What’s hard for you in KSP?

[Slam_Jones]

4 minutes ago, adsii1970 said:

Keep track of time. There have been times I only planned to play for a couple of hours. But when I get up from the computer, it's been nearly seven hours!

I'm also very guilty of this.  I often think "okay, just got home, I'll just do one or two missions..."

Next thing I know it's 11pm and time for bed!

[Fraktal]

On 1/30/2021 at 1:48 AM, Vanamonde said:

Too much fuel.

There's no such thing in KSP. No margin of error is asking for trouble in a game with orbital calculations as rounding-happy as they are.

[FlamingRocket]

Probably because I suck at the game, but I failed every single rover mission to Duna I tried. I can't never stick the landing right...

[Axel_22]

To everyone whose SSTOs fail,

Watch mark thrimm's video on making them.

I did, it's super easy.

[KerikBalm]

14 hours ago, Fraktal said:

There's no such thing in KSP. No margin of error is asking for trouble in a game with orbital calculations as rounding-happy as they are.

Loosing ships on landing because of poor TWR argues against your assertion

[JcoolTheShipbuilder]

Making something that is medium sized and not going overboard and making it over 100m in length. Tho making small spaceplanes is easier for me, but large sstos are hard for me lol

[RealKerbal3x]

I've always found spaceplanes - particularly SSTOs - annoying, to say the least. I can usually build one that can reach orbit, but I always mess up the liquid fuel:oxidiser ratio. So I consistently seem to have either a surplus or a lack of oxidiser.

[Fraktal]

9 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Loosing ships on landing because of poor TWR argues against your assertion

That's a design issue, not a fuel issue.

[KevinW42]

9 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

I've always found spaceplanes - particularly SSTOs - annoying, to say the least. I can usually build one that can reach orbit, but I always mess up the liquid fuel:oxidiser ratio. So I consistently seem to have either a surplus or a lack of oxidiser.

This is why I like making LF only spaceplanes. Probably not the most practical solution most of the time, but it just feels "cleaner" to me.

[KerikBalm]

8 hours ago, Fraktal said:

That's a design issue, not a fuel issue.

Well, the design had too much fuel...

Or it may be a piloting issue...

I have a few points:

1) fuel != dV

2) beyond a certain margin for error, more margins come at higher and higher prices with more design compromises.

3) not all fuel is the same, too much LF and not enough O is a problem on many spaceplane designs, for example. Once out of the atmo, refueling a spaceplane, you may not want to add more LF the amount that you can use with Ox.

Similarly, I have made some hybrid designs with LFO engines and nukes, such as for a Tylo mission. It may be intended to land with little excess LF for the nuke (such as if one intends to refuel on the surface), and loading it with too much fuel will doom it, or require piloting that simply wastes fuel to increase TWR before landing.

4) some designs are meant to have empty tanks for getting to/from orbit, and the tanks should only be filled when in orbit for transfers

 

[vv3k70r]

On 2/3/2021 at 1:53 AM, Fraktal said:

There's no such thing in KSP.

But there is excess of oxidiser for nuke engines. Even with verniers.

10 hours ago, Fraktal said:

That's a design issue, not a fuel issue.

Obviously fuel! If You burn some of it TWR gets better

[Fraktal]

3 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

1) fuel != dV

I'm aware, but insufficient dV almost always requires more fuel (unless the problem is low Isp).

2 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

But there is excess of oxidiser for nuke engines. Even with verniers.

Mixing engines of different fuel types is and always has been a case of "do it at your own peril". And if your TWR is really that low that it can't deal with a little extra weight, that's an engine choice problem, not weight problem. MOAR BOOSTERS is not always the solution... but every other time it is. 

[Guest]

On 2/3/2021 at 12:43 AM, adsii1970 said:

• Making precision landings.  No matter how hard I try to plan my landings, with space planes or shuttles, I normally can fly my way back to the KSC. Good thing the runway is always clear because I would not have enough speed or fuel to make a second attempt at landing. For capsules, I find myself dropping then down within a 20Km radius of my intended target landing zone.

I'm pretty good at recovering spaceplanes on the runway, at least with models I've flown before. I'm hopeless with capsules however, if there's any atmosphere at all I can't make a precision landing to save Jeb's life. If it ends up in the correct hemisphere I count it as a win. (Vacuum is different of course.)

[vv3k70r]

4 minutes ago, Fraktal said:

I'm aware, but insufficient dV almost always requires more fuel

Moar boosters! Moaaaar!

Never lower the mass^^

5 minutes ago, Fraktal said:

Mixing engines of different fuel types is and always has been a case of "do it at your own peril".

You can add a bit oxidizer to tanks that have space for it anyway or add a tank with monoprop and have 3 types of fuel.

After I started mining I found issue with excess of oxidiser for nuke crafts.

[Guest]

53 minutes ago, vv3k70r said:

You can add a bit oxidizer to tanks that have space for it anyway or add a tank with monoprop and have 3 types of fuel.

After I started mining I found issue with excess of oxidiser for nuke crafts.

I plan where I put the Ox on my Nerv/Rapier craft, and put a block on those Ox tanks I don't want to use. That way they won't get filled up when plugging it into an ISRU, and I can also tune them to be CoM-invariant, so both Ox and Lf are distributed symmetrically around the CoM. 

[Bej Kerman]

On 2/3/2021 at 3:13 PM, FlamingRocket said:

Probably because I suck at the game, but I failed every single rover mission to Duna I tried. I can't never stick the landing right...

NASA has crashed rovers before.

[vv3k70r]

3 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

NASA has crashed rovers before.

JPL have best self driving cars in Solar system. They have no accident between two rovers on Mars - perfect avoidance manouvers (rovers distancing?). They have "batery" working for over a decade.

I wonder when any car manufacturer can get same result on Earth^^

[Guest]

1 hour ago, vv3k70r said:

I wonder when any car manufacturer can get same result on Earth^^

I read somewhere about a prototype BMW made in the early 1970s, for a car with a design lifetime of 100 years. 

It was a really boring car!

It was slow, noisy, had poor fuel economy, lackluster handling, and what have you. That happens when you use the smallest possible number of most robust and easily repairable parts possible, and get rid of anything that’s likely to wear out or break. Radio? Forget it. Power windows? AC? Forced induction? Not gonna happen.  It’s not a car most people would ever want to actually drive.

[Fraktal]

2 hours ago, vv3k70r said:

I wonder when any car manufacturer can get same result on Earth^^

Never, for the same reason why the ESA is sticking to non-reusable rockets despite SpaceX outcompeting the excrements out of them in launch price: every rocket that isn't single-use is one more rocket that doesn't need to be rebuilt from scratch in the factory. Less rockets means less work for the factory, less work for the factory means layoffs to maintain profitability, layoffs mean unemployment, unemployment means the politician who pushed for reusability can say goodbye to reelection.

Try to portray that in KSP. Seriously, them kerbals have it easy.

6 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

I plan where I put the Ox on my Nerv/Rapier craft, and put a block on those Ox tanks I don't want to use. That way they won't get filled up when plugging it into an ISRU, and I can also tune them to be CoM-invariant, so both Ox and Lf are distributed symmetrically around the CoM. 

Now I find myself wishing for a mod that can restrict which engine can drain which tank without having to mess around with crossfeed...

[vv3k70r]

11 hours ago, Fraktal said:

Never

I was joking about puting radioisotopic generator with peltiers in trunk of every car and keep them so far away from each other as on Mars to avoid colisions^^

Driving part of a meter per second and so on.

11 hours ago, Fraktal said:

despite SpaceX outcompeting the excrements out of them

I do not get why SpaceX do not strike a deal with USAF to get military proving ground and get rid of civilian administration asking a guy why is he crashing his private property on his private property. We use such a solutions for minor things.

11 hours ago, Fraktal said:

Less rockets means less work for the factory

Diferent kind of work because You have to check everything but... Engines are extremaly expensive and if You get them back thats an important saving. Tanks are cheap and manufactured in mostly automated way (I'm involved in chain where one of parts we manufacture are special alloys pressure tanks of this size; those made of 316 we sell for milk procesing line; they are automaticly plasma welded; but I do mostly inconel from 6 to 20mm thick).

In terms of thermodynamic (resource usage) it is very important to reuse. In socioeconomic terms we go to the question "what to do with population that is not able to do any netto usefull work at all".

11 hours ago, Fraktal said:

to maintain profitability

I think it is no longer a factor for production. It is socioeconomic term how to distribute result of achievment and decisiv power of next goal. Money is just an entry "how much recources You are alowed to jeopardise" - if You get results in terms of profit You are allowed to risk moar.

11 hours ago, Fraktal said:

layoffs mean unemployment, unemployment means the politician who pushed for reusability can say goodbye to reelection.

I think this issue with election made of technicaly unusefull population is already solved and they are corectly manipulated to choose politics that have less and less power in every subsequent iteration. Unemployment for unusefull is nothing wrong (if I get down to 40h/w worktime it mean we have crisis and I have time to play KSP, this time is end now so I have to finish all goals asap). We do not employ horses any longer? We have engines?

If politician intererfering with industri we are changing politician. We do have means for that, they know it and they do anything to keep them in comfort zone inside hierarchy. Election is always won whatever result.

People like to have water, power, roads, bridges, telecomunication - they inside a tech cage. Nobody would chalange sector that delivers.

11 hours ago, Fraktal said:

Try to portray that in KSP. Seriously, them kerbals have it easy.

You can drive a radioisotop power rover where You like on Kerbin. But do not try around my village on Earth. I have means to detect it and get rid of it. Propably my moving it to nearby area where it is not a problem.

Edited February 5, 2021 by vv3k70r

[carppc]

almost everything

[qromodynmc]

Coming back from eve, i just can't do it.

[PigeonThePilot]

Return missions because i cant get to Duna and back without mechjeb, and ascent because when i do the ascent it most of the time is inefficient

 

[ffx]

Doing doking is space without MechJeb

Edited February 19, 2021 by ffx

[Timber Micka]

 

My first mission to Moho was and remains the thing I had the most difficulty completing in KSP. Poor Val was stranded for 30 years there.  I finally found a rescue ship design that had just-enough delta-V to come back but landed it 11km from Val. I walked her all the way and it took a long time.