Extra Mods to Consider

Remember, when setting up a new install, only add non-CKAN mods after you've installed all CKAN mods.

This guide skips all mods that are installed by default when you install RO/RP-1. If you have not installed RO/RP-1 using that guide, please do so first before returning here.

The base installation includes everything you need to play RP-1, so please try a career or two using just those mods before branching out (unless you are already familiar with Principia, in which case grab Principia alone as an additional mod).

NOTE: Unless otherwise mentioned, install all mods through CKAN. This will ensure you have the most up-to-date version possible, and that all dependencies are correctly installed.

NOTE: Some of these mods cannot be installed by CKAN. If you don't know how to install non-CKAN mods, read the simple guide!

Table of Contents

1. Principia

2. Major Gameplay Additions

3. Pretty Graphics & Sound Mods

4. Other High-Quality Parts Mods

• Rocket Parts
• Misc Parts

5. Quality-of-Life Mods

6. The Blacklist: Mods to Avoid

Note: this mod list is intended as a menu, not a bucket list. While installing the mods from sections 1, 2, and 3 is highly recommended, trying to install everything at the same time will likely cause a mess.

§1: Principia

• Principia, Requires Manual Install, check the README - Replaces stock's patched conics approximation of celestial gravitation with a much more substantial n-body model, enabling Lagrange points, sun-synchronous orbits, and perturbation due to mascons.

  • Reading the Principia wiki (linked in the sidebar) is highly recommended.
  • Because Principia is written in C++, not in C#, you can't install it like other GitHub mods. Click the link, scroll down to the readme, and follow the download instructions.

§2: Major Gameplay Additions

• kOS - A scripting utility for your rockets. Extremely powerful and very useful. Has extensive documentation (linked in the sidebar) and a very helpful Discord server.

§3: Pretty Graphics & Sound Mods

• Deferred - This mod adds deferred rendering support to KSP. Deferred rendering decouples geometry rendering from lighting, allowing for more modern lighting techniques to be used, and better lighting performance with many light sources. These updates allow for much more realistic metallic textures, ambient occlusion, and native planetshine.
• Chatterer/Chatterer Extended - Adds realistic beeps and SSTV ambiance noise to your missions, along with nonsensical chatter if you have Kerbals on board.
• Custom Parachute Message - Adds the Perseverance parachute shader to all RealChute parts (except for the Stack Chute) and allows you to customize the parachute with text, coordinates, and colors.
• Docking Port Sound FX - Adds sound effects to docking. The thread also contains alternative sounds.
• Pood's Milky Way Skybox - One of three skyboxes by Poodmund, this one closely resembles the real night sky.
• TUFX - A post-processing mod that allow you to apply several effects to your game, for giving a cinematic, photorealistic, or even cartoonish look to your game. This mod has default profiles but you can easily install other ones or create your own.

§4: Other High-Quality Parts Mods

Rocket Parts

Although ROEngines will provide most of the engines you could ever want for your RP-1 career, here are a few mods that offer new options.

• Cryo Engines - This mod pack includes many current and near future methalox and hydrolox engines, such as Vulcain 2, LE-9, RL-60, STBE-3, Raptor, and Avio M10.
• Kerbal Atomics - Although not fully configured, this mod pack provides some more exotic NTR options, such as liquid-core NTRs and the Low-Pressure NTR.
• Near Future Launch Vehicles - Although not fully configured, this mod pack provides many modern booster engines, such as the RD-701/704, AR-1, RS-84, and STBE-1, and TR-107.
• Near Future Launch Propulsion - This mod pack contains a wide variety of ion engines.
• ROEngines Extended - A quick and dirty mod that clones existing ROEngines parts to create some more obscure engines, including the AR-22, RD-263, RL-200, RS-44, and RS-76.
• Stockish Project Orion, Requires Manual Install - Ol' Boom Boom. Adds parts for the USAF Orion and a Medusa drive.

Misc Parts

Various high-quality parts mods that provide unique parts for your RP-1 career.

• Hullcam - Allows you to lock the view to a camera mounted on your rocket for Saturn V and SpaceX style shots.
• InternalRCS - A pack that adds a number of small configurable RCS parts that mount flush with your rocket's body like the Space Shuttle's orbital maneuvering system. (some models within ROEngines's Modular RCS (notably those from Restock) are also capable of doing the same thing)
• Kerbal Foundries2 - Adds more landing gear (mostly wheels) for planes.
• Near Future Aeronautics - Adds jet engines, very large and very small, including the GE4 and deployable VTOL liftjets.
• Near Future Construction - Adds various constellation-inspired large structural parts for large ships or space stations.
• Near Future Electrical - Adds nuclear reactors. Best paired with Kerbalism System Heat for much better heat management with System Heat.
• Near Future Exploration - Adds antennas and other probe parts, including some extremely large folding antennas.
• Near Future Solar - Adds large solar panels, and ROSolar will use its models if it is present.
• Shuttle Orbiter Construction Kit - A high quality (but stockalike) Space Shuttle mod from benjee10.
• Space Shuttle System, Requires Manual Install - A high quality, photorealistic Space Shuttle Mod from DECQ. Outdated, but still works fine on KSP 1.12.3.
• Buran Energia Mod - A high quality, photorealistic Buran and Energia mod from DECQ and Alcentar.
• Soviet Spacecraft - Contains most Soviet spacecraft, including Vostok, Voskhod, Soyuz 7k-OK, LOK, and T, and TKS/VA.
• Salyut Stations - Contains parts for Soviet Salyut/Almaz stations.
• SSPX - Adds many high quality customizable station parts beginning with early station modules and proceeding towards greenhouses and centrifuges.

§5: Quality-of-Life Mods

• BetterTimeWarp - Adds the ability to reconfigure normal and physical time warp rates, allowing it to be adapted to RSS scale.
• Docking Port Alignment Indicator - Adds a camera that gives the relative velocity (forward/back and side-to-side) and angle to a target docking port, making it much easier to dock.
• Editor Extensions Redux - Gives more symmetry options, finer part angle control, and other VAB/SPH quality of life features.
• Historian Expanded - Adds an informative and RO-integrated HUD/infobar to your screenshots. Highly configurable.
• HyperEdit - Same as stock, good for testing, debugging, and saving yourself from the occasional Kraken attack. (may not be up to date to 1.12)
• Kerbal Alarm Clock - Integrates with KCT and several RP-1 features to stop warp on alarms. Almost required for deep-space missions.
• Kerbal Engineer Redux - As of the 1.1.9.5 release, KER is now compatible with RP-1. This mod is similar to MechJeb, but it has smaller UIs that can display useful information, It may slightly misreport delta-V. (needs to be confirmed)
• Kerbal Wind - Simulates wind and turbulence, especially useful for realism when flying planes.
• Kronal Vessel Viewer Continued - Generates crisp orthorhombic projected images of your rockets. You might have to fiddle with your DirectX settings to get it working right. (works in 1.12)
• Lunar Transfer Planner - Greatly simplifies the process of planning when to launch a mission to the Moon, almost required for Principia.
• NavHud - Full-screen navball overlay. Helps a lot with lining up planes for a runway landing, making sure your solar panels are orientated correctly, and docking vessels using its included aligning indicator.
• Time Control - Similar mechanics to Better Time Warp, but also allows you to pause the physics and use slow-motion.
• WASD Editor Camera Continued - A very different way to move around in the VAB and SPH, but can make crafting large and complex crafts much easier.
• Waypoint Manager - Display waypoints in flight and create custom waypoints. Essential for making targeted landings on other bodies and on Earth.
• Wernher Checklist Continued - Adds a checklist to the VAB that detects if certain parts (solar panels, RCS, parachutes, payload, etc.) are on your vessel before you launch and also adds a pre-flight checklist that you can access while on the pad and in flight. Helps to prevent a mistake from becoming a scrub and having to roll back to the VAB.

§6: The Blacklist: Mods to Avoid

The following is a list of mods, which, despite being commonly recommended for use with RSS/RO/RP-1 (even by CKAN), you may not want to install after all.

• SCANsat - SCANsat v20.x consumes an extreme amount of memory when used with RSS (Often in excess of 32 GB). If you are using SCANsat, you should disable visual maps by going to the Gamedata/SCANsat/PluginData/Settings.cfg and setting VisibleMapsActive to false, which will help reduce memory usage.
• Shadow Space Technologies Unlimited (SSTU) - Under no circumstances should you consider using SSTU. It simply doesn't work nor will it ever with RP-1. ROTanks provides some of the functionality you're looking for.
• Stage Recovery/FMRS - Throws off early-game balance, spams your log, adds lag. Don't use it.
• Textures Unlimited Recolor Depot (TURD) - Basically useless in RP-1, as you will use mostly Ven's or SXT parts, which this mod doesn't touch. Completely useless if you are using ReStock. Not a hard blacklisting, but generally not worth the extra load times.
• KRASH - simulations are now handled by RP-1.
• Engine Lighting Relit - Not configured for RO, and spams the log with error messages.
• Deadly Reentry - Not needed and may break game physics.