My son is really getting into the kerbal space program game and I’m all about trying to help him enjoy it and learn from it. Anyone else play? I’m wonder if anyone knows how to play and would be willing to teach/tutor him (he’s 9) I would trade you for your time in dollars and cookies.
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Scott Manley, the YouTube commentator is a big proponent of Kerbal. I think he has several sims at his site. I saw one this morning where he simmed the Soyuz disaster from 1967. You might want to subscribe to his channel, or follow him on Twitter.
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Ok thank you! My son is already trying to recreate some things he’s seen with spacex and he’s getting frustrated. It’s a really simple concept that really can get complex fast. I want to do anything I can to keep him encouraged.
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Factorio is another great one to exercise the brain. It’s the highest rated game on Steam.
More boosters. Then add more struts. Repeat until Delta V sufficient to reach orbit. 
On a more serious note, the SpaceX missions will be tough. To make them work in KSP he’ll need some of the robotics add-ons. They’re a bit finicky. Or were a couple of years ago when I last messed with them.
To me, Career Mode is tedious. Sandbox mode lets you build whatever you want with all the parts in the list. Sounds like he’s already there. Figure out how to get to orbit with that first. And MechJeb is a mandatory add-on. No one except Scott Manley flies spaceships without an autopilot.
I’ve never used MechJeb and I only use Kerbal Engineer Redux (KER) for certain data (especially when to fire a suicide burn). It’s also really nice when you need your exact orbit period for deploying arrays of communication satellites.
My favorite add-ons are Kerbal Alarm Clock, Docking Port Alignment Tool, Transfer Window Planner and KER (in that order).
Ain’t nothing simple about KSP other than blowing up. I first picked up the game when I was about 26 and still had a rough time with it. Extremely rewarding when you get the hang of it though.
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I’ve logged hundreds of hours in Kerbal and I’m still laughably bad at it. I highly recommend watching video tutorials on how to perform various types of missions and maneuvers. Be aware that the game has changed a lot over the years, so information from older videos might be obsolete.
I personally play vanilla (without mods) but I agree that it’s easier to learn when using mods.
The newest expansion includes robotics. I don’t know how it compares to mechjeb or the others but it does at least work for basic operations.
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I dare not even look at mine.
This is all making me want to play KSP again. I last played with the Galileo pack and that was a good bit of fun with some really unique planets and orbits.
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MechJeb is a multifunction tool. It has autopilots for most phases of flight, can display orbital parameters, schedule manouvers, show you center of lift/thrust/mass during builds, and a lot of other stuff I’ve forgotten. Similar in many ways to Kerbal Engineering, just differnt intefaces. ( not sure what the Venn diagram for the features between the two looks like in any detail. I’m sure there are some omissions on each. )
The robotics I had trouble with was a couple of years back. I’m sure it’s better now. Folks were doing amazing things even with the early version then. It’s just not simple. One more layer on top of the Rocket Science…
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