Why I find Ascents Boring

[bsalis]

There are many things I enjoy doing in this game. Navigation/transfers, rendezvous, docking, aerobraking, landing, and flying spaceplanes. Ascents I do not enjoy - and I think I figured out why...

All ascents are the same

You start at the same place and end up at the same place. The ascent trajectory you are aiming for will also be much the same, no matter what rocket it is.

By contrast, rendezvous and docking for example is always a little different.

Tedious navball mini-game

If you think exactly about what you are doing for an ascent, it is basically this: You spend the whole time looking at the navball playing tug-the-prograde-marker mini-game, while occasionally checking altitude to help guide the turn. When the engine roar dies down, you mash the spacebar. You also have to keep switching to map view to find your predicted Ap. The whole process is, i'm guessing, alarmingly like the tests the chimps did during first Mercury flights. You never really get a chance to look "out the window" at the actual rocket and Kerbin below.

Again, by contrast, landing involves looking out at the ground for situational awareness, and guidance on positioning and rate of descent. Rather then just looking at instruments the whole time in an ascent.

So anyone else feel the same? Anyone like ascents? If so, why?

[regex]

I recently just started having MechJeb do it for me for the same reasons, although I monitor it through the early stages because it doesn't auto-stage for me.

Once you've done it thirty times, you've pretty much got it down.

[Whackjob]

Or you can keep it interesting by building nonstandard rockets. Doing things perfectly plausible and efficient is the express lane to boredom.

And to answer your question, I love ascents. I'd say a full eighty percent of my ascents fail catastrophically. Not because I'm incompetent, but rather I try things that have no business working. And then I make it work if I can.

[The Destroyer]

I personally like them. Sometimes my rockets are wobbling so much like crazy that I'm on the edge of my seat.

[antiquark]

Tedious navball mini-game

This, to the power of infinity!

[Whackjob]

Meh! Do I need to post pictures in here of my various machinations?! It's only boring because you only go with the safe bets! Leave the roped path behind! Cartwheel down the hill with reckless abandon!

Your Kerbals will not judge you! Leave the tedium behind!

[KerbEagle 6]

The only time I fret with ascent is when I'm using larger ships and the more powerful engines.

I tend to micro-manage at that point. Otherwise, I've almost got ascents down to a science.

Docking, however...

[Mode7]

Most of my rockets have lots of separations and nested stages so my ascents usually look pretty cool at least. But I see your point. It is something we all do a million times and we are all pretty darn good at.

[lammatt]

that's why mechjeb is here

(mechjeb auto ascend is the only autopiloting it's good at... all other auto thingy doesnt work as you would expect most of the time.)

Edited August 12, 2013 by lammatt

[FlamedSteak]

Building rockets by the seat of your pants without the use of mechjeb keeps it exciting.

I'm trying to get a 4 orange tank interplantary vehicle into orbit right now, I'm about to rack up a 10th attempt....I'm almost there....almost.

[7499275]

I think that if it is a standard type rocket doing a normal sat launch I find it extremely boring, adding an odd shape though, or a abnormal rocket always make it more interesting in my opinion.

[astropapi1]

Well... when you do crew rotations with the same ship, same ascent profile, same abort sequence, same staging profile, etc... it gets boring after a while.

That's why I use Mechjeb's ascent autopilot: Gives me a chance to look at my new rocket perform as expected, take screenshots, plan other stuff... It just feels better.

I do manual staging though.

Oh, and please, don't turn this into a mechjeb flamewar.

[Apollo13]

For me, the ascent is one of the most exciting events. Why? Because it holds promise, a new adventure. What machinations will I need to achieve my goals? Will I have a perfect docking? Or, will I run all over the place. Will I get to Mun and back? Will I get to a target planet? Or, rocket right by it? Will I leave my kerbalnauts stranded and have to setup a rescue mission?

If I've a new design, I wonder if it will fall apart on the Launchpad or somewhere in flight. (Strut Theory: There is no such thing as "too many struts.") Will I get into orbit? Or, fail, because I needed just two more solid boosters on that vital first stage.

The second event I look forward to is re-entry. When I see the red glow on the heat shield as I plunge into the atmosphere, I can breathe a sigh of relief. Mission accomplished.

But then, I'm a newbie.

[Diche Bach]

Agree pretty much with OP, but I still fly my ascent's 'semi-manual.' Used Mechjeb a couple times and while it is lovely in how precise it is, I find it uses a lot of fuel.

I use the Flight Computer on RemoteTech to ascent by re-entering the pitch repeatedly to get it to tilt. This adds something a bit new and gives me a chance to try different curves. Also it keeps me engaged with the thing, trying to keep an intuitive sense for (am I going too fast, or too slow) and adjusting the pitch and tapering down the throttle accordingly. Goal is to get perfect ascent optimization 'instinct.'

Using atypical rockets can mix it up too. I misunderstood one of the mission parameters in Sandworms' Military Mission pack and thought it required a fully SRB rocket. Pretty difficult to get those into orbit!

[KSK]

There are many things I enjoy doing in this game. Navigation/transfers, rendezvous, docking, aerobraking, landing, and flying spaceplanes. Ascents I do not enjoy - and I think I figured out why...

All ascents are the same

You start at the same place and end up at the same place. The ascent trajectory you are aiming for will also be much the same, no matter what rocket it is.

By contrast, rendezvous and docking for example is always a little different.

Tedious navball mini-game

If you think exactly about what you are doing for an ascent, it is basically this: You spend the whole time looking at the navball playing tug-the-prograde-marker mini-game, while occasionally checking altitude to help guide the turn. When the engine roar dies down, you mash the spacebar. You also have to keep switching to map view to find your predicted Ap. The whole process is, i'm guessing, alarmingly like the tests the chimps did during first Mercury flights. You never really get a chance to look "out the window" at the actual rocket and Kerbin below.

Again, by contrast, landing involves looking out at the ground for situational awareness, and guidance on positioning and rate of descent. Rather then just looking at instruments the whole time in an ascent.

So anyone else feel the same? Anyone like ascents? If so, why?

I don't mind ascents. All part and parcel of the mission and I'm not so good at them that I can't improve. I agree about looking out of the window though. The climb to orbit should be one of the most dramatic parts of the flight but I rarely get to see it much past 25-30km. It would be nice to have apoapsis/periapsis information available without having to switch to Map view.

[Tw1]

I agree with the antisipation of new things thought.

But you can make it more interesting if you launch without fully testing first.

But this can lead to complications.

But, everything was fine, and my curiosity replica got safely to Duna.

I am yet to build a station that requires regular refueling launches.

[TheAndrewTaco]

All ascents are the same

Tedious navball mini-game

I agree with you, and I would rather skip ascent entirely, but out of habit I do not trust MechJeb to handle ascents particularly well with my spacecraft, so I must do it myself :/

[whatisthisidonteven]

Perhaps if you built your rockets better there would be no need to play the "tedious navball mini-game". And why exactly does this need a thread anyway?

[PDCWolf]

Why do you guys (yes, you know who I'm talking to here) feel the need to justify yourselves so much over what you do? You say you don't like flamewars yet you come here everyday and posts more and more justifications and excuses to use mechjeb. Give the topic a rest and stop posting if your statement of "not liking flamewars" is true.

Whatever, moving on ahead and keeping the topic:

I believe every ascent is marvelous, even if you are playing all stock, there's no way 2 launches are going to be the same.

Even when I myself use kerbal engineer as a building aid, which means I know the rocket is going to work, I really love watching the fairings separate, and the stages falling behind (That's one of the reasons behind my perfectrons).

I also try to raise the bets a bit by going non-asparagus or main-column only, this only makes it even more exciting to watch those big, tall dild- rockets take off.

You are the ones creating the tedium you complain so much about.

[KSK]

Unless you're planning a direct ascent to somewhere without bothering with that pesky 'orbit' thing, the navball minigame comes into play whatever your rocket looks like. And why not start a thread to discuss this - it's been pretty constructive so far and hasn't degenerated into any kind of flame war.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Pure initial ascent is something I leave to Mechjeb by now. It IS boring to play the Navball game, as you put it.

But given the nature of my rockets (e.g. powerful primary ascent engines with nuclear/ion engines on top of them), Mechjeb tends to fail at sensible orbital insertion. Because those upper stages have a TWR below (sometimes a LOT below) 1, I cannot wait until the rocket hits apogee before raising perigee, as MechJeb would.

[Unistrut]

Yes. Especially once you've got some standard designs that work well and you've moved beyond "Can I get this to orbit?" to more complex missions. I finally sucked it up and figured out how to use mechjeb since I couldn't bear to launch another half dozen interplanetary transfer stages and then the refueling barge they would push to another planet because I fluffed my fuel requirement calculations again without going insane from the tedium. I still do all my own docking though, since MJ uses frankly ridiculous amounts of RCS fuel to do so, and docking so far remains fun for me.

[Tiron]

Perhaps if you built your rockets better there would be no need to play the "tedious navball mini-game". And why exactly does this need a thread anyway?

Actually, if you're building rockets correctly, that's when it turns tedious. If the navball minigame is action-packed and exciting, you did something wrong.

On a well built rocket, you end up in a loop. Check attitude, is it correct? Check Speed, is it too high? Check Altitude, do you need to start/adjust your gravity turn? Check climb rate, are you climbing fast enough to make orbit? Check fuel, are you close to staging? Check Apoapsis, is it high enough you need to cut throttle?

You end up spending most your time just checking different readouts and making small adjustments (except for the start of the gravity turn). If you can't do this because you're having to constantly make adjustments to keep it on course, you've got some kind of design problem.

At the opposite end, when you start getting things so large that they're hard to fly properly, you get into physics delta time from sheer partcount, which is far, far worse to deal with than your 50th normal launch.

In short, if it's NOT tedious, you're doing it wrong.

[whatisthisidonteven]

Actually, if you're building rockets correctly, that's when it turns tedious. If the navball minigame is action-packed and exciting, you did something wrong.

On a well built rocket, you end up in a loop. Check attitude, is it correct? Check Speed, is it too high? Check Altitude, do you need to start/adjust your gravity turn? Check climb rate, are you climbing fast enough to make orbit? Check fuel, are you close to staging? Check Apoapsis, is it high enough you need to cut throttle?

You end up spending most your time just checking different readouts and making small adjustments (except for the start of the gravity turn). If you can't do this because you're having to constantly make adjustments to keep it on course, you've got some kind of design problem.

At the opposite end, when you start getting things so large that they're hard to fly properly, you get into physics delta time from sheer partcount, which is far, far worse to deal with than your 50th normal launch.

In short, if it's NOT tedious, you're doing it wrong.

No, because if your rockets are built properly they require minimal interaction on your end. Going by your logic, how is it not more tedious to just watch what is essentially a youtube video every time you go to orbit every single time?

[Tiron]

No, because if your rockets are built properly they require minimal interaction on your end. Going by your logic, how is it not more tedious to just watch what is essentially a youtube video every time you go to orbit every single time?

That was my point. Doing a launch that requires 'minimal interaction' is tedious. It leaves you with two things you can do: Check your gauges, or do something else. If you do something else, you'll miss your gravity turn start or MECO or something, sooner or later. The slight differences from launch to launch really don't amount to much unless you botch something up. So instead of a 10 minute-ish 'youtube video', you get a 10-minute-ish cutscene with occasional 'press a to not die' events.

Get mechjeb to do it, and you actually CAN go watch videos on youtube, read wikipedia, get a cup of coffee...whatever, and come back and it's done. You don't HAVE to watch it anymore, because instead of minimal input it now requires no input. Instead of doing the same thing over and over and over, you're catching up on the news while your 107th uneventful launch in a row ascends to orbit.

Edit:

Let me just add that it doesn't ease or invalidate test launches particularly either: Mechjeb's not any better at flying the rocket than a competant player is. In fact it's worse in some ways, with a tendency towards Pilot Induced Oscillation on marginally controllable craft. It also doesn't have any magical ability to manipulate the controls better than a human, so any problem that prevents you from being able to control it, Mechjeb isn't going to do any better with (and may do worse). In short, it's only really helpful on easy, uneventful launches anyway.

That said, you can use the 'ascent path target on navball' option to help you fly a more precise ascent path without the autopilot, which is very handy.

Edited August 12, 2013 by Tiron