What's Something You Just Can't Do?

[Rainbow-Dashie]

We all have that one thing (or multiple things...) that we just can't manage to do in KSP (Scott Manley withstanding) . No matter how many tutorials we watch, how many guides we read, how many times we try, how many different ways we go about doing it... we just fall flat, either due to our own incompetence, stubbornness, mistakes, bad luck, or the Kraken just looks down on your work, and says "LOL Nope!"...

So what is your "Achille's Heel" of KSP? Can't dock? Can't catch asteroids? Can't reach a certain Moon? Can't make airplanes?

The one thing I can't do... I can never precisely engineer landers right... What i mean is, I can't set them up so the staging works out like i want it to. I either use up fuel to quickly, and end up having to use my final descent stage just to get out of Kerbin orbit, or I'm still on my lifter stage slowing down for a Mun Landing. I can never get it right, with the lifter stage lifting, the decent stage descending, the return stage returning... it never happens. SOMETHING always ends up doing a job it wasn't ever supposed to do. No matter how much I tweak, do the math and calculations... just can't figure it out, either due to bad piloting or engineering... who knows?

[problemecium]

I can't build an Eve ascent vehicle, although admittedly I have yet to try with the 1.0 aerodynamics. I can achieve the proper TWR and almost enough delta-V, but never quite make it.

Naturally I can't build a Jool ascent vehicle either.

[Vaporo]

Moho. Always Moho. I look up delta-v maps, oh-so-carefully plan my missions, but something always goes wrong (Admittedly through my own stupidity, though. Forgot to add some kind of attitude control to my last lander, for example).

[Goddess Bhavani]

I never went anywhere beyond Minmus. I have sent probes off to Eve and Duna but they never reached their destination... before the next major KSP update appears.

The reason for this is quite simple: I spend all my time building airplanes and helicopters

[Ydoc124]

Kill jebadiah, that trucker always seems to come back(I kid I kid) but really. I have the most trouble with spaceplanes, they just don't work for me

[TrooperCooper]

I cant stop my bad habit of overengineering in terms of dV. Plane SSTOs final ascent during development aside, I cant even remember anymore the last time that I really ran out of fuel. Usually at the end of each mission I can say to myself "welp, you could have had that outcome with much lower costs if you wouldnt try to stay on the safety side so much..."

[Dizzle]

Reliably getting to Joolian moons. The game seems to consider Jool the next step after Duna, but I always just fling probes at it and see where they end up.

[The Yellow Dart]

I can't stick with a game save for very long. I usually get to Duna and Eve, then start a new save with a different set of mods, generally coinciding with a new release. Hopefully 1.0 will be the cure for this ailment.

[problemecium]

Same deal here. I've hardly ever embarked on an interplanetary voyage - my last one was to Eve in 0.22 or somewhere thereabouts, because I've always been too conscientious about wasting my Kerbals' time to the point where by the time any of the transfer windows had arrived, the next KSP was out and had changed the core mechanics of Career mode, so I ended up starting over again.

1.0 seems to have done a good job solving this so far, as the tech tree has taken much longer to clear than before, and the Jool window was already looming before I'd even unlocked all the parts I wanted for my mothership, let alone the whole tree (I'm going to have to go to Jool without large probe cores, large ore tanks, or RTGs for example).

[luizopiloto]

I can't convince me to go to Duna... it's so... "clichê"...

[SAI Peregrinus]

Control my addiction to this game.

[syfyguy64]

I can not for the life of me go anywhere besides Jool if I go interplanetary. I've tried duna several times, but my intercept was at the weird flickering deal, but I never got in. Never tried anywhere else, but managed to get to jool while playing around in (I'm surprised) career mode (On a duna attempt). Lots of science gained, but I never went back for reasons (building space planes).

[LittleBlueGaming]

So what is your "Achille's Heel" of KSP? Can't dock? Can't catch asteroids? Can't reach a certain Moon? Can't make airplanes?

Not sure yet, too new here. My first spaceplane that made it to orbit couldn't come back, the balance was horrible with low fuel. So far, spaceplanes have been the hardest thing for me to get a my head worked around.

That sig-gif is amazing btw.

[GreeningGalaxy]

I am absolutely terrible at finding flat landing sites. This is a bit of a problem, because the things I land are often tall and thin, with narrow bases and high centers of gravity. This is mainly why I always go to Minmus.

Other things I can't do:

-Build a spaceplane right on the first try

-Spend less than an hour designing a spaceplane

-Build interplanetary ships with less than twice the delta-V they need for their missions

-Persuade myself to go to Duna

-Aerocapture with DRE/new stock reentry heat

Most of these are not so much "lack of skill" as "unwillingness to bother" but let's be real, those are about the same.

[G'th]

I too have problems with Duna, but its more because I get right up to the prep stages for the mission and then end up either getting hooked on another idea or I end up wanting to redesign the entire mission.

[Miravlix]

Time Warp for Months/Years.

Makes life interesting keeping track of all the missions, I end up having going on at the same time, especially avoiding that all the missions don't need attention at the same time.

If only Kerbals could do nodes on there own, but I don't think we even have mods that allow non-focused ships to do stuff.

[Kuu Lightwing]

I haven't actually tried lots of stuff, so probably that will change later, but

1) I can't find a reason to do a tourist contract. They seem like too much of a trouble and reward is pretty small.

2) More "skill-based" thing: I can't get a good ascent trajectory consistently. I do get to space, I don't flip very often, but often I go too high or too low.

[Asharad]

I can't use mods. I like being creative with stock.

[John FX]

Time Warp for Months/Years.

Makes life interesting keeping track of all the missions, I end up having going on at the same time, especially avoiding that all the missions don't need attention at the same time.

If only Kerbals could do nodes on there own, but I don't think we even have mods that allow non-focused ships to do stuff.

You could try the combo of Kerbal Alarm Clock and Mechjeb. Alarm clock jumps you to the craft that is nearing a node then mechjeb does it for you. It's the closest you'll get.

I can't use mods. I like being creative with stock.

*yawn*

Like someone said upthread, that's not so much "lack of skill" as "unwillingness to bother". It's like answering "I always calculate the answer with pen and paper even if I have a calculator" or "I always try too hard" at a job interview when asked "What's your biggest fault"

I haven't actually tried lots of stuff, so probably that will change later, but

1) I can't find a reason to do a tourist contract. They seem like too much of a trouble and reward is pretty small.

2) More "skill-based" thing: I can't get a good ascent trajectory consistently. I do get to space, I don't flip very often, but often I go too high or too low.

Same here with the tourists. Too much trouble, too little reward. They make me want to install a mod to stop those contracts popping up.

I always have trouble re entering the atmosphere with a spaceplane.

[scola_p]

Same as quite a few people, new versions have slowed me down. Never been past minimus, but this time.

And spaceplanes. Just can't get them into orbit.

P

[KerikBalm]

I too have problems with Duna' date=' but its more because I get right up to the prep stages for the mission and then end up either getting hooked on another idea or I end up wanting to redesign the entire mission.[/quote']

I have this problem too.

First I plan just a simple lander + interplanetary stage.

Then I think.... a fuel depot would be great to allow multiple landings + stick an orbital research lab on it.

ThenI think... some sort of surface habitat would be great for RP purposes.

Then I think... I can land *insert destination here), and 3 biomes are within roving range, I should send a rover too.

Then I think... rovers are so slow, I should send a plane (and I'll mod an electric motor for it)

Now, I've got ISRU operations to set up too

Then I think that just as I have LV-N tugs to eject my stuff from the Kerbin system, I should have such a tug for Duna too.

So then I launch all this stuff, get them docked up with their LV-N ferries, etc... and then its just a matter of waiting for the launch window and sending the crew up... but in the meantime.... hey, lets caputre this asteroid... or... maybe I should do a setup like this for laythe.

Hmmm, let me test a good laythe SSTO (must be able to land on rough terrain)...

Well, that launch window isn't for a while, I'll go to moho... its always nearly a launch window for moho.

I do orbital rendevous, with a (small) fuel depot enough for about 4-5 landings, and then depart.... like I should have done for duna.

Well, in some sandbox games, I do the simple "flag and footprints" missions.

[WWEdeadman]

The only thing I haven't been able to do pre-1.0 was build a ship that can launch from Eve, that isn't so huge and laggy by itself that I would literally crash the game if I built a launch stage for it underneath and pressed "launch". The only Eve escape vehicle that I ever took from Eves surface to low Eve Orbit was hyperedited into Eve Orbit from Kerbin instead of getting it there legit. That is more of a "The GAME can't do this, I totally could, if it wouldn't either play at 1 FPS or crash." I haven't been to Eve as of 1.0 yet, so we'll see if it's doable now, because aerodynamics are better, therefore Eve isn't the embodyment of Drag anymore, or if it's gonna be possible once 1.1 on Unity 5 is out, cause that would reduce lag on high part counts.

Anyway, I don't have anything else I consider not doable.

[TARDISES]

I've not even been to the Mun post-beta yet!

[livefree75]

I cannot seem to build a working spaceplane. I follow all that "CoM in front of CoL" stuff, but the plane either swerves off the runway in a huge fireball, reaches the end of the runway then crashes, or doesn't have enough fuel to get to LKO. Even when I fly the stock spaceplanes, I'll be lucky to even get to LKO. If I do, I can't land (I explode during reentry).

[Two]

Still trying to build a reasonable spaceplane. I got a plane, it can fly into space, but as soon as I add any payload, it either won't reach orbit anymore because it is either too slow or too heavy, or it gets so insanely expensive that it is no longer reasonable.