Is it true that most KSP players never go interplanetary?

[Guest]

Just now, Corw said:

How can you live without Precise Node? How?!

I know, right?  I'm even the original author...

@herbal space program doesn't seem to use it either but, like I said, there is a minority of players around here that actually like the default node editor despite its flaws.  It's intuitive and does its job admirably, despite the imprecision and difficulty using it without panning the camera around awkwardly.

[stratvox]

16 minutes ago, regex said:

I know, right?  I'm even the original author...

@herbal space program doesn't seem to use it either but, like I said, there is a minority of players around here that actually like the default node editor despite its flaws.  It's intuitive and does its job admirably, despite the imprecision and difficulty using it without panning the camera around awkwardly.

One thing that's awesome about PreciseNode is the "intuitive normal/anti-normal handle" behaviour. Makes doing inclination changes a breeze and as efficient as can be.

[Terwin]

20 hours ago, Auriga_Nexus said:

Since then I've been trying to perfect a semi-permanent base on Minmus using Planetary Base mods and EPL. The idea is to construct interplanetary ships at a station around Minmus using rocketparts provided by the ground base which is a refinery and manufacturing center. Once constructed, these ships can easily break Minmus orbit, slingshot around Kerbin, and escape to the planet of choice with minimal fuel expenditure.

Unfortunately, the part counts and mods required for all of this meant this was pretty much impossible pre-1.1.0... and all of my attempts at playing post 1.1.0 have ended in CTD's followed by rage quit. I've pretty much given up on KSP since. If I ever get the chance to play again, I'm fairly sure I can make my plans come to fruition easily...

For colonization I like RoverDudes USI colonization mods, as they will automatically transfer resources between storage facilities that are reasonably close without needing to actually connect everything(which seems to be kraken bait)

But for a highly efficient launch from Minmus, I find launching my interplanetary ship with just enough fuel to land safely on Minmus where I top it off using ISRU to be a highly effective approach(especially since I use ISRU for just about all of my interplanetary trips aside from the initial scanning probes, so I already have all the parts)  

[MarkWatney]

Going interplanetary is a bit of pain as you need to plan a lot more dompared to going to Minmus. But interplanetary is still fun

[livefree75]

I've crash-landed on Eve, Dres, Laythe, and Duna, and landed and returned from Duna twice. I'm currently working on a 3rd Duna land-and-return mission. (Started playing in May 2014)

[Corw]

3 hours ago, regex said:

I know, right?  I'm even the original author...

@herbal space program doesn't seem to use it either but, like I said, there is a minority of players around here that actually like the default node editor despite its flaws.  It's intuitive and does its job admirably, despite the imprecision and difficulty using it without panning the camera around awkwardly.

Oh, yeah, I knew there were more reasons I liked you That is amazing.

[ShawnPhillips]

I have gone interplanetary 3 times. Twice with unlimited fuel cheat, and the third time I ran out of fuel before I could establish Duna orbit. So I turned on unlimited fuel and crashed into Duna.

[LayZboy]

As some-one who's only been to duna twice, the jool system on a flyby lolprobe i didn't expect to get there and that planet closest to the sun but got stuck there, the biggest issue I have is how you (in stock) just have to eyeball if you have a transfer window and that's really only if you've seen a youtube video on how to do it. Without the video and next to no knowledge of how to go interplanetary I guess the only way to maybe get an intercept would be to drag out the poopy maneuver node all year till it gets a hit, and that's far too much time to do that even with time warps.

Maybe there is a tutorial for now, but when I played and learned how to do it there was none so I can only judge on what my experiences where like. I could download mods to make it more clear, but I've moved onto other games instead.

[Superfluous J]

38 minutes ago, Corw said:

there is a minority of players around here that actually like the default node editor despite its flaws.  It's intuitive and does its job admirably, despite the imprecision and difficulty using it without panning the camera around awkwardly

I have precisenode installed and use the default node 90% of the time. I only use the actual precise part of precisenode to ... well ... be precise.

And to put an orbit far into the future. Because there is no good way in stock to get an orbit 100 (or 1000, or more than a dozen or so) orbits ahead of time.

Or one orbit back in certain situations where you'd almost NEVER want the orbit the game forces on you (The next one after an encounter).

Yeah. I <3 PreciseNode.

[ExavierMacbeth]

I think my best has ever been a flyby of Duna in the 1k hours i have put into the game.

Though the reason for my limitation has been mostly mod/performance rated. Either The game got a new update frequently enough to break all my mods (causing a career restart) or I ran smack into the memory/processing limitations of the old 32bit versions because anything I tried to design for interplanetary use was massively over-engineered.

Now that I have 64bit I have a game almost to minmus reach which I am hoping to finally push for USI interplanetary colonization

[scola_p]

For me, as I mainly play career, I don't like having my space programme doing nothing. I don't have bills to pay, but I play like I do, so I am always doing something. This makes to "warp till you get there" option difficult to fit in.

That being said, my 1.1 career, now all my mods are back, has kindly not presented me with any missions I want to do, so I have probed Duna and Ike, flown by Moho at around 5kps and now I am about to get my first manned craft to Duna. And it is so satisfying. 

I may have to adjust my play style and stop spamming the orbital station and move satellite missions.

[herbal space program]

6 hours ago, scola_p said:

For me, as I mainly play career, I don't like having my space programme doing nothing. I don't have bills to pay, but I play like I do, so I am always doing something. This makes to "warp till you get there" option difficult to fit in.

That being said, my 1.1 career, now all my mods are back, has kindly not presented me with any missions I want to do, so I have probed Duna and Ike, flown by Moho at around 5kps and now I am about to get my first manned craft to Duna. And it is so satisfying. 

I may have to adjust my play style and stop spamming the orbital station and move satellite missions.

Before career mode existed, I also used to play guided by the notion that everything should be done in as little Kerbal time as possible. It was a way of making the game more goal-oriented for me, and it introduced the interesting (to me, anyway) challenge of juggling as many parallel missions as possible. I still did interplanetary missions, but I had to keep track of time so I wouldn't miss the transfer windows between maintaining all my other missions. When actual career mode came along, I was kind of disappointed that there was no element of minimizing Kerbal time included.  I must admit though that when I brought up the idea here a while back of having some sort of time-dependent money burn in the game, like annual rent for the KSC, it was roundly rejected, and I think somebody even went so far as to troll-rate the thread . So I guess the devs made the right decision to leave that out, but I still kind of wish it was there.

[Pecan]

19 hours ago, LayZboy said:

...Maybe there is a tutorial for now, but when I played and learned how to do it there was none so I can only judge on what my experiences where like...

No idea what version you first learnt in but there have LONG been tutorials on interplanetary.  Did you read stuff in http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/forum/50-tutorials/ or (I'm joking) live up to your name?

[PB666]

I have a base on mojo, from there there is no window lomgervthan fifety days. It requires a space station around moho to link stuff together to get out of the gravity hole, saves alot of time though. 

[Bev7787]

I rarely go interplanetary on my stock save- I spend far too much time messing around in RSS. So I've been to Eve and Duna in stock, and Mars, Jupiter and Venus in RSS. 

[pasukaru76]

I usually go interplanetary as soon as I have unlocked the Skipper, which is powerful enough as a first stage engine to launch unmanned probes to anywhere. I normally don't bother with anything inside Kerbin's SOI after that.

[tater]

In stock you can launch probes anywhere with 1.25m parts.

[pasukaru76]

11 minutes ago, tater said:

In stock you can launch probes anywhere with 1.25m parts.

True, I just find the Skipper to be a lot more convenient, as the first stage of my launchers becomes very simple, with no staging involved until LKO is achieved.

[MagicFireCaster]

On 17/5/2016 at 3:14 AM, p1t1o said:

 

I don't know if it is, much. Mostly the difference is in time, which can be easily skipped past. I think it is more of a psychological barrier than real extra effort, the other planets *seem* a lot further away but when you can accelerate time by 100,000x that becomes moot (and the required manouvres are largely the same as compared to a Mun/Minmus trip well), but not to the mind. Nobody really likes to have their virtual space centre to be "abandoned" for several years whilst a planetary transfer is skipped through, or at least I don't. Make any sense?

I usually skip that time with some intervals to check is there is any other contract for the planet i'm going to visit or get some pocket funds doing quick missions on kerbin SOI.

[ajburges]

Figured I'd put my 2 cents here.

My Kerbin operations always wind up being a huge time sink so 3 RL months can pass before 1 Kerbin month. KAC allows me to create a lot of overhead.

I have yet to get a career mission interplanetary because I alway end the career save early. When I return from a prolonged break, there's been a patch that invalidates my career somehow. I am currently holding off starting a new game because I'm waiting on the stock communications. I fear that will cause the RUD of a working space program.

I have simulated (sandbox) flying Duna mining space plane for the first transfer window of my 1.0.2 career before I abandoned it.

Hopefully, my 1.2 career will try run fewer arbitrary missions. However, between contract rejection penalties and stock communications, it doesn't look good.

[toric5]

i havent been anywhere other than duna since .19. the main reason is that i really dont like timewarping more than a month or so in game, now ive installed UKS and am planning a jool expedition, but the transfer window isnt for 6 years.

[LayZboy]

18 hours ago, Pecan said:

No idea what version you first learnt in but there have LONG been tutorials on interplanetary.  Did you read stuff in http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/forum/50-tutorials/ or (I'm joking) live up to your name?

 

Ah perhaps I should have been more clear, there was no in-game tutorials on how to do it, nothing of any kind really. I have no doubt there was probably some external tutorials about it, but I felt at the time that the game should have probably given some kind of idea about one of it's core mechanics rather than nothing at all. I'm a pretty casual player though and didn't really care enough to look for external sources.

[Knaapie]

I only see 3 main reasons here:

• the possible rewards don't seem to be sufficient to go there. (there is nothing to do on other bodies, kinda like irl )
• players restrict themselves with preferred play styles or the time they like to spend on a game. 
• It seems to be the first learning curve small jump, which cannot be overcome by trial and error. For the first time in the game, you need to know what you are doing.

Ow and perhaps the docking, yet this isn't mandatory to go to other planets.

I personally don't understand most of the motivations behind most posts, because I was totally fascinated and hooked after being lost in space. How do we overcome this challenge and save my Kerbalnauts. I quickly did my research and found out you can go interplanetary without http://ksp.olex.biz . Just first leave Kerbin SOI and go from there.  It just uses a bit more dV and time, but is not too hard, since you can drag maneuver nodes to get your intercept, Just like finding your Minmus transfer. The psychological barrier to take this risk seems to be pretty high.

Imo the only thing the game can do is to motivate ppl to explore. Make the bodies more rewarding to visit. And have Gene or Wernher pop up a few days before any transfer window (ofc with the option to shut him up   ) I should give credits to the one who had already proposed this, but I can't seem to find the post, sorry.

Edited May 22, 2016 by Knaapie

[ValleyTwo]

I rarely go interplanetary.  Yes, I use mods and whenever we get a new version of KSP I need to wait for the updated mods and sometimes they break things.  And yes sometimes the new versions destroy my space stations.  And all that - but the biggest reason is the only reason to put a base on Ike to mine ore is to produce fuel there to supply ships that do....what?  Put a colony on Duna?  Don't need a base on Ike - don't need that much fuel unless I plan to make Duna into a massive tourist base and...why?  It looks nice - always been a fan of the real Mars - but in game there really isn't a reason - outside of role play - to spend fuel and time and organization all those ships and test all that equipment to collect a few minutes worth of science.  Robotic craft could do the same thing (but for the collecting of rocks) without needing so much space for pilots and crew. 

I would love to put a long term colony on Duna, which I will do, once the game has MechJeb-level computers and some kind of Kerbal alarm clock and maybe life support.  Otherwise....I have become a casual player.    And casual players stay need home.

[hurric]

I thought going interplanetary was the whole point of KSP

I was put on to KSP about six months ago and started strait off in career mode

I did a few Mun & Minmus landings docking etc and when I thought I was ready I started a new game

 

I have large fully equipped rovers on Mun Minmus Ike Duna & Moho, in orbit I have crew recovery vessels waiting to pick the kerbals up when needed & very large space stations around all the above places

I also have Six ships on the way to Jool and all the moons, each ship is a space station with a very large rover and recovery vessel all in one ... they will be split up when they get there

 

I also have a Rover and Space station on the way to Eeloo

 

The largest ship I have made was the Duna Monster over 900 parts and nearly 800 tons ... that took a lot of launches and loads of very carefull docking of very large parts

 

Right now I am operating the Jool (edit) Moho Rover .... Jool Moho is one horrible planet full of mountains and deep valleys ...you have been warned

 

My next launch window is for Gilly as I have a mission there

 

So far I have 232 missions under my belt and 32 flights going on at the moment and 14 contracts under way

43 kerbals assigned and 5 ready for the next mission .... all my kerbals are grade 3 and 4 are grade 4

 

This is probably the very best do what you want and go everywhere you can game ever written

 

I have the launch window thingy and the speech mod ...everything else is stock game

Edited May 22, 2016 by hurric
added eeloo ships inlist