New Player Advice
Are you new to RP-1 and the deep strategy layer it adds to KSP Career Mode? Are you feeling overwhelmed with the choices, and not sure what to do? Do you feel like you're lagging behind and not progressing as fast as you'd like in your new career? If so, this page is for you.
We've distilled some helpful tips for newer RP-1 players into this simple list of things to do, and things to avoid. If you keep these tips in mind, you should have a more satisfying RP-1 experience.
Spend most of your income on improving your program's speed and capabilities. In early career, this will mean KCT upgrade points, but will expand to include part unlocks and KSC building upgrades as you progress. A useful pattern is to accept a contract, then spend that advance on KCT points or other improvements that will help you complete the contract more quickly. Several contracts are specifically designed with this in mind – it's not by accident that the first satellite contract includes an advance large enough to buy a 60-ton launch pad.
These contracts are the ones which need to be completed to move your program forward. Typically marked by large rewards and words like “first” and “pass” in their descriptions, early game examples include: First Launch, Karman Line, Suborbital Return, 3,000 km Downrange, Break the Sound Barrier, Pass the Karman Line (crewed), First Satellite, and First Science Satellite. Try to have one or more of these core progression contracts active if you can.
Place science gear on all your craft if there's any chance that they'll be able to collect new science, especially the cheap instruments (thermometer and barometer). Launch your rockets in different directions to hit every biome that's near your space center. Launching a large sounding rocket? Put some bio samples on board with the necessary recovery hardware (typically just a probe core and a parachute in the early game). Putting a camera or other science gear on an X-1 suborbital crewed mission works well too.
In most cases, the new technology is more capable, and frequently more affordable and/or more reliable. For example, an LR89 costs less than an RD-103, and is much more powerful and efficient. Resist the urge to hold on to older hardware. Upgrading from Tank I to Tank II to Tank III will increase your rockets' abilities tremendously.
The pace at which you acquire funds to invest in your space program is determined in large part by the pace of completing contracts, which is in turn determined by the pace your VAB churns out rockets. Which is dependent on how many KCT upgrade points you've invested on your build rate... which takes you back to Tip #1. Always have a queue of at least two or three rockets in your VAB, so construction of the next rocket will start while the current rocket is being rolled out to the pad.
There's nothing wrong with grinding sounding rocket or satellite contracts while you're waiting for a building upgrade to finish, or a new technology to unlock. The key is that these missions should be viewed as filler for when you can't yet complete the next core progression contract. They're also a good way to test new hardware and build up reliability for new engines when the stakes are lower and the rockets are cheaper.
Tooling is critical to speeding up rocket production. To keep a lid on costs, reuse existing diameters as much as possible in new rocket designs. My early rockets tend to feature 0.38 m and 1.7 m diameters, since those are the diameters needed for early probe cores, parachutes, and engines. Even when I'm further in a career with larger rockets, I'll still frequently use that 1.7 m tank diameter (as either Tank II or Tank III) as part of a liquid-fueled booster or upper stage.
Using a launch pad that's unnecessarily large (such as a 150-ton pad for a 50-ton rocket) increases rollout cost and time as well as maintenance costs. And if you're no longer using a small pad, you can always get rid of it by clicking the "Dismantle" button in KCT window to save up on maintenance costs.
Spin stabilization of upper stages in early career is helpful, and was done in real life. Hot staging, separation motors, and RCS are all used to address ullage in real designs, and can help you too. There are lots of good resources online.
There are many mission reports and videos which show how others are playing RP-1. Even if the player isn't the best, you'll get to learn from their experience and perhaps try something different when facing a similar situation.
RP-1 can be very complicated and has numerous mechanics, some of them poorly documented. On top of that, beyond simply rocket construction, the KCT part of RP-1 has its own share of "learn from failure". To avoid frustration, I strongly recommend starting with Easy or Normal. You can be superb at playing stock or stock-like KSP, but still be very frustrated in RP-1 because of all the added mechanics.
Think like a business or an investor – money in the bank isn't doing any work for you. Deploy that capital! Unless you're specifically saving up for a part unlock or KSC building upgrade, buy KCT upgrade points and use them to improve your program. Maintain a reserve to allow you to recover from Agathorn's wrath, but keep it small.
If you're launching a simple sounding rocket (even if it has an RD-100), there's no need for a controllable probe core – add fins and make it passively stable instead. Fairings are an expensive luxury in the early game and should be avoided. If there's no more science to be had where your rocket is going, remove all the expensive science gear (such as bio sample containers and cameras).
Avoid the temptation to build larger rockets with early technology. The engines are unreliable, and many of them become even more unreliable when clustered. The exception to this might be for the second stage of a first satellite launch if you're really pushing forward quickly, which some players will equip with 3 XASR engines. If you do choose to cluster, make sure that the rocket engines are angled in slightly and the stage is spin-stabilized to minimize the impacts of an engine-out scenario.
As rockets get more expensive and complex, the cost of rushing the builds goes up significantly. Unless you're trying to beat a fast-approaching deadline for a contract, rushing should be minimized. You're better off in the long term investing in KCT upgrade points, and spending them on VAB build rate.
Some contracts are difficult to complete, and require very specific technologies to be unlocked. For example, the First Science Satellite contract has a very tempting advance (over 400K funds) but also requires that a Geiger Muller counter be placed on the satellite. That part is gated behind multiple expensive science nodes, which all need to be unlocked first. If you're not sure you can do it, there's no shame in completing other contracts for six months or a year while you keep investing in your program and wait for other technologies to unlock. Once you do finally commit to that contract, spend the majority of the advance on KCT upgrade points, and really pump up your science research rate so you can meet the two-year contract deadline.
With proper design, it should be possible to get at least as far as lunar flyby / impact with a 60-ton rocket. Keep your rocket sizes small, and delay building the expensive larger pads until you've accepted a contract which truly needs the larger size (and which will likely have a large advance to help pay for it).
I hope that these tips will allow you to enjoy RP-1 more. Best wishes on your career!