What's the longest you had to wait for an encounter?

[Reinhart Mk.1]

Currently I'm trying to get to the Jool system and im just about done waiting 72 years for said encounter, what's the longest you've had to wait?

[Superfluous J]

Yikes how far out did you travel?

I haven't waited nearly that long, though I recall the potential with some planet packs I installed but never fully explored.

[Reinhart Mk.1]

22 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

Yikes how far out did you travel?

On an SSTO followed by a refueling excrements, so from kerbin to minmus, to duna, then ike, then jool lmao

[cantab]

I think I had over a hundred years once. Long enough that I edited the savefile to advance time instead of warping in game.

With more experience and the aid of Flyby Finder, I usually keep things more reasonable nowadays.

[Snark]

2 hours ago, Reinhart Mk.1 said:

Currently I'm trying to get to the Jool system and im just about done waiting 72 years for said encounter, what's the longest you've had to wait?

Never anything anywhere near that long, and probably never will.

This is mainly because I've got an indelible mental roleplay model that I've had ever since I first got KSP, which I am unable to shake:  I put myself in the kerbals' place, to the point that their calendar is my calendar.  Their calendar is "real" to me while I'm playing and I get impatient.

I don't mean "impatient" in the sense of "oh noes, I have to wait half an hour while I timewarp"-- that wouldn't be any biggie, I'd just grab a cup of tea and wait a bit.  I mean "impatient" in the sense that it really bothers me a lot that the kerbals have to wait for years and years.

(Not sure why that bugs me so much-- might be a natural consequence of my experiences growing up.  I was a kid when they launched Voyager, and was all "...what do you mean, I gotta wait until I'm a grown-up until we get to see Neptune?!")

So I'm essentially completely unwilling to subject my kerbals to long wait times like that.  Even for uncrewed missions, I don't want the poor kerbals back home to have to sit around waiting for many many years to get the data from the mission.  So every time I start a new KSP career and am setting up the "goal" for that career (i.e. what does "done" look like, what is the story arc going to be), it's always the case for me that "...and get it done in a reasonably short amount of calendar time."  My KSP careers rarely reach the ten-year mark before I reach the "victory condition" for that career, whatever it may be.

So, if I ever had a craft that was going to Jool, say, and it had a trajectory such that it was going to take 72 years to get there... then to me, that's a failed craft that's considered lost.  I'd just go into the tracking station, mark it as debris, and go launch another ship on a faster trajectory.

And if I'm playing with some mod that greatly expands the size of the solar system, such as OPM, then when I go out to the outer fringes, I do not follow Hohmann transfers (because those would take decades)-- I always pack however much extra dV I need to keep the trip down to a "reasonable" length (e.g. under five years, preferably only a year or two each way if possible without going totally nuts).

[Guest]

7 year trip to eeloo today I did it in 2 years 

[JERONIMO]

Amateurs, Bop encounter 73 years long.

[GeneCash]

5 hours ago, Snark said:

I was a kid when they launched Voyager, and was all "...what do you mean, I gotta wait until I'm a grown-up until we get to see Neptune?!") 

Yup. I'm ticked that I'll be 70 before there are nuclear powered helicopters on Titan in 2034 (https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/missions/solar-system/forget-mars-nasa-considering-sending-a-helicopter-to-one-of-saturns-moons/)

Probably explains why I haven't been past Duna in career mode.

[Reinhart Mk.1]

10 hours ago, Snark said:

I put myself in the kerbals' place, to the point that their calendar is my calendar. 

the concept of time does not apply to the mind or body of a kerbal.

[Geschosskopf]

17 hours ago, Snark said:

Never anything anywhere near that long, and probably never will. ....

Amen to all that.  I just can't stand listening to the Kerbals chanting "Are we there yet?" for more than about a decade :).,  Even in OPM.

And this applies not just to flight time but also waiting for transfer windows.  In the outer fringes of OPM, orbital periods are measured in decades, so it can take many decades for a traditional window to happen between 1 distant thing and another.  A pox on that, too!  If for some reason I want to go from one to another (which pretty much never happens). I do a sun dive to leave when it's convenient

[VITAS]

Im still waiting....to encounter some more of you in real life.

[Reinhart Mk.1]

i always love how varied the experiences are on this game, though i do agree with @Snark about not wanting to torture kerbals with journeys that are unbearably long, but i just figured they love space and are basically immortal so if i have to wait ill go to the store or browse twitter so it doesn't bother me that much (update though, im about to land on kerbin after the life changing journey of making it to the jool system haaaaaa)

[Guest]

23 hours ago, JERONIMO said:

Amateurs, Bop encounter 73 years long.

inclination intersection?

[JERONIMO]

Just now, The Doodling Astronaut said:

inclination intersection?

i don't remember, but maybe.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

On 7/7/2019 at 12:47 PM, Reinhart Mk.1 said:

Currently I'm trying to get to the Jool system and im just about done waiting 72 years for said encounter, what's the longest you've had to wait?

I'm honestly trying to understand how you could get this slow of an encounter; iv'e only sent a single probe to the Jool System but it only took about ~3 years after final manuevering. It was basically a slightly longer Duna Mission; then again i did a hohmann transfer when Kerbin and Jool were at the right phase angle. Then corrected further out two times (Once for inclination and then another prograde burn to bring it down from 6 yrs to 3.)

The majority of my transfers are within the 2-3 year range; but iv'e had total mission times >6yrs after doing multiple transfers. 

[Geschosskopf]

10 hours ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

I'm honestly trying to understand how you could get this slow of an encounter;

Me neither, especially for a relatively short trip like from Duna to Jool as the OP indicates.  Such a trip should be on about the same order of magnitude as Duna's orbital period, or shorter if you're impatient.

So I'm thinking the OP is talking about total MET to get his SSTO from Kerbin to Minmus to Duna to Ike to Jool.  Even that, however, shouldn't take anywhere near this long.  So the only thing I can figure is that the OP is sending the multiple ships (the "refueling excrement") 1 per transfer window instead of all at once.  Thus, each stage of the trip is the ( normal duration + the wait for a window ) * number of ships.  Then the total MET would really add up.

[magnemoe]

Had an 12 year wait going from Jool to Eeloo doing my grand tour. 
Else its always less than an year, you can compensate a lot with more drop tanks  

[MythicalHeFF]

Around 18 years, which was for a direct transfer from Kerbin to Keelon, a planet added by the mod Kerbol Origins that is insanely far away and has something like 2.7 G of gravity. The transfer in question was for a probe I sent there, which almost burned up on entry.