What was your learning wall?

[Leoworm]

The first learning wall everyone has in KSP is getting into Orbit, seeing as you need it for (basically) everything else in the game.

[Francois424]

#1- Took me forever to get staging right. I finally found Scott Manley's vids and even tho they weren't tutorials, gave me enough clues how to make this work.

#2- I kept crashing on the Mun real hard. I couldn't land properly. Until I found out that the circle with the "X" in it to cancel my momentum properly. Then it was only 1-2 tries until I figured how to land.

#3- Couldn't build good Mun rovers. With the help of this forums for nifty tricks (wider weel base, low center of mass, disabling breaks on forward wheels, etc) I made 2 very nice Mun rovers, one heavy for science, and one light for speed.

Having a Delta-V calculator (Kerbal Engineering) was a game changer for me tho, it made Inter-planetary possible and easy.

The rest really came naturally as I was playing along... Docking wasn't that hard for me (and I don't even use the docking mode that is provided in-game).

I still transfer without transfer windows, because when I want to get somewhere I go somewhere, and I don't feel like installing the (excellent) mod for that.

I also optimized my launches quite a lot thanks to 5th Horseman's videos, cutting dV for orbit by at least a grand (sometimes more).

But really, once I had gotten point 1-3 correctly I was all set.

All and All must've took 1 month for these all things considered.

A friend that I had over when I was 3 weeks old in KSP came back at one point last xmast and his reaction was "Wow, you really improved, you need to teach me stuff)

Fun to know you're getting better =)

[krillin678]

I have had many learning walls. I overcame most of them.

I worry the 1.0 version of the game will be too difficult or too much of a time sink.

(looks at roverdude)

[Kryten 2X4B 523P]

Currently, mine are Transfer Windows and Aerobraking. I've just managed to get a successful spaceplane built though, typically just in time for the whole aero model to change!

[Randazzo]

Honestly, the first couple hours were hilarious, and absolutely addicting.

I had done most of the tutorials (skipped the actual mun landing and asteroid capture), and decided I couldn't wait any longer to get into the game. My very first launch ever in KSP involved a physics experiment pitting a rocket engine against a parachute. Once I got that sorted out, things went pretty well until I discovered Mystery Goo. I could not for the life of me figure out how the heck I was supposed to fly a rocket to space with one of those things attached to it.

Then I made two discoveries:

1. Add two for balance!
   
2. Contrary to the tutorial, you do NOT need to have a SAS unit to use SAS.
   

That second one really put my career into overdrive.

[A_name]

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.

I've never actually tried a rover. Do they really have a learning wall/curve? I was under the impression that you just slap some wheels on something and press 'w' to go forward. Is there anything particularly challenging about them?

- - - Updated - - -

... just in time for the whole aero model to change!

LOL same here

[PatPL]

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.

Wall? I'd say more like stairs.

[Wiseman]

I have had many learning walls. I overcame most of them.

I worry the 1.0 version of the game will be too difficult or too much of a time sink.

(looks at roverdude)

"Too much of a time sink" ... *hides the "800 hours played" under KSP on Steam*

[wolfedg]

I still transfer without transfer windows, because when I want to get somewhere I go somewhere, and I don't feel like installing the (excellent) mod for that.

I have never bothered with transfer windows either for the same reason. I just burn until i'm barely on an escape trajectory out of Kerbin (in the appropriate direction for inner or outer planets) and then when im out of Kerbin's SOI i set up my maneuver node at the place i can get it lined up and then tweak it to lower the Delta V to optimum. This of course means my kerbals have to be in cryostasis for the duration of the very long trip which is often in a Mk-1 pod.

Edited April 24, 2015 by wolfedg

[Norpo]

To be honest? Probably either:

Landing on a body other than Kerbin

Using the Navball

...or figuring out how to use liquid engines. I had no idea how to throttle. >.>

[Engineer of Stuff]

Staging. It took me so long to figure out you had to have decouplers to loose stages.

[Findthepin1]

The Mun.

It's hard not to go to the Mun.

The high gravity always takes my Minmus ships and sends them somewhere else.

[hardturkeycider]

Landings.

Landings were a great learning curve. That and ridiculously ambitious projects that required tons and tons of redesign. (most often, literally tons of weight)

[mikegarrison]

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.

I avoided mods for quite a while, but IMO mechjeb shouldn't be a mod -- it should be stock. Or at least, most of it should be. And it seems that Squad somewhat agrees, because they keep putting parts of the mechjeb functionality into the game.

I'm an engineer, personally, and I am a lot more into designing ships and planning out the overall space program than I am into hand-flying the ships. So mechjeb is perfect for me. I don't think of it as "cheating", but just as a way to let me focus more on the parts that are fun for me. It's good that the game is open enough to allow people choice like this.

I think I've done everything by hand that mechjeb does (at least once, anyway), but mostly I'm happy to use mechjeb. It has its own learning curve, by the way!

[Wanderfound]

Currently, mine are Transfer Windows and Aerobraking. I've just managed to get a successful spaceplane built though, typically just in time for the whole aero model to change!

Hey, now you get to do it twice. Extended gameplay value!

[delder92663]

A wall indeed.

Definitely the math would be #1. 2nd for me would be actually landing where I want to land. Nav ball would be my 3rd.

[Bev7787]

Gravity turns and intercepts

[_jack]

Landing on the Mun. I always tried to build this massive lander with RCS, docking ports, more than enough parachutes, and SCIENCE!!! So I failed every time until I massively down scaled to a simple one man capsule, small fuel tank, engine, and gear.

[merendel]

For me it was mostly reading the navball to get best use out of it and orbital rendezvous/docking. Once I figured that out most things worked fairly easy with one exception. Still have trouble makeing a decent spaceplane but then agian I dont have a pressing desire to use them anyway. If I really want "Reuseable" stuff I just go the spaceX rout. Big first stage booster that can land itself, just needs to be big enough or accent path steep enough that it gets up to AP long enough for stage 2 to burn to orbit before it despawns.

[Endersmens]

Wow, this thread got bigger than I expected.

[rockbloodystar]

HTOL craft design.