Failure is a teacher here, one that challenges you and doesn't compromise by handing you all the answers.

Making a mistake never felt like a punishment, as if the game had placed an insurmountable obstacle in front of me and laughed as I flailed wildly at it. The game surpasses that categorization because of that sense of constant discovery and innovation. But for all the things that feel brain-bending and sciencey, there's still a mild sense of approachability, like the fact that trying to plot a flight path that puts you in orbit with a different planet is essentially a really touchy and precise game of Bop It. For one thing, no matter how serious things get, you're still playing in a world of little green cartoons, which the game never really reconciles with its overwhelming physical realism the further along you go.

Mun: Periapsis is above the “sea level”.It doesn't really cover it to say that Kerbal Space Program is a space sim.

The minimum periapsis to switch to orbital view depends on the body: At launch the free view is used, but as soon as the periapsis gets high enough the camera switches to the orbital view (and back to the free view, when the periapsis gets too low). The auto camera view switches automatically between the free and orbital view depending on the craft's overall altitude. This view can make docking much easier to perform without switching to docking controls. 'Up' for the locked cam is based on the orientation of the part the craft is currently being controlled from (usually the command module). The locked camera view is relative to the craft itself and rotates along with it as its attitude changes it may also be repositioned manually. This mode is useful for atmospheric plane flight, especially during aerobatics when the player wants to have a clear view on their maneuvering.

The player can still rotate the camera in vertical and horizontal axes. This means that the ground will always be on the 'down' direction. The chase camera view makes the camera follow the craft's surface-based prograde (not vessel pointing) direction in the horizontal axis, but not in the vertical and roll axes. Gravity will still affect the kerbals, however. While kerbals are in EVA on a planet, changing to Orbital perspective can cause the kerbals to flip on their sides, depending on the location on the planet. Kerbals glitching whilst in Orbital Camera view.

Kerbal space program free beta