I can add two words also: Mechanical Jeb. http://www.curse.com/ksp-mods/kerbal/220221-mechjeb

It's an autopilot that does amazing things for you. It especially helps getting platforms that are kind of squirrelly into space (e.g. http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Asparagus_staging)

Also, it shows you how much delta-v your ship has as you build it, and as you fly it. Delta-v is effectively a much more useful measure of "fuel" than your actual fuel.

I'm gonna give the same advice I give everyone who is told about mechjeb, learn to pilot manually before using mechjeb. I suggest using it once certain parts become routine (launch, rendezvous, precise powered landing)

Yes I agree totally, it's part of the fun. What's great is if you're in career or science mode you'll still need to work up to the parts needed to use MJ. You'll have to do the first orbits and rendezvous yourself.

I tried it yesterday for the first time and my biggest problem is that the tutorials are a bit too confusing and seem to require some prior knowledge of where things are etc:

I naturally started with the training scenarios and the very first one was pretty confusing. I feel like the tutorial would need a rework by someone who was not involved with the game for months/years.

The problem is that if you are seeing the interface and everything for months on end, and then you write the tutorial, you will likely leave out some things that are "obvious" to you but maybe are not obvious to new people who see everything for the first time.

In case of the first training tutorial where you just build a rocket, why does the text in the end just say "click the red button on the top right when you are done"? Or better yet, why not disable all other buttons that will also take you out the game? I thought after the rocket is built I could click the "launch" button to test it. Because that button was clickable. But all it did was take me back to the start screen. So I though I made a mistake and clicked on the first training scenario again. And now the tutorial would not even progress. It says to click on the command module but when you do, nothing happens. I then had to alt+f4 out of the game and start it again.

I think if they divide all the training scenarios this way, they should probably make it so only the things regarding a specific scenario are clickable and don't result in such undefined behavior.

I then tried the second training scenario and the guy at one point said to "click the AP button and click warp here" It took me way to long to find this so called AP button. Since I was looking at my rocket when the tutorial said to click this button I of course searched high and low on the screen for this button to no avail. It wasn't until I hit "m" to get to the space view and saw my trajectory path I noticed "AP" at the high point of the path. To me, it looked just like a text next to the path but when I clicked it I saw the "warp here" button. It would have been way better for the tutorial to first say "hit m to get to the space view, see your trajectory path and click on the AP which you see at the highest point of the path." Just mentioning an AP button without indication where it can be found and more importantly if it really is identifiable as a button and not just looking like an informational text label would help out a lot.

Personally, I like tutorials better that would freeze and then super impose an arrow while pointing at the thing you are supposed to press next while simultaneously stating so in text as well. Doing it like this makes sure there is no way anybody would not find the button and go searching for it unnecessarily.

Oh, and also a defined end of the tutorial. If the second one is just supposed to let you take of and get to the ap and then burn your remaining fuel, after doing so, why not put up a message saying the tutorial is now done and maybe two buttons. One to return to the menu and one to stay where you are and feel free to mess around with the ship some more.

With the plethora of options and things to do this game is very powerful so I feel it is of the utmost importance to get the tutorials right. I don't think using big arrows to guide one through the complex menues would be pandering or holding the users hand too much. Just saying in text "You may have noticed this new button in the lower right" is not really helpful. I just thought "no, I didn't notice it, which one do you mean, there are like a half dozen there". If you want to tell the user about it, point an arrow at it, tell the user to click on it and then explain the window that pops up.

All in all I already know I will spend many hours with this game but I would probably get "into the action" quicker if the tutorials were laid out a bit better.