So simple pleasure ...

[Warzouz]

Last week, I was on vacation. I took my wife's new laptop and installed a fresh copy of KSP without any mods. I hadn't played KSP for few month and wanted a quick fix

I took Kerbal-X to a simple landing on Minmus and then, with another flight, on Mun. Both were down in 1 hour, iirc. After all, it's easy to go to Mun or Minmus when you know what to do, (even I had to fight with the unfriendly node handles)

It was a very simple pleasure of calm, peace and contemplation.

That's my definition* of KSP . Thx Squad

* well, on a more game-mission, I would add : learning, ingenuity and pride.

 

[r4pt0r]

What kind of vacation? I need to know if you spent hundreds in order to play ksp on a cruiseship.

Edited March 10, 2016 by r4pt0r

[Kyrt Malthorn]

22 minutes ago, r4pt0r said:

What kind of vacation? I need to know if you spent hundreds in order to play ksp on a cruiseship.

I would.....

With my work schedule conflicting with my insatiable KSP obsession, I so would.

[RizzoTheRat]

Of course it begs the question what is his wife currently posting on another forum, is it:

a) "I took my new laptop with me but he swiped it and spent the entire trip playing games on it"

or

b) "It was great, I just took my laptop along and gave it to him any time I wanted some peace.  It kept him quite for hours."

 

I think my wife would probably be in camp B

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

yes, KSP is very relaxing. I often turn to it after a stressful day.

put on some light classical music, its like 2001 a space odyssey. 

Someone once saw me doing slow careful orbital maneuvers, and said "that takes forever." I said, "If space travel is very exciting, you're doing it wrong."

[rdwulfe]

Space travel, like any adventure, is long periods of pure boredom punctuated by moments of sheer, stark raving terror.

 

(Scuicide burn, oh god oh god, I hope KER calculated this ri---... huh. Guess I hit the button late. Oops. Rescue mission!)

[cubinator]

2 hours ago, Warzouz said:

I took Kerbal-X to a simple landing on Minmus and then, with another flight, on Mun.

Wait...you didn't get back from Mun, right? I'm fairly sure the Kerbal X has enough delta-V to return from Minmus, but not enough for the Mun.

I know the feeling of playing KSP for the first time in a month...it's really nice, to say the least.

[Geher]

2 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Wait...you didn't get back from Mun, right? I'm fairly sure the Kerbal X has enough delta-V to return from Minmus, but not enough for the Mun.

Really? I thought I once flew to the Mün and back with the KerbalX...

[Red Iron Crown]

Lots of simple pleasures in KSP, some things never get old:

- That moment when the docking magnets kick in and pull your ships together
- Completing an orbital insertion and getting a nearly perfectly circular orbit
- A perfectly timed suicide burn where the lander comes to a stop just centimeters above the surface

I smile every time.

[regex]

2 hours ago, Red Iron Crown said:

- That moment when the docking magnets kick in and pull your ships together

I actually have an MM script to disable that in stock, bugs the crap out of me.

My simple pleasure?  A nice, long, easily-tuned RSS launch.  Much more relaxing than the frantic pace of a stock launch trying to compensate for the tiny planet.

[Red Iron Crown]

5 minutes ago, regex said:

I actually have an MM script to disable that in stock, bugs the crap out of me.

In your case then perhaps it should be "That moment when the docking ports successfully engage." Might just be me, but completing a docking successfully is one of KSP's most satisfying things.

[KerbonautInTraining]

9 minutes ago, regex said:

My simple pleasure?  A nice, long, easily-tuned RSS launch.  Much more relaxing than the frantic pace of a stock launch trying to compensate for the tiny planet.

Yes yes and yes.

I absolutely love it how sometimes I can just follow prograde through the atmosphere. Also, those times when the stars align and a super low TWR upper stage makes orbit without going more than 10° above prograde. Feels good man.

Edited March 10, 2016 by KerbonautInTraining

[regex]

5 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

In your case then perhaps it should be "That moment when the docking ports successfully engage." Might just be me, but completing a docking successfully is one of KSP's most satisfying things.

Yes, the moment when the camera shifts is very satisfying.

[steuben]

- blowing off the airstream shells on a satellite during launch.

- a gliding fly of a large lander bus... especially from IVA

[Just Jim]

I hear ya!

There have been several times I've had a miserable day, and later couldn't get the game fired up fast enough so I could hang out on a nice, peaceful space station....

KSP is a great way to relax!!!!

[Warzouz]

4 hours ago, cubinator said:

Wait...you didn't get back from Mun, right? I'm fairly sure the Kerbal X has enough delta-V to return from Minmus, but not enough for the Mun.

I came back from Mun with 500m/s left if I'm not mistaken.

I've retried to check : I'm on a Mun intercept with only the second stage used. It's 2400m/s in the Third stage to Munar maneuver + return. I think that's enough.

EDIT : Landed (manually) with 1360m/s left (even with retake-off due to too steep slope)

Edited March 10, 2016 by Warzouz

[regex]

1 minute ago, Warzouz said:

I came back from Mun with 500m/s left if I'm not mistaken.

I've retried to check : I'm on a Mun intercept with only the second stage used. It's 2400m/s in the Third stage to Munar maneuver + return. I think that's enough.

That's plenty.  You need like, 250~300m/s for insertion burn, @1300m/s for landing/takeoff, and another 300~400m/s for return intercept.  Or something like that, from a poor memory.

[cubinator]

2 hours ago, Warzouz said:

I came back from Mun with 500m/s left if I'm not mistaken.

I've retried to check : I'm on a Mun intercept with only the second stage used. It's 2400m/s in the Third stage to Munar maneuver + return. I think that's enough.

EDIT : Landed (manually) with 1360m/s left (even with retake-off due to too steep slope)

I think it didn't have enough before the atmo overhaul, but now it takes less to get to orbit. I haven't played much with the stock ships in a while.

[AbacusWizard]

9 hours ago, rdwulfe said:

Space travel, like any adventure, is long periods of pure boredom punctuated by moments of sheer, stark raving terror.

 

(Scuicide burn, oh god oh god, I hope KER calculated this ri---... huh. Guess I hit the button late. Oops. Rescue mission!)

 

Hah--the first time I tried a suicide burn (for a landing on Mun, I think), I worked out all the formulas from scratch and made all the calculations to pinpoint exactly when I should turn on the engines so I would come to a complete stop at exactly 0m altitude. I was quite surprised when I crashed into the ground at high speed... and then realized that "0m" didn't mean "ground level." ::headdesk::

Edited March 10, 2016 by AbacusWizard

[samstarman5]

7 hours ago, cubinator said:

I think it didn't have enough before the atmo overhaul, but now it takes less to get to orbit. I haven't played much with the stock ships in a while.

Before atmospherics changed, I read that one could take the Kerbal X as far as landing on the Mun as it is provided. So it might very well be quite possible to return with the X now.

3 hours ago, AbacusWizard said:

 

Hah--the first time I tried a suicide burn (for a landing on Mun, I think), I worked out all the formulas from scratch and made all the calculations to pinpoint exactly when I should turn on the engines so I would come to a complete stop at exactly 0m altitude. I was quite surprised when I crashed into the ground at high speed... and then realized that "0m" didn't mean "ground level." ::headdesk::

It is times like that I wish the altitude display could be toggled to Height-above-Ground. However, it's not hard to switch into IVA for a quick look at the gauge provided in there. Once you see the hand moving on that, you should have a good feel where you are from there. If you can land on the Mun then a bit of simple arithmetic should be no bother.

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, samstarman5 said:

Before atmospherics changed, I read that one could take the Kerbal X as far as landing on the Mun as it is provided. So it might very well be quite possible to return with the X now.

Weird. I don't remember ever having enough fuel to return from the Mun after landing...Maybe Bob packed too many snacks and it was weighed down.

[Warzouz]

5 hours ago, samstarman5 said:

Before atmospherics changed, I read that one could take the Kerbal X as far as landing on the Mun as it is provided. So it might very well be quite possible to return with the X now.

Yes, that must be it. Before 1.0, the dV was 4500m/s. Now it's around 3200m/s. That means KerbalX couldn't get back from the Mun. It may have been possible to get back from Minmus though.

I think that's a good thing that stock game proved a rocket example which is able to go to all Kerbin SOI bodies. I feel that many other stock examples are useless and even don't seems provide any educational value.

[Warzouz]

9 hours ago, AbacusWizard said:

 

Hah--the first time I tried a suicide burn (for a landing on Mun, I think), I worked out all the formulas from scratch and made all the calculations to pinpoint exactly when I should turn on the engines so I would come to a complete stop at exactly 0m altitude. I was quite surprised when I crashed into the ground at high speed... and then realized that "0m" didn't mean "ground level." ::headdesk::

Ah, I had such an experience like that. Sometime you understand something that makes you feel you've understood everything (except oner thing : you're wrong !) and you can do anything... on paper... and miss the obvious.

Here is my story about ego-failure

 

[Diofantos]

The first time i managed to get into orbit around, i didn't have enought fule to land.

So, I decided to return to Kerbin.

I had no idea how to do it, so I did it by trial and error.

A small burn here and there.

No fule left, but my orbit was very close to Kerbin, so I fastforwarded until I was at the closest point to Kerbin and got a gravity assist from the Mun.

Then I got into a very exentric orbit around Kerbin with periapsis just touching the atmosphere.

8 hours later (irl at maximum fastforwarding), I landed at Kerbin.

My most boring mission, but somehow it felt good.

And no, I didn't sit by my computer wating the entire time.

[wibou7]

On 3/10/2016 at 8:49 AM, Red Iron Crown said:

- A perfectly timed suicide burn where the lander comes to a stop just centimeters above the surface

I smile every time.

 

You are right, I really smiled that one time.

All the rescue missions the other times were fun too