What was your learning wall?

[Endersmens]

New things often times have something called a "learning curve" which is the level of knowledge required to learn what ever it is.

Well, KSP does not have a learning curve. KSP has a learning wall, as many have stated. Meaning the learning curve is so steep it seems like a wall rather than a curve.

This thread is to discuss exactly what was so hard for you to learn just starting out, or what mainly was your "learning wall." What was the first thing that frustrated you? Or the first thing you needed lots of help to accomplish?

I'll start us off. My learning wall was maneuver nodes. I was first taught to eyeball everything, eyeball getting into orbit, eyeball mun transfers, eyeball trajectories to the mun, and eyeballing landing. Thank goodness I discovered maneuver nodes and the navball, which made everything a whole lot simpler.

Now lets hear yours!

[falloutaddict]

Learning how to use the navball effectively for docking/maneuvers/transfers. Once I figured out how to use all those points on the navball to adjust my trajectory without having to create maneuver nodes was a life saver.

Rendevous were hard to master.

Interplanetary transfer windows.

Landing on Mun without crashing down.

Getting really heavy payloads into space.

Figuring out that the other maneuver node icon was for moving the node forward and backward 1 orbit.

Rovers. Still havent figured out rovers.

These are all walls I hit that I had to overcome. Besides rovers I've managed to pretty much master them all.

[Guest]

Learning to read the navball effectively in all situations. Once I got that down I found the game much easier to play.

[SkyRender]

At this point, nothing much is left to challenge me outside of absurd things the game was never meant to do (like landing an airplane on a flying aircraft carrier; I'm sure I could do it, mind, but I have no reason to do it). The very last hurdle I overcame with KSP was spaceplane design. Which apparently I thought was still too easy to overcome, as then I overcame it AGAIN with FAR installed.

[Endersmens]

Learning how to use the navball effectively for docking/maneuvers/transfers. Once I figured out how to use all those points on the navball to adjust my trajectory without having to create maneuver nodes was a life saver.

Rendevous were hard to master.

Interplanetary transfer windows.

Landing on Mun without crashing down.

Getting really heavy payloads into space.

Figuring out that the other maneuver node icon was for moving the node forward and backward 1 orbit.

Rovers. Still havent figured out rovers.

These are all walls I hit that I had to overcome. Besides rovers I've managed to pretty much master them all.

Long list! glad to hear you got over all of them!

Except rovers. I hate them too.

[Trentendegreth]

math... calculating DV is my Nemesis, been playing for 2 years still hasnt clicked

[falloutaddict]

Long list! glad to hear you got over all of them!

Except rovers. I hate them too.

Yah, rendezvous' were really hard to get down, but once I learned how to use the navball effectively they became a lot easier

[tater]

Wall? Getting up to pour another pint my first night playing?

Honestly, the only thing that took a while to get a hang of was orbital rendezvous/docking. The former to get the hang of getting sort of close, the latter because invariably on my first several attempts I'd end up doing actual docking in the dark, lol.

[Bill Phil]

Getting big things to other planets. It's still there

[falloutaddict]

math... calculating DV is my Nemesis, been playing for 2 years still hasnt clicked

I don't find the math too terribly complicated, mostly all just plug and punch, but pretty tedious. That's why I use the engineer mod. I used to use mech-jeb and probably will again one day. It helped me learn a lot about how to effectively do so many things, but once I got them down I didn't see the need for it any more.

[Endersmens]

Ah yes! I totally forgot about rendezvous! That was also a big one for me, along with docking efficiently*

I used to be happy with encounters within 2km, now i'm not satisfied until I get <0.2km from the other side of the planet.

*not using hundreds of units of monopropellant

[Xannari Ferrows]

Well, the orbital maneuvers weren't too difficult. To me, it was all in the construction.

[rcp27]

After sorting orbital rendezvous, the big challenge for me was figuring out how to land on a target. Getting down was not too bad, but getting down at a pre-set location is much harder.

[InterCity]

Well, I've played KSP with breaks for about two years. And for year and half of that I was what is commonly know as "noob". I was bad and yet I thought I was good going to the mun (NASA is not any better, right? Wrong.)

But recently, I made breakthroughs with SSTOs, space shuttles and general reusable stuff. I've even done the Jool-5, albeit it doesn't qualify because I was mining for fuel on the way.

I'd say that I'm over that learning wall. But I think that behind that wall is a learning skyscraper of advanced orbiting, about the size of Burj Khalifa. Soooo...

[Starhawk]

Building and flying spaceplanes. Tonnes to learn before I could do it at all, let alone do it well.

Happy landings!

[Endersmens]

This is cool, I wasn't expecting responses this quick, let alone from some famous people.

[Flight]

Strictly speaking, a "steep learning curve" means something you learn fast. A "learning wall" would be something that you know nothing about, and it keeps that way until you suddenly learn everything instantly. However, people usually refer to a learning curve by comparing it to something you need to climb, the steeper being the hardest.

But on topic, I think docking (intercepting, aligning, the entire thing) is the most difficult part for a beginner. Landing planes being in second place.

[Greenfire32]

When I started KSP way long time ago during the age of kerbosaurs and primordial soups, I had a hard time making orbit with pretty much anything.

Nowadays I've mastered it, however I'll still admit that the 3-man pod with the 2-man lander setup still gives me issues from time to time.

[Endersmens]

Strictly speaking, a "steep learning curve" means something you learn fast. A "learning wall" would be something that you know nothing about, and it keeps that way until you suddenly learn everything instantly. However, people usually refer to a learning curve by comparing it to something you need to climb, the steeper being the hardest.

But on topic, I think docking (intercepting, aligning, the entire thing) is the most difficult part for a beginner. Landing planes being in second place.

totally ruined my thread now

lol just kidding. In this case I believe steep learning curve means you have much to learn in a short time, exactly like you said, but if you can't learn that quickly, it becomes difficult, hence why we call it the learning wall.

[Bandock]

I remember in the older days of KSP before 0.18 came to being where you had to rendezvous by hand. No maneuver nodes to guide you either. So, I spent time training for it until I got it right. The key to doing it the old fashioned way without any maneuver nodes was to adjust your orbit either shrink it to speed up or expand it to slow down. Use Time Warp until you get close enough where you can adjust to make an interception. However, chance of error was still high as you could overshoot either way. Great learning experience that has paid off though. When 0.18 finally did come out, targetting has made it easier to rendezvous as you couldn't target before that nor use maneuver nodes.

In terms of my learning wall, I have yet to successfully bring back any craft from another planet outside of Kerbin (mainly because I have been busy and also I need to learn how to do it without screwing up). Docking was a piece of a cake, even though there are cases it can be hard to dock unmanned objects that have no probe core whatsoever. Even harder is to dock without any RCS, but worth the challenge.

[SpenSpaceCorp]

I view the learning wall as you said; a more difficult learning curve, but I would not associate all things in KSP like that; some things are more difficult to learn, but they are still definitely learnable, while others are not as difficult as one may think.

[Caelib]

Rendezvous and docking are the only two things that really frustrated me. But once I finally got it, I had a great sense of accomplishment. To me, the difficulty of KSP is what makes it such a great game ... too many gamers want instant gratification because companies like EA and Activision have spoon-fed them unlocks and perks and achievement points every 3 seconds.

Hard == rewarding. Remember when gaming was about just being able to do something? To me, that is why KSP stands out as a top-notch game in this sea of genre clones ... this game is about accomplishment and the experience/exploration.

[Endersmens]

Rendezvous and docking are the only two things that really frustrated me. But once I finally got it, I had a great sense of accomplishment. To me, the difficulty of KSP is what makes it such a great game ... too many gamers want instant gratification because companies like EA and Activision have spoon-fed them unlocks and perks and achievement points every 3 seconds.

Hard == rewarding.

Exactly, after mastering rendezvous and docking I felt incredibly accomplished docking to my space station efficiently. Returning from a Moho flyby was also incredible rewarding to me, I felt so awesome after it i had to stand up and walk around smiling like an idiot.

[viktor19]

Mun landing. Jeb went there in a Mk1 cockpit with rover wheels, not legs (crazy times) in a one-way mission. He was rescued few months later.

[Endersmens]

Mun landing. Jeb went there in a Mk1 cockpit with rover wheels, not legs (crazy times) in a one-way mission. He was rescued few months later.

Nice! Why wheels though?