Is it true that most KSP players never go interplanetary?

[Snikersnee]

My computer crashes too often for a long-term trip. But I'm happy making planes, cars, and occasionally, boats.

Also, what?

Quote

Jool Rover .... Jool is one horrible planet full of mountains and deep valleys

 

Edited May 22, 2016 by Snikersnee

[Pecan]

3 hours ago, LayZboy said:

 

Ah perhaps I should have been more clear, there was no in-game tutorials on how to do it, nothing of any kind really...

Right, got it, sorry for the confusion.

[hurric]

"Right now I am operating the Jool Rover .... Jool is one horrible planet full of mountains and deep valleys ...you have been warned"

 

Edit ....someone just pointed out Jool is the wrong planet

 

I am exploring Moho with a rover right now .... and it's still full of horrendous mountain ranges

 

So why did I send 6 rovers to the Jool system when  I only need 5 ..... oh well that will be a spare if I crash somewhere  

[Guest]

Well, I think I only sent kerbals in interplanetary missions four or five times, and I've been playing since 0.23 came out.

The reason why is at building a ship: I try to make them realistic (as in, reasonable living space) and that restricts my delta-v. A lot.

That, and the fact that I use TACLS, which makes things even deadlier.

However, I've sent a lot of probes to other planets. So I don't know if I count in this.

[HebaruSan]

The gameplay must flow. And for interplanetary, it mostly doesn't, at least for me. Science and career modes present the artificial but highly visible goals of accumulating science points and funds, and the gameplay trade-offs make these possible and most efficient to acquire within Kerbin SOI. That's my problem: Unless I play with the explicit goal of going to a specific planet, the natural ebb and flow of the game doesn't lead me there. (Disclaimer, this has probably improved somewhat since I had my experiences; I have not done a career recently.)

I'm also another victim of the Kerbal Alarm Clock mindset. I installed it because I got tired of missing maneuvers, and I soon got accustomed to a real-time play style. I used to launch a new craft in sandbox if my next alarm was more than 20 minutes out, which works fine for Mun and Minmus shots. But there's just no way I'll ever have the patience or dedication to put in 1200+ additional hours of gameplay on one save to hit a transfer window that way.

Case in point, after finishing the pre-career tech tree on Mun and Minmus, I started a new sandbox and launched one would-be lander per planet immediately, transfer windows be darned. Each one got an encounter (but many looked doomed to fast flybys). Then with all of that set up, I asked myself, am I really ready to time warp now? Is there nothing else I want to get done first? Do I maybe want to send another ship now? It felt like an opportunity I wouldn't get back. So I messed around a bit more, thought of some more Mun lander designs to try, etc. Then 0.90 came out, and I started a new (career) save. None of those interplanetary vessels ever arrived; I think they got deleted when I later opened that old save without the KER chip part. Eventually I realized that if I was ever going to have one of these interplanetary adventures, I would have to dedicate the save to just that one mission, not the efficient accumulation of points or experimentation with design ideas. Having finite time to play, I picked Jool for its variety; an initial mission did several landings, and then a follow-up flotilla colonized Laythe shortly before 1.0. These actually arrived because I decided in advance that I wasn't doing anything other than Jool in that save, so time warping felt OK.

So yes, it's largely psychological, but not entirely so. The in-game incentives could provide smoother stepping stones and more motivation.

[Spaceception]

I've gone interplanetary plenty of times in my short ownership of the game, and several manned missions as well, 2 Munar missions, 1 Minmus mission, and 1 Duna mission, so I've found it quite easy to travel to other planets.

But I still have a lot of exploration to go

Edited May 23, 2016 by Spaceception

[Columbia]

Most of the KSP players? As if I'm some sort of Kerbin SOI scrub?

Oh please, I went to Duna and Eve, like, once in 2016! Hah, yeah, beat that!

 

In all seriousness, DV requirements aren't much of a problem for me -- I can always overbuild and slap an Ion engine and I usually have more than enough fuel. But as others have mentioned, it's a PITA and you don't get much of a reward for doing it. It's satisfying and fun the first time, but.. that's about it. 

With that logic, I'd rather spend my time on a manned mission in Minmus which is far more sane of a task and not to mention more fun.

[Creature]

2 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

The gameplay must flow. And for interplanetary, it mostly doesn't, at least for me. Science and career modes present the artificial but highly visible goals of accumulating science points and funds, and the gameplay trade-offs make these possible and most efficient to acquire within Kerbin SOI. That's my problem: Unless I play with the explicit goal of going to a specific planet, the natural ebb and flow of the game doesn't lead me there. (Disclaimer, this has probably improved somewhat since I had my experiences; I have not done a career recently.)

I'm also another victim of the Kerbal Alarm Clock mindset. I installed it because I got tired of missing maneuvers, and I soon got accustomed to a real-time play style. I used to launch a new craft in sandbox if my next alarm was more than 20 minutes out, which works fine for Mun and Minmus shots. But there's just no way I'll ever have the patience or dedication to put in 1200+ additional hours of gameplay on one save to hit a transfer window that way.

I feel something like this too. The goals set by game mechanics and time usually give two options. I can either go to Mun or Minmus right now for yet another biome hopping mission or I can timewarp a year ahead, launch one probe, then timewarp a year ahead for it to arrive. It just feels wrong.

Playing with Kerbal Construction time helps with this a lot. Even simple rockets take days to build so just grinding contracts makes the time actually pass in a natural way. In my current game I haven't even done manned Mun mission yet and I already missed the first Duna window.

[Warzouz]

On 20/5/2016 at 3:33 AM, Waxing_Kibbous said:

I think that with the new orbital line code a system could be implemented that could be informative but not hand holding- when the proper buildings are levelled up, say tracking station + R&D, or whatever makes sense, you can have a mode in the tracking station where the orbit lines are filled in with a gradient showing the best and worst times to visit a planet dV wise- think the TWP plot colors within the orbit line. And that's it, no dV readout, etc. Just the best to worst times to get somewhere- when a planet is in the purple part of the orbit it is optimal, when it is in a red part it is the least optimal, with the other options, blue-orange, displayed as well.

Or more simply an additional window in the tracking station which focus about approximative launch windows and which would help to get the dV budget of a transfer.

With that, any player could get transfer windows. Because as of now :

• You know phase angles values (you read them and learn them somewhere)
• You use a external tool (site or mod) to get them

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I'll just add another turn off for going interplanetary that I experienced were the very long burn times for the nuke engine. I'm not sure how people do burns over 5 minutes, let alone 20 minutes and up. I started a thread to discuss this:

 

[Codraroll]

30 minutes ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

I'll just add another turn off for going interplanetary that I experienced were the very long burn times for the nuke engine. I'm not sure how people do burns over 5 minutes, let alone 20 minutes and up. I started a thread to discuss this:

That's another relevant discusion. My first Duna spacecraft was basically only a Hitchhiker attached to a landing/ascent vessel in one end, and a fuel tank with a Nerv in the other. The transfer burn to Duna took 17 minutes, yet the craft was still light enough to only contain enough fuel to enter Duna orbit (after an 11-minute braking maneuver). Building a barely-accelerating craft, only to find out it contained half the fuel I needed to fulfill my mission, was not an experience that encouraged more interplanetary trips. Especially since design errors related to fuel amount will only be found when you've done a couple of those 15+ minute burns, you're lost on a remote planet, and you have to spend another few hours on a simple rescue mission (no Kerbal left behind!). Kerbin SOI, here I stay.

Edited May 23, 2016 by Codraroll

[razark]

The last time I went to Duna, it was a much shorter burn than that.  Of course, I was using a Mainsail.

[Norcalplanner]

Once I have orbital stations around Kerbin, Mun and/or Minmus, with scientists on board busily researching away, I then feel like I can time warp for interplanetary journeys. That way, my program is still doing something as time passes. And if I have to interrupt the interplanetary journey a time or two to rotate crews or head down in a lander to get some science and top off the labs, then that's ok.

[Adelaar]

Most of the arguments here are very recognisable; unwillingness to time warp, burn times, difficulties with nodes and little margin for errors.. 

The thing that holds me back, apart from the above, is that I hate building monstrosities that by no means Ever Be Built in the real world. Of course I know that this is not the case anyhow due to scaling and blahblah, but still; I want a realistic feel to my spaceprogram. So the only things I'm sending interplanetary are probes, lots of probes... But 900 gaminghours in, not a single kerbal was sent. 

[hurric]

I think the longest time warp I have ever needed to do was about 4 days as while I am waiting for a transfer window a am busy doing other things like building & assembling ships for the next missions or mining, I sent ships with 16 Kerbals out to Mun & Minmus to plant flags and then out to orbit the Sun so I could build up their rankings ...each of those jaunts usually takes around 90 days or so.... there are plenty of things to do while waiting for a transfer window

And how come you *Burns* are so long .... three mins is about average to duna or the rest of the outer planets .... same for braking for orbit

 

The missions *contracts* to the outer planets come along once you start going farther out....two of my crew compliment were rescued from Duna

I have ongoing contracts on Duna - Ike-  Moho .....they seem to have dried up for Mun & Minmus as I go father out into the system, I am on Year 4 Day 328 ..... 

 

What you do need for this game is plenty of *drone fuel bowsers* around Kerbin to refuel anything you launch which is going to the other planets & be good at docking to assemble ships and refuelling them, make sure anything you send  >>> out there<<< has a mining capability to refuel so you can get back home

 

 

Edited May 23, 2016 by hurric

[Overland]

Ive never been to the mun..

Except when it got in the way once

Ive been onboard since 0.23

 

Intercity is my thing.. KSC to KSC2

Electric railcars, diesel electrics..jet powered hybrid locomotives and battery shunters

Ive never been more than 150km outside of KSC

Yet killed thousands and lost craft so dear to me they could have been called a family..

Personally descending deep into its self writing stories and history..

 

Its been the most complete gaming experience for me as a whole, driving with a steering wheel and throttle.. Its bested any driving simulator

 

The sound of traction motors and detriot powered diesels.. Giving a feeling of presence that outways any plastic feeling train simulator

 

Blending my interests in engineering..railbound trains.. Thier massive land based sisters of the snowfields in the cold war and exploration all into one game

 

Never left kerbin on purpose..

Ill leave space to those who love it...

A 72 Ton land train driving hands on 80km is more dangerous and demanding as atmospheric reentry..

And I treasure every minute of it..

1.1 set me back.. But as trains once again take shape

So does the long terrible route filled with so much death and loss

 

The primary intercity line of KTP

Inland line KSC to KSC2

Service soon to be resumed

Space is the stuff I see when the sun goes down

Edited May 24, 2016 by Overland

[KerikBalm]

1 hour ago, Overland said:

Ive never been to the mun..

Except when it got in the way once

...

Intercity is my thing.. KSC to KSC2

...

Ive never been more than 150km outside of KSC

...

Its been the most complete gaming experience for me as a whole, driving with a steering wheel and throttle.. Its bested any driving simulator

...

Blending my interests in engineering..railbound trains.. Thier massive land based sisters of the snowfields in the cold war and exploration all into one game

...

Never left kerbin on purpose..

Ill leave space to those who love it...

...

1.1 set me back.. But as trains once again take shape

...

The primary intercity line of KTP

Inland line KSC to KSC2

Service soon to be resumed

Space is the stuff I see when the sun goes down

Yes, there are those that simply have no desire, if you want Kerbal Boat program, or Kerbal sub program, or Kerbal airliner program, or Kerbal Train program thats fine.

A few questions though:

* How did Mun get in the way if you've never been to space (intentionally... how did you unintentionally get there, Kraken attack?), are you referring to an eclipse?

* Are you not the least bit curious about driving on other worlds? You don't wonder about driving your trains on Duna with its low gravity? Driving on Tylo with its lack of an atmosphere and the massive Jool hanging overhead (depending where you drive), doesn't sound fun? The challenge of getting train components to space, landing them, and connecting them on another world doesn't sound fun? I'm doing a fair amount of designing rovers and cargoplanes to transport them (capable of loading and unloading 2.5m diameter cargos from the mk3 bay)... doing a lot of testing on Kerbin, but with the intent of hurling them into deep space for use on laythe (so I can set up a habitat, ISRU operation, research lab, amphibious science rovers in any location I want, and transport them from one island to another by airlift). Sure... once there it will almost be like operating on Kerbin, but the fun of doing it in an "alien" setting, with the constraints of making them able to operate far from home is fun to me.... If something was forgotten, or needs to be replaced... it will be a loooonnngggg time until something can be sent from kerbin.

* Considering that the radius of Kerbin is 600 km, then its circumference is 2*pi*600km = 3770 km... more or less. There are roughly 72 degrees of longitude between KSC and KSC2. 72/360 * 3770 = 754 km ... and thats the straight line distance, ignoring the difference in lattitude as well. Unless your trains are amphibious.... its a heck of a lot longer than 150km between KSC and KSC2/the inland KSC... so how have you never been more than 150km outside KSC? You love trains so much, but have never driven more than 150km away?

http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Inland_Kerbal_Space_Center

"The Inland Kerbal Space Center (sometimes called KSC 2) is a second spaceport on Kerbin. It is generally considered an easter egg. It is not possible to launch any vehicles from this space center (unless using certain mods or plugins). "

 

12 hours ago, Adelaar said:

Most of the arguments here are very recognisable; unwillingness to time warp, burn times, difficulties with nodes and little margin for errors.. 

The thing that holds me back, apart from the above, is that I hate building monstrosities that by no means Ever Be Built in the real world. Of course I know that this is not the case anyhow due to scaling and blahblah, but still; I want a realistic feel to my spaceprogram. So the only things I'm sending interplanetary are probes, lots of probes... But 900 gaminghours in, not a single kerbal was sent. 

What do you mean? You mean the tonnage to orbit is too high? The ISS is over 400 tons... and it is mainly just a political exercise in cooperation (sure some valuable research is done there, but its mainly a political endeavour, and there are more cost effective ways of doing almost everything it does).

400 tons is larger than most craft that people get to orbit/assemble in orbit... and the ISS is 400 tons of *dry mass*... very few craft in KSP have that much dry mass (and then consider the dry masses in KSP are too high, as a not very effective way of somewhat offsetting the low dV needed to go places)

This is the main part of my Jool mission, what is so unrealistic about it?

That took 4 launches to setup, and is less than 400 tons (I never actually looked at its final mass, I don't think its over 300. I only had 2 launches of payloads that may have been in the 100-150 ton range, the other two launches were the spaceplane, and the faux-rotating crew section)

The burn times weren't so long with that KR-2L (post 1.05, burn times are shorter as I could throttle up the KR-2L higher, due to the connections being stronger due to wheel "autostrutting"). The only thing I'd really change (and it can be changed with a little RCS) is to undock the forward quad of nukes, and redock them at the back, which was the plan anyway after the KR-2L stage was ditched, to reduce crew proximity to the nukes.

Also, the whole thing could have been done on chemical, although that leaves much less fuel left for trips down to laythe (since its not the only craft going there, I could remove the nukes and send more fuel, assuming we ditch ISRU as too unrealistic)

 

Edited May 24, 2016 by KerikBalm

[Overland]

Definately never been there KSC2,

Its the destination of my elcano challenge, thus the only viable line of my KTP

 

circumnavigate kerbin via land with the occasional marine booster car being the extended goal over 12 months now

 

Its a very long way and countless kerbals..trains both unnumbered and registered have died horribly trying..

The intercity is in hopeful jest

 

Sadly the 150km marker is the magical barrier of multiple failures..system crashes..train damage and difficulty thats plagued from 4408 to 4427 in the mainliner locos..and 4003 to 4016 in the long hood road shunters

Everything from overheating generators on a steep hill exploding leaving a train powerless to stop its own runaway destruction (4409)

To losing one too many wheels on rough terrain that was once smooth and easy going..

Its a long hard journey..

Theres thousands of kilometres to go.yet until I conquer kerbin..

 

At the very least until then..kerbin is thier home

[juvilado]

There are several mods that will help ppl achieving interplanetary missions:

Kerbal engineer - The very best imho because it gives in the VAB the dV of each stage. Combine with ksp cheat sheet (it is not a mod, but a web page with dV needed to get to all the bodies)

Kerbal Alarm Clock - You can set points of time when you want, i.e. when the vessel leaves the SOI of Kerbin or enters the SOI of Eve.

Transfer Window - Gives the optimal moment to start the trip from one body to another. Use with Alarm Clock.

Hyperedit - You can test your vessels in ANY place of the Kerbol system, i.e. you can put it on the surface of Duna and test if it would reach orbit.

Mechjeb - I don't use it, but it is said it pilots your vessels for you...

[Adelaar]

34 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

What do you mean? You mean the tonnage to orbit is too high? The ISS is over 400 tons... and it is mainly just a political exercise in cooperation (sure some valuable research is done there, but its mainly a political endeavour, and there are more cost effective ways of doing almost everything it does).

400 tons is larger than most craft that people get to orbit/assemble in orbit... and the ISS is 400 tons of *dry mass*... very few craft in KSP have that much dry mass (and then consider the dry masses in KSP are too high, as a not very effective way of somewhat offsetting the low dV needed to go places)

This is the main part of my Jool mission, what is so unrealistic about it?

That took 4 launches to setup, and is less than 400 tons (I never actually looked at its final mass, I don't think its over 300. I only had 2 launches of payloads that may have been in the 100-150 ton range, the other two launches were the spaceplane, and the faux-rotating crew section)

The burn times weren't so long with that KR-2L (post 1.05, burn times are shorter as I could throttle up the KR-2L higher, due to the connections being stronger due to wheel "autostrutting"). The only thing I'd really change (and it can be changed with a little RCS) is to undock the forward quad of nukes, and redock them at the back, which was the plan anyway after the KR-2L stage was ditched, to reduce crew proximity to the nukes.

Also, the whole thing could have been done on chemical, although that leaves much less fuel left for trips down to laythe (since its not the only craft going there, I could remove the nukes and send more fuel, assuming we ditch ISRU as too unrealistic)

 

What I meant is that I don't like to launch the ISS or whatever non aerodynamical shape into orbit. Like you did yourself, I build modular, but haven't yet built a prototype ship for interplanetary missions. Hope that clarifies what I said.

[KerikBalm]

Well, yea, the pre 1.0 aerodynamics were laughable... but now post 1.0, getting things into orbit as one monolithic piece with no compromises made for aerodynamics, is generally not possible.

Well... generally... with a big enough rocket, you can ascend slowly until the air is thin enough... but I design my payloads such that every module can be enveloped by a fairing from a 3.75m base, or I design the payload with some aerodynamic concessions even though it is meant to operate purely in space... thats why, for example, you can see aerodynamic nose cones on parts of that craft above... the nukes which stuck out on arms, were exposed to the airstream, so they were at the rear, and rather than I beams or girders, they were placed on wing sgements... adding to the aerodynamic stability, in hind sight, I should have used the 1.25 to 0.625m nosecone adaptors instead of just the advanced nosecones... for extra LF capacity.

The center section (with the large solar arrays) was generally protected by a fairing, but it was like an "interstage" fairing, and only went to about where the docking ports were (it was launched before the fixes to fairings, so there was some clipping involved, I don't know if I can get a fairing to close around a mk3 section now... haven't tried yet)... so the side "pods" (containing aerospikes) got 2.5m nosecones... even though after launch.. . they're jsut useless dry mass... maybe I should have put some decouplers on there... ah well, it looks a little nicer.

But yea... doing it modular requires docking, which seems to be a hurdle for many people in this thread.

Still, you can send out a poor kerbal in a mk1 pod with no extra room, and leave him/her there for years for your interplanetary mission*... or use a probe.

* at the moment, I'm not willing to add the TAC-LS mod, but I do give my kerbals generous space allowances, and a research lab to occupy their time.

[Van Disaster]

This thread made me actually go and check, because I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually arrived somewhere. The last *launch* seems to have been a RemoteTech cluster going to Duna which went up just about the time 0.90 appeared, so it's still in Kerbin orbit in universe 0.25...

Spoiler

 

but apparently I haven't landed since spaceplaneing direct to Laythe in 0.23. I think I should at least try and repeat that.

Spoiler

 

Not that there's anything more to do on Laythe so there's not actually any point, but at least Jool is a rather harder place to arrive at.

[Rath]

On 5/22/2016 at 9:49 PM, hurric said:

I thought going interplanetary was the whole point of KSP

You do realise that you are on the internet.  Specifically the part where the lights in our bedrooms burned out three months ago, but we supply light with our computers with KSP open and loaded, Just so we don't have to wait ~1min when we have an idea at 3AM.  Where we attempt to catorgitize the spectral characteristics of fictional stars that are nothing but a pretty backdrop probably made by an intern in photoshop, where we study the geology of fake planet made from turning a random noise generators source code backwards.  Where we build walking mechs and puppies in a spaceship game.

The Point has nothing to do with it...

(Dun dun duuuunnn)

 

On topic now

Yeah that is true. although I have been interplanetary, if is a bit of a pain to figure out how to do a homman transfer.  A lot of the reason I have not gone past duna and eve is that I basically play a more fun career with self limitations in sandbox, where I must run an entire program consisting of at least twelve missions.

[Rath]

I wasn't being hostile up there, just joking around.  

[hurric]

46 minutes ago, Rath said:

I wasn't being hostile up there, just joking around.  

I know