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Bored of Kerbal Space Program


Mr. Quark

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Lately, I've been getting bored of Kerbal Space Program. Because whenever I play this is nearly always what happens:

Watch KSP videos of massive satellite "colonies" (forgot the word) &or space-stations.

I usually get Massively Inspired, Launch KSP.

I then start building a ship.

I Launch!

I Find out It can't get past atmosphere.

I Decide to go to Mun.

I Load Preset Space Ship.

Orbit Mun

I Try to land. 40/60 Fail (40 percent win, 60 percent of the time fail)

I then get excited, Then try to go to different planet!

None of the presets as far as I know can go to the closest planet. (Especially at my skill level)

I Use cheats.

Land (technically %100 of the time cause including cheats I've only landed once in all)

Not too happy because I used cheats.

Watch more KSP, rinse and repeat (except planet thing)

I'm not trying to get attention, but that's usually what I do.

Now I am just bored of it. I don't know what to do at my skill level.

Anyone have any tips for what to do to get better (That's not git gud) & Or not get bored

I guess that's all though.

Edited by Mr. Quark
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Take a break, play different games. I do the same a lot. Waiting for 1.2 to drop and maybe Jool 5 can be added to my sig. If you still want to play, watch Scott Manley and drop by the tutorials section for some useful tips. 

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When I first started playing the game I was in a similar situation as you. I had fun building random stuff, but I got frustrated and bored pretty quickly since I couldn't really get anywhere.

Space flight is hard, and the game doesn't really do a very good job of helping you learn how to build and fly good rockets since it hides so many pieces of critical information from the player, and many of the preset vehicles aren't actually very good examples of how to build. I've heard that many of them even have intentional flaws that it's up to the players to find and fix, but this isn't really communicated to the player at all.

I enjoy the building and mission planning aspect of the game more than the flying, and the one single thing that has most improved my enjoyment of the game is MechJeb. It provides a lot of useful information when building and flying rockets, and has autopilot functionality as well that can help you get your rocket into orbit and plan your maneuvers to get to the other planets. It even has landing autopilot as well. I've learned a lot just by watching how the MechJeb autopilot flies my rocket, and having information like TWR and dV while building has helped me tremendously in learning how to build better rockets.

If you would rather do more of the flying yourself but still want the information readouts, Kerbal Engineer is another great mod (or just don't use MechJeb's autopilot). Another great resource is the many tutorials on YouTube, especially the videos by Scott Manley.

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I really think you ruin the game for yourself by cheating. Half the fun of trying hard & failing & then FINALLY getting there is actually seeing the place for yourself for the first time, but what does that matter if you already cheated & saw it? :(

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Sounds to me you're trying to bite off more than you can chew and then failing.

I got completely, crazily hooked on KSP by just doing the early-game challenges in sequence, puzzling each one out by itself. Only the first one was -- launch your first vessel -- was easy. I was failing a lot with "Escape the atmosphere" -- not so much the "escape" part, but it took me a while to figure out why I was making holes in the ground on returning. Then, "get into orbit." Took a lot of trial and error. "Fly by the Mun" was easier. "Orbit the Mun" was trivial. Then... "Land on the Mun." That took many, many hours of trial and error and the kick I got when I first did it was massive, felt like beating an end boss in a more traditional game, only more so.

Then, learning to dock. Man that was hard. I was screaming in frustration there for a while until I broke down and watched a video. Learned it. Turned it into routine.

After that, interplanetary missions, rovers, space stations, mining/refining operations. Wow that was hard. Wow was it satisfying to first get something that works, then finding a way to deliver it, then making something that's more efficient and easier to deliver, and so on. 

Then I got sidetracked by spaceplanes. I was feeling pretty good abotu myself and KSP, and discovered yet another area about which I know nothing. Getting that first SSTO plane into orbit was almost as hard as my first Mun landing. Going from that to something that can perform a useful mission, also hard. And from that, to something that can actually loft a serious payload into orbit. Hard.

And all of that has been insane fun. Making those things is kind of incidental. Learning to make them and deploy them... that's fun.

I.e. if you're trying to leap straight in by copying other peoples' designs or using the stock craft, or feel bad because you can't build a 600-part space station from first principles, you're very likely setting yourself up for all the frustration with none of the sense of achievement.

My suggestion? Start a new career. Start with "Launch my first vessel." Then sweat the sweat to get out of the atmosphere (and back), then into orbit. If you still don't like it, then it's probably not the game for you -- because KSP is definitely not a game for everybody.

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I've found that after months (if not a full year) of playing, my skills actually have improved.  I can do things now in 1.2 pre-release than I just could not do without mods a year ago (esp MechJeb).  Watching YT videos have helped a great deal, even when I'm not playing.  For example, I had a HARD time landing on any planet back in the day (I could do it after 3 or 4 attempts, but I was struggling a great deal).  Now, even in my first tryout of the pre-release, I land on both the Mun and Minmus without issue, and then hard-landed (without parachutes) on Kerbin back at KSP, just a few hundred meters from where I launched.  How?  I have no fracking clue :D  That doesn't mean things were without incident, as in the What did you do in KSP today thread (it was my first heavy lander):

HiM42Zn.jpg

Still, I feel you.  In my 1.2 career mode, I've reached a hard-limit on what I can do effectively to gain science ... there's a ... buffer? ... that prevents me from proceeding (the contracts are frustrating the crap out of me right now). So I'm soaking up science wherever I can, and have resorted to some of those mods that help with science acquisition (that are currently compatible with 1.2), in order to get me where I need to be.

In addition to the Manley of Manlies, I also have been watching quill18's videos lately, in his 1.2 playthrough.  Those have helped enormously.  Quick, on-the-fly, delta-V calculations without KER have helped tremendously.  Sort of gives you an intuitive understanding of TWR and rocket design.  Over-engineered, definitely, but Kerbal all the same.

Take a break, definitely.  Watch videos and absorb them, but don't play.  Wait until you're back in the right mindset.

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There is definitely nothing wrong with taking a break if you feel you need it.

Yeah, the KSP learning curve is steep, I found it really hard too.  Like the other posters here I learned through YT videos and practice.  Now I know I 'can' do stuff, but still often fail cause I don't plan well enough or I get impatient. 

Space flight is hard in real life too and KSP reflects that, It's just not a 'quick gratification' type game, it rewards patience and planning.  But I think that more in game design and planning tools and information are needed, and I think they will get added at some point.

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I got stuck in a similar cycle (a while ago), trying desperately to get something into orbit. If it made it that far it generally had little to no fuel left and I couldn't get it anywhere. I ended up in a cycle of sending things to eve and parachuting the probes (and unfortunate Kerbals) to the surface.

I eventually got bored and gave up for a few months. I came back after being inspired by a few tutorials and implemented them into my game. It worked out well. I still take breaks from KSP sometimes, but I still regard it as my favourite game.

If I were you, I would stop watching giant space station videos and watch some tutorials instead, basics of building and launching crafts. Once you get a basic understanding of the more efficient ways to design and fly your crafts you'll have a much better time getting into orbit and landing. If all else fails, design a spacecraft with WAY too much fuel, just to give you some space to make errors (no pun intended).

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11 hours ago, Mr. Quark said:

Anyone have any tips for what to do to get better (That's not git gud) & Or not get bored

You're obviously inspired by the game, so I wouldn't say 'take a break for a while'. I won't say 'git gud' either, but I will say strive to 'get better'. Try building better rockets. Examine the concepts demonstrated by those Preset Space Ships, examine the concepts demonstrated in the builds of others that you see in videos and in images shared here on the forums ... and then start your own experiments, tests, and trials. To coin a phrase - "small steps". You'll get there.

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I'll tell you a little-known secret: Mun Landings stay daunting for a long time. I am a veteran of 10 munar soft (~10 m/s) or soft-ish (~50 m/s) landings, and even with KER I'm hesitant to try more Mun landings.

The trick, as I've found? Quicksave. Before you de-orbit, quicksave. If you crash, quickload. Once you've gotten the landing down, quicksave again. If you botch the ascent, quickload. I would recommend using four named quicksaves, one while your rocket is sitting on the pad, one while it's orbiting the Mun, one while it's landed, and one while it's about to deorbit over kerbin. This way, if you crash while landing, you can reload. If you run out of fuel, you can go back and redesign. If you burn up in the atmosphere, you can retry with a shallower trajectory.

Oh, and one more thing: Get KER. The ability to know your surface altitude, TWR, and time to impact are invaluable while landing.

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My advice: Set smaller goals.

I know, you want to do what all of us wanted to do.  Small goals help you learn what you need to learn to do Mun landings and landing on planets.

A good example is to just do a few suborbital hops to the other side of Kerbin, then to make Orbit, then just to do a Mun Flyby.  Then flyby Minmus.

Trying to throw a spacecraft to other planets is something I wouldn't recommend until you're comfortable landing on Kerbin's Moons.

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I can only add my voice to all of those who think you maybe try to tackle too much too fast. Build some small craft, follow the career progression path, and save a lot. Flying a few planes and doing crazy stunts can help get a more intuitive feel for the navball if you have problem with it.

But what i consider quasi-essential is any mod (hoping you are on pc) that gives you info on your craft. I favor Kerbal engineer for different reasons, but watching MechJeb do his thing really helped me in the beginning.

Once you get into orbit easily, go for the moons. BTW, starting in orbit around Mun to transfer right inside Minmus SOI can work as a small scale extra-planetary transfer practice. 

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Yeah I'm there too.. after thousands and thousands of hours (yes, really). Now at least I know what the sky looks like (although not as realistic as Scatterer + SVT is). Now if I can just get the VAB music to stop looping in my head all day and stop referring to "Mars" as "Duna" and "Moon" as "Mun" (where is Minmus up there??) then I'll be fine.  That's what the doc says, anyways.

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Two suggestions to help for Mun landings.  First, practice on Minmus first.  It is a lot more forgiving, and if you can aim for the flats, you'll get a good landing spot.  Two, set SAS to surface/retrograde from lunar orbit and leave it on until you've landed.  You don't need to steer beyond that.   It's not the only way to land but it's a good way, and then you only have to worry about the throttle.

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Seems like the problem you are having is caused by the lack of information. KSP doesn't have any dV maps, or dV displays. There's also almost no planning tools for interplanetary journeys.

I still love and enjoy KSP, but the lack of basic info (and the career mode, of course) is kind of hard to deal with. You can calculate all the dV yourself, but let's be honest: most of new players will not want to do that.

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I agree, at least the very core features of KER ought to be in the base game. Stage-by-stage dV displays in the construction buildings at least.

However, at least I only got to the point where I started thinking seriously about dV pretty far into the game. I seat-of-the-pantsed (is that a word?) an Eve return mission even...

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3 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

I agree, at least the very core features of KER ought to be in the base game. Stage-by-stage dV displays in the construction buildings at least.

However, at least I only got to the point where I started thinking seriously about dV pretty far into the game. I seat-of-the-pantsed (is that a word?) an Eve return mission even...

I used to do that all the time with Jool as a newbie.  I did crash my share of ships trying to aerobrake (now impossible) around Jool/Laythe.  But man was the view worth it.

Then I discovered KER as well...  Nothing was ever the same anymore, lol.

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Id say dont watch videos of huge ships doing amazing things. Stick with tutorials. I found myself getting frustrated that I couldnt do what these players were doing due to my lack of skill. Now I do what I can and not worry about other players skill levels and I feel great playing. Currently im designing some Jool 5 landers and not even going to space. Building for me never gets boring!

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13 hours ago, Madscientist16180 said:

Once you get into orbit easily, go for the moons.

I can get into orbits easily. And launch satellites! (Not too efficient but at least I can do it.) :P

BELOW IS A SERPERATE POST IT JUST MERGED lol

I'm scared of landing on planets and not getting the "That was amazing!" feeling. I know it's going to happen sometime. But I don't want it too. I want to always fell like a newb whenever I land anywhere. (As crazy as that sounds.)

Edited by Mr. Quark
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Hello fellow country man! Do you have kerbal engineer and/or mechjeb mods installed? Both will give you some much needed DV readings.

And, use Mechjeb for landing if you are unsure on how to do it. See what it does and try to understand the logic behind its actions.

And if you have not mastered it yet, learn how the navball works. I can land by sitting in "IVA", only watching the navball (will still tip and crash if I land on a steep sloop that way, though).

 

 

aunt edit: I find great pleasures in launching probes to Duna. Watching it lithobrake and then deploy parachutes is magical.

Edited by Dedjal
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I would recommend using a mod that at the very least gives you the delta-v information that you need to effectively build rockets. That way, you can use this chart to figure out what you need to go to places. And believe me, if you really love the idea of exploring other planets, the sense of awe when you manage to visit one never really goes away (though it does help if you do it slightly differently each time, to make your spacecraft designs more interesting).

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5 hours ago, Mr. Quark said:

I'm scared of landing on planets and not getting the "That was amazing!" feeling. I know it's going to happen sometime. But I don't want it too. I want to always fell like a newb whenever I land anywhere. (As crazy as that sounds.)

To be brutally honest: If you always only look for more motivation and for what other people are doing it will practically never happen. As others already mentioned: look for smaller and more achievable goals. Learn how to use the informations KER etc. give you. Learn to build your own rocket to go to Mun/Minmus. Learn how to land there consistently. Learn how to go to other planets and so on.

Aim for a slow and steady process of progression instead of hoping that there's a simple trick that will make you go from 0% to 100% in a few moments. That seems to be the problem you are facing in a lot of your threads. I'm not going to tell you to stop reaching for the stars, but you should at least try looking for a ladder as a first step.

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