missions, there's a big temptation to go and rescue several Kerbals from orbit in one go. If you do so, don't try to stack up too many of the cheap and light-weight beginner pods on top of each other. I haven't completely figured out why, but with the new atmosphere physics in the latest update the wind forces generated will shred parachutes even at low altitudes and speeds. I've learned the hard way that 3 cockpits stacked on top of each other is the max; any more and you need to put something big underneath them to change the aerodynamics.

The only time I died from impact on an EVA was when I jumped directly from orbit of Gilly to its surface. Retried and got it the second time.

Never ran out of fuel on EVA. The lack of navigation tools and time warp when on EVA means you simply don't want to stray too far from your ship.

no time warp? just accelerate harder - maybe that was my problem :p. Low gravity doesn't matter if you go too fast horizontally ...

The altimeter doesn't account for mountains! :O Here I am set to release my parachute at 1000m and the fucker put a crater into a cliff. :P

The crazy part is that the altimeter in the cockpit view does account for mountains and gives an accurate distance to the surface!

OH! NOW YOU TELL ME! :P


Man I love this game but I seriously doubt I'll ever accomplish anything. I can get into space on every launch now but that's it and listening to you folks and reading the wiki, I may be way too short on brain cells for this. XD

I actually only found this out recently by sheer accident!

Your the best Darvin, please don't ever leave this forum.