Learning Curve

[selfish_meme]

I think the kind of person who likes this game is someone who enjoys building and creating, researching and learning and also likes a bit of cartoonery mischief and has a bit of a stubborn streak. I have seen everyone from history nuts to astronauts play this game. Mechanical Engineering, Aeronautical Engineering, Mad inventions, Crazy Funny Parodies, Serious Rockety NASA science type stuff, you can do it all, the game has amazing depth. I have been playing for many years and many others have been playing even longer. For the money it is probably the best value game on the market if not ever.

[Red Shirt]

Go to the Kerbal store, get the demo for free. Launch a few rockets. The first few may not make it off the launchpad before they explode. Others will take off and then do somersaults before veering off course and exploding. Eventually you'll reach space, fall back into the atmosphere, and explode in a ball of flames. If you keep trying you will, eventually, get a really sloppy and not very circular orbit. You should feel a real sense of accomplishment. Of course then you'll realize you forgot chutes and solar panels. If this is your idea of fun, quit worrying about the learning curve, buy the full version, and welcome to the Kerbal addiction (One of us! One of us!) The folks on this forum are mostly harmless and willing to help.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Red Shirt

[Dunbaratu]

The parts I needed the most help on and where the learning curve was the hardest were not the 'rocket science' stuff like "you have to turn to the side when taking off, not go straight up" and "you want to enter the atmosphere at a shallow angle, not come straight down" and so on.  Those you can know at least in a non-mathy intuitive way just by being a fan of space stuff and watching enough videos of the real thing.

 

The really hard part was the game's user interface not *telling* you how it works.  The tutorial helped a little but it doesn't tell you everything about where you click to do what.  Knowing real-world orbital stuff doesn't help you know, for example, that while you *can't* click the navball's 'RCS' indicator to turn on RCS because it's done by keyboard instead, that same logic does NOT apply to changing the mode from orbital to surface to target.  For that you *DO* click the navball to do it.  It's lots of UI "secrets" like that that make it impossible to learn everything in-game.  Heck, until I saw a video on it, I never knew there *was* a target-relative mode option on the navball, which made docking super hard as I was doing it by eyeball not knowing that option existed.

 

Other examples of this include:  Not knowing that you can rcs translate with IJKLHN instead of using the 'docking mode' option.  Not knowing there's a secret hidden menu underneath the altimeter for recovery and abort.  (I thought you had to do it from the tracking center after landing.)  Not knowing you can lock the camera to a ship-relatve view (which makes docking and landing a lot easier).

 

What the game really could use is one of those old-school keyboard template cheat-sheets like flight simulators used to come with - print it out and leave it by the side of your computer in view when playing.  The keybindings screen on the settings panel isn't good enough because you can only see it when NOT playing.

 

[Temeter]

4 hours ago, bradwiggo said:

Is it possible to learn this game by only playing it and doing the tutorials, no looking things up on the internet?

And does it have fiddly controls?

Well, learning the game isn't a hindrance in KSP, it's a central parnt of the game.

At this point I can do things in KSP in 5 mins, which took me 6 hours the first time I tried them. So yeah, learning works pretty well. Controls are a bit fiddly during complex maneuvers like docking, but rather straightforward otherwise. It's also possible to learn the game without the internet, while it helps to look up stuff. And at some point you really want to use a Delta-V calculator like Kerbal Engineer.

Otherwise, you can get really far by yourself.

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, Pecan said:

Career mode adds ALL sorts of complications that you really, really don't want if you're learning what the parts do.  Start with science mode, where you have similar part-restrictions but don't have to worry about money, reputation and - especially - (mission) contracts.

This right here is the single best advice in this thread. Science mode starts you with very few parts and you get to play with those with no real detriment. If you turn off permadeath (which I think is off by default?) then your Kerbals even come back when you blow them up.

I strongly suggest doing the tutorials, starting up an "easy" run (note, it's just as hard as normal and hard mode. You are playing the same game, you just get more rewards for doing things so you can progress faster) of Science mode, and then whenever you get stuck do a search online for that specific thing you're stuck on.

And yes, being great at the game isn't the goal. It's the process. Once you can do absolutely everything, there's not much else to do

Edited December 16, 2015 by 5thHorseman

[sgt_flyer]

after getting started and learning the mechanics (before most of the recent tutorials were even in) the ksp wiki and some videos proved really valuable to learn  - now that i know those mechanics, it has become quite straightforward - but it still took quite some time to be effective

now has i like technology, i love to go and try find all sorts of technical infos about real rockets / spacecrafts to try to replicate them ingame - but doing replicas as faithful as possible with the game stock parts and stock limitations is a challenge on it's own

 

[Pecan]

1 hour ago, Steven Mading said:

What the game really could use is one of those old-school keyboard template cheat-sheets like flight simulators used to come with - print it out and leave it by the side of your computer in view when playing.  The keybindings screen on the settings panel isn't good enough because you can only see it when NOT playing.

 

Like this http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/23083-10x-ksp-keyboard-map-v25-old-school-gaming-aug-5/ ?

[GoSlash27]

Yes, KSP has a steep learning curve if you want to succeed at it. A *very* steep learning curve. How frustrating it is will depend on how much you enjoy learning or how much you enjoy watching stuff explode. If you like explosions, there is no learning curve and you will have a good time right from the start because you'll *for sure* be making lots of explosions.

If you like learning, you will have a really good time because there's a huge amount to learn. KSP is basically rocket science.

If you're not a fan of either, well...this probably isn't going to be a game you'll enjoy very much.

Best,

-Slashy

[Dunbaratu]

5 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I strongly suggest doing the tutorials, starting up an "easy" run (note, it's just as hard as normal and hard mode. You are playing the same game, you just get more rewards for doing things so you can progress faster) of Science mode,

That's not true.  The reason they are not the same difficulty is that with the smaller rewards for successes that the harder difficulties give out, your space program can't tolerate as many failures per success before you run out of money and have to abandon the career.  In easy mode you can tolerate far more failed attempts per success before you run out of cash.  Now an argument could be made that Easy and Normal are the same if you use the revert flight option thus bypassing this issue altogether, but you also extended that claim to Hard mode too, where it is definitely false because one of the options Hard mode turns on is the no-reverting-flights option.

 

Edited December 17, 2015 by Steven Mading

[Dunbaratu]

4 hours ago, Pecan said:

Like this http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/23083-10x-ksp-keyboard-map-v25-old-school-gaming-aug-5/ ?

That's perfect.  Yes, that's what would be most useful for new players.  No amount of knowledge of how real world space flight works is going to teach you what the game's controls are and how the game's UI works.  You might be a total science nerd who knows how to calculate a Hohmann transfer, and how constant altitude burn landings work, and none of that is going to teach you that to change from orbital to surface-relative velocity readout you can click the navball's display label that totally just looks like just a passive display label and not a control button at all.

 

[Superfluous J]

22 minutes ago, Steven Mading said:

That's not true.  The reason they are not the same difficulty is that with the smaller rewards for successes that the harder difficulties give out, your space program can't tolerate as many failures per success before you run out of money and have to abandon the career.  In easy mode you can tolerate far more failed attempts per success before you run out of cash.  Now an argument could be made that Easy and Normal are the same if you use the revert flight option thus bypassing this issue altogether, but you also extended that claim to Hard mode too, where it is definitely false because one of the options Hard mode turns on is the no-reverting-flights option.

 

No reverts is a bad idea with all the crashes and bugs in the game. I wouldn't suggest it to anybody, and especially not a new player.

[nosirrbro]

Yes, yes it most certainly does. You will have a difficult time getting into it, and many people peter off at this point, letting it collect virtual dust on their desktop, and I hope you pull through and get past it, as its very, very rewarding and fun once you've climed the learning curve and have reahed the mild slope of intermediet-ness.

[OhioBob]

1 hour ago, Steven Mading said:

No amount of knowledge of how real world space flight works is going to teach you what the game's controls are and how the game's UI works.  You might be a total science nerd who knows how to calculate a Hohmann transfer, and how constant altitude burn landings work, and none of that is going to teach you that to change from orbital to surface-relative velocity readout you can click the navball's display label that totally just looks like just a passive display label and not a control button at all.

 

That was my situation when I started playing.  Even though I knew rocketry and orbital mechanics quite well, there was still a learning curve just to get familiar with the UI and the in-game tools.  For instance, I probably played for a month before I learned about these things called maneuver nodes.

[Dunbaratu]

4 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

No reverts is a bad idea with all the crashes and bugs in the game. I wouldn't suggest it to anybody, and especially not a new player.

I agree.  Its' just that "no reverts" is part of what it means to say you're playing on hard difficulty, so the claim that easy, medium, and hard are no more difficult than each other and it's just a matter of how much grinding you tolerate just isn't true.  If you set it to hard mode, but then click the checkbox to re-enable reverts, then what you have gets called "custom" difficulty at that point, and is no longer correct to call that the hard difficulty setting.  I didn't want a new player to make the mistake of believing what you said, and therefore thinking there's not much reason to bother avoiding hard setting.

 

[Pecan]

49 minutes ago, Steven Mading said:

I agree.  Its' just that "no reverts" is part of what it means to say you're playing on hard difficulty, so the claim that easy, medium, and hard are no more difficult than each other and it's just a matter of how much grinding you tolerate just isn't true.  If you set it to hard mode, but then click the checkbox to re-enable reverts, then what you have gets called "custom" difficulty at that point, and is no longer correct to call that the hard difficulty setting.  I didn't want a new player to make the mistake of believing what you said, and therefore thinking there's not much reason to bother avoiding hard setting.

 

He - and I - said Science mode!  You can't run out of money because there isn't any.  Without money 'no reverts' doesn't really have any effect, since you'd have to re-launch a failed mission anyway.  The biggest 'hard' in science mode is no quicksave/load, which means you can't, for instance, quicksave in orbit and just practice re-entry/landings from that point by quickloading again.  Instead you have to start again from launch which is a whole bundle of frustration (especially if you were practicing landing on Eeloo ^^).

[Blaf]

16 hours ago, bradwiggo said:

Is it possible to learn this game by only playing it and doing the tutorials, no looking things up on the internet?

And does it have fiddly controls?

Yes, it definitely is. While checking tips on internet might help you get things up quicker, you can realize how to do these things using common sense. It's still a game, not a rocket science simulator

[Dunbaratu]

39 minutes ago, Pecan said:

He - and I - said Science mode!

I never played science mode after proper career mode existed.  I didn't realize the game bothered with having an easy, normal, and hard when playing science mode.  So I thought it was 5 modes, in increasing order of difficulty: Sandbox, Science, Career/easy, Career/normal, Career/hard.  That the mere act of stating "easy mode" automatically implies career mode.  Sorry then I misunderstood how the settings I never use work.  So yeah if that's how it works, then yeah having the tech tree limiting the baffling array of parts to read though, but without the money worries would be the easiest way for a new player to learn

 

Edited December 17, 2015 by Steven Mading

[lodger]

1 hour ago, Pecan said:

  The biggest 'hard' in science mode is no quicksave/load, which means you can't, for instance, quicksave in orbit and just practice re-entry/landings from that point by quickloading again.  Instead you have to start again from launch which is a whole bundle of frustration (especially if you were practicing landing on Eeloo ^^).

Um, I play science mode all the time and I *do* have quicksave/load. Are you sure this is still  valid for versions 1.0.0 and higher (I remember using quicksave/load in science mode even in 0.90)?

Edited December 17, 2015 by lodger

[Pecan]

8 minutes ago, lodger said:

Um, I play science mode all the time and I *do* have quicksave/load. Are you sure this still relates to versions 1.0.0 and higher (I remember using quicksave/load in science mode even in 0.90)?

That would be because you didn't pick the 'Difficulty Options' at the bottom of the 'Start New' screen and then select 'Hard' or otherwise disallow quickload,
It's allowed by default.  People who have way too much time on their hands can turn it off, if they wish.
 

Edited December 17, 2015 by Pecan

[lodger]

2 minutes ago, Pecan said:

That would be because you didn't pick the 'Difficulty Options' at the bottom of the 'Start New' screen and then select 'Hard' or otherwise disallow quickload,  It's allowed by default.

Aaah, I see. Didn't know that this is the case since I chose 'Normal' when I started my 1.0.x game. See, even after a year of playing I still consider myself a 'noob'.

Edited December 17, 2015 by lodger

[Pecan]

3 minutes ago, lodger said:

Aaah, I see. Didn't know that this is the case since I chose 'Normal' when I started my 1.0.x game. See, even after a year of playing I still consider myself a 'noob'.

Your 1.0.x game?  Singular?  Noob!  (teasing, in case the tone doesn't come across in text)

I have two installs of 1.0.5, one of 1.0.4 (compatibiity check) and one of the demo (testing).  In each except the demo there are about 5 games, generally 3 sandbox and 1 each of career and science.  No idea how many saves there are within each game ^^.

[stenole]

It's hard to judge how steepthe learning curve is for another person. The game itself is very simple. Put a pod, some fuel and an engine on the launch pad and you are ready to go. Trial and error gets you pretty far. If you ever get stuck in the game and you can't figure it out yourself, you will end up looking it up and learning just enough to defeat the problem at hand. 

[KSK]

18 hours ago, bradwiggo said:

is this game fun when you aren't an expert?

Absolutely! Becoming an expert (or learning to play at least) is most of the fun in my opinion. It's not easy but that just makes success all the sweeter - however far along the learning curve you are. KSP is one of the very few games I've played where achievements really do feel like something worthy of the name.

The first time I landed on the Mún, I didn't need a little pop-up window to congratulate me on my achievement. I knew exactly how big a deal it was and what I'd had to learn to do to get there. Taking Jeb down the lander (which I'd designed, built and flown to the Mún myself), watching him step out onto the surface and then take that first great low-gravity leap was the best moment of my gaming life bar none.

Although watching two docked spacecraft drifting around Kerbin together for the very first time, came pretty close. And for that matter, watching my first successful orbital craft soaring over mountains and grasslands and deserts - and seeing the huge goofy grin on the face of my little kerbal pilot - that came pretty close too. Like I said - it doesn't really matter how far along the learning curve you are.

It makes the 'achievements' found in other games look awfully hollow. "Hey - you've collected 350 bat spleens - congratulations!" Umm, yeah - thanks.

Edited December 17, 2015 by KSK

[lodger]

23 minutes ago, KSK said:

Absolutely! Becoming an expert (or learning to play at least) is most of the fun in my opinion. It's not easy but that just makes success all the sweeter - however far along the learning curve you are. KSP is one of the very few games I've played where achievements really do feel like something worthy of the name.

The first time I landed on the Mún, I didn't need a little pop-up window to congratulate me on my achievement. I knew exactly how big a deal it was and what I'd had to learn to do to get there. Taking Jeb down the lander (which I'd designed, built and flown to the Mún myself), watching him step out onto the surface and then take that first great low-gravity leap was the best moment of my gaming life bar none.

Although watching two docked spacecraft drifting around Kerbin together for the very first time, came pretty close. And for that matter, watching my first successful orbital craft soaring over mountains and grasslands and deserts - and seeing the huge goofy grin on the face of my little kerbal pilot - that came pretty close too. Like I said - it doesn't really matter how far along the learning curve you are.

It makes the 'achievements' found in other games look awfully hollow. "Hey - you've collected 350 bat spleens - congratulations!" Umm, yeah - thanks.

Excellent description of the gaming experience. No matter wether you are a rocket scientist or the average gamer: the pride you feel once a mission is completed successfully is something that motivates you to go further, try new designs etc. - you will never grow tired of the endless possibillities.

[Warzouz]

I agree that science game mode is the best for beginners. You can slowly learn the game core mechanics (building and flying) without additional unrelated constraints (contracts, money, strategies, experience).

Sandbox has too much parts to start with, it's useful for designing and testing.

Career game mode is nice for a second game. It adds nice new features.

 

I also agree with the very steep learning curve (a learning wall indeed ; nice one). KSP is a hard game, but rewarding, when you succeed in what you had planned !

 

I remember someone said : "In KSP, if you don't know what you are doing, you'll surely fail" (I think it's Scott Manley).

To play KSP, you need to look at some tutorial videos, read some nicely written tutorial posts on this forum, use some external tools and eventually use some mods as well.

In other words : do only when you understand what to do. Lucky guesses are heavily subject to Murphy's law.

 

Edited December 17, 2015 by Warzouz