The hardest thing in KSP for me is....

[Aragosnat]

Outside of landing planes and such. The hardest for me right now is stop thinking about the game. And all the things I want to try out.

[vetrox]

Weening myself off of mechjeb.

I started playing ksp wildly firing rockets into the sky hoping to make it and then some orbit. I had some success and made it to minums before the mun (completley by accident)

Then I found mechjeb and it slowly made the game boring. So i stopped playing to take time out (to play other games...not to do anything constructive) and came back after seing the steam news feed about the upcoming 0.22.

So all I use mechjeb for is the delta V calculations cos i'm too lazy to work it out (come on, one of the main functions of computers is to work out equations for us!) and when the night is getting a bit daylight i start to use mechjeb to launch rockets to an apoapsis.

Since coming back though i gotta say I'm addicted to SSTO. Im currently trying to make a big ass cargo plane (got the insperation from a screenshot on here) 4 jets and one of the bigger rockets gets it to orbit (with the rocket helping it get off the ground!) and i can land it but it looks ugly as hell so I'm trying to refine the design. Is it sad that thinking about finalising the design is really exciting?

[Temeriki]

@vetrox

The B9 mod pack has some nice looking parts for SSTO's, including the sabre dual mode engines (air breathing jet engine mode and regular rocket mode). I agree on your opinion with mechjeb, made the game boring, now I use it as a flight computer, with nav ball target overlay.

[tikker]

I would say the hardest thing for me is rendezvousing and building suitable launching vehicles. They're always too unstable or just don't make it into orbit. I'm starting to get a hang of it though and hope to soon start work on my first space station.

[asmi]

For me by FAR the hardest thing is waiting for the next update to come out...

[Dynamo]

I'm just about the opposite of el_coyoto.

I've got a lot of rocketry expertise. Docking and station building/operation, launches of relatively heavy payloads (my record is about ~50t), rendezvous, and making bases in the Kerbin system with targeted landings are all my forte, and i even just experienced a revolution in spaceplane design and i've made an SSTO after a long line of succesful planes. But for the life of me, my Interplanetary Vehicles can't seem to meet my expectations. I can never get the balance of asthetics, payload, TWR, and Delta-v. Even when i have a good design, i'm horrible at fishing for good transfers. I also have no good idea about estimates of Delta-v needed for round trips, i barely got my first mission to Duna back after 2 refuelings and after dumping the landers.

Perhaps you wouldn't mind a trade in technology and techniques, would you, coyoto?

Edited September 17, 2013 by Dynamo

[HoneyFox]

Hardest thing in KSP? Debug to make a plugin work correctly in game I guess... You know we cannot attach our debugger onto the KSP process so ... yeah it all relies on debugging console output...

Second hardest thing in KSP? I guess it's playing aimlessly while actually waiting for the next update of KSP to be published. Huh... maybe this is even harder than the one I mentioned above.

[Snow Leopard]

For me it's got to be rendezvous, let alone docking!

[blackfire83]

Remembering all the parts. I get caught up in grand designs, get them launched and ready to go, then realize I forgot solar panels and that my craft is now coasting uselessly in space. I wish the stock capsules/drone brains had small solar panels built in so that they didn't die in space.

[Temeriki]

Mechjeb can help with docking, after a few mechjeb assisted dockings I figured out how to do it on my own, mechjeb will also calculate your launch windows. You can start off using it as an autopilot, and later use it as a flight computer (big difference between the two).

[Nukas]

trying no to kill everyone.

trying not to hit my space station with a SRB

trying to get to my space station

[merlinux]

posted twice sorry

Edited September 24, 2013 by merlinux

[merlinux]

I'm just about the opposite of el_coyoto.

I've got a lot of rocketry expertise. Docking and station building/operation, launches of relatively heavy payloads (my record is about ~50t), rendezvous, and making bases in the Kerbin system with targeted landings are all my forte, and i even just experienced a revolution in spaceplane design and i've made an SSTO after a long line of succesful planes. But for the life of me, my Interplanetary Vehicles can't seem to meet my expectations. I can never get the balance of asthetics, payload, TWR, and Delta-v. Even when i have a good design, i'm horrible at fishing for good transfers. I also have no good idea about estimates of Delta-v needed for round trips, i barely got my first mission to Duna back after 2 refuelings and after dumping the landers.

Perhaps you wouldn't mind a trade in technology and techniques, would you, coyoto?

Hey Buddy I suggest you look at changing your CONIC mode to 0 and trust me interfplanetary transfers will become so easy.It changes the map mode view so you can see your projected trajectory relative to your target (before SOI) and the trick is to adjust this trajectory way before getting to the SOI of this target. Trust me you will always have a perfect orbit after that and a lot of fuel left! I can get in Duna'orbit from LKO with as little as 1200Dv (if I aerobrake)

Anyway back to topic. The haderst thing for me was the docking/RV until Ive mastered it. Now Its planes/spaceplanes, just started playing with them and although I can send kerbals pretty much anywhere and back (except eve and tylo maybe), I can hardly fly and land planes, let alone build SSTO.....

[ArmchairGravy]

Now that I've gotten docking pretty much squared away it's interplanetary travel. I'm getting there, but it's generally not pretty, and forget returns. My current push is to get an probe out and back.

[Blaster]

Making an SSTO with a Orange 64 fuel tank. The KermaJet Avatar will eventually make orbit, then I can try for interplanetary, with a 9 passenger SSTO bird that is way too heavy to be a viable plane. It needs 8 jet engines to get to atmo layer 2, and a Skipper engine can't push it into space. The part count also makes computer dead.

Also, Cupoula cockpit on a plane, would make Michael Bay proud

[The Destroyer]

Getting to Moho. 7 or so KM/S to get there from LKO, not to mention landing.

And Eeloo. Protractor won't work, right inclination but not right angle wise. Tells me it takes 2.2 km/s, it takes 4.4 at that angle.

[rodion]

Precision landing. Many landings later, my accuracies can still be measured in tens of kilometers. What am I going to do if I ever start a base? Put everything on those giant wheels?

[TicTacToe!]

Actually summing up the courage to start an interplanetary mission, I plan them for ages and then never actually do them.

[Rage097]

Getting back from another planet. Getting to is no problem. Getting back is. Mostly because I'd use a lander docked onto the interplanetary craft and Docking is a right pain in the butt for me, especially after taking off from the planet's surface when I have fuel constraints to worry about.

[Tw1]

Actually summing up the courage to start an interplanetary mission, I plan them for ages and then never actually do them.

Same! Well, I plan them, build the stuff, then decide the next version of the game will be better to do it in.

My Eve islands explorer has been used for many things on Kerbin, but never left LKO. Probes are simple though, tiny ones can be tossed around without much care.

[Alfondoo]

I reckon it's between landing on Moho and building a spaceplane that will travel further than Minmus. Been trying both for ages

[KrisM]

Travelling to other celestial bodies.

[Lar-E]

Not getting sucked into playing all day.

[RChamy]

Orbital alignment for docking.

[Tankbuster32]

Estimating Interplanetary fuel requirements and aerobraking for me.