This game...

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

... is unbelievable.  It's invaded my life.  I've been playing less than a week - and when I'm not playing, I'm mulling over problems in my head.  I'm just an average gamer, not a pilot, or even an engineer, and I'm obsessed with this already.  Playing career mode, and solving problems when I don't know what I'm doing is... fun (satisfying?  ...don't know quite the correct word to use here).

 

For the last day and a half I've been trying to hit the contract where I have to test a thumper at suborbital altitude over 180,000 m.  Figured all I had to do was build a big enough rocket to get to that elevation, then light the thumper and aim for home.  First set of attempts never got out of the atmosphere - rockets spun all over the place.  Revert and redesign.  Next set got up to space, but not quite to the altitude required.  I could get to the elevation - but not with a live thumper to test.  Doing this, I tried to fulfill other contracts along the way - but my Kerbonauts kept burning up on reentry.  Shifted focus to try to keep the pod from burning up and fulfill a contract to test the ablation shield - and it dawns on me, I need to control my speed.  Finally used a rocket to slow down my reentry to ensure I hit the 'between x velocity and y velocity" requirement.  It worked.  Kerbils lived.

 

Lightbulb.

 

So, in my Kerbil Kar I drove around performing tests until I could get some bigger rockets - they got me to 190,000 - then used the thumper to slow down (not aim back at the planet) - and lo, and behold; contract complete.  Another rocket to control reentry speed and my pilot walked away from the test.

 

Stupid me forgot to put any science gathering devices on that flight - and later on, I'll refly the mission to gather data.

 

But damnit - I did it.  And the game keeps calling to me.

[problemecium]

Heh.

I had a dream last night wherein I built a huge, awesome space station in KSP. I know that feel, bro.

[InterCity]

Hell, I remember the first time I played KSP, lured in by a friend and thinking it was "kind of stupid". Since then... you know the drill.

Seriously, kids. Don't play KSP. It will infect you, haunt you in sleep and poison your water supply

[cephalo]

Pretty soon you will read news stories about the latest pie in the sky suborbital airliner and be like "Oh yeah, I can build one of those no prob."

[Motokid600]

You know it's bad when every time you pick up a can or bottle you picture flames coming out the bottom.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

When my girlfriend drags me off to the beach I spend more time doodling rocket designs in a notebook than anything else... 

I don't know if it's impressive or sad when you'd rather design pretend space ships instead of oogling pretty girls in bathing suits! Lol.

 

On a more serious note, I totally agree that learning things as you go, trial and error, and an ever expanding list of parts to go with your newly acquired skills is a huge part of what keeps me playing this game for hours on end.

[Wjolcz]

One of us! One of us!

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

The really odd thing is I feel kind of tense getting ready to test something I think is going to work.  And then, in the middle of the flight the phone rings.  I keep telling myself, it's a video game, you can pause it and save it - but IDonWanna!

 

I let my kid and his friends play sandbox - and they're enjoying smashing rockets into things - but I'm trying to keep my little bobble heads alive.  And that isn't always easy.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

17 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

And then, in the middle of the flight the phone rings.

Oh my gawd, tell me about it. Lol.

There is nothing worse than spending hours tweaking and re-tweaking a ship and your carefully designed craft is finally escaping Kerbin, you're biting your nails with anticipation as you manage the most precarious and risky portion of the flight when all of a sudden "BAM!" real life comes along and slaps you in the face.

I don't know about anyone else but when I play Kerbal it isn't for a few minutes at a time. I like to settle in and give it a good couple of hours of my uninterrupted attention, anything less just feels...unsatisfying for some reason?

Edited December 7, 2015 by Rocket In My Pocket
Changed "design" to "ship" because I don't like repetitive sentences! : P

[Enorats]

A tip.. tests don't require that you actually do anything with the part. If I recall the thumper is a SRB.. take all the fuel out so it is light as hell. Launch it up to the required altitude/speed, right click and hit test. If it's an activation through staging contract, just stage it empty.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

8 minutes ago, Enorats said:

A tip.. tests don't require that you actually do anything with the part. If I recall the thumper is a SRB.. take all the fuel out so it is light as hell. Launch it up to the required altitude/speed, right click and hit test. If it's an activation through staging contract, just stage it empty.

This is good to know.

 

In retrospect, I just did not have the lift available to adequately do the test - unlocking the next level of rocketry gave me what I needed to get to that altitude - with a thumper.

[Archgeek]

2 hours ago, InterCity said:

Seriously, kids. Don't play KSP. It will infect you, haunt you in sleep and poison your water supply

With rocket fuel?  

28 minutes ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I don't know about anyone else but when I play Kerbal it isn't for a few minutes at a time. I like to settle in and give it a good couple of hours of my uninterrupted attention, anything less just feels...unsatisfying for some reason?

HeHEhEhAHahehaeHe.  I try to play KSP for a few minutes at a time, intent to just tweak a design, update my notes, and double check some numbers...but then I notice it's uncomfortably close to dawn the next day, and my little sundiver probe is an elaborate beast with enough delta-v to circularize just above the corona. 

[problemecium]

4 hours ago, Enorats said:

A tip.. tests don't require that you actually do anything with the part. If I recall the thumper is a SRB.. take all the fuel out so it is light as hell. Launch it up to the required altitude/speed, right click and hit test. If it's an activation through staging contract, just stage it empty.

To expand on this, "Test X landed / at the launch site" contracts are basically free money because the part doesn't have to actually do any work. For an SRB, for instance, you can set the thrust limiter to 0 and drain out all the fuel, then go to the pad and press space, get full credit for the contract, and then just recover it for 100% return value and no fuel expenses

[Choctofliatrio2.0]

6 hours ago, Motokid600 said:

You know it's bad when every time you pick up a can or bottle you picture flames coming out the bottom.

...I thought I was the only one!!!

Any cylinder-shaped object becomes a rocket to me. I can't even focus on what I'm doing because I'm busy making multistage rockets out of pens.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, parameciumkid said:

To expand on this, "Test X landed / at the launch site" contracts are basically free money because the part doesn't have to actually do any work. For an SRB, for instance, you can set the thrust limiter to 0 and drain out all the fuel, then go to the pad and press space, get full credit for the contract, and then just recover it for 100% return value and no fuel expenses

Figured this out - after testing a rocket full of fuel...  Sigh.

 

On a lighter note - I figured out my suborbital reentry problem.  Where before I was going effectively straight up and straight down (and dying), I managed to create a shallow entry profile and got not only my pilot, but a couple of tourists safely back onto the planet.  Hope I can remember what I did tomorrow - but now it's time to sleep.

[Daid]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

On a lighter note - I figured out my suborbital reentry problem.  Where before I was going effectively straight up and straight down (and dying), I managed to create a shallow entry profile and got not only my pilot, but a couple of tourists safely back onto the planet.  Hope I can remember what I did tomorrow - but now it's time to sleep.

The trick of going to space is not to go up very fast, it's to go sideways so fast that you do not fall down fast enough to hit the planet. Same goes for a good suborbital, as you will have more time to break on the lighter atmosphere.

[Curveball Anders]

13 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

When my girlfriend drags me off to the beach I spend more time doodling rocket designs in a notebook than anything else... 

I don't know if it's impressive or sad when you'd rather design pretend space ships instead of oogling pretty girls in bathing suits! Lol..

Not sure either, but I think your gf likes that you're not oogling (other) pretty girls

But don't tell her about Valentina ...

[katateochi]

I sometimes wish I'd never discovered KSP, so I could discover it all over again! You're making me feel all nostalgic OP! 

[Overland]

kerbal space program..its...

its very good..its given me things that life never has..its also let me drive things other sims would not..

 

its simply wonderful for a great many reasons

Im a train enthusiast..yet most train simulators fail to capture the spirit They should

KSP succeeds in this greatly

an ecosystem of land trains that have mainline units..shunters..electrics..diesels 

real stories that spring up from 

adventures on kerbin.. a landscape of its own lore thats written itself into existance

tales of losses..where the fallen trains and crew are honoured.. 

great successes to be celebrated

every class number has its own story and reason for being and the locomotives themselves almost having a soul like thier realworld railbound sisters

and thats just scratching the surface..

KSP isnt so much a game..its a culture that im proud to be a part of

 

 

 

[swjr-swis]

21 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

But damnit - I did it.  And the game keeps calling to me.

KSP in a nutshell. Welcome to the Klub.

[halbert5150]

When people ask me what KSP is about I tell them, "Its the only game I have ever played that made me smarter."

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

9 hours ago, halbert5150 said:

When people ask me what KSP is about I tell them, "Its the only game I have ever played that made me smarter."

Yeah - I get that.  I'm getting ready to try to figure out how to calculate what rocket might get me where I need to go before I assemble it.

 

Thus far, it's fun to guess, test, revert, etc.  But I anticipate it only gets harder.

 

Thank god for the lines that show reentry profiles.  I'm getting proficient at stretching them out enough to keep my kerbils alive.  Next step... orbit, I guess (but after playing the tutorial a few times, I think I'll be okay).

[RizzoTheRat]

18 hours ago, halbert5150 said:

When people ask me what KSP is about I tell them, "Its the only game I have ever played that made me smarter."

http://xkcd.com/1356/  

 

 

 

I'm jealous though, working away at the moment and won't be home until Christmas eve...and KSP won't run on my tablet.  Seriously considering buying a Surface Pro...

[KerBlammo]

On 12/7/2015, 2:50:20, Motokid600 said:

You know it's bad when every time you pick up a can or bottle you picture flames coming out the bottom.

Oh good its not just me.  Dropped an empty can in the recycling  last night and it was a "staging event"...

[Fisk02]

Please help me... (Sorry for the swedish)

Edited December 9, 2015 by Fisk02