What Annoys You Most About KSP

[Little Kerbonaut!]

What annoys you most about KSP? For me it’s when I am on a EVA on a moon and I go up but I end up going down and hitting the surface and bouncing back up and have to wait for the kerbals to stop bouncing. Another thing is when I am trying to get a encounter with a moon or planet and I get the encounter but it keeps glitching back and fourth to a encounter to no encounter. I am able to get around this with time warping but it still is annoying.

[Entropian]

I'm annoyed by how small everything is.  Getting off Kerbin, or going really anywhere in the Kerbol system is really easy.  Luckily there's mods for that though.

[The Flying Kerbal]

You're first pet peeve doesn't bother me too much, I've practised EVA flying and landing a lot so can usually - usually - land my Kerbal without mishap.  If I don't then it's my fault and I just have to accept the consequences.

But I'm with you 100% with the encounter glitching back and forth.  Yes warping will indeed get around it, but this really shouldn't happen in the first place.

Generally the way I look at these things is if it's a bug I put a hex on the developers, if it's because I'm incompetent and mess things up, such as a Kerbal bouncing for miles after a poor landing during EVA, it was me that caused this and the hex is mine.

[Xavven]

For me it's the tech tree. It's not buggy, it just doesn't make sense from either a balance/gameplay perspective or a common-sense/realism perspective.

[SJC_Hacker]

6 hours ago, Xavven said:

For me it's the tech tree. It's not buggy, it just doesn't make sense from either a balance/gameplay perspective or a common-sense/realism perspective.

How so?

Yes its seems annoying not having access to simple parts earlier in the game, but that forces you to design around it.  For example, the fairing solves so many aerodynamic issues on the upper stage.  If its available early, then you never hare to worry about upper stage aerodynamics.

 

[Pipcard]

Lag with high part counts (large bases, stations, and motherships); hopefully KSP 2 is more optimized for that kind of stuff.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Pipcard

[releansol]

That I've become such a fanboy that I would pay $5 for each patch without hesitation

 

[Superfluous J]

That I can't forget everything about the game and go through the learning process a second time.

[Leopard]

that many of the 'problems' can be solved by reading on line - would be nice to have an option as a bit of a randomiser, variable, just stuff like change the gravity of a planet by say +/-5%, maybe where the atmosphere ends a little - provide a reason to go places to find this stuff out in advance of larger missions - without the ability to just look it up. maybe vary the orbital radius of planets and moons a little as well in the same way

[Lord Aurelius]

The most annoying thing to me about KSP is the overall lack of game cohesiveness. There's lots of half-baked systems that don't really mesh well together, especially with career mode.

I know this is a result of KSP1's development process (most of the time it felt like the original devs didn't really have a plan and were just adding random stuff until they decided to madly rush towards 1.0) and is more than likely going to be resolved in KSP2.

[EchoLima]

Lack of progression.

Career mode gets a lot less challenging mid-game. Most stock contracts don't connect cohesively. Tech tree isn't ordered well. Inability to measure progress. Etc.

[SJC_Hacker]

24 minutes ago, EchoLima said:

Lack of progression.

Career mode gets a lot less challenging mid-game. Most stock contracts don't connect cohesively. Tech tree isn't ordered well. Inability to measure progress. Etc.

Agree on career mode somewhat.  Too many rescue and survey missions. 

Also, low-altitude survey missions on Kerbin seem out of place.   Perhaps the motive was to encourage the player to get their feet wet with aviation tech and the spaceplane hanger, before hitting them all at once with legit spaceplanes.   However when you fly a plane, you have to dedicate yourself to the flight completely ( you cannot leave as its on the surface), and your ability to speed up time is limited.   The later survey missions are very far away from the KSC and it wastes alot of time.

 

 

[Little Kerbonaut!]

17 hours ago, Pipcard said:

Lag with high part counts (large bases, stations, and motherships); hopefully KSP 2 is more optimized for that kind of stuff.

The lag does get annoying.

[Lewie]

On 7/6/2020 at 2:32 PM, Little Kerbonaut! said:

What annoys you most about KSP? For me it’s when I am on a EVA on a moon and I go up but I end up going down and hitting the surface and bouncing back up and have to wait for the kerbals to stop bouncing. Another thing is when I am trying to get a encounter with a moon or planet and I get the encounter but it keeps glitching back and fourth to a encounter to no encounter. I am able to get around this with time warping but it still is annoying.

Don't ever use phys warp with kerbals on eva. Nine out of ten times when I use it to stop a fall they get spagetified. I retain control of the kerbal's eva adventures nowdays, but back in the day...

One of my complaints is the water. Up close it looks great, but when you get in the air....ugh.

Also, the propellers can be really confusing and don't even make any noise. 

But overall, the game is OUTSTANDING. There's nothing like it. Espically with the new part revamps and amazing celestial body texture revamps. 

[Entropian]

20 minutes ago, Lewie said:

One of my complaints is the water. Up close it looks great, but when you get in the air....ugh.

A mod called Scatterer should help with that.

[Lewie]

Just now, Entropian said:

A mod called Scatterer should help with that.

yea, but it is extremly demanding. I get around 15-20 fps already on my laptop, I don't want to know what it would drop it too...

 

[qromodynmc]

Performance. There's a solution for most issues, lack of something etc but performance is just sad potato. It's so heavily dependent on CPU but it wont fully use cpu either, most of the time my gpu stays on idle, cpu goes around %30s. I think multicore performance is bit better compared to old versions but still problematic.

[AlamoVampire]

On 7/6/2020 at 2:32 PM, Little Kerbonaut! said:

What annoys you most about KSP? For me it’s when I am on a EVA on a moon and I go up but I end up going down and hitting the surface and bouncing back up and have to wait for the kerbals to stop bouncing. Another thing is when I am trying to get a encounter with a moon or planet and I get the encounter but it keeps glitching back and fourth to a encounter to no encounter. I am able to get around this with time warping but it still is annoying.

1. MechJeb is not fully integrated as stock. I truly think that this game would be better off with autopilot added in. Yes, I know, some people enjoy flying the same exact mission profile over and over, but, there is something to be said when you crank the auto pilot on and switch over to the station to move something or do something while your ship happily flies itself into position. If it wasn't for mechjeb I never would have learned what I was doing wrong with docking. It taught me.

2. The stock fairings in my opinion or horrible. I will never understand why they went with what they did when Procedural Fairings is soo much better in every single way. <my opinion>

3. I learned from Kottabos Games about a mod called Reentry Particle Effects. In his video he says that this mod enables code that is already IN THE GAME to turn on re-entry plasma trails. It is 2020 and this is still not a stock feature. It annoys me to no end that it is not yet stock. I fully understand that back in the day <before we needed fairings> it was a design choice to not enable the code <which from what I remember hearing is similar in scope to the smoke plumes, so double confused to be honest> was a performance based one. But now, I would imagine the majority of us are using rigs that exceed spec for KSP by a fair margin. Again, my opinion.

4. The need to use mods like Kerbal Inventory System and Kerbal Attachment System to have better <more useful EVA's, especially at stations>

5. The lack of planetary base parts in stock. Another mod I wish was stock was Planetary Base Systems.

 

020807092020

[jimmymcgoochie]

I don’t want KIS, KAS or KPBS as stock (tried them all, not particularly interested in any) and can’t stand procedural anythings - stock fairings are more than adequate for the job.

The one thing that really annoys me about a KSP is that I have to sit for several hours with the game running stupidly slowly (my latest record is 6 seconds of real time per second of game time due to a near 1000 part super ship with almost 60 kerbals on it and many many mods) to do transfer and capture burns. It’s better than before as I now know how to physics warp it to go a little bit faster (and autostrut everything to stop my ships falling apart in the process) but I once did a 2.5 hour transfer that took literally an entire DAY to complete because it was so slow. Weak engine thrust + high part count + high transfer distance (OPM Neidon) makes for a tedious day, and when you can start a burn and literally leave for several hours, watch two DVDs and it’s STILL NOT FINISHED  there’s something wrong.
 

And if I could have one mod in KSP, I’d vote Kopernicus to make solar system modifications really easy. Or if we couldn’t have that, Soundtrack Editor- those long burns would be a bit more palatable with more/custom music and the ability to create playlists by planet/moon would be even better.

[AlamoVampire]

@jimmymcgoochie fwiw, I find eva w/out KIS/KAS to be beyond dull. I play sandbox, because frankly, career and science are just too poorly implemented for my taste. tech tree makes 0 logical sense. sorry, but, probes MUST come before manned missions not the other way around <yes, I know, theres a mod for that, but that does not account for the other issue: > and the other issue is there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING to keep me invested in career. there is no story. there is no motivation for why anything is happening. yea, sure, kerbals explore and are near manically driven towards it, but, that's not enough for me. As for planetary bases, the complete lack of dedicated ground modules in KSP did not bother me at first, but, when I got interested in doing things on the ground, the lack of decent ground modules started to irk me.  hence my list  

 

045307092020

[Chequers]

On 7/8/2020 at 3:24 AM, EchoLima said:

Lack of progression.

Career mode gets a lot less challenging mid-game. Most stock contracts don't connect cohesively. Tech tree isn't ordered well. Inability to measure progress. Etc.

I agree with this, as a purely stock career mode player. Beyond the first World Record contracts, there's not much of a space program 'story' to go along with the career. It essentially goes: Launch a Ship > Get to Space > Get to Orbit > Do stuff around / on celestial bodies. The latter of which repeats ad nauseam across the Kerbol system. 

I appreciate that career mode is more of a way of limiting funds and science, as opposed to a 'story' mode - but a better synergy between contracts, technology and progression would be welcome in the stock game. I'd be more than happy to stay on and around Kerbin for longer than a current career save has me, and have milestones feel like much bigger accomplishments, than just ticking off another contract.

I'd also like to see more of a use for probes and rovers as a way of unlocking the technology required for manned missions. It's almost always as technologically demanding (if not easier) to send a Kerbal to the surface of a celestial body, than to pave the way with probes and rovers first. Perhaps to take surface samples and atmospheric readings, to ensure that the Kerbal's life support system was correctly calibrated for strolling around on the surface of a potentially lethal planet.

Still, these are minor gripes in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Xavven]

On 7/6/2020 at 10:44 PM, SJC_Hacker said:

How so?

Yes its seems annoying not having access to simple parts earlier in the game, but that forces you to design around it.  For example, the fairing solves so many aerodynamic issues on the upper stage.  If its available early, then you never hare to worry about upper stage aerodynamics.

 

Two main reasons:

1. You start with manned spaceflight and don't get probes until mid-game. And oddly, Kerbals don't need electricity to live, but probes do have a constant electrical drain, so probes aren't viable until you get solar panels from the Electrics node.
2. Parts get grouped into some of the most random research nodes. Examples:
   1. Advanced Exploration has extendable ladders and... the Mobile Processing Lab. These aren't even close to being the same level of complexity.
   2. Advanced Flight Control has RCS parts (okay makes sense) but also... command pods?
   3. The Skipper is in Heavy Rocketry, the 2.5m fuel tanks are in the Fuel Systems node, and the Rockomax Brand adapter (1.25m to 2.5m size) is in the General Construction node. Unless you have the Making History expansion, you need all three nodes to make use of the 2.5m rocket size without it looking like a wedding cake. Side bonus: the 2.5m EP-25 Engine Plate is in the Specialized Construction node, a full tier higher than Heavy Rocketry and Fuel Systems.
   4. Longer fuel tanks for a given diameter are often in higher science node tiers compared to their shorter versions, which is pointless when you can just stack two of the shorter ones together to get the same amount of fuel. Except the Tier 1 VAB has a 30 part limitation (which makes no sense) so early on, getting the longer fuel tanks helps you circumvent that limitation, but then the Tier 2 VAB has such a high part count limitation as to not be a factor at all. So the gameplay loop doesn't really fit here.
   5. The 0.625m stack separator is in the Miniaturization node, but the 0.625m regular decoupler (which should be a simpler part) is found a full tier later in the Precision Engineering node. You need one of them if you want the Spark engine in the Propulsion Systems node and not have it look stupid when you attach it to an upper-stage and a middle-stage on your rocket. And for some reason the Propulsion Systems node has the Status-V Minified Monopropellant Tank in it (the one with 7.5 monoprop fuel) which TBH should be in the Advanced Flight Control node with the other RCS tank. And Propulsion Systems also has the Baguette external fuel tank, but the smaller Dumpling external fuel tank isn't found until a full tier later in the Precision Propulsion node. None of this makes any sense!!

Edited July 9, 2020 by Xavven

[The Flying Kerbal]

5 minutes ago, Xavven said:

Two main reasons:

1. You start with manned spaceflight and don't get probes until mid-game. And oddly, Kerbals don't need electricity to live, but probes do have a constant electrical drain, so probes aren't viable until you get solar panels from the Electrics node.
2. Parts get grouped into some of the most random research nodes. Examples:
   1. Advanced Exploration has extendable ladders and... the Mobile Processing Lab. These aren't even close to being the same level of complexity.
   2. Advanced Flight Control has RCS parts (okay makes sense) but also... command pods?
   3. The Skipper is in Heavy Rocketry, the 2.5m fuel tanks are in the Fuel Systems node, and the Rockomax Brand adapter (1.25m to 2.5m size) is in the General Construction node. Unless you have the Making History expansion, you need all three nodes to make use of the 2.5m rocket size without it looking like a wedding cake. Side bonus: the 2.5m EP-25 Engine Plate is in Specialized Construction node, a full tier higher than Heavy Rocketry and Fuel Systems.
   4. Longer fuel tanks for a given diameter are often in higher science node tiers compared to their shorter versions, which is pointless when you can just stack two of the shorter ones together to get the same amount of fuel. Except the Tier 1 VAB has a 30 part limitation (which makes no sense) so early on, getting the longer fuel tanks helps you circumvent that limitation, but then the Tier 2 VAB has such a high part count limitation as to not be a factor at all. So the gameplay loop doesn't really fit here.
   5. The 0.625m stack separator is in the Miniaturization node, but the 0.625m regular decoupler (which should be a simpler part) is found a full tier later in the Precision Engineering node. You need one of them if you want the Spark engine in the Propulsion Systems node and not have it look stupid when you attach it to an upper-stage and a middle-stage on your rocket. And for some reason the Propulsion Systems node has the Status-V Minified Monopropellant Tank in it (the one with 7.5 monoprop fuel) which TBH should be in the Advanced Flight Control node with the other RCS tank. And Propulsion Systems also the Baguette external fuel tank, but the smaller Dumpling external fuel tank isn't found until a full tier later in the Precision Propulsion node. None of this makes any sense!!

Apart from playing the Demo which probably doesn't really count, I've always played with mods to rearrange things so probes are unlocked first.

However I do agree with your post, the stock tech tree is very poorly organised.  For example and as you mentioned, ladders; even if we ignore the extendable types, why is it more complicated to screw on the basic ladder to the side of a spacecraft, than to design and build a Mk1 Command Pod or Flea SRB?

[SJC_Hacker]

5 hours ago, Xavven said:

Two main reasons:

1. You start with manned spaceflight and don't get probes until mid-game. And oddly, Kerbals don't need electricity to live, but probes do have a constant electrical drain, so probes aren't viable until you get solar panels from the Electrics node.
2. Parts get grouped into some of the most random research nodes. Examples:
   1. Advanced Exploration has extendable ladders and... the Mobile Processing Lab. These aren't even close to being the same level of complexity.
   2. Advanced Flight Control has RCS parts (okay makes sense) but also... command pods?
   3. The Skipper is in Heavy Rocketry, the 2.5m fuel tanks are in the Fuel Systems node, and the Rockomax Brand adapter (1.25m to 2.5m size) is in the General Construction node. Unless you have the Making History expansion, you need all three nodes to make use of the 2.5m rocket size without it looking like a wedding cake. Side bonus: the 2.5m EP-25 Engine Plate is in the Specialized Construction node, a full tier higher than Heavy Rocketry and Fuel Systems.
   4. Longer fuel tanks for a given diameter are often in higher science node tiers compared to their shorter versions, which is pointless when you can just stack two of the shorter ones together to get the same amount of fuel. Except the Tier 1 VAB has a 30 part limitation (which makes no sense) so early on, getting the longer fuel tanks helps you circumvent that limitation, but then the Tier 2 VAB has such a high part count limitation as to not be a factor at all. So the gameplay loop doesn't really fit here.
   5. The 0.625m stack separator is in the Miniaturization node, but the 0.625m regular decoupler (which should be a simpler part) is found a full tier later in the Precision Engineering node. You need one of them if you want the Spark engine in the Propulsion Systems node and not have it look stupid when you attach it to an upper-stage and a middle-stage on your rocket. And for some reason the Propulsion Systems node has the Status-V Minified Monopropellant Tank in it (the one with 7.5 monoprop fuel) which TBH should be in the Advanced Flight Control node with the other RCS tank. And Propulsion Systems also has the Baguette external fuel tank, but the smaller Dumpling external fuel tank isn't found until a full tier later in the Precision Propulsion node. None of this makes any sense!!

 

1. Probes do not require constant electrical drain,. as long as they are in hibernation mode.    Probes were plenty enough viable for me early in the game, without solar panels.  Batteries are cheap and don't weight much in any case.  The bigger problem for me, was the lack of SAS on Stayputnick.   My rocket designs would therefore have to be stable enough to be flown manually.   Or else, I would overengineer to compensate for a horrible ascent.  A few times I was able to salvage missions despite my rocket doing a summersaults once I hit about 10k, due to poor aerodynamics.  To me, that was part of the fun of the game. 

2.3 You don't need the wider fuel tanks to use the Skipper engine.  In fact, there is some advantage to using the narrow tanks, if you use side boosters and place them just above the Skipper shroud.  When you detach, the shroud becomes a pivot point, and they fall off beautifully (assuming your angle of attack is not too low), without risking a strike to the .engine or rest of the upper stage.

2.4  Yes you can stack them and its almost the same.  However there is a small mass advantage to one larger tank vs two shorter ones. 

2.5 You don't need the exact decoupler size to use the spark engine.  You can use the smaller Oscar tanks attach ti radially to a larger fuel tanks or other central ship part, and use radially decoupling, or much simpler and cheaper, use a single decouple on your larger fuel tank. .

Not having exactly all the right parts, exactly when you need them, and being forced to make rocket designs which compromise and kind-of-sort-of work, but have some drawbacks to me is what makes the game fun to me.  

 

Edited July 9, 2020 by SJC_Hacker

[James M]

Landing Legs. Nuff Said.