What was your learning wall?

[BDelacroix]

Was?

I still only have 2 space planes that can actually get out to orbit, dock and make it back. The docking is important because I require a refuel just to get back.

The second success is really just a barely expanded design based on the only other success I had.

[Kibble]

In RO, my biggest learning 'wall' was effectively balancing TWR with stage mass for optimum performance.

An interesting side-note, rendezvous actually came fairly naturally to me. Docking on the other paw did NOT.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Kibble

[Temeter]

My wall was my first rendevous+docking, but that one was climbed in ~6 to 8 hours. Similarly my first mun landing took a small eternity. Never really thought about how insane the idea of landing on a rocket actually is. *tips hat towards spacex*

Orbit wasn't to hard after understanding the usually unnecessary complicated advice. Otherwise Interplanetary was a challenge too, but then I learned that my manual method was bad and you really just use boring predetermined transfer windows. Eve landing was mostly just a wall of patience because small design issues could force you to repeat the whole thing. Which is why I did my first stock eve return only a few hours ago. Spaceplanes were kinda hard, but mostly just a relatively straightforward expansion of aircraft design.

[LABHOUSE]

Once I figured out you did not just point to the target body and burn, I just eyeballed everything.

[Endersmens]

Once I figured out you did not just point to the target body and burn, I just eyeballed everything.

Nice. Found out one way didn't work, decided to wing it.

[YoetoJoe]

Mine was rendezvous. I did an interplanetary trip before i successfully rendezvoused.

[LordFerret]

No walls, only small hurdles ... the docking camera made all the difference in the world for me.

[mikegarrison]

I do remember my first great interplanetary trip. I didn't really have the whole transfer window thing down, so I kept trying to adjust the timing by using non-circular orbits. That was a lot harder than it needed to be.

And EVAs were terrifying, because I didn't know how to turn on the EVA RCS. So if my Kerbals popped out of the hatch and didn't grab the ladder, they would just drift helplessly off into space.

I also didn't know how to switch between craft using the [ and ] keys, so I tried using the claw to do a rescue mission, but the rescuee died during re-entry.

I finally found the key-binding page on the KSP wiki, and many things became much easier to do!

[RocketPilot573]

In .16 the game was much simpler, all that there really was to learn was to fly to the Mun and Minmus. Though .17 game me some trouble. Getting enough fuel to get to another planet seemed near impossible. And of course I learned to rendezvous in .17... with the magic boulder. Seriously, my first rendezvous was with the boulder.

[panzer1b]

Really my major wall (at least until i broke thru it) was starting out the game using mechjeb. With autopilots everything seemes easy, but after i broke through that, ive actually started learning abotu how stuff works in this game. A few of the harder things for me though were getting to some of the farther planets, as not only do you need crazy fuel economy, you need something thats capable fo actually landing there alive. Then stuff like rendezvous with a ship, and docking was always easy though, provided i could cut the relative velocity before docking (ive yet to master docking at speeds in excess of 100m/s relative to target, usually ends up as a kinetic missile at that point).

[Jarin]

Actually planning missions to other planets. Leaving Kerbin's SoI for any real length of time seems to be a weird mental wall for me. This is exacerbated by the fact that I hate extended time-warping, so I send off my missions and then go back to doing local stuff and never get to anything else. (five months into new game, running launches almost daily... yup, that Duna probe is still on its way...)

[hawk_za]

the hardest part so far I have overcome was to wrap my brain around how momentum works in space and its relation to gravity.

ie periaps burn increases apoapsis burn...etc etc

my current challenge I am reserving for 1.0 is learning to rendezvous and dock with another object.........(not easy)

[Wanderfound]

Shortly after starting KSP, I became seriously ill. Mostly this sucked, but the one bright point is that it meant I had six months of nothing to do except play KSP all day. So, I had a somewhat compressed learning experience.

Still, I spent a week or two learning how to get to orbit reliably, then a week or two of crashing into the Mun, then a week or two of failing to rendezvous, etc. etc.

Rendezvous and docking was probably the trickiest for me, although that was almost entirely due to ignorance. It's the only bit that I had to resort to tutorials for. But like most of the game, once you understand how it works, rendezvous and docking is a very simple thing.

[Endersmens]

Shortly after starting KSP, I became seriously ill. Mostly this sucked, but the one bright point is that it meant I had six months of nothing to do except play KSP all day. So, I had a somewhat compressed learning experience.

Still, I spent a week or two learning how to get to orbit reliably, then a week or two of crashing into the Mun, then a week or two of failing to rendezvous, etc. etc.

Rendezvous and docking was probably the trickiest for me, although that was almost entirely due to ignorance. It's the only bit that I had to resort to tutorials for. But like most of the game, once you understand how it works, rendezvous and docking is a very simple thing.

Woah. Seriously Ill? I'm sorry you had to go through that, but that's good that you spent your time well.

[Tex]

I had a couple of walls I had to overcome. Getting to orbit wasn't actually ever a real challenge, once I knew the logistics of it.

My first wall was, of course, rendezvous and docking. That was soooooo difficult to master I would ragequit often because I simply couldn't get it... But I watched videos and asked the forum, and I was finally able to overcome it.

My second huge wall was interplanetary. As of now, I have done a total of perhaps 6... Yeah, I think 6 interplanetary missions. One Eve landing, One Dres flyby, and the rest were all to Duna. It was my wall because when I first went to do interplanetary, I was using a method that was waaaaaaay inefficient (Getting into Kerbol orbit first and making the burns from there... yikes ). I was so happy when I found out how to do it properly, and I haven't had a major problem since!

My next wall, though... SSTOs and spaceplanes.... That's a toughie.

[Endersmens]

I had a couple of walls I had to overcome. Getting to orbit wasn't actually ever a real challenge, once I knew the logistics of it.

My first wall was, of course, rendezvous and docking. That was soooooo difficult to master I would ragequit often because I simply couldn't get it... But I watched videos and asked the forum, and I was finally able to overcome it.

My second huge wall was interplanetary. As of now, I have done a total of perhaps 6... Yeah, I think 6 interplanetary missions. One Eve landing, One Dres flyby, and the rest were all to Duna. It was my wall because when I first went to do interplanetary, I was using a method that was waaaaaaay inefficient (Getting into Kerbol orbit first and making the burns from there... yikes ). I was so happy when I found out how to do it properly, and I haven't had a major problem since!

My next wall, though... SSTOs and spaceplanes.... That's a toughie.

Congrats ok 1k posts! I hit 1k 2 days ago

[Zucal]

Interplanetary transfers. I always just shot out into solar orbit and hoped I'd get close enough. Now I know better..

[Cirocco]

well it's been a while but... my biggest learning walls were the following:

- Powered landing (first ones attempted on the Mun). Dear GOD that was hard, kept tipping over. Of course my lander design was a problem as well, I made my stuff way too thin and tall. These days my landers are by default a lot wider.

- rendezvous and docking. first rendez-vous took some time, and I remember spending like 100 RCS fuel on a single docking with a couple simple craft the first couple times I tried. These days I do docking manouvres on light craft with like 3 to 5 units of RCS fuel.

- interplanetary burns. Getting a decent interplanetary trajectory still gives me trouble. Especially if the target gravity well isn't too big.

- Eve ascent vehicle. I literally spent 3 months dedicating almost all my KSP time developing an Eve ascent lander that could adhere to my personal goals and limitations. for reference, those limitations were: must be able to make orbit from sea level. Must be as light as possible. No external command seats allowed. Must be able to return science data from both the atmospheric descent and from the surface. Must use aerospikes as main engine power because engine Isp levels out at 1 atm pressure and really, it shouldn't. So use aerospikes where atmo pressure isn't much of an issue.

Had to invent a whole new way of staging, but in the end I managed around a 170-ton lander that could do it. I deleted it a couple versions back though. With the new parts and experience I have now I could probably do better. I might re-design after 1.0.

- Single stage spaceplanes beyond LKO. Strangely enough, single-seater SSTO spaceplanes didn't give me THAT much trouble. It took a bit of learning, but not that much more that regular rocketry. A couple of posts on aerodynamics and aircraft construction on the forums really helped a lot. Mass-transport or getting SSTO's to Mun and Minmus and back was quite the hurdle though. And while we're touching on long-range SSTO's...

- SSTDuna without refuel. Didn't take me as long as the Eve ascent vehicle, but still a couple weeks. Personal restrictions on this one were: must do Runway-Duna surface- Runway without any refuel of any kind. Must carry at least 3 kerbals. Must use MkIII parts (the old ones at the time). End result wasn't perfect (she was really, REALLY hard to handle upon re-entry and when gliding. Sooooo heavy in the back) but she made it. And I won't soon forget the feeling I had when I set her down on the runway, drained of just about every possible resource but completely intact and having fulfilled all mission parameters.

Edited April 24, 2015 by Cirocco

[Octa]

Nothing special:

- Orbital Roundevouz

- Docking

- Landing w/o atmosphere

- SSTO

[Mister Kerman]

SSTOs. and long range planes in general.

One other wall I haven't climbed out of fear of what's on the other side is interplanetary travel. Kerbin and it's moons are so cozy and it's difficult for me to travel beyond Kerbin's SOI!

[eddiew]

Only two things really slammed me into the wall:

1) Interplanetary burns. I still can't plot these by hand, so I use MechJeb to do it for me like a cheaty cheater. I honestly think the stock game needs better tools to help players with this.

2) Spaceplanes with FAR. Took about 2-3 months between deciding I wanted to have a primarily SSTO program, and actually being able to build reliable, not-too-hard to pilot spaceplanes that did their jobs right. Probably put 20-30 ships together, each one taking two play sessions of design and testing before finally doing the mission on the third day.

Things that were hard once or twice but quickly became easy after a bit of reading and practise:

- rendezvous/rescue

- docking

- landing without KER

- driving rovers (docking mode... that was all it needed for all those weeks of flipping and bumbling and crashing; docking mode)

[Yuriznikov]

I can Quote this, been to Duna a few times but never really done much more than land a pod there (and never have the kerbal return haha).

Hardest for me was to rendevouz + dock to stuff. When i learned how to utilize the navball better the docking and rendevouz maneuvers went better and better every time (mostly more efficient). It's always that one point where i suddenly get the point of something heheh.

SSTOs. and long range planes in general.

One other wall I haven't climbed out of fear of what's on the other side is interplanetary travel. Kerbin and it's moons are so cozy and it's difficult for me to travel beyond Kerbin's SOI!

[cptdavep]

I remember it taking far to long for me to figure out why my parachute opened when I tried to launch causing my rocket to flip and explode... still happens sometimes. It used to be hilarious until I started playing career on hard

[Tweety]

Rendezvous and docking was pretty hard for me (I genuinely didn't know what the RCS ports done until one day I decided to use a yellow fuel tank...)

Reading the navball effectively.

Build a rover that doesn't want to kill all occupants (still have this problem).

SSTO's completely baffled me until I accidentally ended up in a very high apo suborbital flight. Now I'm obsessed with them and still struggle to lift more than a satellite to orbit. (but I can do Runway->Minmus->Runway in one stage, go figure).

By far the hardest thing for me to learn, present tense because I still don't follow this, is when to throw away a crap design. I always seem to hold hope for most of my designs.

Tweety

[el_coyoto]

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.

Hi Barklight!

Do you use a Kerbol deltaV map? They usually are approximations (keep a margin of error), but helped a lot planning tighter fuel budgets for my missions.

I did a lot of Orbiter before playing KSP, so I hit the usual walls (orbital mechanics, docking) in the former rather than the latter.

The KSP wall that did hit me though was piloting and aircraft : as you can build your own stuff in KSP, I mostly struggled with good aircraft design and adjusting my piloting to different plane flight envelopes.

This thread helped me soooooo much...