I have been recently watching career mode tutorial videos for the technically brilliant Kerbal Space Program by Scott Manley on YouTube.
I have finally taken the plunge and started a career game.
In KSP you are in charge of the Kerbal Space Program (funny that eh?) and can design and build a seemingly endless variety of spacecraft to launch into space!.
You can orbit planets and moons, land and complete scientific missions, build Space Stations and much more.
It is more a simulation than a game in my view (though it is really fun!) and there are thousands of mods available to augment the gameplay in a myriad of different ways.
It is still heavily in development with a complete “Sandbox” mode where you can design and build to your hearts content and a career mode where you unlock new technologies by conducting space flights and experiments to obtain science.
My first attempted flight was simply a capsule with a parachute attached, connected to a solid state rocket, which is as simple as it gets but I somehow screwed it up as it promptly took off, veered to one side, exploded killing my poor Kerbal astronaut and left the parachute sadly floating to the ground unattached to anything.
Frantically watching the first video again to hopefully see where I had failed, I tried again.
Using an actual engine this time rather than a rocket, it sat on the launch pad. I pressed “Launch” and it made a noise and sat there mocking me doing nothing, turned out i had forgotten to open the throttle so no fuel was going to the engine.
Third time I attempted a launch, the parachute opened while my rocket was still on the launch pad and then the engine ignited sending my astronaut up into the atmosphere, where he eventually fell back to Kerbin and without a parachute he was killed on impact.
Finally, I got the stages right, opened the throttle, pressed launch and watched in triumph as my puny rocket soared into the heavens.
After having watched a few more videos, i tried to carry out an experiment to earn some science, sadly, I accidently clicked “EVA” and my brave astronaut leapt out of the falling space craft as it fell to earth below him…. yeah I guess you know how that ended too.
Well, I have learnt a lot during these tests and feel bold enough to try again!
Wish Me Luck!
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