Why Do You Keep Coming Back To KSP?

[NeoMorph]

Personally I find I think up problems at the weirdest times and have to dive into KSP to see if I can do them. When I say problems I mean things like "How can I make a flight on the SLIMMEST of margins and still make it home".

I find I come up with ideas at the worst possible times. I will be watching a TV show (I record all mine because of what happens) and suddenly I have an idea for a new space tug... or I will think of a way to make a better launch vehicle and I have to go and try it... It happens when I'm reading, when I am getting something to eat (heaven help me if I am eating a hot meal because I have to force myself to finish it before heading back to KSP) etc, etc.

It's almost like an addiction... No... It IS an addiction. I just love the freedom in this game. Part of me wishes I had been fit enough to be an astronaut... but this is the closest I will get to enjoying space.

Sometimes I hate Squad for making this game heh.

[Dafni]

(heaven help me if I am eating a hot meal because I have to force myself to finish it before heading back to KSP)

hahaha, I know exactly what you are talking about!

[Just Jim]

Oh thank the gods, I'm not the only one.... lol....

[Zargg]

but this is the closest I will get to enjoying space.

This! Oh how I wish I could go to space...

Also after playing so long and having the understanding of the physics and orbital mechanics makes playing feel like an art form. Like its so easy and natural now but it was hard to do at first that it is so satisfying to be able to do it. Now doing a mission easily is like painting a beautiful picture of space travel in my mind. You know, you set up that perfect maneuver node exactly like you want and say out loud "BEAUTIFUL!".

[Red Shirt]

I have never been much of a game player. In general I get bored with video games in a hurry, especially the point and shoot ones. KSP is the first game that has ever grabbed my imagination and my brain. I am constantly being challenged to learn outside the game to be able to play more efficiently within it. Design. Build. Fail. Redesign and try again. When I finally succeed it seems bigger than just a game. Then there is the visual beauty that at times is nearly breathtaking. I have often experienced the feeling I am actually exploring an alien world.

[TimePeriod]

I hardly play KSP anymore, thou the community keeps my interest. I see something on the forum and get intrigued by its creation, then proceed back into KSP and figure out a way to integrate it into my current KSP game.

[Tanner Rawlings]

So I can make my cargo plane Carry just 5 more tonnes

[Alshain]

Back? I never left.

[RocketBlam]

Because it is an interesting game and there is just nothing else like it.

[Overland]

its truely turned evil for me I cant exactly escape it.. I live 3 hours from work so trains are my second home 3 hours each way.. of course I see alot of trains of many different kinds.. the creative ideas start flowing (including a semi workable steam piston idea) and suddenly when im home its into KSC to construct the latest idea..

The elcano challenge is worst though its given everything a purpose.. nothings ever finished... goals never reached.. always trying and the problem with that is..

well... like last month.. I got out of bed on weekend.. did 10 minutes of KSP... looked out the window.. its not today anymore and tomorrow is work.. ugh

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

What do you mean with "coming back"? I never left since I startet 2500hours ago

[InterCity]

KSP is like a black hole. Even if you don't fall directly into it, you'll be forever making close passes around the center at insane speeds.

OT: It's a good way to kill time.

[AndyMt]

It's hard to explain... Each time this music starts playing when your vessel escapes the atmosphere... Little green aliens jumping around in their cute space-suits ... that's the moments I forget about real live and am in the middle of my dreams. Strange...

I'm adicted to it and I know it - but I don't care.

[milosh]

Usually when I don't have any other games to play or when a new update arrives I fire up KSP and play for some weeks or months, then put it aside again until the next time. Clocked over 300 hours this way over the past 3 years, best 20-something $ I've ever spent on a game.

[FyunchClick]

As a kid I think I was addicted to legos, and it usually didn't stay put together as per the box instructions for a long time. I think Kerbal probably has the same kind of attraction, a wide range of components and no really strict rules as to how you put them together, but strict limits to what each can do and handle. Combine that with a pretty strict set of rules with regards to physics, and you've got a perfect environment to keep challenging your wild designs against.

Comparing it to spore, a game I was super hyped about when it game out but gave up after not long after unlocking the UFO, it allowed you to combine all sorts of components in imaginative ways with little constriction, but the lack of interesting possibilities and restrictions with those components it just lacked an interesting challenge.

Well, that and the fact that I don't know any other game that has thought me so much about the physics of planets and space travel, as in I'd had the courses at school and new about the laws of gravity and the make-up of the solar system, but Kerbal gave me an intuitive understanding of the surprisign way they play out (such as that getting to orbit is hard, but Jool is only slightly more difficult than getting to the Mun).

[Vermil]

When I originally got KSP, I started a sandbox game (career mode didn't exist then, I think) and fooled around.

I didn't accomplish much and didn't get much wiser. I wasn't sure KSP was anything.

Then for some reason, maybe not a full year later, but much later, I checked it out again and started a 'Science Sandbox' game.

Then I looked stupidly on the few primitive parts available and was suddenly struck: "OMG! I'm Robert Goddard/Werner von Braun!"

Since then, there was always a goal driving me. Get a rocket higher. Get a Kerbal into space. Get a Kerbal into orbit. Visit a moon. Land on a moon... And achieving each goal gave me a tremendous kick.

The last driving goal was land (and return) Kerbals on Laythe. It took a long time achieving that. I've spent months, literally months, developing the rocket ship. At times, having to change and rebuild, test again, I was thoroughly tired of it all, frustrated, not really enjoying it, but still driven by the big goal.

Right now I don't have any such big goal any longer. There's nothing really attractive on the radar. I'm tentatively planning for Eve, sort of. But I'm not really driven anymore. So while I've gone back to enjoying playing, I don't know how long it will last. I'm hoping for some additions and changes to the Kerbol solar system.

Maybe I'll try career mode. Don't think so though.