Kerbal Space Program

Godspeed, Jebediah.

Kerbal Space Program is a sandbox spaceflight-simulator currently in alpha stages of development, published last Thursday by Squad. It features a realistic physics engine and rocket science. It's also a giant pain in the ass that turns out to be 3/4 drama, 1/4 space. Navigating Kerbal Space Program is like trying to master parallel parking a cruise ship whilst blindfolded and drunk. It's like Dark Souls on ketamine. You can't do anything. Unless you're a fucking NASA engineer, of course. Upon construction of your craft, if it doesn't explode the second you turn the throttle on, everything is still going to blow up the second you exit the atmosphere when the game has to load because it's in alpha. Thanks Obama. You want to build a functioning rocket in under a week? Too fucking bad. You get seven and a half hours minimum of things flying out of control shortly before exploding all because you didn't turn S.A.S (Shity-Assed-Steering) on. S.A.S just lets you fucking steer for fucks sake. Why isn't the sauce always on? Just remember there is no dicking reason whatsoever to ever turn it off. Unfortunately, steering doesn't actually help anything. S.A.S only ensures that you can steer your craft majestically into the crater of your choice. This is due to the fact that, much like you, the rockets themselves are neither fast nor mobile enough and always weigh too much. If you can somehow build a functioning rocket, If you take your eyes off the navigation HUD for 3/5^ths of a second to check your kiddie porn, you will be in a tailspin headed for certain incineration... for the four hundred and seventeenth time in a row.

Kerbal Space Program takes place primarily on the homeworld of Kerbin, mainly because it's damn near impossible to actually get yourself off the fucking planet.

Kerbals

Kerbals are the misshapen and confused astronaut race in this "game". They are midget, photosynthetic niggers who would all appear to have Downs syndrome, which may be why their government is so eager to spend countless millions killing them in rocket tests. Kerbals seem to live in a perpetual purgatory and appear to be immortal unless they perish in rocket explosions or are killed by alpha-bugs in which they randomly explode. Fortunately there is no shortage of either of these, and much like the jews, no one is upset when they die in record numbers.

Rocket Design

Fuckrockets to overdrive.

Kerbal Space Program features full design and customization of rocketships. This is the most tedious and arduous process of the game experience with a learning curve similar to a straight line. Luckily, the rocket design component consists of 90% of the game experience because they never work. Basically, you need fuel to get the rocket up, but the fuel weighs too much to get off the ground, so in short, you're always fucked. If the shitty mess of a ship design platform will let you put on a second set of booster rockets without placing them horizontally facing inwards so that when they turn on they incinerate each other and explode...again, you're lucky, because you've created a rocket that will now explode in space instead of on the launchpad.

There are like five different types of engines:

Solid-Fuel Rockets

These are the rockets Kerbals use when re-enacting 9/11. They just explode no matter what. They cannot be steered or shut off and at the longest have about 12 seconds of burn time. If they propel the ship for half this time it's pure coincidence.

Liquid Fuel Rockets

Why would you use anything else? You can actually steer them and shut them off, which is useful because the central tenet of Kerbal Space Program is that you want to save every precious drop of fuel that you are constantly running out of, you grubby Jew. Much like yourself, Liquid Fuel Rockets can go for about 23 seconds before finishing.

Jet Engines

Only seem to work in when there is air, which is useful when in the vacuum of space. They produce as much thrust as a ceiling fan. They exist solely to piss the player off.

Ion rockets

These dinky motherfuckers barely accelerate worth shit and only work when they are actually in space. But guess what? These faggots never run out of fuel. So you have all the fuel you want, if only the other rockets were strong enough to put it in space.

Rocket building

One of the special features of rocket design is the construction of the cockpit and workstation. You can put several kinds of housing capsules for your Kerbals to sit in during their missle flights. Most have no windows or controls, just a blank wall, so upon launching for a 5 year-long Mars expedition, the Kerbal has nothing to do but wish he weren't on the mission, and along with the player will subsequently go completely insane before the mission is accomplished. Since Kerbals live forever, most astronauts spend decades strapped to their chair, staring at blank wall unsure if they have been abandoned or not, knowing nothing but the inside of a small cannister while the beauty of the cosmos is hidden behind just a few tiny millimeters of aluminum.

The Solar System

You can go any planet in a 1/10 scale solar system. Not all the planets are the actual planets, they are actually easier than real life. Their names are Dres, Duna, Moho, Eve, Steve, Hitler Did Nothing Wrong, and Kerbin. If you can get to any of these planets you are the son of Christ. They decided to get rid of Saturn, Neptune and your butthole and shove them into one giant green knockoff planet called JEWel. They actually put a halfway interesting moon in orbit around it, which turns out is not as soulcrushingly boring as the rest of the goddamn game.

Game Play

One of the first major accomplishments in the "game" is getting kerbin's moon, it's name is MUN, spelled differently because Squad didn't want to make the game confusing. In career mode, if you some how rocket clusterfuck your way to the MUN you have to perform experiments, consists of sticking goo outside for a few seconds and claiming science was done. Much like NASA. Science can be used to purchase more unstable and unreliable rocket parts, which make your rockets explode better. This is to encourage you to visit the other planets.

See also

• Science
• Space

External links

Jebediah Kerman

Kerbal Space Program is part of a series on Gaming Visit the Gaming Portal for complete coverage.