Meticulous Planning or Wing it?

[Popuptwo]

Just asking a little bit of a question, do you guys plan out EVERY single detail of what your missions are going to be (Get into this orbit, burn this much) or are you guys like me. Just sorta wing it. Have a general idea of what you want to do and just...well wing it... figure out whats possible and just explore. I sorta like to just make a space ship I think that can do the job, attach a few fun things to do once I get there, not test anything, just try it and see what happens.

Example of Winging it, "I would like to do stuff at Laythe.... Now... How do I get there...":

I think eventually I would maybe like to get to the planning everything out stage, but I love the sense of adventure as to trying to figure stuff out on the fly.

[Cdr_Zeta]

Hello,

This is a good question...

My thoughts were (after I finally figured out the game for a few weeks...) just build it, learn to get it into orbit, use mechjeb to teach me as the more complicated and heavier rockets require manual operations and proper sequencing to attain orbit - successfully and not in pieces !

My main problem so far (just learning) is calculating fuel useage, weight useage vs fuel used, orbital calculations and grav assists to save fuel hopefully...most of this so far has been done 'in the SIM'.

On my 'real mission' where real things happen, we do need to learn fuel consumption management; this is a whole new area for us as we learn about the new fuels like Kethane, ion, etc...Fun fun fun !!! Oh The Learning !!!

There is however a methodology that real world aviators use - ' leave 1/3 in reserve ' . Follow this rule and you cant go wrong; depends on the application etc; I still dont know how much fuel it takes to go places cause the manuver nodes dont readily give out this information; somehow it needs to be figured out; this would actually be considered a spoiler as it is a major part of the learning process not only of the game, but in my case, of the Kerbal Engineers and me learning it to progress in KSP and not lose any Kerbals.

I have left a few stranded Kerbals out there (!) (in the SIM); I want to do a half and half; some SIM work to calculate fuel and orbits, and some live 'more risky' operations in the real missions; I ROLEPLAY so that is also part of my future fun aspect of this game !

Hope that gives you a good idea for an example !

Cdr Zeta

[BaneOfPilots]

I just build a a large rocket and improve on it ( "Improving" mainly consists of more SRBs and fuel )

[purpletarget]

I'm very much a planning person, with iterative testing of concepts up front before trying to apply them to live missions. I burn up a LOT of probes.

[thepielord]

depends on the mission. if it's a simple mun mission ill wing it but a grand tour for jool ill do planning on.

[Warscribe]

I'll usually wing it, since my concepts i made for the manned and unmanned mun mission were both overpowered, i still use slight modifications for other missions, like Duna and Eve. They may have enough power to get to other planets as well.

[Spatzimaus]

A little of both. Meticulous planning isn't nearly as effective in KSP as it is in real life, because we don't have the tools for it. We can't set up bi-elliptic transfers easily, we can't control the flow of fuel very well, and we can't throttle down one set of engines while keeping another at full power. Conversely, you don't want to wing it. Too many things can go wrong, and if one does then you might have wasted a lot of time and effort.

The thing to remember is that in real life, space programs have access to detailed simulators before they send their actual missions, and they can calculate everything they need beforehand. For us, KSP is both simulator and "reality"; the only way to know whether a design will work is to try it out. I went through a half-dozen iterations of my Kethane refinery vessel, sending it to Minmus and trying to refuel it, before I perfected the version I've used since. So the best you can really do is to set up a good test environment (those Minmus refueling bases were designed for Ike, Gilly, Pol, and Vall) and then try out the design you've thrown together.

[astropapi1]

I'm waiting for flag planting in 0.19.

I was doing this very complex mission to Duna (My first manned one), but then I realised It'll be cooler if I can plant a flag once I'm there.

My mission involves four rockets that will exit Kerbin's SOI (And a lot of refueling tankers and transfer vehicles), and takes six astronauts to the surface of Duna and back.

First, the return vehicle is sent to Duna and put in a LDO.

If it arrives intact, the Hades Vehicle with the kethane extractor/habitat and the rovers depart on the next transfer window.

If it arrives and lands without a problem, the rest of the mission starts: The HV with the descent and ascent vehicle departs, and a couple of days later, the crewed HV is boarded using my (Orion ripoff) crew transfer system.

It departs and after the long journey it does an aerobrake assisted orbital insertion, Then it performs a rendezvous maneuver and docks with the HV that brought the Descent/Ascent vehicle. The crew transfers to it and goes down to the surface, where the Duna base and rovers are waiting for them.

they do "Science" for a certain period of time, and then go back to the ascent vehicle. They rendezvous with the HV with the return capsules and dock with it.

The crew boards the return capsules and the ascent stage is discarded, And then the return vehicle does it's job.

They arrive at kerbin, and do an orbital incertion on MKO. Then two planes come and pick them up, and each plane deorbits separately, landing at the runway.

Pretty epic, huh? I'll try to take screenshots of the whole process, and then post it as an AAR.

[Temstar]

A long long time ago in a KSP version far far away I did a huge mission to Jool consists of three separate landers carried by an interplanetary mothership. The goal was to land on all four moons (Pol didn't exist back then) and return the crew back to Kerbin and without leaving any space junk in stable orbit anywhere and no ditching of LV-N on Kerbin or Laythe.

For a mission of such size and complexity planning becomes essential. First you've got to figure out the most delta-V efficient mission profile. Then you have to design and test each vehicle separately to know that they can handle their part of the mission, finally you got to design your ships in mind so that when the four are docked together the resulting combined spacecraft can actually be controlled (ie, the two smaller landers docked on the side have to be about equal in mass and geometry) to do Jool transfer burn and aerobraking. I took me something like a month to work out all the details of the mission to be confident enough to fly it for real. Even so I make a mistake in assuming delta-V to get back from Jool is equal to delta-V to reach Jool for Kerbin, Turns out due to Jool's massive gravity I actually needed 1000m/s more than I budgeted for so I had to improvise the mission and send a tanker to Jool to bail out the crew.

If you wonder how I did the test, the mission profile I ended up settling on goes like this:

1. Dock the four ships in LKO, refuel via tanker rockets

2. Transfer to Jool

3. Aerocapture in Jool's atmosphere into an elliptical orbit with an AP around Tylo's orbit

4. Undock Tylo lander from mothership for encounter for Tylo, capture into Tylo orbit and then land

5. Mothership second aerobraking pass through Jool to reduce AP to Laythe orbit

6. Wait for Laythe encounter, aerobrake into Low Laythe orbit.

7. Undock Bop lander, moon-to-moon transfer from Laythe to Bop, Bop landing

8. Undock Laythe/Vall lander, land on Laythe via atmospheric re-entry

9. Lift off from Laythe, docking with mothership in LLO fo refuel

10. Laythe/Vall lander moon-to-moon transfer to Vall, Vall capture and then landing

11. Mothership trans-Jool-injection and then Jool aerobrake into Low Jool Orbit

12. Bop lander take off from Bop, trans-Jool-injection and aerobrake to LJO

13. Tylo lander take off from Tylo, trans-Jool-injection and aerobrake to LJO

14. Laythe/Vall lander take off from Vall, trans-Jool-injection and aerobrake to LJO

15. All four ships dock again

16 Jool-Kerbin transfer burn

So it's clear that the bits I could test are the landers. I would design one of the lander, persistence file edit it to put it in LLO and let it carry on its part of the mission. If it can perform its mission and get to LJO then I know the landing part will work. For Tylo lander I also used LLO even though it won't actually perform a moon-to-moon transfer during the actual mission. Its actual mission profile has a lower delta-V than what the test actually asked of it so I knew it was going to work.

The Laythe lander testing prototypes had two versions. A standard one fully fuelled for the Laythe leg of its mission and a partially fuelled version minus the Laythe landing specific equipments to test the Vall leg of its mission.

[RocketPilot573]

I typically just wing it. Unless I'm preparing for a very difficult mission such as going to Moho or Tylo.

[TheDarkStar]

It depends on the mission. If I'm just heading to the Mun, Minmus, or Duna, I usually just make a design similar to one I've made before. For things like Moho or Eve ascent missions, I do some preparation.

[Eric S]

It depends. Some missions, I plan out so meticulously that I've got less than 500 excess delta-V for the entire mission. And sometimes, I'll have a tested and functional Eve ascent vehicle and I'll decide to take it to Laythe just because I've never landed, let alone returned, a kerbal from there. Usually I go for something in between.

Sometimes I'll go with a 100% untested ship, just to see if some odd idea works. Sometimes I go with a ship where I've meticulously tested the individual parts, I've just never tested the combined results, and sometimes I specifically fly a ship that I've already flown because I know how it will work.

I guess it mostly depends on my mood and ambition at the time.

[Van Disaster]

Depends on how long it's going to take; I spent some of today doing touch&go's on Mun from Kerbin & back, iteratively improving a spaceplane design, so that's not exacly a complicated mission . However if it takes a large amount of time to get anywhere then I'll forward plan, because I never seem to just have one mission going so I can't just keep fast-forwarding. I will however decide I want to go somewhere *now* even if it's at the worst possible phase angle and build something to manage, instead of waiting for the efficient time to launch... so that's sorta winging it.

[leopardenthusiast]

I tend to just wing it. I recently did a Mun landing with about 200m/s less delta-V than I needed - the crew is safe and waiting for a rover to pick them up and move them to their permanent home, because their LANDER was destroyed on impact (but it cushioned the capsule!).

[Schweehog]

I usually decide where to go (from Eeloo to Moho) from a parking orbit around kerbin. I have so much delta V, it doesn't matter where I want to go, I can go there. Also, a little bragging, the craft is only like 20 parts. :3

[_Aramchek_]

I wing it, and have managed to do pretty much everything I've ever wanted to do. I haven't landed everywhere yet, but tbh I've been more interested in making ground vehicles and planes for a long time now.

[TooManyErrors]

It depends on the difficulty of the mission. I wing it on simple Kerbin system missions, but plan out how most of the mission will go if its out of the Kerbin system.

I'm actually planning a reusable Duna, and possible other planets, modular transportation vehicle. I'll probably post something about it on the weekend when I can finish the rocket designs.

Edited May 8, 2013 by TooManyErrors

[SunJumper]

When I go to other planets, I go to solar orbit, and then do the transfer. Reduces IRL time. I meticulously plan and wing it at the same time, usually.

[Werwolf]

wing it! only thing I calculate is vehicle dV to make sure I can achieve the distance related portion of the mission.

[Tristavius]

I get very impatient when building vehicles and continually launch with mistakes... usually not bad ones but still. I don't tend to find I need the meticulous planning as I always just vastly over design most of my vehicles. If I build a one-way delivery to Laythe, I usually find it can get back if it wanted to and probably even then fly on somewhere else.

My habit of forgetting things on vehicles is bad though... last night I flew a large manned rover to Vall to discover...

1) It should have had 2x3 sets of landing legs, but I'd had symmetry off so it only had 2 legs total instead of 6

2) It had a leg in a weird totally useless place left over from an experiment

3) The base was supposed to remain under probe control once the Kerbal left in the rover, but I added to batteries or solar panels.

4) I added RCS fuel but no RCS

5) I added no landing lights and was coming down in the dark

None of them were show stoppers... I landed easily enough and everything went fine but man I felt stupid.

[Flixxbeatz]

49% planning.

51% winging.

40% balls.

Unless it is a complex mission, or a mission that requires a complex hardware, then it would be 51% planning, 49% winging, and 40% balls.

[superm18]

small scale mission=wing it

big scale=plan it

[LeonG17]

Try to plan it at first, launch stages keep blowing up so when I finally get to space, launch window gone and I have to wing it.

[TanC]

Planning? What's that?

This is Kerbal Space Program, so to stick with the theme, I "Kerballs" it.

[soranno]

I find that if I devote too much time to meticulous planning it takes over the whole operation and I can never get anything done.

I have to remind myself on many occasions to just give something a try and stop thinking about it. However, it comes down to situations sometimes that have taken hours to set up, such as assembling multi part ships or several interplanetary burns leading to a host of rendezvous and etc etc, it spirals out of control. Sometimes losing so many hours of effort to not having planned properly becomes a concern.

I just remind myself then how entertaining a catastrophic failure can also be as long as the mistake isn`T something dumb like forgetting a battery, or a light facing the wrong way.