Is it true that most KSP players never go interplanetary?

[Van Disaster]

On 23/05/2016 at 2:29 PM, Waxing_Kibbous said:

I'll just add another turn off for going interplanetary that I experienced were the very long burn times for the nuke engine. I'm not sure how people do burns over 5 minutes, let alone 20 minutes and up.

Missed this the first time round - just use hold to node ( or something like MJ that will hold course for you ) & do something else while it burns. If you're burning out of Kerbin orbit you probably don't *want* to be doing 20 min burns anyway - burn a few mins, let the craft do an orbit & burn again at peri. That's even more complicated, but going places in a complicated fashion is what the game is for, no? that's one reason I despise the stock maneuver nodes, trying to set up a complicated transfer involving extra bodies on the way is so frustrating without node mods I just don't want to do it.

The other thing is, you don't have to use nukes just be thankful you never tried with the old weaker ions, that's definitely something you don't feel like doing more than once... also there are mods with larger nukes, I used one with some really nice 2.5m sized ( and extremely heavy ) engines for many versions.

Edited May 25, 2016 by Van Disaster

[Brainlord Mesomorph]

On 5/23/2016 at 9:29 AM, Waxing_Kibbous said:

I'll just add another turn off for going interplanetary that I experienced were the very long burn times for the nuke engine. I'm not sure how people do burns over 5 minutes, let alone 20 minutes and up.

it's called perigee kicking 

see the tutorial in my sig

[Wheffle]

In career mode, which is what I mostly play, I've been able to return from orbit of Duna and Eve but not from the surface of either, and I've not done anything more than throw a small satellite out to Jool. The problem is that I am mostly just interested in career, and every time the game updates I tend to just start my career over rather than try to port it into the next version, with all the mods I use bouncing around causing problems across updates.

[Dispatcher]

I have been to Moho and Jool/ Laythe and points in between but I spend most of my KSP time designing and testing spaceplanes, boats, rovers.  I also test new or modified stock parts.

I would like KSP to have an orbital VAB (a space dock) so that I can spend less time hauling ships and pieces of ships to orbit before assembling them for interplanetary jaunts.  Perhaps the parts could cost more to make up for the fact that they are already in orbit.

[KerikBalm]

17 hours ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

it's called perigee kicking 

see the tutorial in my sig

Periapsis kicking helps, but only for the first ~1000 m/s

For a trip to duna, that's fine. If you go to Moho or Jool, you're still going to have one burn that is over 1000 m/s.

Thats why I have chemical ejector stages for my missions: a KR-2L is great due to its TWR, but sometimes I use poodles for the Isp.

Also... sometimes i do a few minutes of excercise while waiting for a burn to finish...

[Haruspex]

Well...

I was confined to Mun/Minmus until a random probe I just fooled with accidentally hit the Duna SOI. After that, I started to seed the system with ridiculously overengineered ion probes, getting to every body by trial and error, wasting in-game decades in the process.

Then I started to send one-way motherships which carried suicide landers - Duna and Eve expeditions hit, the ships staying in orbit as permanent stations; Eeloo expedition missed, Jool expedition did a flyby, but failed to brake due to insufficent fuel.

Then they nerfed ions and nukes, terminating my Golden Age of Discovery.

Then they introduced ISRU; with it (and web tools to determine the launch windows), I was finally able to send two-way expeditions that refuelled by mining at Ike and Gilly and rescued all the Kerbals stranded everywhere (but Eve surface).

I was planning a massive Jool-5 colonization fleet to depart... when they nerfed ISRU. Back to ion probes, Mun and Minmus again, I guess.

Pure stock, campaign mode with default settings.

Manual docking in LKO is a horrible chore, by the way. I prefer to waste millions by launching 200-ton behemoths whole than to experience another hour of docking.

 

 

Edited May 26, 2016 by Haruspex

[DoesDoodles]

I've been playing KSP for several hundreds of hours now, and except for the regular Mun and Minmus landing, I haven't come any further than a failed sattelite and a succesful rover on Duna. The main reason for this is time. Like others mentioned, I don't like the idea of leaving my space program unattended for 100 days to several years, just so I can get to my landing immediately. So, I end up skipping several days, then decide to go do something else, and ever so slowly the moment crawls closer. But it takes a long time.

Next to that, outside of Kerbin's SoI, it'll be difficult as all hell to save your kerbals from a stranded lander or even a KRV (Kerbin Return Vehicle). So I end up building, testing, editing, more testing, editing even more, getting tired of testing and waiting with testing for another 2 weeks or so. So, all in all, it just takes a long time to get an effective mission going.

Then there was the problem that I didn't feel like it would be fair to jam 3 kerbals in a Mk1-2 command pod for several months, but I kind of gave up on that ideal eventually. When I have interplanetary travel under control, finally, I will download some mods and make the game more fun/challenging.

Edit: Docking isn't all that big of a problem for me, but the problem that there is little to do on another planet... That seems to take away from the motivation. In the end, what can I do on a planet once I have all science unlocked? Drive around, goof a bit with the gravity, I haven't even bothered with searching for artifacts... Seeing as there is no way to discover them, it just turns into an hours-long rover/aircraft/rocket hop hunt. I suppose that makes those artifacts less of a reason to go there, too.

Edited May 26, 2016 by DoesDoodles

[KerikBalm]

3 hours ago, Haruspex said:

I was planning a massive Jool-5 colonization fleet to depart... when they nerfed ISRU. Back to ion probes, Mun and Minmus again, I guess

how did they nerf it, are you talking about the overheating mechanic? I found that annoying too as I had send out ISRU in my career before radiators existed... but those craft still work, and if I was at jool, there would be plenty of time to mine even at the reduced output, before the next transfer window

[Haruspex]

33 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

how did they nerf it, are you talking about the overheating mechanic? I found that annoying too as I had send out ISRU in my career before radiators existed... but those craft still work, and if I was at jool, there would be plenty of time to mine even at the reduced output, before the next transfer window

Mining takes literally years now. Also, maybe it's just a bug in my save game (carried over from earlier versions), but, as i found out, in 1.1.2 under time warp the ore conversion rate becomes ridiculous, like 6 units of ore per unit of liquid fuel. I decided that it's a result of the smaller ISRU unit overheating.

There are three moons that I can land on and return from with one lander - Vall, Bop and Pol, and each time the lander needed to be refueled. The orbiter module also needs to be refueled between the transfers from one moon to another, and that includes Laythe and Tylo, and then filled for the return trip. Now it'll take ten years.

I planned to use something like that for the mission:

Managed to build a small fleet of those things before 1.1 and got to Eve, Duna and back with them.

 

Edited May 26, 2016 by Haruspex

[KerikBalm]

the small ISRU is terrible... but it was terrible from the start and was never nerfed. The small ISRU always had a bad conversion rate. Also, for me, the small ISRU doesn't seem to work if its not on the active craft. I had a small lander meant to refuel itself with one of those... it would fill up the ore tank when not the active vessel, during timewarp... but the ISRU wouldn't seem to work except when the vessel was in focus. I used only a single tank of the smallest size for ore... it was terrible having to repeatedly come back as that filled up.

The large ISRU is fine, and I still use even my pre-radiator ISRU rigs... not as my main fuel source... but I'm still in year 2 of my career save, and I know it doesn't take years to fill up an orange tank... (using 2 drills). Its not really the convertor that is the limitation (if you don't use the small terrible one), its the drills overheating.

Also, finding a spot of high ore concentration helps a lot too. You can't just rely on the orbital scan... thats really inaccurate (unless you go into the .cfg files and change some values)

[Haruspex]

Yes, looks like the small ISRU is the problem. A pity, I made some lovely landers (also functioning as tugs) based on it.

Going to launch the big expedition anyway and see what happens.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Haruspex

[KerikBalm]

Well, them adding the small ISRU wasn't a nerf... but because it doesn't behave right when not in focus, I consider it useless.

[wumpus]

16 hours ago, WildLynx said:

Can you please elaborate, what wrong with IRSU big and small, in 1.1.2 ?

Well, this is annoying.  Dropping an IRSU on Eve early sounds like the first step in creating a manned ship that can leave Eve.

I restarted a 1.1 career mode (my old one was planned around the now-nerfed science labs).  After a few missions and going into orbit (and grinding out all those "EVA report in low orbit over x biome") I still am nowhere near having solar panels and a chance to make a Mun probe.  I wonder just how *long* Squad wants to keep dragging career out.  I'm guessing that since there really isn't any more point to career past "land on planets", they drag that out to be the capstone of your career.  In practice, it appears to be "very few KSP players land on planets".  Note that one advantage of [cheated] career mode over sandbox is that you should be told how much you can recover your spacecraft for.  If you like to recover (without caring that it doesn't matter in most of KSP economics), don't forget this mode.

Philipe/Squad made an early decision on "no Steam medals, ever".  While I still think that was the right decision, it certainly seems to hide flaws with career mode steadily holding you back.

[KerikBalm]

20 hours ago, WildLynx said:

Can you please elaborate, what wrong with IRSU big and small, in 1.1.2 ?

Big: Nothing really, it works fine. A while back there was a disruptive change when they added radiators, and then required the use of them to efficiently operate the ISRU and drills.

Also, the large drills to got some stat changes that I support. They were initially 0.15 tons, then 0.75 tons, now they're 1.25 tons. I've always thought that the ISRU parts were too small and not massive enough for their capabilities, so I support the mass increases of the drills

 

Small: Maybe they've fixed it... but the last time I tried to use it, it wouldn't work "in the background" like other ISRUs... and I had to keep my craft "in focus" continuously while time warping toactually fill up the tanks

[Thomassino]

I am playing for 2 years now and I was everywhere with probes, except Dres and Eeloo.

With Kerbals, I visited only Mun, Minmus, Duna and Gilly.

Kerballed missions are hard to plan and execute, plus I like playing with as much detail on realism as possible, which makes it even harder. But the sense of accomplishment is exponentially stronger.

[herbal space program]

On ‎5‎/‎27‎/‎2016 at 7:55 AM, wumpus said:

Well, this is annoying.  Dropping an IRSU on Eve early sounds like the first step in creating a manned ship that can leave Eve.

I restarted a 1.1 career mode (my old one was planned around the now-nerfed science labs).  After a few missions and going into orbit (and grinding out all those "EVA report in low orbit over x biome") I still am nowhere near having solar panels and a chance to make a Mun probe.  I wonder just how *long* Squad wants to keep dragging career out.  I'm guessing that since there really isn't any more point to career past "land on planets", they drag that out to be the capstone of your career.  In practice, it appears to be "very few KSP players land on planets".  Note that one advantage of [cheated] career mode over sandbox is that you should be told how much you can recover your spacecraft for.  If you like to recover (without caring that it doesn't matter in most of KSP economics), don't forget this mode.

Philipe/Squad made an early decision on "no Steam medals, ever".  While I still think that was the right decision, it certainly seems to hide flaws with career mode steadily holding you back.

I think they know that what passes for career mode now is kind of a stub. The reasons they haven't fixed it are that implementing some kind of aerodynamic model and updating the game engine, both big tasks, could not be put off any longer. I also suspect that making career better isn't really so much in their wheelhouse.  Coming up with an engaging and rich campaign experience is a completely different set of skills than figuring out how to simulate space flight. I hope they are not kidding themselves that they can learn all this on the fly instead of bringing in some new talent. What they have now has some serious conceptual problems, like the fact that even for an experienced player, it starts off really hard and then just keeps on getting easier. For example, if you want to rendezvous,, dock, etc. early in the game, you have to do it without the benefit of SAS or RCS or even a target indicator. That exercise is pretty challenging even for an experienced player and for a beginner it's next to impossible. It should therefore only be introduced later in the game, perhaps as some sort of "Jebediah has to rescue a stranded astronaut but his RCS and SAS are malfunctioning" contract. The bottom line IMO is that unlocking the tech tree is just the wrong thing to have as the central motivating factor of your campaign, for this very reason. There needs to be some other narrative motivating you beyond that, and this will require the generation of a whole bunch of de-novo content. It also represents a major conceptual crossroads, which means there are bound to be disagreements within the team about how to move forward. I hope that navigating this passage is at least close to being the next thing on their agenda.

[tater]

^^^Preach it, brotha'!

[gilflo]

I have been playing for hundred of hours. I have landed everywhere. In the beginning i was playing only rockets ans career mode or science mod. The most challenging was Eve. I found tools from mods to help going everywhere. But every time a new KSP version is launched you cannot always keep your ships, specially if they are modded, so now I only play sandbox.

After a year with rockets  i went to planes and specially SSTO with the fantastic Adjustable landing mod, Pilot assistant and some plane mods. Now i mix plane and rockets. I manage to land and return from Eve with smaller lander and bigger launchers to send probe with landers. Then I tried to land to with a Shuttle plane Eve mixed with a rocket, being launch with a big launcher, but able to explore Eve after landing and able to launch the return pod.....every time i got a new idea, i use hyperedit to test it, it's like an engineer tool for me.Then if my ship is able to land on a planet, i try to make it able to fly here and return in one go. Then if it's able to do that, I imagine a means to explore the planet to add to my ship to give more range or more capabilities......and I try to improve each project, even using new mods.. Then i launched the real mission with Kerbals...

But the best way to know hiw many p,ayer have gone beyond Kerbin SOI would be to make a vote.

[LordCorwin]

Well I've landed manned missions everywhere appart from Eve. And I've always came back from all of them. Honestly I wouldn't understand why stop exploring at Minmus when there are so many celestial bodies out there :-)

Of course going interplanetary is hard, but once you have a good calculator, it's as simple as going to Minmus. And yes, the first time I was anxious.

Edited May 28, 2016 by LordCorwin

[Cunjo Carl]

8 hours ago, LordCorwin said:

Of course going interplanetary is hard, but once you have a good calculator, it's as simple as going to Minmus. And yes, the first time I was anxious.

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Once you have a good launch window calculator, going interplanetary is great, and I'm glad you enjoyed it, too! The yearlong barriers for me were trying to eyeball launch windows, and struggling with interplanetary inclinations, which Minmus really doesn't prepare you for. Much more fun to launch bases at the mun! So OP's 2 and 5 for me.

And KSP totally makes you anxious, right? It's like dark souls for aerospace.

[Lukas Maximus]

Since I figured out how to go interplanetary, I try not to grind as much science in the Kerbin system. So when I finish the tech tree I've visited all the planets at least with a probe. Also this makes career mode much more fun I think.

[Renegrade]

On 2016-05-25 at 8:30 AM, Van Disaster said:

The other thing is, you don't have to use nukes

Indeed!  Doubly so since we have ISRU nowadays...

[LordCorwin]

13 hours ago, Cunjo Carl said:

I think you hit the nail on the head there. Once you have a good launch window calculator, going interplanetary is great, and I'm glad you enjoyed it, too! The yearlong barriers for me were trying to eyeball launch windows, and struggling with interplanetary inclinations, which Minmus really doesn't prepare you for. Much more fun to launch bases at the mun! So OP's 2 and 5 for me.

And KSP totally makes you anxious, right? It's like dark souls for aerospace.

The first time I went to the moon I was nervous. The first time a reached Dune with a manned mission I was really anxious. But it was really great to have all the astronauts safe back at Kerbin  :-)

This was a looong time ago, may be a couple of years.

[DrMarlboro]

I played for about 600 hours before I left to duna. I didn't go any farther until after 1100 hours, and at 2000 (I realise that most players dont play that long before reaching milestones) hours I still don't frequently go to the outer planets. The game is based around design, and design takes time. The average player spends more time building, launching, and reverting than actually flying missions. Most players aren't going to put over 100 hours into a game so it makes sense that few ever reach, or go past, duna. 

[DD_bwest]

im kinda surprised by this because i thought interplanetary travel is the eventual goal of the whole thing.

 

when i first started ksp i was incrediby nieve to orbital mechanics and how to get anywhere usefull.  i opted to grab mechjeb and ended up using it as a teaching tool.  i would watch how it did things and what it was actually doing.  after a while i started to take control in more and more situations letting mj bridge the gaps so that i could actually accomplish things.  i was also a bit wary of the long interplanetary trips with all the years in between but i soon shook that feeling cause i realized if i didn't i would never get anywhere or do anything really cool. it also took a while to get the courage to do it with manned missions in fear i coulnt get them back.

 

a tool to help find phase angles would  certainly help alot, especially for newcomers.  while it really isnt hard to google a site with a tool to find it, not everyone is gonna do that.  after that a delta v display for while your in the VAB would be the next big help.  its not as important during flight because its easy enough to guesstimate how much you have left by your fuel in the resource tab