I can't tell you how long I've been waiting for a game just like this...

http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/ is a rocket launch simulation game currently under development but with playable alpha versions freely available, and it's already a ton of fun. I've been launching rockets for the past few days, each more outlandish than the last, many ending in catastrophic failure as I push the envelope ever further. It's not exactly rocket science, however - the interface is quite fluid, all the parts snap together cleanly (especially thanks to the new "symmetry tool" added in version 0.8.2) and you can be on the launchpad within minutes to pilot your flying Roman candles towards space. There's no real objective in the alpha version as yet, except for designing ever more efficient machines for plunging your Kerbals into the void.

You build your rockets using a mixture of solid fuel boosters and liquid fuel engines. Boosters give an immediate thrust increase and are lighter than engines plus their required fuel load, but liquid engines are better in the long-run when the boosters run out of fuel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TtCnJ7l8M4 one of my first launches using only solid boosters, barely lifting into the upper atmosphere. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdFteXemRiQ was needed to reach high orbit - though it didn't quite achieve escape velocity (which someone calculated to be about 3.4 km/s.) That took a much heftier design: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iqGngpwadU

(This was before the symmetry feature was added btw, so it all had to be painstakingly aligned - the slighest imbalance can be quite detrimental to stability at a thousand miles per hour!)

Give it a try - can you beat gravity, the atmosphere, and your own ambitious designs for ludicrous amounts of thrust to free the Kerbals from their tiny cradle?

edit: http://www.mediafire.com/?9dz3sdjwd288w23

It looks fun, I must try it. Also, your last video is blocked in my country by EMI.

The more complex design video is awesome cptjoker, the last one is also blocked for me, that game sure looks fun i think i'l give it a go, how did you find out about it? i always miss all the interesting little games out there.

Gah, looks like I picked a bad background track for Youtube, let me see what else I have...

edit: Uploading a new version now, with more restriction-friendly music hopefully. Done in a few minutes.

edit2: New video of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iqGngpwadU is up.


I saw this posted in another forum, totally went under the radar for me as well before then.

Did...did they ever get home again?

Nope. If you don't plan enough fuel ahead, there's no chance to do a retro burn, and you just drift into the void at a near constant velocity... Bye bye Kearth! :wave:

Next phase: orbitting the planet and returning safely.

I see you're taking the Soviet approach to space travel.

Your Kerbals look scared. DLing now.

Looks like a bit of fun. I especially like the way the ship is piloted by Beaker and his two brothers.

http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr212/Qeros/ker1.jpg

I activated the booster seperation wrong, pressed it again and released the parachute. That's why the booster has a higher altitude than the command module. We reached an apogee of 4000m, and landed about 30 feet from the takeoff point.


This is fun!

heh yeah, does indeed look like beaker, beaker number 3 is constantly worried no matter what i do, thanks for the link to this game Cptjoker, haven't been this concerned with the survival of my virtual friends since lemmings :tops:

Oh dear...


I made a three stage rocket, it's much harder to control than the smaller ones. First one spiralled out of control and crashed into the sea, second one deployed the parachute seconds before crash landing.


Third attempt reached 22,000m, despite fully rotating the craft once.

SO, the boundary of space is 100,000m?

very interesting......

OK, I just crossed the 30,000m mark, but ran out of fuel to carry on. Can solid boosters use fuel tanks?

Took a look at the videos online for this and it really reminds me of the old-school...2 maybe 4 bit games I played on the Apple computers at school. One was where you built this rocket and you could fly it same with a kart racing game. Sadly they were heavily boring because there was always that "Top" design that always worked the best achieving the farthest distance/altitude.

After a number of trials and failures, I think I've managed to hit escape velocity. The command module is currently at 3900K and increasing.

A solid fuel rocket is like fireworks, so it won't use a fuel tank. You could add more in different stages if you want it to last longer.

Launched to 186k+ and landed back.... sort of tricky to launch though

I finally reached space!


The 4 stage http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr212/Qeros/exce.jpg was able to take me up to 82,000m, despite some control problems in the final liquid fuel stage. After that, the little command module carried on alone with the velocity it had built up, reaching 270,000m before it began its descent.


In a second flight, we reached http://i485.photobucket.com/albums/rr212/Qeros/keresc-1.jpgm, higher than Gagarin's first flight, though we did not do the orbit he did. I had Rocket Man by Elton John playing. It was awesome.

On both occasions we returned safely, landing about 200 feet from the launch pad, though I screamed when a loud crash signaled the crumpling of the SAS module, but this did not harm the command module.


Try adding an automated SAS module and activating it in flight with "T". It makes the spiralling less common.


I can only imagine the effort it would take to actually orbit the planet... I must keep testing my rockets, gain experience with flying around the planet, now I know we can actualy get into space. Of course, on Earth, you can cross the 100,000m boundary with a V2 rocket, so is the gravity worse on Kearth?

This game is so addicting.

Now gone 1061k+... After lots of failures on the pad due to the rocket just falling apart for no reason

I got over 300k then decided I was past the point of no return.

When are your liquid rockets running out of fuel? On my escape velocity capable craft, the liquid rockets exhaust their fuel supply at about 250,000 meters, at which point escape velocity has been reached.

Jebediah Kerman aka http://s7.directupload.net/images/110713/zooww3s5.png is scared of nothing.



Nice one! Quite a view, isn't it?


I imagine so. Someone measured the radius of Kearth to be only 600 km, about a tenth of Earth's. Maybe the planet is made of super-dense Kerbium?

But apparently the acceleration due to force of gravity is the same as on Earth, though, at least at the surface.



Isn't it just? :laugh:



Keep checking for updates. There have been at least four updates this week alone, and I've been encountering some strange bugs in the newest release (apparently version 0.8.3 had one where you couldn't attach certain components, which they fixed with a quick 0.8.4 release.)

hey joker, have you noticed a bug where solid boosters fire out of their stage order? I've been having that with a few of my rocket designs.