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Is it true that most KSP players never go interplanetary?


KerikBalm

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I wouldn't say that most KSP players never go interplanetary.

It's just new players have to get accustomed to the way the game works, physics and construction wise. Because of this pretty sharp learning curve, once players actually get the hang of construction and the way the physics work, they can pretty much get anywhere. I even had to learn the game from the ground up and now, I'm able to get pretty much anywhere in the solar system (besides below 3000m orbiting the sun, nobody can, because the heat will burn your spacecraft to smithereens), from far away Eeloo, to burning hot Moho.

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1 hour ago, Astrofox said:

@kiwi1960 you should really install a bunch of Kopernicus mods that work. Then you can go exploring A LOT more places. Plus, you might even end up creating a few of your own.

I would except ...OK, I might have a quad core... but the video card sucks. I make do, that mod would probably kill my speed altogether. Mind you, I did load the one that added new bases and roads etc to the home world and it had little effect.... but out of my 4 gig, with the mods I have loaded, I have about 500 megs left to spare...

 

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1 hour ago, kiwi1960 said:

I would except ...OK, I might have a quad core... but the video card sucks. I make do, that mod would probably kill my speed altogether. Mind you, I did load the one that added new bases and roads etc to the home world and it had little effect.... but out of my 4 gig, with the mods I have loaded, I have about 500 megs left to spare...

 

I would try it - KSP is generally CPU bound long before GPU, unless you use some crazy EVE cloud config which is frankly disturbingly GPU hungry at the moment. Certainly in space I very much doubt you'll even notice.

Just try OPM, that's a nicely put together planet set. On the other hand even additional planets lack things to do once you land except ISRU, which is just shunting logistics sources about.

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I've never done strict calculation on my ships. 

I did campaign mode once, finished the tech tree, got bored of being restricted.  Went back to sandbox because missions got too routine.

 

Now that I've gone back to sandbox I've been making fighter jets, my land trains, and recently refueled a meteor catcher.

 

My biggest accomplishment so far was getting the Enerstar onto Mun.  It took a lot of work and was really complicated.  In the end it landed on Mun with a weight of around 55 tons.  they're currently about 10% around the moon thus far..

 

I do a ton of stuff on Kerbin though.  Aircraft are fun, there's no wait.  Just set it up and fly it.  That's one reason I'm pretty annoyed about the wheel situation because it makes it really difficult to make decent aircraft.

 

Edited by Znath
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TBH, if I couldn't go interplanetary, I'd have quit within weeks. Getting about in kerbin orbit and moons is just so easy even in fairly early career mode that I get bored.

Just added OPM and TAC life support for my 1.1.3 career.. Going to be fun trying to get something that will be self sustaining for the 70+ year transfer orbit out to plock/karen 

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I recently ceased to go interplanetary simply because I've been to most of the places before the career mode became a thing. I wish I could visit them again, but the career is the main thing stopping me from doing that. I spend too much time declining my way through a bunch of contracts I don't want to do and I simply don't see any point in visiting other planets because of the lack of sensible progression and achievement in career mode.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have over 450 hours and never been interplanetary yet. But I am changing that, am currently building a long duration Duna exploration now.  I think it's because I always try and get a foothold in the Kerbin SOI first, like building space stations or mun bases but end up restarting careers after major updates. 

But to help out there are some things I have found. 

You CAN find easy transfer windows in game now with the transfer window mod, and Kerbal alarm clock to track the window. Just plug in the time period you want to leave (or chooses smallest dV) , where from and where too, and the mod will find the optimal transfer window, you can then add it to Kerbal alarm clock and fast forward. 

I also mastered docking (using mech Jeb, lol) so refueling is a snap. 

I just launched the Main Drive section of my Duna craft (the Duna Regatta) and it's sitting docked with my station now. 

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Well I can give a big feedback after playing 2.000 hours registered since I'm tracking it but it could be more than 3 :) and also I play ONLY carrier mode since it's available.

First 500 hours exploring and teaching ourself how to efficient go to orbit, take heavy payloads, dock and also fly like Superman (the last is not appreciated until you go to Jool's Laythe to fly - jet engines work there!). So stay in your local system successfully do missions to reach 3 stars for your Kerbals to unlock technology tree to use all stock for interplanetary trips. With new mining tools we can make pitstop when ever we want to reach our goal, the best way is to stop at Minmus for refuelling - I have the a HUGE station just to pump it up in the meanwhile for my next space station to come for its interplanetary trip. 

What is missing and in my perspective should be implemented as stock:

  1. Transfer Window - or just a po-pup eg. "Its good time to go to DUNE" or maybe a mission centre to observe our universe and after some planetary/asteroid exploration (we have new science tool already from asteroid mod by Squad for long term observation) they will give us more detailed info when to go, land or visit to have fun :D
  2. Trajectory prediction for landing/falling (not all have oxygen but it always is useful to see where we will land while planetary rotation always changes that in plus).
  3. Docking indicator in game should be replaced with Docking Port Alignment Indicator by NavyFish
  4. Alarm clock to warn us about maneuver or SOI change or an in game "add it yourself" schedule so we can write down a time triggered memo what we should remember to do at that time - good example Alarm Clock by TriggerTech.
  5. Geo profiling - who don't want to map the world like GOOGLE? ScanSAT is a fun mod that give us many informations about biome for our science missions, good job team.
  6. Active Communication Grid - we know that in normal life we need GPS and even like in Jupiter mission a change signal to the probe needs 48 min so maybe we should have a new extension of it in game, yes there is and it's called RemoteTECH. For this mode I would like to see someday a function instead of delay "send instructions" that is making basic instructions like execute nodes that we planned or while landing when 10km make a stage, at 1km next stage, 100m use landing gear - all of that by clicking on antenna at target probe, after choosing that few simple things that we can, we are unable to control it and also if the next space station with Kerbal Pilot and Engineer even is not present at planet/sun orbit closer then KSP then eg. Jool should take 1h of data transmit for a set of let say 5 actions that is maximum (less time if not 5/5).
  7. EVA special equipment for Kerbals - Engineer TOOLS to build/move/repair parts - Pilot EVA tank that gives him 3x more fun - Scientist BIOME/SPACE exploration just by making science by hand and maybe participation in long term experiments at space station or a base I see that I have no use for them very quickly and how much science points can I make more that is useless (I have all tech and 20k spare points), SQUAD should make a change to have more fun with them.
  8. I don't like out of stock parts but I use mostly wings and cargo bay with ramp from OPT (Orbit Portal Technology) Spaceplane Parts that are much bigger for my Kerbin and atmosphere rich planets exploration, good rover can be wide and even new MK3 ramp with cargo space is too small, sorry SQUAD :(
  9. Waypoint manager, you like to drive rovers, explore planets, it is so easy when you can navigate to a point on a map to get science and complete missions.
  10. Last but not leased KER (Kerbal Engineer Redux by Cybutek) is the one that I use all the time, instruments are the most important thing in game SQUAD PLEASE ADD IT INTO GAME STOCK !!!

Thanks to all updated in last year we feel heat and can fight with it, also we can mine ORE for not all fuel, but maybe a change will happen and scientist+ore+electricity will give us Xenon gas ... why not :) After 1.0.5 update I needed to retire some ships and make new one or I sent a repairman with cooling parts that will be added to mining ships thanks to KIS - thanks KospY.

But now back to the game, after mastering few things we learn that BIG ship/station that is a ONE PART construction is better for moving to another planet, that brings new challenges to be mastered because big designs 500+ parts are not giving us a real time game feeling and after 1.1 update it works better but still there is place for improvement, time will tell.

Lets take my carrier mode in KSP time, and it took me 100 days to get the full tech tree available and also started my PROBE PROGRAM to send probes to all planets and also at least 10 missions to get to low orbit of the Kerbol (the sun) with only one success but still I knew that  my 5 first will fail after my first reached the fuel limitation. So reaching my 1000 hours made me use my brain to use other bodies to get to Kerbol by changing the trajectory with planet/moon gravitation that spares the fuel and gets us closer. What can I tell you at this point, the second part of the game was spent on designing, designing and designing my ships, probes and space stations.

The next 1000 hours (so 2000 hours game time) I started SPACE STATION PROGRAM that sent already 5 ships to EVE, JOOL, EELOO and other one are waiting on Minmus like orbit for low fuel cost departure window to MOHO, DRES and DUNE. EVE&BACK LANDING PROGRAM that has a 3rd ship is going to target after thermal changes in the game that will not burn the ship at landing. 5 STAR EXPERIENCE PROGRAM that is taking first 16 Kerbals to Dune and Ike so they can land and get back with so much experience that grants them 5 stars. And for fun ASTEROID PROGRAM so the Kerbin, Mun and Minmus have new moons because why not :P

Now I'm still mining ore for fuel, waiting for my ships in programs to reach to their destinations or maneuver nodes for course correction, you can not believe me but currently I'm finishing my 2nd Kerbal time year. Currently I have 15 big interplanetary missions and 80 ships/stations/bases/rovers/probes with 18M $ for new missions and to complete current ones. What can I tell true KSP gamers, even if you don't have time now, you will loose hours of game every month and have the greatest fun when your mission completes successfully :) You want to track what you did or give yourself a challenge register at KSP-PLAYERS(.COM) from where I know that I completed 95 from over 280 achievements ... say what, so few ... challenge accepted (like Sheldon said) :wink:

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Just thought about it, and the breakdown is thus (I play sandbox mostly, BTW):

8 out of 10 flights are to a Kerbin orbit of some sort. Low, high, polar, etc. What can I say, I like building satellite launchers.

1 out of 10 are to Minmus or the Mun. Usually landings, because those are fun. :)

The remaining 10% are interplanetary, divided among the remaining planet systems but weighted towards Jool, followed by Duna and Eve. I rarely visit Moho, Dres or Eeloo.

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  • 2 weeks later...

After I went to Duna, my computer screen broke. By the time I got it fixed, 1.1 dropped, everything broke, and I basically spent the next two updates trying to clean up after the 1.1 release. I lost all of the momentum that I got from the Mun and Minmus, and Duna as well. To this day I'm just trying to work up the effort to go anywhere after spending two weeks sorting out a new bug, or dealing with RL obligations. I've fallen into the hole of "why bother", and I keep trying to get out of it, but then EL gets in the way, literally every 20 minutes I have to stop for an hour. By the time I return, I've completely lost the drive that sent me to launch the mission in the first place. I can honestly have fun more reliably with you guys on the forum than I can in game.

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Sent a kerbal to Duna today in career. I don't plan on going back. Once you get a bunch of science from that area it's probably enough to launch you towards end of the tech tree, rather boring at that point. When I'm not restricted I don't make as unique vehicles. I mean don't get me wrong I still make sandbox vehicles, it's just that there's not as much challenge you need to beat. But in career you've probably already got orbital labs up around the mun and minmus, so the needs of you ever going to another planet are significantly reduced, not to mention that because of the months of the (poor?) kerbal you sent in interplanetary travel, you'd rather do other things while you wait for that to get there. (also having to monitor said orbital labs so they don't get completely filled with science.) Also the risk behind it. I prefer NOT having to go rescue kerbals from another planet when I can barely get them back from said planet in the first place. I think that's one really big reason I don't go to other planets that often.

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In my current career game I'm mostly interplanetary now at the endgame. 
Operations in the Kerbin system is mostly to support the interplanetary operations and training kerbals. 
At the current time main focus is the Jool system, has one base on Pol, another ship incoming with the Bop base, mostly work with contracts so I will wait for more contracts before expanding to the other moons. 

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I have not gone interplanetary for a pretty simple reason: The game I want to play is influenced by all the SciFi I've read over the years, and is based on Kerbals living and working in space. I want to go to other planets using ships and fuel sourced from space itself. I love the challenge of having to come up with the funds for everything.

Way back when, around 1.0, I played a career game until I'd unlocked everything and had scads of cash but hadn't left Kerbin SOI. It was getting grindy but I had everything I needed to catch asteroids, redirect them into orbit, and extract fuel. I had no further interest in building immense contraptions on the lauchpad after completing my first Apollo-ish multi-stage Mun landing and return. I had designs done for shuttles between all Kerbin system low orbits, and between low orbit and the surfaces, just needed a regular source of fuel in Kerbin's SOI. Except... of course... the physics were so broken that every ship in orbit just started exploding as soon as I caught my first asteroid and tried to move it.

I took a LONG break, and came back recently (as soon as 1.1 was in Beta) and decided to play all over again with mods to get the game I wanted (USI-LS plus a few others). This time around the "base randomly flying into the air" and other bugs (wheels / etc.) stopped me before I even had a LKO station set up. Not to mention that with a job and a family I can't really afford the time to update all mods each time I do get a Sunday available to play. I debug broken code at work, I don't want to debug a game (and its mods) every time I have a chance to play.

Currently I'm waiting for 1.2 and some indication that things are relatively stable before trying again. What I'm craving more than anything else is to fund further exploration via industry in space. (IE: recover those expensive payloads built in space for the cash. Grinding missions is not fun anymore.) I want to systematically establish space habitats, space industry, and conquer the Kerbol system, not look up launch windows online.

I just haven't managed to bend KSP into that game yet, so I've never left the Kerbin system.

Edited by McHendrik
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On 26/06/2016 at 11:23 PM, kiwi1960 said:

Well, for me, its true.

In fact, I have not been to any other planet or moon since 1.1 simply because.... well... I'm sick of it.

In the older versions, pre 1.1 I was actually getting somewhere. But with each new version, that go less and less because the game would break with each new version.

Jump forward to 1.1.3 and I am actually starting to make plans again. If they release an update any time soon I'll be totally annoyed.

1.1.3 actually seems playable, so, yes, I'll give it another go. New players jump in and want to go everywhere, us old timers hate having to restart each time so why put the effort into it.

Having said that... my game doesn't crash anymore, the mods all work.... so, yes, I'll take the chance and get into it again.

HOWEVER...... if they release an update any time soon then you will hear me screaming all the way down near in NZ!!!!

:)

 

Same hear on that note.

just moding A.T.M.

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I have gone interplanetary and even returned from most places (including pre aero-change Eve.)

Why aren't people going interplanetary?

Because it is hard (at first) and annoying, there is little gameplay reason to, and there is the psychological barrier against just timewarping.

 

In career it is just much easier and more profitable to grind Mun/Minmus for science and contracts for Funds.

 

To give a gameplay reason to visit them I think there needs to be more difference in the rewards from Kerbin system and other planets, the rewards from other planets should be much higher(5-10x) and engame tech/parts should be far more expensive (3-5x) to compensate. 

 

I think the amount of science from biome hopping should be reduced, make most of the experiments not care about biomes, and give a lot of science on the first use.

 

To reduce annoyance and difficulty, add better tools for interplanetary travel, at least a launch window indicator and better transfer nodes.

 

To reduce the psychlogical barrier of transfering from

"Instant construction, missions take hours-days" to "instant construction, missions take months-years",

make it

"construction takes weeks-months, missions take hours-days" and "Construction takes weeks-months, missions take months-years.)

Just have an easy way to skip the time (from laumch button in VAB) that still makes it obivious that time passes.

 

Slow reduction in contracts in Kerbin system if you stay there for too long could help.

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On 17.05.2016 at 1:32 PM, Green Baron said:

The "old school" players have surely been everywhere.

Not true at least in my case. I'm playing since 0.13 I can plan and conduct interplanetary mission including slingshot with pretty good precision (KSP TOT is amazing tool). But usually I stay in Kerbin SOI. Why?

I'm playing in semi-realistic roleplay style. I wont put three Kerbals in tiny capsule and send them in three years long flight. Interplanetary takes lot of time and effort to plan. I don't have much time to spend on KSP. Unmanned are easier, but they usually are satellites (rovers and driving sucks in KSP so much...)

And planets are pretty boring in KSP. Nothing to do, flat surface, flat, blurry textures. Thankfully Mun have quiet interesting terrain. When I want to play game about planet exploration I play Take on Mars.

Edited by TeddyDD
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I have been playing KSP since summer 2011, and the first time i went interplanetary was in March 2016. But the strange thing is, that just after the first time, it becomes super easy. I had the same effect with docking and going to the Mun. So in my case yes, and i would say yes as an awnser in general. I have seen youtubers like PewDiePie, Jelly, and that type of people play the game when 1.0 came out. Squad sponsored them to show KSP to their subscribers. But they gave a bad example of the game. Why? Because they did not play the game proberly. So i would not really say that there are more n00bs. But i will say that there are more n00bs incoming.

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3 hours ago, flatbear said:

I had to watch Scott Manley videos to figure out how toget to the moon.  No idea how anyone could figure out how to get to Duna in their own without quite a bit of Manley and google

You just miss Mun at the right time. Last Duna transfer cost me 1040m/s dV from 85km orbit over Kerbin, that's the same as an impatient transfer to Minmus.

Been playing since... end 2012? I've never been to Moho or Dres. Or half of Jool's moons, thinking about it. Current 1.1.2 career is nearly at the end of the tech tree & my only interplanetary mission is a scan & basic lander going to Duna, and my grand finale is going to be a flyby of Eve/Moho/the Sun ( only because of a contract ). 1.1.2 WAS stable at the start of this game but as the save has got bigger & bigger it's got alarmingly sluggish.

Edited by Van Disaster
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  • 1 month later...

I always waited to perfect transfer window, but just recently, when I started to play historical missions mod carieer, I "discovered" that there are "windows" not perfect, but doable - so called higher energy transfers. So now I am sending lot's of probes and I plan to do Duna mission with life support mode (+greenhouse) etc.

Recently also I started to use docking so I am no more stack with small ships.

But before, it was just too long to wait for perfect transfer window, and I was also feeling that I am loosing something when I was not taking some cntracts, which then too so long time to finish (RL, not game time).

 

But this game needs proper mission planning tool, transfer windows tool (showing not only perfect one, but also "better, not so good, but still nice windows"), dV showing, better rewards from going, better quest system etc.

I am so f. tired of stock "test X part on Y height with Z speed" - so dull, They need to do better quests...

Edited by wrobel-cwirek
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Regarding the main topic then I dont know if it is true or not that most players never goes interplanetary.
Just see how many years it have taken Nasa and other to even consider a manned mars mission maybe peoples space programs just focus to much on mum and low orbit space station ;-)

Well in my ksp I am skilled in anyway and can build anything I want and travel to duna and other places, build bases, rovers, airplanes ect... well technical speaking there is not really any limits to what i can do if I
feel inspired and really want to go somewhere.
But truth is I typical do not play that much, and typical i restart the career game when i have research about half of everything and visited mum and minmus 5-10 times each, and maybe duna 1 time.
Reason are that this is typical the time where a new ksp update come along and then i start a new game  ( again and again. )
I do by the way always play on hard and with life support mods and remote tech.

I have been to duna many times and also back, but actual i never really made it to most of the other planets..
I clearly have the skill to do it, it just a matter of building a larger ship and example bring a light lander with me to most planets.
And now a days we can even refuel ships if we bring along the gear to do this making it more easy to return home from other planets far away than in older versions of kerbal.

Well i guess when i reach duna it is just about the time in my career game to "start" over and then i never really made it any further...  I like duna ;-)
But maybe i should not restart my career, but maybe just try and see if my savegame work okay with the upcomming version of ksp.
.
 

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On 7/25/2016 at 3:39 AM, flatbear said:

I had to watch Scott Manley videos to figure out how toget to the moon.  No idea how anyone could figure out how to get to Duna in their own without quite a bit of Manley and google

I always try to figure something out before resorting to Google-fu - including interplanetary KSP missions.   It's not that hard to GET there, the only real issue is efficiency.  My very first technique basically involved the following:

  1.  Perform an LKO burn until the Ap is at the target planet's orbital altitude
  2. At that Ap, burn prograde or retrograde until an intercept is developed (if the planet is ahead, retrograde, if it's behind, prograde)
  3. Profit!

It works fine, but you need a crap-ton (that's a technical term, honest!) of delta-v to perform that second burn, and depending on the relative angle between the planets, and takes forever timewise as compared to an optimal Hohmann transfer (performed during the correct window).

@5thHorseman has a technique that lets you basically detect the optimal transfer window via some very clever tomfoolery with the stock maneuver node.

NB: for the inner planets, obviously it would be the Pe instead of the Ap etc blah blah.

 

Edited by Renegrade
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Going interplanetary is much more work in general, and there's no real way to test your craft in those environments without cheating, so you can potentially eat up a ton of time for a design that just won't work. I tried to do a huge Jool 5 challenge to gather all science in one mission, and I just petered out after some failures. It was fun, but when all the fun was had, I couldn't get myself to carry on to actual mission success.

Conversely, getting to low Kerbin orbit in a super awesome two man spaceplane is an exhilarating ride that takes a few minutes. When I get the urge to play, it's for this.

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In answer to the OP, I am one of those people who has not gone too many places, especially with manned vehicles. I really love playing with mods, and especially in earlier versions I would install so many that the saves would get unwieldy. I would build remote tech networks, do a history-inspired manned program, send interplanetary probes to nearby planets, start setting up a comm network at duna, and start building massive interplanetary ships to send 6 or more kerbals to duna with all their TAC life support needs, and by then it would be a buggy mess of a save, and usually a new version had come out by then and I would start over. 

I've gone further, but usually in a slap-dash overbuilt kind of way when I just wanted to prove to myself that I could. 

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