Why I find Ascents Boring

[Sandworm]

A boring launch is the necessary prerequisite of a successful mission.

The fun starts where atmo ends.

[Anton P. Nym]

If I ever get bored of launches, I'll probably stop playing. That's a pretty big if, though; I rather enjoy the spectacle, myself, particularly when it's a rocket I made and I'm flying.

Everyone can play their own way, but I will say I see precious little point in posting that launches are boring. Are you looking for suggestions on how to liven them up? If so, try new designs or try something really absurd/off-the-wall to see how it works. If not, well... there's always the option of not playing a game that bores you, y'know.

-- Steve

[Tiron]

If I ever get bored of launches, I'll probably stop playing. That's a pretty big if, though; I rather enjoy the spectacle, myself, particularly when it's a rocket I made and I'm flying.

Everyone can play their own way, but I will say I see precious little point in posting that launches are boring. Are you looking for suggestions on how to liven them up? If so, try new designs or try something really absurd/off-the-wall to see how it works. If not, well... there's always the option of not playing a game that bores you, y'know.

-- Steve

Or you just use the lovely mechjeb ascent autopilot to do it for you while you go get a cuppa, and then do the interesting bits when you get back.

[Ekku Zakku]

Eh, ascents and building I both find tedious, at least when I have to do them over and over again to get one thing into orbit before I can even do the mission I intended to do lol. I often quit before I even get there a lot of the time. Then again, my payloads are always big, heavy, and tricky to get into orbit, so I suppose it is self-imposed tedium through a self-imposed challenge. I can visit Eeloo or Moho in an hour of game time if I just kept things simple XD

[regex]

Everyone can play their own way, but I will say I see precious little point in posting that launches are boring.

OP wanted to know if anyone else felt the way he did.

[Deadweasel]

Actually, yes, ascents are boring... IF you keep building sane and working rockets. This is not in keeping with the teaching of the Church of Jebediah.

Start building less sane things, and suddenly ascents become fun again. In fact, the attraction could be compared to why folks like to watch NASCAR or hockey.

[SteevyT]

My rockets tend to go into the realm of "my computer is no longer powerful enough to let me fly by hand." At that point, it seems Mechjeb does a better job than I do, I don't know if it somehow makes corrections between frame updates or what, but it works. Although this was more of an issue on the laptop, I haven't actually run into this problem on my desktop.

[Motokid600]

Try putting 350 tons into orbit. Then come back and tell me its the same.

[togfox]

Mechjeb for ascents. I'll watch the first one or two launches to make sure it auto-stages correctly and see if it disintegrates under pressure due to some design flaw. After that I'll launch then make a cuppa and return.

As for the others in this thread that sabotage their designs to make their ascents more interesting - seriously? That is simply backwards progress.

[Space Ace]

Actually, yes, ascents are boring... IF you keep building sane and working rockets. This is not in keeping with the teaching of the Church of Jebediah.

Start building less sane things, and suddenly ascents become fun again. In fact, the attraction could be compared to why folks like to watch NASCAR or hockey.

This!

It seems I can't build normal rockets anyway...

Always fun to launch something like this:

or that:

And Mechjeb fails with those EVERY time!

I don't even trust SAS with it...

[sumghai]

I use MechJeb's Ascent Guidance and reasonably sane rocket designs.

For some reason I'm still enthralled by every single launch.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I just love the feel of being in control of the thing I've built. I will not let an autopilot take away from me the joy of guiding my creation to whatever end the fates have in store for it.

That doesn't mean I don't use SAS or anything. But I am far from being a conventional rocketeer. I primarily fly spaceplanes, non-airhoggy ones, that barely get to orbit by the skin of their afterburners and then have to refuel, every single time, and I've yet to grow tired of it. When I do fly a rocket I do it with all the flair and grandeur it deserves, none of that "ten launches, all alike" nonsense. Every lifter for every new payload is custom-built, and overcoming design and control challenges arising from the differences is half of what's keeping me in the game.

I'm sure that if I ever tried to play the game your way, launching the same things to the same place over and over again, I'd be bored too.

[tntristan12]

Totally agree with OP. Like regex, I too have started using mechjeb to alleviate some of the boredom of ascent.

[MockKnizzle]

I usually alternate between making planes and rockets. They each have their own challenges and quirks, so I'm able to keep away from the boring ascent blues.

[KinkyFerrets]

I just love the feel of being in control of the thing I've built. I will not let an autopilot take away from me the joy of guiding my creation to whatever end the fates have in store for it.

That doesn't mean I don't use SAS or anything. But I am far from being a conventional rocketeer. I primarily fly spaceplanes, non-airhoggy ones, that barely get to orbit by the skin of their afterburners and then have to refuel, every single time, and I've yet to grow tired of it. When I do fly a rocket I do it with all the flair and grandeur it deserves, none of that "ten launches, all alike" nonsense. Every lifter for every new payload is custom-built, and overcoming design and control challenges arising from the differences is half of what's keeping me in the game.

I'm sure that if I ever tried to play the game your way, launching the same things to the same place over and over again, I'd be bored too.

Its not so much as repetition of missions, as it is repetition of that aspect. I love the challenge of designing things. I see an awesome mobile kethane rover and become inspired, so I use B9 and the caterpillar mod to make a mobile miner/refinery that can hold hundreds of thousands of units of kethane, 12 kerbals, 6 large drills, and all the electrical support for that. I love designing the skycrane style lander, figuring out the perfect launch vehicle, and having it all work. But the minutiae of the flight just bores me. Im an engineer, not a pilot.

[0x7be]

Yep, they ARE boring after you do them few hunderd times. For me putting things to orbit is no more challenge, it's just ordinary step in achievich something I've never done before.

[Gargamel]

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!

Think I have my new sig

[Sean Mirrsen]

Its not so much as repetition of missions, as it is repetition of that aspect. I love the challenge of designing things. I see an awesome mobile kethane rover and become inspired, so I use B9 and the caterpillar mod to make a mobile miner/refinery that can hold hundreds of thousands of units of kethane, 12 kerbals, 6 large drills, and all the electrical support for that. I love designing the skycrane style lander, figuring out the perfect launch vehicle, and having it all work. But the minutiae of the flight just bores me. Im an engineer, not a pilot.

I guess I'm equal parts both, but I'm not too great a pilot. Thing is, I don't bother with precise maximum-efficiency launches, and just blithely go to space however I damn well please. I design the craft to be able to work in such conditions, point the nosecone at the sky, and blast off. There's a turn and a long burn sideways somewhere along the way, but it's neither important enough to time nor difficult enough to find taxing.

I also frown at the concept of "launch windows" (despite not having worked on a Mac since school, and on a 'nix system since ever). I'd rather pack half again as much fuel and do a triple-launch composite booster mission than wait for an efficient Jool transfer.

[gloowa]

@ issue 1

Move KSP to non-equator position.

Ta-Da!

[Mr. Scruffy]

Actually, that would be an awesome difficulty setting for career-mode: Latitude (or is it longitude ?- i always confuse the two) of the KSC.

[Monkeh]

My 15 mainsail beast is a pain to get into orbit. Every stage I drop off I'm crossing fingers and hoping they don't collide. It's actually quite tense and fun, but that's just me. Yes my more safe, efficient and weak rockets make for a more...ermm, standard, experience, but flying that 15 mainsail beast is a whole lot of fun and tense times.

Go build a huge thing of many, many tanks and see if your ascent is more fun. It is for me.

Edited August 19, 2013 by shadowsutekh

[Skorpychan]

I play Dwarf Fortress; boring is good! Boring means something hasn't gone wrong! Speed, altitude, prograde, fuel levels, gravity turn, shouldn't be a worry.

It's when it gets exciting that's the problem. Exciting usually means a booster's gone walkabout.

[PwnedDuck]

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.

Much as it sounds fun building things that rarely work, I kinda prefer creating thing that do impressive things in the least roundabout way possible. If my launches fail, it's a design failure or a quirk of the physics engine, so you can see how doing hundreds, constantly going back to the VAB to add in forgotten fuel lines or restarting because the physics engine rolled a one on not-timewasting.

[Panzerbeard]

I don't really find them too boring- sure, repetitive and tedious, unless you're trying something a little different, but at this stage I can do it more or less automatically, I've got Kerbal Engineer so I don't need to keep referring to my map to see my Ap/Pe, I can just enjoy the view. Sometimes I do it from IVA just for the fun of it.

I play Dwarf Fortress; boring is good! Boring means something hasn't gone wrong! Speed, altitude, prograde, fuel levels, gravity turn, shouldn't be a worry.

It's when it gets exciting that's the problem. Exciting usually means a booster's gone walkabout.

If something hasn't gone wrong, then you're clearly not playing with magma enough. A safe fort is a sad fort, a magma-ridden burning hellhole infested with the undead and elf corpses, on the other hand, is a Fun fort

Nice to see another DF player on here.

[annallia]

I am with the OP. Ascents are for the most part boring. The only time I find them interesting is when I am testing a new lifter, or trying to get off Eve....

Lifters despite being relatively similar in design all behave differently, is fun for me trying to learn how it wants to be flown, and figuring out how to make it fly the way I want it to...

Eve is.. well its more frustrating than fun but that just makes it more interesting.

That said I also agree with Whackjob. At times I build something that is just absurd and throw it against the wall hoping it sticks. Then again the building aspect of the game is what I enjoy the most. It may not always be pretty, it may not even look overly complicated (like whackjobs impressive creations...) but somehow it does the job even though you think it shouldnt.

Edited August 12, 2013 by annallia