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Are there any planets/moons you don't like? If so, why?


MythicalHeFF

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I remember seeing a thread about this topic that was over three years old, so I didn't want to bother reviving it. 

On to the point, however, which planets/moons do you just not like, or do you not like them because seemingly all your missions there fail? 

For me, it would probably have to be Laythe. I've been playing KSP for over a year now, and I've still only managed to do one manned mission there and back. (which took 3 launches, as I sent an ascent vehicle, airplane, and mothership with lander) 

I just don't find Laythe particularly exciting, and the extended atmosphere (being thicker than Kerbin's at higher altitudes) makes pinpoint landing a nightmare. 

It's destroyed plenty of rovers, and cooked a mothership trying to aerobrake there to go straight into a Laythe orbit from a Jool escape trajectory, although looking back on it I don't know why on earth I thought that would work. Kerbalness, I guess. :D

I do like it for gravity assists though. 

God help me when I try going there with Kerbalism installed...

 

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I hate Laythe on principal because it enables the one thing that encompasses everything blatantly unrealistic about KSP, that being interplanetary SSTO spaceplanes. It exists purely as a destination for those ridiculous craft.

Edited by regex
because I really mean SSTO
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Gilly. With a vengeance. I can live with Eve being a one way trip with my numpty building skills. Dres with it's ability to vanish if you aren't concentrating and even that big shiny thing in the middle that keeps blowing up probes but Gilly.........

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I think the Kerbin system has been designed fairly brilliantly. It matches our Solar System closely enough so we can do a "Mars mission" or a "Mercury Mission", but each planet and moon - for the most part - is a unique experience and takes a different approach to master.

Mun is a good first step for a new player, and gives you that feel of doing the Apollo program.
Minmus is actually easier to do a whole mission to, and introduces you to orbital tilt.
Duna has Ike, which could be a new player's first introduction to the game literally putting something in your way when you don't (yet) have the gameplay skills to avoid it.
Eve has Gilly, which can be a real pain to rendezvous with but is so light you may have trouble staying landed. Also, it requires far more dV to escape than even Kerbin, giving a unique challenge to the player.
Moho teaches you just how hard it is to slow your orbit enough to do things near the Sun.
Dres has asteroids orbiting it. Free fuel!
Jool is Jupiter. Who doesn't want to go to Jupiter? Also, it has Laythe, a great (though unrealisitc if that's your thing) unique reason to take an air-breathing engine into space. It has Tylo, which is basically Kerbin without air. It has Pol and Bop, which could probably be more unique but hey. And Vall suffers from the "not very unique" in that it's not all that different from Mun, Ike, and Dres.
Eeloo has a very eccentric orbit and feels like you're doing a mission to Pluto.

If I had to criticize, I'd say Moho, Dres, and Eeloo are a bit too same-y. Pol and Bop are as well (along with Gilly), and Vall feels like it's just there to be a 5th moon.

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6 hours ago, regex said:

I hate Laythe on principal because it enables the one thing that encompasses everything blatantly unrealistic about KSP, that being interplanetary spaceplanes. It exists purely as a destination for those ridiculous craft.

You, I like you!

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Moho: Great challenge getting there, interesting geology.

Eve: My all time favorite body in the system: come on, super high gravity, dense atmosphere, high mountains, oceans. Super challenging. Eve has it all!

Gilly: Boring. The super low gravity makes landing very tedious. It's only purpose seems to be mining outpost for Eve missions.

Mun: Pretty average, boring. I don't like the grey color

Minmus: Too easy, but I like it for it's look.

Duna: looks nice, the thin atmosphere makes it somehow unique. Ther could be some more geology going on.

Ike: I hate Ike, it's just annoying.

Laythe: Too much ocean

Tylo: Love it for the Challenge of landing there, Tylo's fine.

Vall: Beautiful. I like Vall for its look.

Bob: Meh, but the Kraken is worth a visit.

Pol: Landing is just tedious, and it's ugly.

Eeloo: I like Eeloo, but I can't quite  put my finger on why. 

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Great topic. I think a lot of us will agree on certain things, and maybe strongly disagree on others (kind of like any other topic around here :)).

Mun is awesome for nostalgia. Very rarely I find a need to go there for some reason, and I always think "wow, I remember this place". It seems like a lifetime ago, but this was once the Holy Grail. Landing on it was all I could think about at work. Now it's just an annoyance that gets in the way of my maneuvers when leaving from LKO. With a large, abandoned mining and science base that now collects nothing but dust. Kinda sad, actually. I'll have to get back there.

Minmus? Ah, Minmus is like an old friend you come to resent after a while. The refueling operation there was once the backbone of my space program. Every interplanetary ship stopped there to refuel on the way out. I literally spent a few hundred hours landing and refueling my fuel shuttle, then refueling ships. I grew to depend on it, and then grew to hate it and finally stopped doing it altogether. I learned to get better at the game, and am much happier for it. Now, I enjoy going back to Minmus, just cuz it still looks really cool.

Duna/Ike? Love it. I see them as a single entity (and they practically are), and so together, they rank high on my list. I love their relative size and distance. I think it makes for a fantastic visual. And since it's the first planet most of us go to, it's a real eye-opener as well. As in, "you thought the game was cool before, it's going to keep getting better".

Eve? Pretty much the pinnacle of our game, IMO. Love going there, and love how hard it is. It's sort of the great equalizer. Even if you use information mods, I don't think you have an advantage over those of us who don't. Just because KER says you have this much Delta V and this high TWR doesn't mean it'll work well on Eve (or that you can even land the thing in the first place). You actually have to go there and see if it works.

Gilly, on the other hand, I avoid these days. I think it's cool, and I like the way it looks, but landing (and even taking off) is so excruciatingly tedious that I don't go unless I have to. I have a refueling operation there that I 've used maybe 3 times in 50 years. It was meant to refuel Eve landers that got back to orbit. Instead, I send the rescue from Kerbin. It takes more gametime, but it takes less of my gametime; which is much more important.

Gonna be in the minority here, but I love going to Dres. He's a shy-guy, so he doesn't like meeting new players, but it's worth the trip. The inclination is tough, and it's out in the middle of nowhere, but I like the whole vibe of the tiny planet nobody likes.

Jool? It has to be everyone's favorite destination isn't it? There's just so much to do, and the visuals are fantastic. I love watching all the moons flying around. And this is the place that teaches you the true power of the gravity assist.

As for the moons themselves, Tylo is cool because, I swear, you can actually feel the gravity when you're landing. I'm not sure how else to describe it. It's the strangest sensation.

I know an SSTO to Laythe is a rite of passage in this game, but I'm not a spaceplane guy, so it just doesn't interest me. I've landed there a couple times, but never really found a love for it. I'll have to try again, maybe.

And Vall just elicits a yawn for some reason. Not sure why. Gonna have to try harder there, as well.

I like Bop, maybe for the inclination and low gravity, but, like Gilly, landing is a pain. Yet another refueling operation of mine that collects dust.

I really do like Pol. One of my first and favorite refueling operations. I've gotten a lot of use out of it. It's my favorite place to leave from, as well. You can leave direct, or dip down to Tylo for a boost home.

I absolutely love Eeloo. I don't know if it's the crazy Pluto-esque orbit (sometimes closer than Jool, sometimes further), the awesome Europa-esque look of it (the coolest looking planet, IMO), or the far-out Neptune-esque feel I get from going there, but I always enjoy it. I take tons of contracts there, and have half a dozen ships on the way now. I'm building yet another science and refueling operation there.

So, after a lengthy post (apologies), I get around to the actual point of the OP; which planet do I like the least? Moho. I hate Moho. I guess it's the style I play. I don't use mods or calculators, so I don't know my Delta V or TWR. I play by trial and error, and guesswork based on experience. But at Moho, I keep guessing wrong and coming up short (I try never to over-build anymore, so I'm always pushing the envelope). I've missed 3 out of 4 times. By far my worst "success" rate of any world. I bounce off of Eve, but I still keep underestimating what I'll need. And what's worse than going to Moho? Sending a rescue operation for a ship that's in an orbit roughly the equivalent of Moho's. Three times. I finally decided to set up refueling operations to make my trial and error method easier (cuz I'm gonna keep going back until I get good at it). I sent a mining and science base and set it up. And I forgot to put an antenna and science equipment on the lab. Yes, you read that right. I forgot to put science equipment on the science lab. :blush: Seriously, who does that? Anyway, now I have to send a rescue mission for that. God, I hate Moho.

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Gotta agree with some of you.

Moho is my favorite planet, for its stunning views. I love it very much, my first manned mission to Mohi was great! I really enjoyed walking around wth the glazing sun at dawn.

Eve is a some sort of a giantess to me, it is worrying when you are close to it, and I am getting tearry when I am entering the atmosphere, it is just scary looking into this abyss of clouds, I really hope I will get on with it.

Gilly is fun!(not) Landings are surely boring and frustrating  there, but this very low gravity has its charm.

Kerbin is a very cool place, nothing to complain about it.

Mun is your first goal, it is really cool when you finally touchdown!

Minmus is same to Mun, at least for me. Although I like it very much it is so small and cute!

Duna is interesting only if you land precisely where it looks super cool! Otherwise it is really boring.

IKE IS A FRUSTRATING CRAPLAND OF DARN MOUNTAINS GOSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

It is fun though.

I really like Dres. Especially its canyons they are so beautiful, I visited one of those in my first manned mission.

Joolian system is really cool! I enjoyed every moon there! Call was the most touching for me. Jool itself is really cool though.

Eeloo is really cool if you listen to some ambient music  it is just so silent and cool. I like it!

 

 

 

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15 hours ago, regex said:

I hate Laythe on principal because it enables the one thing that encompasses everything blatantly unrealistic about KSP, that being interplanetary spaceplanes. It exists purely as a destination for those ridiculous craft.

Thats exactly why i like Laythe most. Although unrealistic, its otherworldy features enables for an interesting amount of creative creations. Its kind of boring to have yet another rocky moon. I think the KSP devs thought that Laythe is the most creative answer to a Titan analog, the same way Eve is purple, not quite fitting with Venus, yet still fun. Ok, i get it, your an RSS/RO player, and you are that for a reason. 

By far my least favourite body must be, well pretty much any rocky planet/moon The Mun, Dres and especially Ike. At least the Mun is easy to reach and has terrain features, and Dres got at least some asteroids orbiting around it and some more extra terrain features, but Ike, it got nothing. Everything EXPECT ike is nice. The view of Duna for example, or finally getting an encounter of Duna without having a trajectory going straight for an impact of Ike. Ike is like the little kid that wants to get everything first, and jumps in front of everything. And yes i know the Mun and even the Moon in Real Solar System have this problem too, but Ike is waaaay worse.

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Moho: I like it. Getting there is a challenge, but the view of Kerbol is worth it. "Magnificent desolation", as Buzz Aldrin would say.

Eve: Annoying, because unless you have a huge surface base planned you can't really do anything with it. Pretty, though.

Kerbin: Who wants to go to Earth in a space game?

Mun: Boring. Just a big grey rock with craters.

Minmus: A bit too easy, but pretty and a decent spot to refuel.

Duna: Kinda boring, needs some canyons and rock formations to spruce it up. Not bad overall.

Ike: Exists purely so Kerbals on Duna have something to look at in the sky.

Dres: I actually kinda like Dres, just because it's so remote and rarely visited. The devs should add some proper rings that match the asteroids so there's more of a reason to go.

Jool: Very plain-looking in vanilla, needs some cloud patterns and/or rings.

Laythe: I love Laythe, for the exact reasons @NSEP outlined above. Interplanetary spaceplanes may be unrealistic, but dammit, they're cool. Getting to Laythe is usually my main goal when I start a new game.

Vall: Like Duna, but blue and with lots of ridges. 6/10 would visit again I guess.

Tylo: I only went to Tylo once, and was too worried about returning to spend much time admiring the scenery. Not bad, I guess. Needs a bit more color, maybe.

Bop and Pol: Completely useless. My last favorite celestial bodies by far, and the only ones I never regret skipping.

Eeloo: It's Pluto+Europa. Who doesn't love Pluto and Europa?

Edited by Mitchz95
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15 minutes ago, Mitchz95 said:

 

Bop and Pol: Completely useless. My last favorite celestial bodies by far, and the only ones I never regret skipping.

I actually like Bop and Pol for how convenient they are. Easy to land on and refuel at in the Jool system. 

I also like Pol for its crazy terrain. Landing on top of one of the sharp ridges means you can have fun watching your Kerbals tumble down it. 

Still don't understand how those annoying terrain glitches that have blown up several of my landers haven't been fixed yet.

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1 hour ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

Gonna be in the minority here, but I love going to Dres. He's a shy-guy, so he doesn't like meeting new players, but it's worth the trip. The inclination is tough, and it's out in the middle of nowhere, but I like the whole vibe of the tiny planet nobody likes.

I love going to Dres when I play stock, ~:feels like Ceres:~. Built a huge station there in my last save.

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Laythe hates me. The feeling is not entirely mutual but close. I seldom mess with space planes and between the clouds I'm using, the atmosphere, and the tiny amount of land mass it makes landing a rocket difficult. Landing in one piece on level ground appears near impossible for me. I should get over it and conquer Laythe.

Not sure why any one would find Mun boring. Once past the thrill of finally being able to land, there are an abundance of anomalies to track down. After that head for the poles - it adds a new level of difficult. The terrain and the physics get wild. 

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There is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet orbiting roughly ninety-two million miles from a small unregarded yellow sun which lies far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy.

 

I'm not really a big fan of that one.  Even if it does have digital watches.

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Gilly. A rotten potato full of bugs. Can't leave anything on it unsupervised. Lost two kerbals because the lander won't, well, properly land and kept shifting around as the asteroid rotated. Exiting to space center made the game decide that the lander was in freefall at the surface -> dead crew.

Still, Gilly is the only way to refuel for the missions to Eve, so I suffer the tedium.

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On 7/16/2017 at 6:39 AM, regex said:

I hate Laythe on principal because it enables the one thing that encompasses everything blatantly unrealistic about KSP, that being interplanetary spaceplanes. It exists purely as a destination for those ridiculous craft.

There's nothing wrong with interplanetary spaceplanes. Surely you're making the common mistake on this forum of equating spaceplanes with SSTOs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_aircraft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVIATR

One doesn't need to go to 10x /RSS scale, even at 3x scale the idea of a spaceplane that can fly from kerbin to the surface of laythe, and back without refueling goes right out of the window.

For me, here's what I don't like about various planets/moons:

* Eve: too purple, even Nova says this. I also don't like its high surface gravity. I've modded it to be closer to a venus analogue by increasing the atmospheric pressure to 10 atmospheres (still far less than Venus) and decreasing the surface g to 1.2. I'm thinking about trying to mod the purple away too.

*Minmus... just what the heck is it supposed to be? what are those flats? it makes no sense (but I see the gameplay value)

*Dres: its too big to be a "dwarf planet" as mentioned. Its basically a proper planet. In my 3x rescale it doesn't get scaled up (and its gravity is reduced), and 2 other asteroid like bodies of smaller size are added with similar orbits to form an asteroid "belt" (of just 3 objects, which proportionately sized would be over 40% the mass of the asteroid belt))

Jool: surface gravity is too low to be a Jupiter analogue... making it more like a saturn analogue in terms of proportional mass.

- Tylo and Laythe: Proportionately way too big. Tylo is 80% the mass of kerbin and is the moon of a planet that seems to be intended as a Jupiter analogue (but 1/3 the mass). Compare this to the largest moons of Jupiter or Saturn at 2.5% and 2.25% the mass of earth.... waaayyyyy too big... much bigger than Duna (vall is also too big). In my personal mod settings, these massive moons get reduced in size to 2x the proportional radius of their analogue). Laythe becomes more like a titan analogue, but still quite different. Tylo: 0.296 G and 496km radius (then 3x scaled along with almost everything else in the system). Laythe: 0.366 g (just as the smaller Io has a higher surface G than Ganymede), 343 km - even with the 3x rescale, this still leaves jets OP'd on laythe, so I scaled down the atmosphere to maintain a 3:4 Atmosphere:G ratio (original Laythe is 0.6 Atms : 0.8 Gs)

* Pol - same question as minmus - its topography makes no sense, but now it lacks a gameplay purpose 

 

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Dres is the only planet that I haven't yet added to googles dictionary, if that gives you any hints on how little I reference it :') It's far enough away from Kerbin to be difficult to reach and bland enough to say "Why would I visit Dres when I could visit the Joolian system instead?" - my answer being "I don't know." As much as I hate following the norm and saying Dres sucks, it does.

Edited by Avera9eJoe
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Kerbin--I've killed more Kerbals on Kerbin than anywhere else and I've spent more money escaping the gravity well than I care to think about.  Hmmm...maybe a space elevator mod would help (assuming there isn't one already :wink: ).

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