Prograde (green empty circle) will raise the altitude of the opposite side of your orbit

Retrograde (green circle with x in it) will lower the altitude of the opposite side of your orbit

Radial In (blue circle with inward lines) will lower the altitude of the point 90 degrees ahead of you in your orbit while raising the altitude of the point 90 degrees behind you

Radial Out (blue circle with outward lines) will raise the altitude of the point 90 degrees ahead of you in your orbit while lowering the altitude of the point 90 degrees behind you

Normal (pink triangle with a dot in the middle) will tilt your orbit so the point 90 degrees ahead of you will be closer to the north pole of what you’re orbiting

Anti-Normal (pink triangle with lines going out) will tilt your orbit so the point 90 degrees ahead of you will be closer to the south pole of what you’re orbiting.

When you have a target selected, burning Anti-Normal at the Ascending Node or Normal at the Descending Node will match your inclination to your target’s.

Here are some mods that might be helpful

• For maneuvering:

1. Kerbal Engineer Redux gives you a lot of helpful numbers

2. Precise Node lets you tweak maneuvers you plan very precisely, and also gives you the ability to change the way your orbit line shows when it goes from orbiting one thing to another

3. Navball Docking Alignment Indicator gives you another icon on your navball in red when you target a docking port that shows which direction that port is pointing so you can line up with it easier

• For contracts:

1. SCANsat gives you parts to do orbital telescope scans of planets and moons, and contracts to deploy satellites to do those scans which are fairly easy and give decent rewards

2. MOAR Station Science gives you big heavy station modules that you can use to build space stations, and little experiment pods to send to those stations to do research there. It also gives you extremely lucrative contracts to do those experiments.