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What is the most useless thing in KSP?

TitiKSP

By TitiKSP
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king of nowhere

king of nowhere

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i nominate the large remote guidance unit.

it weights 0.5 tons. it does nothing that is not accomplished already by the small remote guidance unit and a reaction wheel, for a fraction of the mass and cost. if there is a reason to ever use it, i must yet find it.

the whole business is made worse by there being a high tier technology devoted uniquely to unlocking it, making it a further trap option.

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Superfluous J

Superfluous J

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Posted
13 minutes ago, Kerbals_of_Steel said:

I have a whole series of self landing rovers that require the micro-node

Out of curiosity, what does the micronode give you that the cubic octagonal strut would not?

The Okto-2 (flat one) is the best early game probe core, and the lightest probe that can scan biomes and hold all static (non-maneuver, non-target related) directions. It's frequently the only probe core I use. The ant is okay. I may also have never used the Kodiak :)

Just now, UmbralRaptor said:

Dres, obviously. Fortunately, it doesn't exist.

Naaw Dres is less useless than Eeloo. At least it has asteroids.

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panzer1b

panzer1b

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Hard to say, but id say your pick of the following parts that i could easily do without:

*wheesley/whiplash jets (for anything that isnt a SSTO its almost exclusively jumo-004 engines since i build in chibi scale almost exclusively to match my capital ship sizes, and SSTOs have no use for them as a rapier works better).

*bacc, shrimp, mite (never launch anything that small to justify those, pathetic TWR for missiles, and the BACC is just one of those things thats overkill for weapons, and way too small to bother with for launch stages on anything ever since they released the long 1.25m booster and the larger 1.8/2.5m ones).

*spider engine (i can count the number of things ive used these on on 1 finger, and that ship could have easily used any other engine, it was purely asthetic consideration and ive never relied on these engines for pushing anything, if it truly is a feather a single ant will do or ion engine, and if it requires multiple engines i use a 48-7s).

*hubmax (with a few purely asthetic uses aside to finish out stations since it actually looks pretty with restock models, its never been balanced, is way too heavy, and the same result can be done with radial attach and offset tool use on a 1.25m fuselage)

*fuselages with integrated intakes (aside from rare purely asthetic use, these have less fuel then normal tanks and air intakes arent really very useful anymore ever since they got rid of air-hogging in 1.0 (a single cone intake can fuel 2 jet engines easily, and you usually want a intake in front of each engine/fuel tank stack anyways).

*large wheels (they arent useless, ive just never made anything big enough to justify wasting 1.25t per wheel, and they are really slow compared to the next smaller size).

*shuttle cockpit (except for a single STS replica i made ages ago, ive never used this as its just massive and i prefer to make cockpits out of the smaller ones clipped into the top of the fuselage or even near the back of the craft).

 

 

As for features:

*not huge on the dV display (it was never in my opinion essential when it takes me 10 seconds to calculate dV of simpler single staged craft on a calculator, and i tend to overbuild my launch stages anyways so i dont worry too much there).  That and it adds memory useage (its a bit emleaky), and eats a noticeable amount of frames for excessively complex ships to warrant disabling calculations entirely (its not a gamebreaking amount of lag, but id rather have pretty visuals and part counts if given a choice between them and dV).

*Parachutes (again, they are fun and i did mess with them when released, but i just dont make anything that has actually benefited from them in my normal gameplay, and 90% of the time i crash a plane it is right into the ground where bailing out wouldnt even hellp anyone parachute or not).  Really, i just wish we had a way to remove them from space anything since they break immersion, who the heck brings a parachute to the Mun in pure vaccum?).

 

 

Also, worth noting one that quite a few people would mention that i use quite a bit is the micronode.  Its actually an ok low powered warhead for anti-fighter duty and i can stack a stupid amount of them in a very small physical space unlike ibeams which take up alot of space (and the most i ca fit per hardpoint is 4 in a janky mount that occasionally misfires or ends up roasting adjacent sepatrons with the exhaust from firing).

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RyanRising

RyanRising

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30 minutes ago, DeadJohn said:

One useless feature for me is the ability to dismiss crew in the Astronaut Complex. There's no harm in having a few extra crew members. Why buy crew, or do rescue missions, only to delete them afterwards?

 

While I have never used that feature,  I feel I would miss it if it were gone. Saves me from worrying about cluttering the list. 
 

I do wonder happened to that mod that added a Trump “You’re fired” sound effect to that button? Not really the most high-brow joke, but I did get a kick out of it. Forgot what it was called, though. 

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Superfluous J

Superfluous J

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As far as most useless features, I'd say the entire "advanced" tab in the VAB, other than the subassembly area. I don't think I've ever used anything in that entire area except to see what it was all about. I'd use the resource filter except there's no way (that I know of) to filter for "LF only" when looking for tanks that don't have oxidizer. And I've never, ever cared if a part was made by Rockomax, Kerbodyne, or Jeb's Junkyard. if that entire thing went away and subassemblies was somewhere permanent on the screen, I'd never miss it.

Another one is the "funny" recaps on contracts. They're not just useless, they're detrimental as Contract Configurator contracts sometimes have useful information there and I miss that useful information because my brain has been so trained to not even look at it.

Probably Reputation could be nixed as well. It's confusing and fluid, and so easy to get that you can basically always assume you have enough to get 3-star contracts all the time. It's not USELESS as I obviously use it. I can't not. I don't ACTIVELY use it though except when min/maxing a challenge to convert rep to funds or science.

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RealKerbal3x

RealKerbal3x

Posted
Posted

The administration building. The only function it has that's anywhere near useful is converting science to funds, and that's only necessary at the end of a career game. In my current career, all of the KSC buildings are upgraded to level 3, except the administration building, which is still at level 1.

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dci

dci

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Posted
8 hours ago, Entropian said:

The Not-Rockomax Micronode.  I can't even think of a single time I've used it.

Exactly.

 

"useless" transfer windows? I usualy know almost exactly what delta-v I need with transfer windows calculations. But if somebody doesn't respect orbital mechanics...

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king of nowhere

king of nowhere

Posted
Posted

don't confuse something you don't use with something that's genuinely useless

8 hours ago, TitiKSP said:

I transfered to Eve without it's transfer window.

 

me too; but doing it during a transfer window costs 900 m/s starting from LKO or 500 m/s after refueling at minmus. doing it out of a transfer window costed me 3000 m/s.

anyway, transfer windows are not a feature of the game. they are just an emergent feature of any planetary system

8 hours ago, Kerbals_of_Steel said:

I have a whole series of self landing rovers that require the micro-node, but I don't think I have ever used the Kodiak engine, the flat octo-probe, or the Ant engine.

the kodiak is the best first stage engine of its size.

the ant is supremely useful for small probes. i rarely make them these days, but they can hugely increase deltaV available by reducing rocket mass.

5 hours ago, panzer1b said:

Hard to say, but id say your pick of the following parts that i could easily do without:

*wheesley/whiplash jets (for anything that isnt a SSTO its almost exclusively jumo-004 engines since i build in chibi scale almost exclusively to match my capital ship sizes, and SSTOs have no use for them as a rapier works better).

*bacc, shrimp, mite (never launch anything that small to justify those, pathetic TWR for missiles, and the BACC is just one of those things thats overkill for weapons, and way too small to bother with for launch stages on anything ever since they released the long 1.25m booster and the larger 1.8/2.5m ones).

*spider engine (i can count the number of things ive used these on on 1 finger, and that ship could have easily used any other engine, it was purely asthetic consideration and ive never relied on these engines for pushing anything, if it truly is a feather a single ant will do or ion engine, and if it requires multiple engines i use a 48-7s).

*hubmax (with a few purely asthetic uses aside to finish out stations since it actually looks pretty with restock models, its never been balanced, is way too heavy, and the same result can be done with radial attach and offset tool use on a 1.25m fuselage)

*fuselages with integrated intakes (aside from rare purely asthetic use, these have less fuel then normal tanks and air intakes arent really very useful anymore ever since they got rid of air-hogging in 1.0 (a single cone intake can fuel 2 jet engines easily, and you usually want a intake in front of each engine/fuel tank stack anyways).

*large wheels (they arent useless, ive just never made anything big enough to justify wasting 1.25t per wheel, and they are really slow compared to the next smaller size).

*shuttle cockpit (except for a single STS replica i made ages ago, ive never used this as its just massive and i prefer to make cockpits out of the smaller ones clipped into the top of the fuselage or even near the back of the craft).

 

 

As for features:

*not huge on the dV display (it was never in my opinion essential when it takes me 10 seconds to calculate dV of simpler single staged craft on a calculator, and i tend to overbuild my launch stages anyways so i dont worry too much there).  That and it adds memory useage (its a bit emleaky), and eats a noticeable amount of frames for excessively complex ships to warrant disabling calculations entirely (its not a gamebreaking amount of lag, but id rather have pretty visuals and part counts if given a choice between them and dV).

*Parachutes (again, they are fun and i did mess with them when released, but i just dont make anything that has actually benefited from them in my normal gameplay, and 90% of the time i crash a plane it is right into the ground where bailing out wouldnt even hellp anyone parachute or not).  Really, i just wish we had a way to remove them from space anything since they break immersion, who the heck brings a parachute to the Mun in pure vaccum?).

 

 

Also, worth noting one that quite a few people would mention that i use quite a bit is the micronode.  Its actually an ok low powered warhead for anti-fighter duty and i can stack a stupid amount of them in a very small physical space unlike ibeams which take up alot of space (and the most i ca fit per hardpoint is 4 in a janky mount that occasionally misfires or ends up roasting adjacent sepatrons with the exhaust from firing).

the wheesley is the first jet engine available in the tech tree. if you play sandbox it's useless, but in career you will need it for early recon contracts. the rapier is one of the last technologies to be unlocked

the mite is the only engine you have when you start a career. unlikely to ever need it again, but most people have used it once. same for the bacc.

i've never used the shrimp, having the separatron available for removing some discarded pieces, but I know some people take on a self imposed challenge to do rockets with only solid boosters; for them, the shrimp is great for manuevers, as its small thrust and mass makes it suitable for slight course corrections. I agree its uses are limited, though. generally the reason for using solid boosters is the cheap thrust

the large wheels are actually the faster wheels in the game because of a glitch; if you move forward they cap at 15 m/s, but if you keep quickly steering on both sides alternately, you accelerate to over 100 m/s. that wasn't an intended use, i think, but it gives the wheels its niche utility. on the other hand, they are unsuited to their intended purpose, that of propelling very big rovers; i tried to make one for several hundreds tons just as an experiment, and they can't accelerate it decently.

i'm surprised anyone would consider the deltaV display useless; sure, you can do those calculations by hand, but why do calculations by hand when the game can do them for you? furthermore, this game is difficult enough to learn on its own; imagine if the tutorial instructed new players to bring out paper and pen and start solving equations

3 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

The administration building. The only function it has that's anywhere near useful is converting science to funds, and that's only necessary at the end of a career game. In my current career, all of the KSC buildings are upgraded to level 3, except the administration building, which is still at level 1.

the administration building is useless in most circumstances - too inefficient, you need to sacrifice a crapton of science to get little money, or viceversa - but there are some challenges with low money/low science, like the no contract career and the caveman challenge, that are made easier by it

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vv3k70r

vv3k70r

Posted
Posted
13 hours ago, Entropian said:

The Not-Rockomax Micronode.  I can't even think of a single time I've used it.

It is very usefull against Krakento conect propulsion.

7 hours ago, panzer1b said:

*wheesley/whiplash jets

They can reverse thrust - very usefull for driving around and breaking.

7 hours ago, panzer1b said:

*bacc, shrimp, mite

Usefull for second and halfstaging.

7 hours ago, panzer1b said:

*large wheels

Trains. If You have to build an outpost and You just have lot of rovers.

8 hours ago, panzer1b said:

*Parachutes

They are a cheap way to get back home.

5 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

The administration building.

That problem exist in reality - they are simply useless for anything more then ordering coffe and paper.

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

the mite is the only engine you have when you start a career. unlikely to ever need it again, but most people have used it once. same for the bacc.

Stage on boosters are cheaper then on liquid. There is a use for every size of them. Even for tosing up in space a nuke engine I used a pack of flea  in 3rd stage.

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

i'm surprised anyone would consider the deltaV display useless; sure, you can do those calculations by hand, but why do calculations by hand when the game can do them for you?

If You have thrust, mass (dry and fuel) and burn time (and You are familiar to use this in job) You more or less know what kick to expect. This game is a lot of fun because here stuff dosent just brake, or malfunction and You employess never fail to atach everything corectly as on the drawing board.

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GKSP

GKSP

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Posted
On 11/26/2020 at 5:59 PM, king of nowhere said:

i nominate the large remote guidance unit.

it weights 0.5 tons. it does nothing that is not accomplished already by the small remote guidance unit and a reaction wheel, for a fraction of the mass and cost. if there is a reason to ever use it, i must yet find it.

the whole business is made worse by there being a high tier technology devoted uniquely to unlocking it, making it a further trap option.

That thing has saved me numerous times from an awkward bulkhead size transition.  Would you rather have one inline RGU or a tiny one and two 2.5m adapters on each end?  That's weaker structurally, takes up more vertical space, and looks bad on inline stacks.  Haven't been doing unmanned stuff recently, but with mods like FMRS, you can mount one of them on a first stage and then guide it back to Kerbin to recover after separation, SpaceX style.  A 1.25m RGU in a first stage, again, would look bad.

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