What was your learning wall?

[Renegrade]

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.

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win ...

[Guest]

Rendezvous was really tricky for me, haven't actually struggled with anything for a while but that's probably a limit of my own creativity.

[Endersmens]

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win ...

Brings a tear to my eye every time I hear this. This is definitely my favorite quote ever.

[Fearlessjames118]

What WAS my learning wall?! I'M STILL BEHIND IT!!!

Actually,it would probably be orbiting\getting to the Mun. But I can barely get past Minmus! (Not good with interplanetery )

[Endersmens]

What WAS my learning wall?! I'M STILL BEHIND IT!!!

Actually,it would probably be orbiting\getting to the Mun. But I can barely get past Minmus! (Not good with interplanetary )

hey, it'll come faster than you think once you try! (May I suggest getting into Mun orbit and transferring to Minmus, works great as interplanetary practice!

[ArmchairGravy]

Docking was my first wall. Figuring out orbit matching, rendezvous, minimizing the spin on the target ship, translation controls, and final approaches was the 2nd hardest in the game. I watched videos, read guides, and still struggled with it. I finally came up with my own system so now it's completely routine. My system is here: ArmchairGravy's Guide to Docking with Pictures and Fairly Small Words

Figuring out interplanetary travel was my second wall, and not nearly as painful. I used the transfer planning page at the beginning, then finally got KAC.

My last wall is an Eve return. I'm not watching videos or spoiling this achievement. One of these days I'm going to buckle down and do it, and that will be a fine day indeed.

[ImJake]

I couldn't do rendezvous for the longest time. Spelling it is tricky too, but luckily we have spell-check.

[Robotengineer]

My wall(s) were relative velocity (docking), interplanetary transfers and ∆V. After a couple of hours of attempts to dock, and 3-4 docking tutorials I finally got it, I was so happy . The more advanced walls were targeted landing, RealFuels, RealismOverhaul, etc. Building, flying and landing a Space Shuttle in RSS was my most recent wall.

[Endersmens]

haha, eve return...funny..don't think I'll ever get over that one.

[John FX]

I had 40 years of imaginary rockets to build when I first got the game so the hardest thing for me was figuring out the differences between how real life worked and how things worked in the game.

I think I had put a flag on every body in the system within a month of getting the game. That was the easy bit. The hard bit was understanding how I could just point my craft any direction I liked and it would hold together or that it really did save fuel to go straight up for 8km before turning prograde. That made no sense at all for a long time.

So nice that we will be getting real(ish) air soon.

Mind you, saying that, I still have not returned from Eve and I'm no good at making a plane that will return from space...

[Wiseman]

I spent the time reading this thread thinking about my biggest challenge, since I thought it was something complicated like "learning how to adjust your orbits in interplanetary transfers to actually move where you want to move", but it's really as simple as "learning how to use the navball". Knowing what burning radial or normal to your orbit will do to your trajectory made every single thing I do in KSP easier.

[AbacusWizard]

One more vote for "rendezvous"--the first time Jeb ran out of fuel while still in orbit, I put everything on hold and spent a couple of days just doing research on orbital mechanics until I figured out the finer details.

Precise docking and EVA control have also been big learning walls for me. My improvement has been gradual enough, though, that I didn't really realize it until a couple of weeks ago my wife watched as my science officer popped out of the lander, flew straight over to the mothership's lab like it was no big deal, and popped in the crew hatch, and she said "Wait, isn't that the sort of thing you used to spend like half an hour of frustration trying to do? Did they change the interface or did you just get better at it?"

[briansun1]

Docking and Rendezvous. Still haven't figured it out.

[Feradose]

Going interplanetary, and it still is! I mean I can use manuever nodes and I can rendezvous with just three fingers but, getting that planet intercept kills me.. I still dont understand "launch windows" too..

[SemiaCloud]

Mine was getting to orbit.

[Bandock]

Yeah, I would say interplanetary is one of the hardest things to master because the launch window has to be right, make sure you have enough fuel and don't screw up, and then land on it. After that, try returning back to Kerbin and that's another challenge to contend with as if you don't have enough fuel to return, you're screwed.

[HoloYolo]

Going to the Mun and anywhere else. Took me 20 tries and 21 redesigns.

Rendezvousing was the 2nd biggest. Took me about 5 tries, once I accomplished that I went to Duna and Eve etcetera. Very fun learning curves.

[Dwight_js]

I started playing Orbiter years ago, so that's where I learned about orbital mechanics. I was able to jump into KSP and orbit, rendezvous, dock, encounter/orbit mun fairly easily (maneuver nodes were already in when I started).

Things that stumped me were the navball - took me ages before I hunkered down and actually made an effort to figure out how it works.

Landing on airless bodies at a precise location was tough at first too. I tried to use an Apollo approach of lowering Pe to just above the surface, then doing a breaking burn at that point, followed by a controlled descent. I had a tendency to come in with too much horizontal velocity.

[AbacusWizard]

After that, try returning back to Kerbin and that's another challenge to contend with as if you don't have enough fuel to return, you're screwed.

That's what uncrewed fuel tankers are for!

Seriously though, that's one of the things I love about KSP. If something goes wrong on a mission, it isn't game over--it's inspiration for the next mission!

[Alshain]

I never had a learning wall in KSP. There were things I couldn't do for a time, so I figured them out.

[Technical Ben]

Getting an orbit. Getting a rendezvous. Getting a transfer. Getting a gravity assist.

I'm a visual person. I can understand numbers, figures and calculations, but use them? No chance until you show me.

Saw a couple of videos on the above (or with docking did it by hand, trial and error), and pow, I now know how to do it.

[vixr]

how many times I would finally get a really good encounter and burn to it, only to find out that my craft was pointing directly at Kerbin. BOOM... I finally learned to check where I'm pointing before hitting Z.

[Thomas988]

Achieving my first orbit was insane for me, but that was nothing compared to what was about to come in the future. The most difficult thing I have ever completed is docking. Back in the day, I had no idea where to begin a rendezvous and docking. The most difficult thing I have ever encountered and not completed is building a highly function SSTO. So far I have built to different designs of SSTOs that can get into orbit, and one of them had fuel to land in the middle of nowhere.

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Another Rendezvous and docking here. Specially rendezvous. Once I got that sorted out, the game opened to me, because then I could build whatever convoluted contraption I wanted in orbit, with 10 launches, didn't matter, but I didn't need to do just a single launch, and get it to anywhere I wanted... in theory at least.

[Barklight]

I figured out achieving orbit, rendezvous, and transfers pretty easily. Docking took a few weeks of practice when it first came out. I haven't messed around much with intentional Gravity Assists yet so I can't really call that a hurdle.

My biggest struggle, still, is correctly anticipating Delta-V needs. I still either over-engineer or under-fuel most of my launches. Engineer / MJ helps a lot, but its still challenging forecasting your fuel needs for a 2+ stop mission, especially outside of Kerbin SOI.