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Post the errors you have made when you started playing at KSP!


goldenpeach

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When first started playing in 0.16 I tried just heading straight to the mun in the ship view without knowing what the map view meant. I crashed into it once, mostly because It was late and I didn't know parachutes didn't work on the mun (I was tired.).

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Oh boy, let's see. When I first started out I always used the wrong parts (still do!) and didn't know about the Center of Mass or Center of Lift. Another rather large error I made was not knowing how to stage/what staging was, resulting in LOTS of dead Kerbals.

Thankfully that was before the latest patch. :rolleyes:

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I remember one incident when I was just learning to rendezvous and dock, and still found it very hard. I spent maybe 1 hour with the stressful rendezvous and approach, and after much effort finally got the "docking ports" touching -- but the damned thing wouldn't dock! After some minutes retrying it, I realized my mistake: what I put on my ship were not docking ports, but just radial attachment points! Doh!

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did you know that if you put an unmanned pod upside down then the computer will think its pointing down when it is in fact pointing up.

This wasnt a problem until i found mechjeb. I assumed mechjeb was just garbage and didnt work...it took me soo long to figure out the pod was upside down...so very long.

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Wait, you go to space by going up, right?

Not enough fuel?

Add more orange fuel tanks!

Still not enough fuel?

Add even more orange fuel tanks.

Oh, i want to make a spaceshuttle.

It does not go up straight?

5 SAS units will work!

screenshot_247.png

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Way back in the mists of 0.11, the only real goal was to get to orbit. And I didn't really get what that meant, unsurprisingly. I did have one leg-up over most first-timers, however: I knew that orbits were in fact attained by pitching over sideways! Having done no research on the subject, my first guess was that you needed to maintain a constant speed during ascent. Even as I did it, I knew something was off about the idea. It took a few more attempts (and learning an awful lot about the need of sufficient fuel) before I finally got into a rather typical first-timer's crazy-elliptical orbit. Still, at least I never had to deal with the "fire straight up the whole time and then be mystified that you don't stay in space when you get there" phase.

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- Forgetting to deploy solar panels on unkerbed vessels. The first time this happened it seemed to be caused by going behind the mun so I spent a bunch of launches putting unneeded communications satellites into orbit so I could contlact my dead vehicle. I forgot to deploy panels probably 15 times before the Kerbal Space Commission decreed that all unkerbed vessels must have at least one RTG.

- Not knowing how to use the throttle on the first launches so falling back to the ground every time the launch clamps were released. Alternately, figuring out how to throttle up but not knowing how to stage so expending the whole fuel load clamped to the pad.

- Even after hundreds of hours of play STILL forgetting to put things on interplanetary craft. Power, docking ports, RCS, sufficient delta-v, landing legs, chutes - I have forgotten to include them all.

- Crashing into and destroying various stations while learning rendezvous and docking

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Most of my mistakes involve engineering/design issues; no batteries, or forgot solar panels, or forgot to deploy them before the systems all went dead. Had several aborts/restarts with /that/ problem once I figured out how to get to orbit and then start a transfer.

Then I started playing with modded parts and a lot of balance/overpowered issues. Boosters taking off without the rest of the ship for example.

Then I learned the joy of struts!

And also maybe learned some center of mass/center of thrust stuff.

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Launching your rocket to orbit? Launch vertically to 150 apoapsis then gigantic circularization burn.

Getting from point A to point B? Point your rocket at it and fire away.

Docking? Use main propulsion to get close faster.

Launching Kerbals into space? Easy peasy.

Now how do we get then down again? New game.

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1. Had no clue how to use RCS (the H, N, J, K, L, I keys)

2.Figuring out that docking ports had to face a certain way to work. I built many space stations that I had to abort due to parts not fitting together. I did become very good at docking with no add ons out of the dozens flights and then dozens of attempts each flight at docking. After I realized my docking ports were backwards docking was a breeze.

3. Not understanding angle of intercept between planets. I had many unkerbaled flights end up somewhere between planets that ran out of fuel no matter how how much I brought.

4. Learning to test rovers before lauching them anywhere to make sure they actualy work/drive.

5. Bringing batteries and solar panels.

6. And finally rule #1 of this game. MORE STRUTS!!!!!!!!

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I put ALOT of ion engines on backwards on many of my spacecraft thinking that I needed the wider part facing backwards because that was where the end of the bell was and thus where the propellant would escape. I mostly put ion engines on as backups at the time, however when I needed to use one I wondered why I didn't see the blue fumes and why on the staging area the engine didn't have a fuel bar ( I was unaware that it didn't have one). It took me awhile but finally I fingered it out and I still have a few saved craft to this day from that era!

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The List

1) didn't know what a gravity turn was

2) didn't know about power requirements, unmanned power needs, deploying solar sails

3) SRB's do not work as the only engine type

4) seperatrons are sometimes needs not optional

5) symmetry good, lack of symmetry soooooo bad

6) parachutes - nuff said

7) staging issues (double spacebar taps, bad orders, misplaced decouplers, paniked missed or hit space bars, and finally hitting space bar for no apparent reason then to fail a mission)

I think that desribes it all

Alacrity

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After completing the "to the mun" mission i decided that i would land on the mun... with parachutes.

That didn't end well, as i'm sure you can imagine.

My second mistake on the mun was trying to walk a kerbal 1/4 the way around the mun to a rescue craft, instead of having the rescue craft fly over and pick him up. (after 4 days of afk and no real distance, i decided to use the kerbal's jetpack, but ran out of fuel and the kerbal had a "hard landing" *cough* crash landing *cough*

And of course the usual list of needing MOAR struts, having parachutes rip assorted bits off the spacecraft (i'm now completely paranoid about this and don't hit 500m going more than 30m/s if i can help it), not knowing about gravity turns, building rovers that actually worked better upside down etc. etc.

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