First Rocket & Early Career Tutorial
Note: This tutorial is for RP-1 v1.11. As RP-1 is updated, certain parts of this tutorial may become out of date. The intended audience is anyone who is new to RP-1, or simply wants to speed up their early game and beat some historical dates.
Note 2: This tutorial is under construction.
This document will contain some design ideas for your first few rockets, including discussion of key considerations for each type. It will also look in detail at the first few missions from the VAB (and the SPH), including which ones are critical and which ones are optional. Lastly, it will look at what technologies you should unlock first (including a discussion of why), examine what technologies are needed for first orbit and first science orbit, and set forth a reasonable path to get there.
1. New RP-1 Career Settings
- Selecting a Difficulty Setting
- Choosing a Launch Site & Investing Your KCT Point
- Accept Your First Contract
2. Overview of Early Rocket Archetypes
3. Designing Your First Sounding Rocket
4. Building a Rocket
6. Next Steps
- First Launch After Action Review
- But What If Something Went Wrong?
- Buying Tech Nodes
- Accepting More Contracts
- Purchasing More KCT Upgrade Points
Note: This section may need to be merged with the existing article.
So you're starting a new RP-1 career. Congratulations! You have a lot of fun, interesting, and satisfying gameplay ahead of you. Full instructions and recommended settings for a new career can be found HERE but we're going to review a few key items in this tutorial as well. Start a new career and select your desired difficulty:
- Easy is for those who are completely new to RP-1/RO/RSS
- Normal is for those new to this version of RP-1
- Moderate is for experienced players
- Hard is for experienced players who want a challenge
Note that the primary things affected by the difficulty setting are funds and contract completion deadlines, so you'll earn more funds and have more time to complete contracts on easier settings. This tutorial is written based on moderate difficulty, but the gameplay will be similar regardless of what difficulty you choose. You may wish to review and customize the individual difficulty settings. Don't change anything unless you know what you're doing, however. There's a few settings I'd like to bring to your attention:
- Contract Configurator Disable all contracts other than the official RP-0/1 contracts. This includes disabling Scansat contracts, as RP-1 has its own Scansat contracts built in.
- Kerbalism (1) Set storm probability to 0 and shielding efficiency to 93%. This will provide a more balanced radiation system.
- RealismOverhaul This setting determines how many engines are available. Consider setting it lower than "speculative" to limit the amount of engine choices to make it easier for you as you're learning. I recommend "operational" or "prototype."
- RP-1 Disable X-Plane contracts if you'd rather not build planes. They're harder than rockets, so you may wish to postpone planes until you are comfortable with rockets. If you don't like how the procedural avionics window auto options, you can disable that here.
- TestFlight Consider enabling these options for a more realistic (and difficult) experience. Launch pad failures punish particularly unreliable rockets with several engines on the first stage. High dynamic pressure (Q) penalty makes lighting an engine under high Q very difficult, punishes rockets with aggressive launch profiles.
After choosing your new career settings you will enter the KSC scene. It's dark because it's night. You can use the warp to sunrise button on the upper left of the screen if you want to be able to see the KSC buildings. The first time you load in you will see a bit of window spam. Carefully close all the windows for now. DO NOT spend your initial KCT upgrade point unless you want to base your career out of Cape Canaveral, Florida. If you prefer to stick with the Cape, skip the next step.
Go into the Tracking Station and select the launch site you want to use. If you click the button in the upper right you can get a list of the launch sites. The button below it will hide them from view if you wish. Your currently selected launch site has a green circle. You'll notice there's still a lot of stations across the Earth. You can disable these from view with the "toggle sites" button along the top of the screen. If you're not sure where to start your career, here are some recommendations based on how difficult the orbital dynamics are:
- Kourou is an easy launch site that is particularly relevant if you are playing with Principia for the first time.
- Cape Canaveral is a very common launch site of moderate difficulty.
- Baikonur is a more difficult launch site for those looking for a challenge
Once you have selected your launch site, exit the tracking station then pull up the main KCT window. It has a button on the toolbar that looks like a gear clock. Everything in RP-1 takes time, which includes building and launching rockets, researching new technology, gathering science, training astronauts, and of course, traveling through space. You can speed up the rate you build and research things by investing "KCT points." Each one costs 20k funds. You also earn one for every 20 science you acquire. When you first start, you don't have any points invested.
Notice how "Upgrades" is green? This lets you know you have unspent KCT point(s). Right now our VAB build rate is basically 0 BP/s. Invest your KCT point in the VAB which will increase the build rate to 0.1 BP/s. Future VAB upgrades will be much less effective than this first one.
Go into Mission Control and accept the “First Launch” contract. Always carefully read each contract before accepting it. It may not complete in the way you initially think. Luckily, the First Launch is pretty simple. We need to reach a climb rate greater than 50 m/s, and reach an altitude of 1km. Completing this requires understanding the basic elements of rocket design, so despite the small numbers, it is an important first step.
Before leaving Mission Control, look at the contracts and milestones which are already accepted by selecting the “Active” tab. We'll talk about these more in a bit, but for now just be aware that there are lots of these sorts of contracts which will automatically be accepted, even during flight, and will serve to reward you for pushing your program farther and faster.
There are generally four early rocket types that a new career needs. Please note that the identifiers are arbitrary and have no connection to any formal rocket naming scheme. Click the links for further information.
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Sounding Rocket Type 1
- Construction: 0.30 m diameter – similar to WAC-Corporal
- Typical Missions: First Flight, Sounding Rocket (Low), Karman Line, Suborbital Return
- This rocket remains relatively unchanged from prior versions of the tutorial, although the engine now weighs a bit more so performance will be reduced somewhat.
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Sounding Rocket Type 2
- Construction: 0.38 m diameter – similar to Aerobee
- Typical Missions: Suborbital Return, Early Intermediate Altitude, Low Space Bio Return
- This rocket is a larger version of the Type 1, with an increased diameter to allow use of the early biological sample container. To push this larger rocket with confidence, you'll need either the XASR or AJ10-27 engine upgrade. Note that some players choose to skip this diameter, choosing instead to either put the biological sample capsule onto a 0.30 m rocket and pay the aerodynamic penalty, or place it on a larger Type 3 rocket.
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Sounding Rocket Type 3
- Construction: 1.65± m diameter – similar to A-4
- Typical Missions: Intermediate Downrange LV, Difficult Altitude, Low Space Film Return
- Based on WWII-era V-2 rockets with either an RD-100 series or A-4 series engine, this larger sounding rocket has much more capability. It also takes much longer to build, especially if a controllable probe core is fitted. There's some flexibility in the rocket diameter - smaller sizes (such as 1.5 m, used in the example rocket) offer cheaper tooling and less drag, but larger sizes (such as 1.8 m) will provide better future growth opportunities.
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Sounding Rocket Type 4
- Construction: 1.65± m diameter – similar to WAC-Bumper
- Typical Missions: 3000 km Downrange, Difficult Downrange LV, Late Difficult Altitude
- Essentially a combination of a Type 3 with a Type 1 or 2 as an upper stage, this two-stage rocket is the most capable of the early sounding rockets. With just a few early upgrades to engines, tanks, and possibly avionics, it should be possible to easily complete the 3000 km Downrange Contract. Experienced RP-1 cavemen may also achieve success with a three-stage RD-100 / WAC / WAC design without the upgrades, but it's not recommended. A stretched and upgraded version of a Type 4 rocket, with better engines, lighter tanks, some RCS, and a third stage added on top, may be good enough to put your first satellite into orbit.
Note: Before we get started building and launching these rockets to complete various contracts, please understand that this walkthrough is offered merely as one way of progressing at a healthy pace when starting a new RP-1 career. Many will have different ideas, and that's great! There are many roads to success!
We're going to start with a Type 1 sounding rocket, based loosely on the WAC Corporal. I'll color each tank a simple solid color to help you see the divisions between the different rocket components. For your rocket, feel free to style it however you want.
When you're building something new and you're not sure where to start, consider looking at a real life rocket and mirror it's design. You'd be surprised how well this works in RP-1. Let's look at this aerobee, which is mechanically similar to the WAC Corporal:
Starting with the nose, we will call this the "avionics." It will contain the flight electronics, batteries, experiments, and antenna. Below the avionics is the main fuel tank. Below that is the rocket motor. It is flanked by 3 fins. This is the first rocket assembly. Below this is a second rocket. It has a thrust structure (decoupler) on top, then the rocket motor flanked by another 3 fins. Now that we the general design of the rocket, let's go into the VAB and design it!
Just about everything in RP-1 is either procedural, or allows you to change many aspects of any given part. Unless you know exactly what kind of rocket you are designing, it can be intimidating making these custom parts. For now, let's just place the parts in order and worry about the size second.
All rockets need some form of avionics. There's different kinds of avionics, but we will worry about that later. Avionics usually go at or near the top of the rocket, so let's place that first. It will be a simple metal disk. This is fine for now.
Next we need a fuel tank. You have several options. The procedural tanks (metal cylinders) are the simpler and easier tanks to use, so I recommend starting with those. When you have more experience, consider using the modular tanks (also procedural) which look nicer and are slightly more realistic. Besides appearance, there are four general styles of tanks.
- Conventional are heavy, cheap fuel tanks.
- Isogrid are significantly lighter than conventional tanks with a slight increase in cost.
- Balloon tanks are very light and very expensive, and can't use High Pressure fuels.
- Service Module is a heavy, special type of tank used to carry non-fuels, such as batteries, life support, and payloads.
We only have access to conventional and service module tanks in the beginning, and of those, only conventional tanks should be used for fuel. Select one and put it under the avionics. Again we will worry about the shape later.
Finally, we need an engine. Find the Aerobee and attach it under the fuel tank. As you unlock engines, this list can get very long. You may wish to use the search bar or the mod "Janitor's Closet" to clean this list up a bit. I have colored the avionics yellow, and the fuel tank red.
The engine we have chosen will impact many elements of our rocket design. The engine info is somewhat scattered about. You can right click the part and get some engine info. There's a lot of relevant information here.
- Pressure-Fed This engine needs high pressure (HP) tanks to function.
- Ullage This engine is subject to the movement of fuel within the tank.
- Ignitions Remaining: 1 This engine only has one ignition.
- Min Throttle: 100 % This engine can only operate at 100% throttle.
Click on the "engine" button. This gives us access to the different configs of this engine. If the "purchase" button is grayed out, it means we don't have access to that config yet. You can still select it for planning if you wish. However for now let's stick with the WAC-Corporal. This window has a lot of the same information as the PAW, but it does have something new.
- Rated Burn Time: 47s This engine is rated for 47 seconds of burn time. It can go longer, but with increasing risk of failure.
Finally, you can access the "hidden" Test Flight window by middle clicking the engine. There is some more of the same information here, but it does also show us the rated burn time of 47s, and some other info about the reliability of the engine.
Now that we know what our engine needs, let's configure the tank. First, we need to make it high pressure. Under Real Fuels, change the tank type to HP by clicking the right arrow. Note that sometimes the tank name can wrap around and be somewhat hidden. What we are selecting is the HP version of the Steel Conventional Structure. Near the bottom of the PAW, "Highly Pressurized?" should now be true. Below the tank type is the utilization slider. This selects how much of the internal volume we want to dedicate to the tank. Generally, you want to use the maximum. For this type of tank, it's 75%.
Now we need to put the fuel in. There should be a button under the "tank UI" button to easily fill the tank with the proper mixture of fuel(s) for any engines the craft has. Note that there is a bug where it sometimes does not have the fuel button. To fix this, pull the affected engine off then re-attach it. The button should now appear to fill the tank with Aniline22, IRFNA-III, and Nitrogen.
We need to make this tank rocket-shaped. To do this you can change various aspects of its shape in the Procedural Tanks section of the PAW. A cylinder is a good shape, but this tank is too wide. Let's reduce its diameter to 0.3m. That fits the engine nicely! Use mechjeb's delta-v stats window to see what the burn time of our rocket is.
The rated burn time for this engine is 47 seconds, so we should run it for at least that long. Note that you get 5 "free" seconds before the engine will start to deteriorate. Adding that on gives us 52 seconds. In addition we are going to have a solid engine beneath this one, so a little bit more than 52 seconds will help, with a small hit to reliability. (More on why we are over burning in a bit.) Extending the length of the tank to 3.1m gives us 54.6s of burn time, and that should work great!
If you want to make your rocket look pretty, you can select a pattern for the "sides" and "ends," then press the "open recoloring GUI" button to change the colors. You should have something shaped like this:
Now we need to configure the avionics and give our rocket a smooth aerodynamic nose. Use the procedural parts section of the PAW to select "smooth cone." Make the top of the cone 0m, and the bottom 0.3m. The longer the nose, the more aerodynamic it generally is. I recommend making noses 5 times longer than they are wide as a good compromise. This means making the nose 1.5m long.
Let's configure the avionics type next. If the window did not auto open or you closed it, select configure in the avionics section. At the top we can select what type of avionics it is. There are several types, and as you research better ones, they start to have increased capabilities. However in general:
- Near-Earth is for rockets you fully control, can gimbal, use rcs, ect. Known as "guided" rockets.
- Science-Core is for rockets with minimal control. They cannot gimbal, use rcs, ect. Known as "unguided" rockets. Very light and small.
- Deep-Space is for fully controlled rockets on the way to the moon and beyond. They can hibernate which shuts down most of the electronics and saves a lot of electricity.
Our WAC-Corporal engine can't gimbal, so we don't need near-earth avionics. Select "science core." A good way to improve your rocket designs is to use a science core if you can make it work with the mission you are trying to accomplish. Set the tech level to "start." The tech levels here work the same as with engines. If the price is grayed out, you can't use it yet. If you hover over any tech level, you can get some info about it. On the bottom we can configure how much EC (batteries) to bring along, and also any extra volume we might want. The volume doesn't matter here since we already have the nose shape we want, but we do want some EC. It takes experience to know how much EC to bring without simming, but a healthy amount for this style of rocket is 100. The big thing to remember is not to fill the empty volume up to the max with EC, that is far too much! Click "apply, preserve dimensions." This will keep our nosecone shape while adding the EC. The rest of the nose cone volume can stay empty, for now.
You can look at the avionics section of the PAW for some info about our configured avionics. Avionics utilization says how much of the internal volume is being used by the avionics. Any empty space is available for EC, payloads, ect. It must be below 100%. If you're having trouble, make sure the avionics are big enough and this is below 100%.
Go to the communication section of the PAW to configure the antenna. Avionics can have an internal antenna, if you wish to use it. To gather science, we need to transmit the data back to KSC, so having working connection is important! Covering RealAntennas is beyond the scope of this tutorial, but the short of it is, to transmit far away we need a powerful antenna, but when transmitting short distances, we can get away with less. Sounding rockets don't go that far, so we don't need a 30 dBm antenna. We can save mass and EC by making it smaller. 20 dBm will work well for this era of rocketry. If you want to use an external antenna, you can disable the internal one to save some mass.
Speaking of science, we should add some experiments to this rocket. You can attach them to the sides of the rocket, but it is cleaner to put them inside the avionics. To do so, go to configuration near the bottom of the PAW. You can put up to 4 experiments inside the avionics. Use the window that popped up to put a thermometer and barometer inside. Whenever considering experiments, carefully read the info about them to make sure they actually apply to the mission you want to use them on! Luckily, these two experiments are cheap and can be used anywhere. However, keep in mind that they only start gathering science at flying high (40km) and above. Below that it will list the science as 0, and this is intended. Go above 40km and you will start seeing the science!
Go to the science part of the PAW. This will show you all the installed experiments. The two we added should be there, along with Telemetry Analysis which is an experiment that avionics come with. They default to off, so let's turn them on now so we don't have to remember later. It will say "waiting" when they are turned on. What this means is the experiments are waiting for new science to appear, and then they will start gathering it automatically.
It's starting to look like a rocket now! But it's missing something very important, fins. To make it aerodynamically stable, we need to move the Center of Lift (CoL) behind the Center of Mass (CoM.) Use the buttons on the bottom left to turn these indicators on. As you can see, the CoL is very high on the rocket, and that's bad! Find the procedural wing (early) and add 3 in symmetry to the rocket. Don't worry about their position for now. The wings default size is huge compared to this rocket! To configure a procedural wing, hover over the middle of the wing (not the leading or trailing edges) and press "J." All of this may seem intimidating, but don't worry, once you get the hang of how procedural wings work, you can make anything your rocket (or plane) needs!
You can use the colored indicators to change the shape of the wing, or the main window. On the main window, you can use a left click on the boxes at the sides, or along the slider, to make large changes. If you right click, you will make small changes. Note that FAR gets angry if you try to set any values besides "offset" to 0, so avoid doing that at all costs. To start, let's make these wings much shorter. Set the length to 0.500, set the thickness at root and tip to 0.025, and the width at root and tip to 0.050. It's a lot more fin shaped now! You may find it a lot harder to click on, but remember, you need to select the main body, not the leading or trailing edges, and the main body is a lot narrower now.
The fins are still too big. To make them smaller, we need to make the leading and trailing edges smaller. Click on the titles near the bottom of the window to open up new options. I set the leading edge to 0.200/0.050, and the trailing edge to 0.300/0.100. These numbers aren't that important, just worry about making it fin-shaped. Finally, I changed the offset to 0.200 which caused the bottom of the fins to be flat. They should look very close to the above Aerobee reference. Once you're happy with the shape, move the fins to be flat with the bottom of the tank. I color coded the fin's body to be white and the leading and trailing edges to be black to make them easier to see. You should have something like this:
Now all we need to do to adjust the CoL is to change the length of the fins. The CoL marker should be a "healthy" amount below the CoM to be stable. It takes experience (and sims!) to get an idea for what works. As it is, 0.5m length fins seem a little too large, so I'll lower them to 0.4m. Next let's open the fin's PAW. There's a lot of data here, but all we need to worry about is mass-strength multiplier. This allows you to set the strength of the fin at the cost of mass. It takes lots of simming to see how low you can get this. We want to avoid the fins breaking off/overheating due to aerodynamic forces. 0.35 is too high. Let's try 0.20 for now.
The top half of the rocket is done! Now we need to make the solid booster that goes underneath. Select the "hollow interstage" decoupler and place it under the engine. Set the core to "aerobee interstage" and then change the diameter to 0.3m. Set the force percent to 0. We don't want the decoupler bumping the rocket off course. I recommend only using decoupler force in situations where you actually need it, otherwise set it to 0.
Find the Tiny Tim solid rocket motor and add it under the decoupler. It is an engine so you can use the same windows as you did the WAC-Corporal to look at the different stats. You have the option between the 30Klbf and the 50Klbf versions. Their efficiency and delta v is the same. I recommend the 50, but either is fine. You can also recolor the Tiny Tim to match the rest of your rocket if you wish.
Adding the Tiny Tim changed the CoM/CoL relationship, so we need to fix that. Hold Alt to make a copy of the fin you made and put 3 in symmetry at the bottom of the Tiny Tim. Then go to structural tab and add a small launch clamp to the bottom of the Tiny Tim. It should look very close to example images at this point. You can use Modular Launch Pads to add additional parts to make your launch complex look prettier, but for now, these clamps work fine.
The last step is figuring out the staging. Let's talk about ullage for a moment. Ullage refers to the unused space in a container and the physics forces that relate to it and rocketry. There's several reasons that a fuel tank will not be perfectly full, so there will be cloud of vapor floating above the fuel. We need to keep fuel near the bottom of the tank where the engine is. If it sloshes upwards towards the top of the tank, then the vapor will move downwards, and the engine will flame out and we will get a "vapor in feed lines" warning. If we light the Tiny Tim first, let it burn out, then the WAC-Corporal next, the aerodynamic forces will push against the rocket, slowing it down, and causing the fuel to slosh upwards. To avoid this, we need to light both engines at the same time. Because we have an open interstage decoupler, we can do this... for a time. Note that any thrust provided by the WAC-Corporal is blocked by the Tiny Tim, so that is why I recommended adding a little bit beyond "rated burn time plus 5."
The staging should be, stage 1 is both engines and the launch clamp, and stage 0 is the decoupler. With that, the rocket is complete! It should look something like this:
Let's save it and then sim it using the KCT window. Because things are going to happen very quickly during launch, and the fact that this isn't "Kerbal Spacebar Program," we should configure mechjeb to handle this launch. Open up mechjeb's ascent guidance and then set it to "classic ascent." For orbit altitude, set it to a high number... how about 500km. This is so it won't shut the engines off, since this rocket will never get that high. Enable "autostage" and set the pre and post delays to 0. This will cause the stages to happen exactly on time. Make sure "stop at stage" is set to 0 to ensure mechjeb uses all of the stages we have set up. Hit "engage autopilot." Mechjeb should set the throttle to 100% if it wasn't already there. When you're ready, press spacebar and see how your rocket performs.
The Tiny Tim should burn strong and fast, and when it's done mechjeb will decouple it. Then the rocket should stay pointed (mostly) upwards. If the fins break off or overheat, make them stronger. If the rocket tips over (but the fins are intact) then make them bigger. It's okay for the fins to get hot so long as they don't break off. If all goes well, the rocket should stay pointed (mostly) upwards through the upper atmosphere. Note that once you get to 100km and above, tipping over won't cause any significant aerodynamic drag, so it's nothing to worry about.
Follow the rocket through it's flight path, all the way back towards to the ground and under 40km of altitude. Make sure it's transmitting science. Opening the avionics PAW is an easy way to check on this. The experiments should say "running," and you should not be accumulating any data because it's being transmitted back. You can also look through the Kerbalism windows using their toolbar buttons. Don't conclude a simulation or mission until the rocket no longer has any science it can gather or transmit. If it breaks up on the way down, that's okay. When you're done with a rocket, you can press the "Range Safety" button in the avionics PAW which will destroy the rocket and prevent it from impacting the ground.
I'd like to mention residuals and variance. With residuals, you won't be able to use every last drop of fuel. It's normal for some to remain after the engine shuts off. With variance, there is some randomness to how the engine burns fuel. It won't burn the perfect ratio, so you may have more residuals of one resource than another. Pump fed engines are pretty consistent, but pressure fed engines like the Aerobee are considerably less so. What this means is some sounding rockets will go higher than others. Knowing that, don't accept a contract right on the limit of what your rocket can do, because it might have some bad residuals and you won't get the performance you expected.
The goal of this rocket is making it above 100km in order to complete the Karman Line contract (which comes after first launch) so if you did that, you can call this a success! It should easily complete the first launch requirements of 50 m/s and going above 1km. If you found some problems with the design, go back to the VAB and fix them, and then start a new sim. ALWAYS sim after any changes! Make sure the rocket completes the mission before you commit to it! Never assume "it will be fine" because that's how you fail contracts.
Once you have a working rocket, you need to build it. We can dramatically reduce the time and cost of building the rocket if we pay a one time upfront tooling cost. To do this, open up the RP1 window from its toolbar icon. Tool the parts and then press the launch button. A window will pop up asking you to unlock any parts you haven't yet that this rocket is using, so accept these costs. This will put the rocket in the KCT queue.
Once you're satisfied, enter the RP-1 window and go to Tooling. Choose “Tool all” and watch how the cost and build time of the rocket both plummet. Thanks to tooling, our example rocket drops from 323 funds to 82 funds, and the time to construct it improves from 94 days to 66 days. Hit the launch button to start construction on the rocket. You may want to construct a second one to use as a backup in case there are problems with the first launch.
Note: Building multiple copies of a rocket is common in RP-1, especially with new designs when engine reliability may not be the best, or when you're trying to launch during a certain transfer window. It's also important to keep the VAB busy all the time if you wish to maximize your career's progress. In this case, we want the VAB to start building the second rocket while the first one is being rolled out to the launch pad.
While this tutorial focuses more on rockets and the VAB, recent changes to RP-1 do still encourage using the SPH to build planes in addition to your rockets. However, it's not as easy of a choice as it used to be, due to the new single build queue. Back in RP-1 v1.4 - v1.6, building a plane was essentially a "free extra" due to the SPH's separate (albeit slow) production line. Now, building a plane will delay rocket production due to the single build queue in the customized version of KCT used by RP-1. There are different schools of thought whether your first plane should a barely-supersonic jet with early parts, or a rocket-powered X-plane. If you do choose to build a plane, make sure that you include the same science instruments on the plane that you placed on the sounding rocket.
With the new single build queue, constructing an aircraft can still make sense as your first build - just design it in the SPH, then slip it ahead of your sounding rocket in the build queue. (You may want to cancel your backup sounding rocket if you decide to build a plane first.) If the plane exceeds 1,000 meters in altitude and makes a steep climb at some point greater than 50 m/s vertical velocity, that plane flight will complete the First Launch contract. And as long as you're flying around, you may want to break the 5 km manned altitude record. There is no longer earth flying-low science in RP-1, so the only science you can collect in flight is the supersonic flight experiment (which requires an aircraft capable of sustained supersonic flight). You'll also receive 5 additional science points after landing for recovering a craft from an atmospheric flight. Here's a picture of an ugly Cessna analog which costs only 35 funds to construct:
Other types of plane may also be an option for your first launch. An early supersonic jet in particular will allow you to complete some significant contracts early (such as breaking the sound barrier) unlocking many of the lucrative X-plane contracts. Building such a plane is challenging and will require a lot of testing if you haven't designed one before (or you can pull one off of the craft files channel in discord). Regardless, some sort of plane should probably be built and flown relatively early in your career. It may also make sense to wait a bit, then build and launch a plane as your third or fourth launch while you're waiting for the next Tech node to unlock, such as the Post-War Rocketry Testing node with the RD-101 and XASR. You can still make good progress without flying planes early, but you may lag a little behind others in a race-to-space competition.
Flying planes is much easier with the Atmospheric Autopilot and NavHUD mods installed. Add them if you plan to fly planes to any significant degree. Here's NavHUD in action helping line up our Cessna analog on final approach.
If you've followed these instructions, you should have between 20,300 and 20,500 funds in your account. If you're feeling brave and don't plan on rushing your first rocket or plane, bring up the Upgrades tab in KCT, and [gulp] spend 20,000 funds on an upgrade point, leaving you almost broke. Use the upgrade point to increase the build rate of the VAB. Your sounding rocket should now take less than 60 days to build. (Those playing on normal or easy can purchase another upgrade point or two and increase the speed further, if desired.)
Routinely rushing rocket builds, which was a valid tactic in older versions of RP-1, is now much more expensive and therefore no longer as appealing of an option. While there may still be a limited role for rushing in a competitive race into space, its use in a typical career should generally be reserved for those rare occasions when you're in danger of missing a contract deadline.
That said, if you do choose to rush your builds to speed up your launches, now is the time to do it. Rushing will never be cheaper than it is at the beginning of a career due to the low cost of your earliest rockets and planes. And if you're playing on Normal or Easy difficulty, your funds situation should allow you to do both - speed up the VAB build queue first, then rush the first launch with your remaining funds.
Press “Warp to Complete” to fast forward to when your rocket is done, then press the green “Rollout” button next to your completed rocket. Warp to Complete again to fast forward to the rocket being on the pad. If it's night time, warp to morning so you can enjoy the visuals of your first RP-1 rocket launch. Press the green “Launch” button to get this party started! Here's what the demonstration rocket looks like on the pad, with info windows showing:
Check your staging, throttle up, take a screenshot or two for posterity, and check the Kerbalism window (in the upper right) to make sure that all the science experiments are on. Press the space bar to launch, then press it again about a second later to stage either a moment before the SRB burns out, or just before the decoupler overheats. If everything is going well you'll now be heading up at breakneck speed, passing Mach 1 approximately 10 seconds after launch. Here's an image further along in the launch, as the fins are starting to heat up:
Kerbalism will automatically collect and transmit science so you don't have to worry about setting action groups or clicking science instruments like a madman. You'll see a number of notifications blinking in the corner; most of these are the auto-accepted contracts and milestones we mentioned earlier. You'll be blowing through these, collecting lots of funds and setting many new records for height and speed during this launch. If things go well, your rocket should barely escape the atmosphere, reaching an apoapsis of around 145 km.
Your nosecone and fins will likely burn off and explode as your rocket falls back to Earth and reenters the lower atmosphere, but stay with the rocket all the way to the ground - Kerbalism is still collecting and transmitting science right up to the point where it either loses signal, or is destroyed due to lithobaking.
Congratulations! Your first flight is complete!
If everything went well, then the rocket should have reached space and you've completed a lot of milestone contracts. This example rocket broke all speed milestones up to 1,200 m/s, and all the altitude milestones up to 140 km. The funds balance is now over 25,000, and we gathered over five points worth of science.
Maybe TestLite decided that your rocket engine would have a bad day. Maybe staging was incorrect, or maybe the experiments weren't on. That's OK! It's why we have a backup rocket under construction (or can easily add a backup rocket to the queue). Add another rocket to the queue as insurance for the second flight if desired, or simply roll the dice and hope that the second launch will work better than the first. But first, let's start researching some science.
Note: This subsection may need to be merged with the existing article.
Head into the R&D complex. If you gathered at least five science points on the first flight, you can now purchase every starting technology. I strongly recommend purchasing Post-War Rocketry Testing first (located in the middle of the tree) for better rocket engines, followed by Post-War Materials Science (lighter fuel tanks) and Early Tracking Systems (lighter avionics), then the other starting technologies. These nodes will be helpful in your quest to launch heavier payloads further, thereby allowing you to obtain more science and funds at the beginning of your career. Purchasing these three nodes will make the 3000 km downrange contract easier to complete. Purchasing the Supersonic Plane Development node is now a slightly lower priority due to the single build queue, but you can move it up to the second spot in the queue if you're planning on a more plane-heavy early game.
After exiting the R&D complex, head back into Mission Control and look at the available contracts. The next key contract to accept is "Karman Line". Not only does it have a large payout, but it can be completed by the rocket you already have under construction. Other lucrative contract opportunities will be opened up once you complete it.
After accepting Karman Line, you may wish to also accept the "Downrange Milestone (3000km)" contract if your first rocket made it to space. You won't be completing this for a little while, but the 19,000 fund advance and the lack of a deadline make it free money at this point. Alternately, if you're planning on launching a supersonic plane soon (or have already launched one and will be launching it again after recovering it to the SPH), accept the "Break the Sound Barrier" contract. Note: Advances and payouts for all these contracts will be higher if playing on normal or easy.
If your first rocket didn't break 100 km due to an engine failure or other reason, then the "Altitude Sounding Rocket (Low)" contract should also be available. Accept it if offered, and wait a little while to accept the 3000 km downrange contract.
Note: This subsection may need to be merged with the existing article.
Between the rewards earned from the first flight (if it went well) and the advances for the newly accepted contracts, you should now have over 40,000 funds. Exit Mission Control and go into the KCT window. Purchase two KCT upgrade points (or more if playing on normal or easy), and spend them on improving the VAB and/or the R&D complex. Let's discuss the options:
- Two points into R&D. Putting a lot of points into R&D early will speed up your initial research, bringing new techs like the XASR engine and lighter fuel tanks to your door sooner.
- Two points into VAB. Further speeding up the VAB will increase the pace of new rocket construction, allowing you to fly more missions (including more complex and lucrative missions) in the same amount of time.
- One point each into R&D and VAB. Splitting the baby, speeding up each a little bit.
The choice is up to you, but I recommend that you put both points into the VAB. While new tech is important, recent races with the single build queue have demonstrated that your career will progress more quickly if you place the first few points into the VAB to increase your program's launch tempo. Then, once you've sped up your VAB a bit (around 6 or 8 points invested in your VAB), start investing points into R&D as well, but at a lower rate until it's time to accept the first orbital contracts. Note that this gets into areas of personal play style and preferences, so players may have strongly held differences of opinion regarding what should be prioritized in the first year. Whatever you do, don't let your funds balance just sit there doing nothing. Invest in your program!
One of the less obvious rewards known to veteran players is that the game provides bonus science when recovering craft. The first craft to be recovered from an atmospheric flight will net 5 bonus science points, while the first craft recovered from a suborbital flight into space will net 8 bonus science points. Use that parachute or land that plane earlier rather than later to earn bonus science! Remember that every 20 science points earned results in a free KCT upgrade point, so each science point is effectively worth 1,000 funds worth of KCT upgrades in addition to its value in unlocking tech nodes.
This one is straight forward. Whether your first launch was a sounding rocket or a plane, you'll now launch the Type 1 sounding rocket that's currently under construction. Launch this one straight up as well - some of the experiments on this rocket take 10 or more minutes to complete, and so there's value flying the same mission profile again from a science-gathering standpoint. As with the previous mission, consider adding a backup rocket to the build queue for fastest progress just in case of an engine failure or other mishap.
If your first launch was a plane or a sounding rocket which didn't make it above 100 km, be sure to grab the Sounding Rocket (Low) contract from mission control before launch for some extra funds.
As before, once this mission is complete, purchase a few more KCT upgrade points, then visit the R&D complex to put additional tech nodes into the research queue.
Now we really start to get into different ways to proceed based on player preference. Some will choose to build a 0.38 m Type 2 rocket to take advantage of the early bio sample container. Note that this rocket, being a bit heavier than the Type 1, really needs at least the XASR engine, so hopefully that's the first tech node that you're researching if you're going this route. Here's a picture of a Type 2 Rocket, including a 0.38 m inline RealChute part and decoupler (configured to enable crossfeed), configured to complete the first suborbital bio sample mission:
Others may choose to stick with a modified Type 1 rocket, adding a resized 0.30 m inline parachute and decoupler. Note that until you have the XASR engine, you may need a bit more "oomph" to launch this slightly heavier rocket to space. It may be a good idea to use two or more Tiny Tims off the pad, whether firing at the same time or sequentially. Here's a picture of a modified Type 1 Rocket with a 0.30 m parachute, which can be launched before you have access to any engine upgrades:
Still others will take this opportunity to jump up to the much larger Type 3 rocket, using an RD-100 or A-4. This option will give you more capabilities in terms of flying cameras, larger sounding rocket payloads, and greater downrange distance, all at the cost of being more expensive and slower to build. Here's a 1.5m Type 3 Rocket with a parachute:
Note: Some players who are min-maxing hard and racing to orbit caveman-style will ignore this contract and go straight for the 3000 km downrange contract with a Type 4 rocket. The thought with this option is that completing the downrange contract opens up the first orbit and first science satellite contracts, which have the largest fund advances in the early game. This large early injection of funds allows for greater progress earlier; the downside is that your downrange rockets will have limited du and fail more often, making this a riskier approach. This strategy is not recommended for those new to RP-1.
Once again, there are multiple routes to go forward. With recent changes to RP-1, there are now more and varied contracts to complete at this point in a career. Some players will choose to first fly a few of the bio sample missions or film missions for additional science with a Type 3 rocket, especially if the Post-War Rocketry Testing node isn't unlocked yet. Others will gain du on newly unlocked engines a bit more cheaply with sounding rocket altitude contracts or downrange launch vehicle development contracts. Aviation aficionados will be busy unlocking better cockpits so they can start their X-plane program. And a dwindling minority may still choose to build so-called “deathsticks” consisting of a cockpit on top of a Type 3 rocket, completing the Break the Sound Barrier contract that way. (While still a somewhat viable if ahistoric option, make sure to watch both heating and the altitude rating of whatever cockpit you're using. Also include enough parachutes so that your pilot survives the “landing”.)
But whether you jump into it right away or you choose to fly some other contracts first, the 3000 km Downrange contract is the next big one to accomplish. This will be the most difficult mission to date, and will likely require extensive simulation. For a two-stage rocket, you need to have Post-War Rocketry Testing unlocked, so you have access to XLR41/RD-101 and XASR engines. Things will get even easier if you've unlocked the first nodes for materials science (aluminum tanks) and tracking station (lighter procedural avionics). Total delta V of the rocket will need to be at least 6,000 m/s.
Here's an example showing one way of constructing a Type 4 rocket which can complete the 3000 km Downrange contract. This rocket is constructed with the purchase of three science nodes, Post-War Rocketry Testing, Post-War Materials Science, and Early Tracking Systems. Key parts enabled by the upgrades include the XLR41 engine for the first stage, the XASR engine for the second stage, the first tank upgrade (Tank-Sep-Al and Tank-Sep-Al-HP) for both stages, and the first science core avionics upgrade for a lighter core on the second stage. The overall appearance looks like this:
The upper stage is simply a stretched and upgraded variant of the first 0.30 m rocket we designed, but with two tiny separation motors angled to provide both ullage and spin stabilization. The first stage is a streamlined 1.5 m design, with a procedural avionics part in between the two tanks to allow full control of the first stage. The streamlining is key, as this rocket has a high TWR and will be going very fast in the lower atmosphere. Note how large and low the fins are on this rocket; this is necessary to keep it aerodynamically stable with the relatively heavy engine at the bottom when the fuel tanks are empty. (The original A-4 design included a heavy and unfriendly payload in the nose, which allowed it to have smaller fins and remain aerodynamically stable.) Also note that the strength of the fins was adjusted from 0.65 down to 0.4 to reduce their mass and gain some additional delta V. Here's an image in the VAB showing delta V and some other figures:
MechJeb's SmartASS should be used with this rocket. With the high TWR and associated "spicy" ascent, this design works best by cranking it over 12 degrees (78 degrees above horizontal) immediately after launch, then locking surface prograde after the rocket's vector matches its attitude. The goal is to be pointed somewhere between 40 and 45 degrees above the horizon when the first stage burns out. Wait a second or two if desired for the rocket to go above 55 km (where the air is just a bit thinner), then quickly trigger the ullage motors followed by the XASR. I've managed to get this as far as 3,800 km downrange, so it should be fairly tolerant of slightly suboptimal ascent profiles. Here's a picture of it after staging as the second stage coasts up to apogee:
If you're finding it difficult to fly this high TWR design, you can try substituting an RD-101 (which has a longer rated burn time) and increasing the length of the first stage tanks to reduce the initial speed off of the pad. Note that you'll need to reduce the amount you tip over - I found that 9 degrees worked well with the revised design.
Also note that this rocket will require spending additional funds in the VAB for tooling the tanks and avionics, and possibly engine unlocks if you haven't already unlocked the XLR41 and XASR. This is one of the first times in an RP-1 career when you should limit your purchase of KCT points to make sure you have enough funds while designing your rocket in the VAB. Simply design, tool, and start constructing a few copies of the rocket first, then purchase any desired KCT points afterward.
Access to these two contracts, and their large fund advances, is one of the main reasons for completing the 3000 km Downrange contract. (The other reason is all the funds gained from the numerous height and speed milestones you'll complete during the launch.) The decision about when to accept these first two orbital contracts depends entirely on your experience, play style, and risk tolerance. Whatever you decide, understand that there's a two-year clock ticking as soon as you accept either of these contracts, and that failure to meet the deadline runs the risk of bankrupting your space program. It's the biggest decision to date in managing your career.
My own personal rule of thumb is that there are three prerequisites for accepting these contracts.
First, I must have gathered enough science points to at least start researching all required nodes for the first science satellite. In other words, the tech tree in the R&D complex should look something like this:
This allows you to focus mostly on accelerating your program rather than being concerned about whether you'll be able to gather enough science to unlock all needed nodes.
Second, it has to be an appropriate time on the calendar. My own benchmark outside of a race-to-space competition is the latter half of 1952 or later. While it is possible for an experienced player to complete the 3000 km Downrange contract and accept the first two orbital contracts before 1951 is over, thereby committing to first orbit sometime in 1953 with a "caveman" rocket, doing so will be a stressful experience with many opportunities for failure. It's not recommended for those still figuring out RP-1.
If this is your first or second RP-1 career, consider waiting until 1954 or later to accept these contracts – doing so will give you a bit more latitude to recover from setbacks, while still potentially giving you the satisfaction of beating Sputnik. Just make sure that you're using the time before accepting the contracts productively, completing other contracts to earn funds, science, rep, and du for your engines. (This is also an opportunity for you, the player, to gain additional experience in running your program while the stakes are lower.) With recent changes to RP-1 there's now more to do at this point in your career, so rushing straight towards the first orbital contracts isn't necessarily the best idea any more.
Third, I must have constructed the first Mission Control upgrade. This upgrade costs just 25,000 funds, and will allow you you to have three contracts accepted simultaneously. This is a necessity if you want to keep completing other contracts after accepting the First Satellite and First Science Satellite contracts while you wait for necessary technologies to unlock. Forgo buying a KCT point and put the Mission Control upgrade into the queue sometime in late 1951 so that construction will be completed by the time you need it.
Invest in your program during this time by purchasing KCT points and unlocking new hardware. Keep your VAB busy constructing rockets to complete contracts, and use the SPH to fly high performance planes (which is outside the focus of this tutorial), completing the many lucrative speed and altitude records which are available. However, it's best not to purchase any major facility upgrades at this time, with the exception of the previously mentioned Mission Control upgrade.
When you do finally pull the trigger and accept the contracts, there are two things you should do. First, order a 60-ton launch pad from the KCT menu. While it's possible to get to orbit with a 20-ton rocket if using American engines, things are much easier with the larger pad. (Many of my first orbital rockets are between 25 and 30 tons.)
Second, use most of your your remaining funds to purchase KCT upgrade points, and pump 3/4 or more of those points into the R&D rate so that you have more points invested in R&D than in the VAB. While you'll still be flying additional missions to complete contracts while you're waiting for various tech nodes to unlock (which are needed for the First Science Satellite contract), it's critical that you prime the pump and speed up your research rate as soon as possible. Shoot for a final ratio of twice as many points in R&D as in the VAB when you're done investing your points. Keeping that relationship somewhere between 2:1 and 1:1 as your career progresses generally works well, although you'll develop your own preferences as you gain more experience.
As you're completing various early contracts, both before and after accepting the first satellite contracts, be aware that some of them are on "cooldown timers". This newer game mechanic slowly increases the payout over time of a particular contract, such as the Difficult Sounding Rocket contracts, then resets it to zero after you complete it, encouraging you to complete different types of contracts rather than spamming the same one over and over again. If you ignore a particular type of contract long enough, the payout can get quite high. For example, an Intermediate Sounding Rocket contract might start with a modest payout, but may increase up to two or three times that amount if you ignore it for long enough. Be sure to check the different contract payouts in Mission Control as you're deciding which contracts to complete.
Interested in getting to orbit? Check out the new Early Orbital Rocket Tutorial!