Is there any skill/ ability that you still haven't mastered in KSP?

[RoadRunnerAerospace]

Getting my freaking cloud mods to work 

[adge]

A couple for me.

Firstly, building efficiently. No problem going between the planets, but my rockets are always brute force and ignorance

Secondly, transporting rovers effectively and modular surface building. I can never picture it when I am designing in the VAB. For rovers (and other cargos) I can never picture how to properly secure the payload without it looking daft, or wobbling, etc. With the modular bases I can land in a decent target area, but never figure out how to move part a over to part b to dock (join) them into one unit. Instead I have lots of single launch buildings all close by, but never joined together! Also, my rovers, when I do manage to get them carried, look like a mess of girders 

 

I don't have an 'artistic' mindset at all, so visualising my builds is frustrating

[KerikBalm]

12 minutes ago, adge said:

A couple for me.

Firstly, building efficiently. No problem going between the planets, but my rockets are always brute force and ignorance

Secondly, transporting rovers effectively and modular surface building. I can never picture it when I am designing in the VAB. For rovers (and other cargos) I can never picture how to properly secure the payload without it looking daft, or wobbling, etc. With the modular bases I can land in a decent target area, but never figure out how to move part a over to part b to dock (join) them into one unit. Instead I have lots of single launch buildings all close by, but never joined together! Also, my rovers, when I do manage to get them carried, look like a mess of girders 

 

I don't have an 'artistic' mindset at all, so visualising my builds is frustrating

Well, my stock modular surface bases have each module being a mini rover.

Spoiler

Initially, I designed it as one piece in the VAB/SPH, then separated the pieces.

Spoiler

Like that I could line up all the wheels on the floor. Later I just decided to make all my modules able to load and unload from a mk3 cargo ramp, and dock to a 1.25m docking port connected to the node (not surface attached).

So I would test modules like this before sending them:

Spoiler

The final trick: since different gravity worlds will compress the suspension differently, and fuel/ore/whatever load can vary (I want the fuel trucks to connect whether or not that orange tank is empty or full), I have sets of aircraft landing gear action grouped so I can raise the front or back. You can repeatedly press the action key to wiggle things into place.

I recently made a flatbed rover that works, so I can stick what I want on it to make it a module, like so:

Spoiler

Hab module: hitchhiker cans

Comms module... If its crewed and acting as a remote control point, this is nearly as good as the lvl 3 DSN on kerbin

 

Also, consider kpbs: it has some extendable rover wheels that I found very useful for surface base construction. In stock I could use aircraft landing gear to lift a module, but they have no motor and cant drive around (unless you give it rocket propulsion or something like that). The extendable wheels of that mod allowed me t make 2 rover sections that dock to a module, then extend the gear and can drive it into position, and lower it again.

Sequence here, from testing on kerbin near KSC after a short flight:

Spoiler

Landed, ready to deploy:

deploying module:

to save part count, only one rover section had a battery and probe core... connected the two sections after deploying:

recovery of rover:

To attach a 2nd module, I drive the module as close as I can, and then detach one rover section and dock it to the other.. the wheels in that mod are powerful enough to slowly nudge the modules at a slow speed... move it into position and then retract the extendable rover wheels to finish the connection

If you want to make surface bases, I recommend the mod, look at the ones I made:

Spoiler

Mun base:

Minmus Base, with fuel tanker:

Duna base:

Rald (my modded Mars based planet) base:

And all those bases are designed to be compatible with my stock rover modules as well thanks to the docking ports on the orange tank:

Spoiler

Basically, just decide on a standard, give each module motorized wheels, and build each module to the standard... my standard is the mk3 cargobay, or rather the center of the docking port to the ground distance should be the same as the distance from the cargobay nodes to the cargofloor.

One last plug for KPBS: they have modules of similar profiles, with nodes for landign legs/wheels, so every one can sit the same distance. Its fairly easy to build a base that works using it, and make no use of the mk3 cargobay.

This one I built using a skycrane:

Spoiler

The skycrane is still attached to the module at the back-left. You can see the retracted rover wheels: I just landed close, and drove the modules into position - wheels retracted and it connected. Relocating the base far away would be much harder.... I can't see myself redocking the skycrane to each module while hovering. Once a module is placed, its only moving by driving (well the central hub has fuel storage and engines... it landed itself, and can launch itself after refueling). The mk3 cargobay delivered modules are much easier to move to the other side of the body.

 

[Guest]

I have the game since 0.23.

I have never managed to make a functional SSTO.

NEVER.

[nascarlaser1]

Docking, visiting any planet beyond minimus (I'm almost to duna though ), building a launcher to LKO that does not involve at least 1 orange tank+mainsail, no matter how light the payload is.

[StupidAndy]

not forgetting to put fins on a rocket

docking

patience

dedication to a save game

not blowing up on ascent

4 hours ago, nascarlaser1 said:

Docking, visiting any planet beyond minimus (I'm almost to duna though ), building a launcher to LKO that does not involve at least 1 orange tank+mainsail, no matter how light the payload is.

try asparagus staging

[Allocthonous]

Transfer windows give me problems still. I've never taken the time to figure them out properly. My interplanetary rockets go up, and go into a solar orbit that's just outside Kerbin's SOI, and then we wait for the maneuver node that's often six months or more away. It's definitely not the most efficient way of doing things.

[Kerbal pancake]

I've always tried to make large spaceships that have lots of range and aren't slow. But they're always too big or can't get into orbit

[Interplanetary Engineer]

Making and flying a good VTOL plane. After the heli pads on the VAB and the Administration Building were almost destroyed, I gave up.

[severedsolo]

Launching a craft and remembering the Solar Panels, Life Support, Heatshield, Parachutes, AND comm devices. Something nearly always gets left behind.

[Just Jim]

12 minutes ago, severedsolo said:

Launching a craft and remembering the Solar Panels, Life Support, Heatshield, Parachutes, AND comm devices. Something nearly always gets left behind.

Launching a ship and not forgetting something? That's a skill I don't think any of us has truly mastered... lol... 

[DunaManiac]

On 7/28/2017 at 10:33 AM, Gaarst said:

SSTOs, but I've given up on those.

Complex gravity assists, but I'm working my way through and have two missions planned (in RSS) with EVEJ and EVEJS trajectories.

Bases building and the colonisation stuff, mostly because I'm not interested and never tried. Also include all the mining stuff, for the same reasons.

Planes, even though I've been building a lot of planes recently I'm still not capable of building something able to fly over 10km while subsonic. I either blast over Kerbin while on fire or stall.

Me too. Space Planes (especially Reentry) 

[Bubbadevlin]

I need to work on cutting the part count of many of my crafts.. and low t/w SSTOs 

[PT]

5 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Launching a ship and not forgetting something? That's a skill I don't think any of us has truly mastered... lol... 

Discovering that your 40 ton cargo on docking course was was only controlled by probe core in stage you just decoupled kinda suck. Had to rebuild half of my station.

[SpecialSpock]

Interplanetary travel is where my troubles are. Just like Allocthonous, I have yet to master the art of finding a good transfer window. 

Edited July 30, 2017 by SpecialSpock

[PoliteDenial]

Adding enough fuel.

[magnemoe]

Manual landing on Tylo, has managed all the other bodies but an Tylo landing is to energetic and fast. 

[Red Shirt]

8 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Manual landing on Tylo, has managed all the other bodies but an Tylo landing is to energetic and fast. 

Trade in your gaming rig for a potato laptop. The drop in fps gives you lots of time to think and react. About my third attempt I got it with little more effort than a Mun landing. All hail the lowly potato!

[Just Jim]

8 minutes ago, Red Shirt said:

Trade in your gaming rig for a potato laptop. The drop in fps gives you lots of time to think and react. About my third attempt I got it with little more effort than a Mun landing. All hail the lowly potato!

hehehe... I found this out last year when I got my hands on an Intel i7 machine... suddenly docking and such was so much faster, I almost wished for my old machine back... almost... lol... 

[NSEP]

1 minute ago, Just Jim said:

hehehe... I found this out last year when I got my hands on an Intel i7 machine... suddenly docking and such was so much faster, I almost wished for my old machine back... almost... lol... 

I can relate my friend. Ever since i got my new GPU, getting to Duna could litterly be donein 15 mimutes or less, including building the rocket. So much to the point that it almost is kind of, well, boring.

[ARS]

On 30/07/2017 at 0:29 AM, Just Jim said:

Launching a ship and not forgetting something? That's a skill I don't think any of us has truly mastered... lol... 

3 years playing KSP and sometimes I forget to put drogue chutes or antenna

[Jas0n]

For me, it's building a spaceplane and getting to other planets.

To be honest it's probably not because I don't have the ability to, I'm just too impatient, especially for space planes. As for getting to other planets, I almost always get tired of career mode before that point.

I really should go land on another planet in sandbox or something.

[W. Kerman]

On 7/27/2017 at 6:45 AM, Just Jim said:

Boats and subs... We have working water and bouncy, but I haven't really messed with making any kind of boats or subs.

Same.

[Whisky Tango Foxtrot]

On 2017-07-27 at 10:21 AM, cubinator said:

Useful SSTO planes. Sure, I can get a Mk1 cabin up to orbit with a Whiplash and a Terrier no problem, but then it's just a fancy toy.

Terriers don't have enough thrust to work well on an SSTO. Swivels or Aerospikes work a lot better. Two Whiplashes and a Swivel make a pretty good combination for a small passenger SSTO.

On 2017-07-27 at 5:30 PM, Jack Joseph Kerman said:

Mk3 SSTOS. I've only ever gotten one into orbit, and that almost ended in disaster, when I discovered that my nuke engines had an insufficient TWR. I still barely made it, and successfully docked it with my giant space station. 

Also, RCS controls. Not knowing what any of them do except for H and N makes docking harder for me. I know you can use J K and L, but they always seem to do random unexpected things..

Here we go, we're about to dock! *Presses J by accident* Ah! *Tries to cancel it out with K* AH! NOOOO!

Hit "V" until you get into "Locked" camera mode. That way J K I and L will behave closer to how you'd expect them to behave.

[Superfluous J]

I can't do spaceplanes but I really don't care to try.

I can do gravity assists, but have no real clue how to make them efficient or save loads of dV with them. Mostly I fiddle until I get something that works.