The radar altitude was coming down quickly. I had just passed the 500 meter mark, with my speed hovering around 45 meters per second. The grey dust underneath my ship is getting finer and finer as I near the surface. I am now below 50 meters. I need to get my speed around five meters a second so my legs don’t snap from hitting the surface too fast. The speed is correct, and the ship is just above the surface. It is time to cut the engines, and hope for the best. The legs softly hit the surface, and I have completed my mission. This is the first time I’ve landed on another celestial body in Kerbal Space Program.
While attempting a Mun landing (the name for the moon in Kerbal Space Program), there are many emotions that a person goes through. First you start out nervous and scared. You have flown 12 million meters to reach this giant rock that is orbiting your home world of Kerbin, the last thing you want is a failed attempt to land safely. The closer you get, you also start to panic a little bit. What if I am going too fast and my ship explodes? What if my horizontal movement is too much and my lander tips over when the legs touch the surface? You have to tell yourself to put those thoughts away, because you’ll be fine.
When you have finally landed on the surface, and your ship did not tip over, you let out a sigh of relief. I did it, you think to yourself. I’ve spent hours and hours testing my space ships, practicing my orbital maneuvers and transfer burns, getting into orbit around the Mun, descending to the surface, and now I’ve finally landed safely. And that sense of accomplishment is second to none in any other game that has been released in recent memory. This is the first game I’ve played in a long time that I have felt proud of what I have accomplished as a player.
Kerbal Space Program (KSP) is an independent game currently in development by Squad. Much like the Minecraft development model, you can buy the game while it is in alpha state and receive all updates to the game for free. But these updates are not just bug fixes and maybe one or two new features. These updates are so significant that when a new one is released, you feel like you are playing a brand new game.
KSP is described on the official website as “a game where the players create and manage their own space program. Build spacecrafts, fly them, and try to help the Kerbals to fulfill their ultimate mission of conquering space.” The Kerbals would be the little green men that are the astronauts of your missions. You really are in control of your own space program, and it couldn’t be any easier to begin your space adventures. To fly somewhere takes a bit more skill though.
When you load KSP, you are taken to the VAB, or vehicle assembly building. This is where you’ll assemble your spaceships. Building ships is almost like connecting LEGO together. When you select a part, there are green markers that represent where you can connect said part to other areas of your ship. While the system can be a bit finicky every once and awhile, the majority of the time the vehicle building system works great. Once you get used to the game and what it takes to build a ship, you’ll be able to assemble a rocket that can get you into orbit in just a matter of minutes.
The real meat of the game comes when your newly built space ship is on the launch pad at the Kerbal Space Center. After the game loads your ship into this massive world, you’re ready to fly towards the stars. During your flight in space, you’ll see some very beautiful scenes play out in front of you. Personally, my favorite is when you’re in the middle of launching out of Kerbin’s atmosphere. When you hit the upper parts of the atmosphere, space above you his pitch black. But once you are out of the atmosphere, you see stars and galaxies fade into the shot. For a game that is so early in development, it is one of the best looking indie games on the market, and rivals some AAA games.
After getting into outer space, you are able to explore every aspect of the Kerbal solar system. Currently in 0.18, there are seven different planets in the solar system. Two inner planets, Kerbin, and two outer planets. Some of these planets represent real planets in our solar system (Duna is comparable to Mars), and others have a very fantasy feel to them. Eve, the purple inner planet, comes to mind. All of the planets have some sort of satellite orbiting them, except for the innermost planet called Moho. Kerbin, and the furthest planet called Jool, have multiple satellites that are in orbit around the planets. There are actually five satellites orbiting around the green gas giant Jool. Including Kerbin, there are 15 different celestial bodies in the Kerbal solar system. All of them, save Kerbin, are a challenge to fly to.
One feature that completely blew me away was the persistent save system in the game. What this means is that the game will remember what spaceships you have launched, and keep them in the solar system forever. So if you have 20 ships orbiting Kerbin, they will stay there unless something messes with their orbit. This adds a whole new layer to the game of things to do. Maybe you sent the first astronaut to Duna, but he didn’t have enough fuel to come back to Kerbin. You can create a new ship that has enough fuel to go to Duna and come back, and rescue the stranded astronaut. I should mention that if a flight is active, and you decide to end the flight, then you will not be able to access that ship again. That is the only way that a ship will be taken out of the game, unless it is destroyed.
With the newest update to KSP, the persistence save system plays a significant role. The newest update added the ability for two ships to dock together while in orbit. This allows for players to create things like space stations, or giant motherships to fly to other systems that wasn’t possible to launch from Kerbin. Some players are building refueling stations in orbit around planets to help other spaceships achieve their goal.
The amount of quality in KSP is incredible considering that the project was started two years ago. The game is priced at $23 now, which is an insanely low price when you take into account the amount of time that you can spend playing this game. I would guess I’ve spent about 60-70 hours playing KSP, and have not lost any interest in the game. As a matter of fact, with each new update to the game, my interest increases. If you can get past the steep learning curve, it is a small price to pay for hours and hours of game time. Future updates will include things like a career mode where you will have to take on missions, watch your budget, and hire and train astronauts.
My time in Kerbal Space Program has been one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I’ve had in the last few years. With the amount of progress Squad has made since beginning the project over two years ago, it will be exciting to see what happens over the next few years. Happy flying!
