What do you suck at?

[JebNeedsHelp]

For me, it's still landings. I have sent stuff everywhere, only to tip over the lander and screw up whatever outpost contract I'm working on. I know I should redesign my landers, but I hate launching those wide, clunky looking things on top of nice pointy-looking rockets. I'm just weird that way.

[michaelsteele3]

speling.

[soulsource]

Efficient interplanetary transfers (those where inclination change course corrections are not really necessary as the involved planets are aligned) without using any mods. With Transfer Window Planner they are doable, and with cheatingMechJeb they are trivial, but without any mods I usually end up just packing enough dV to be able to match the inclination even in the worst case.

On point landing. I can do those on bodies without atmosphere, but I'm wasting lots of fuel. I haven't even attempted such a thing on bodies with air.

Building planes without FAR.

Landing planes. Using flaps with FAR makes this slightly easier, but it's still a task I try to avoid on hard mode career saves.

[Kar]

Building and flying a stable aircraft. I can pretty much build and fly a efficient rocket, ok, I am not using stock ksp, I do use mods that help me in other areas like mechjeb, but building a good aircraft it is my worst thing. I can build them, I can even land them at KSC, but dam, there is always something happening that they never get stable no matter how much videos I see and building tutorials I read.

[T-Bouw]

There are two things that I'm struggling the most with:

1; Precise landings from orbit on bodies with an atmosphere using a plane. I can't for the life of me get my craft at KSC without major stalls/corrections.

2; Consistently build stable high altitude planes. Out of a few dozen planes build for high altitude flight, to date only a couple fly stable at height.

[kStrout]

SSTO's they are ALWAYS just about 100m/s of DV short, and the bigger they are, the more they fail somehow... the other big one are the contracts that ask you to take science readings at certain places, HOW DO YOU GET ENOUGH MONEY OUT OF THAT AND NOT WASTE HOURS FLYING!?

[Dman979]

Interplanetary missions. 'Nuff said.

Oh, and eyeballing the ∆-V in a stage and where it will get me. I've done Mun burns and capture burns with my second stage- you know, the one which I'm supposed to use to almost make it to Kerbin orbit.

[TMS]

The only difficulty I have is launching to a specific rendezvous.

I rarely hit the target craft at apoapsis and almost always require a cycling orbit to make final rendezvous.

[Mitchz95]

Planning my missions. I can spot a transfer window and exploit the Oberth effect pretty well, but I always have to bring more fuel than I need in case I screw something up. And often even the extra fuel isn't enough to correct a mistake.

[Slam_Jones]

I suck at not getting mad at asymmetric flame-outs

[StrandedonEarth]

Spaceplanes. I think I have the designs ironed out for stable yet maneuverable at hypersonic speeds, but I just don't have the patience for the speed and altitude building run above 20km. I probably still need more intakes.

My precision airless landings are getting better, and precision parachute landings are getting easy with the Trajectories mod

I have no problem with rendezvous but the efficiency probably leaves something to desired, especially from launch.

[Deutherius]

I suck at not getting mad at asymmetric flame-outs

I too sucked at flying two (or more) engined spaceplanes. Then I found out that you can alt + right click both/all of them and tweak the thrust limiter/s (along the general thrust) to avoid one engine smothering the other.

Now I just generally suck.

[justidutch]

I suck at planning windows between missions in order for me to do some of those weird fantasy-type other-worldly things like eating, sleeping, making an income...

[Slam_Jones]

I too sucked at flying two (or more) engined spaceplanes. Then I found out that you can alt + right click both/all of them and tweak the thrust limiter/s (along the general thrust) to avoid one engine smothering the other.

Now I just generally suck.

Er mah gerd, how did I not think of this? I've got a 5-engine SSTO, and I kept wanting to throttle down just two of them, and now I know how

[Sparker]

Staying calm when the game crashed not first time during a day

[cantab]

Yet another for precision landings. Whether it's a capsule on Kerbin, a lander on the Mun, or even lining a plane up with the runway I'm pants at them. I consider "within physics range" a great achievement.

A close second is Duna. I've done successful landings on most bodies in KSP, including Tylo, but have never got a Kerbal onto Duna and back off again. (Mind you, my Tylo landing needed a retry, whereas my Duna attempts were all in no-quickloading saves.)

[GoSlash27]

I generally suck at anything new.

Right now I'm trying to learn how to not suck at time- based orbital transfers and launch windows.

I've figured out how to make orbits of fixed periods IRT the surface and inertial space, but have not yet figured how to place a satellite into a desired position on the orbit so that it passes over KSC at a preselected time down to the second.

Best,

-Slashy

[magnemoe]

Yet another for precision landings. Whether it's a capsule on Kerbin, a lander on the Mun, or even lining a plane up with the runway I'm pants at them. I consider "within physics range" a great achievement.

A close second is Duna. I've done successful landings on most bodies in KSP, including Tylo, but have never got a Kerbal onto Duna and back off again. (Mind you, my Tylo landing needed a retry, whereas my Duna attempts were all in no-quickloading saves.)

My tips for Duna is to open parachutes early, set it to 1000-2000 meter rather than 500, this gives the parachute time to slow you down, also help using an shallow landing angle, this give parachutes more time to work and it make the deorbit cheaper, downside is that its decrease accuracy.

Mechjeb do an overpowered deorbit burn on modies with atmosphere, this uses lots of fuel but increase accuracy.

I for one have never managed to land manual on Tylo, things happes to fast at the end, I also waste too much fuel going down.

[problemecium]

I suck at actually doing interplanetary transfers. I can set them up and even "run simulations", but I'm too stingy with my Kerbals' time and never end up getting there before a new patch comes out xD

Consequently for someone as experienced as I, I have very little experience landing on or returning to orbit from objects other than Kerbin and its moons.

[kmMango]

Landing. I am garbage at landing.

Also, setting up interplanetary encounters.

[hobbez]

suicide burns, definitely. I just feel safer getting my horizontal speed to 0 when i'm still high off the ground, and then just caress the throttle all the way to the surface. It's slow, but safe.

Another thing I'm terrible with is fuel management. I'm of the "Clarksonian" school of thought: POWERRR!!! My favorite rocket engine is obviously the S3 KS-25x4 Engine Cluster. Of course, should Squad decide to throw in something even more powerful, then THAT would become my new favorite =D

Needless to say, my trips to other planets are quite costly in fuel, and return trips often turn into rescue missions!

[AbacusWizard]

the other big one are the contracts that ask you to take science readings at certain places, HOW DO YOU GET ENOUGH MONEY OUT OF THAT AND NOT WASTE HOURS FLYING!?

I find infrastructure really useful there--for instance, if I invest the time and money to build a space station in orbit around Minmus that includes crew quarters, a science lab, a crew lander, a tiny probe lander (with all the science instruments), and plenty of extra fuel, then any "plant flag" or "collect data" mission on Minmus becomes incredibly easy, and often quite fun as well. With frequent crew rotations it's great for leveling up your kerbalnauts too.

[Starhawk]

I still have trouble with gravity assists to some extent. Also precision landing a heatshield/parachute type craft in atmosphere. To land at/near KSC, I use a fixed reference that I've found to work by trial and error. I establish a 75x75 equatorial prograde orbit. When 1/4 orbit before being directly over KSC, I point retrograde and burn until the orbit trajectory enters the surface of Kerbin and moves until it touches the next spit of land that lies directly to the east of KSC. That usually brings me down quite close to KSC, but there is some error due to eyeballing it.

Using this method with a spaceplane, I'm always close enough to angle for a landing or turn around after slowing and come back west to the runway if I overshoot by a bit.

For precision landing on airless bodies, Slashy's Reverse Gravity Turn method seems to work quite well.

Happy landings!

Edited March 20, 2015 by Starhawk

[Deutherius]

I find infrastructure really useful there--for instance, if I invest the time and money to build a space station in orbit around Minmus that includes crew quarters, a science lab, a crew lander, a tiny probe lander (with all the science instruments), and plenty of extra fuel, then any "plant flag" or "collect data" mission on Minmus becomes incredibly easy, and often quite fun as well. With frequent crew rotations it's great for leveling up your kerbalnauts too.

I believe he was talking about the "Take temperature reading at Engineer's Folly below 18 200 m" type of contract. In which case, you just build a plane capable of suborbital speeds and fly it around to pass time at least a bit meaningfully when all your space contracts are en route. You can also designate special crews for this and send them around Kerbin for easier coverage. These contracts don't pay much, but they also don't cost much (unless you crash your plane), and it's basically free science.

Personally I liked them, because they forced me to actually explore Kerbin and see all the beautiful landscape from up close, not just from orbit.

[Patupi]

Planes... Pretty much anything to do with planes.... I can do complex docking with no thrusters, I can land on pretty much any world (some requiring horrendous monsters of ships, but doable), I've docked vertically using RCS on planetary bodies (mostly low-g moons), I can do interplanetary transfers with stock stuff and eyeballing it, but planes have me beat. I have successfully built planes with very few parts, say one pair of wings and minimal fuel/engines, but beyond that no manner of balancing the fuel, getting the wheels stable, works... at all. Either the plane starts sliding from side to side on take off, or the thing is twitchy to fly and tends to flip out on a dime, or I can't land it without bellyflopping with enough force to take out a small moon. I don't know what it is with me and planes but no matter how hard I try, or how obvious the solution seems to be (Oh yeah, that'll do it... *CRASH*) it all ends the same. I've been flying since 0.18 and I think I've managed to fly one complete SSTO mission without crashing at the end of it. One.