What are your limits?

[Spatzimaus]

There are no limits in KSP. Everything you think you can't do? Eventually, you'll find a way to do it. Docking, SSTO spaceplanes, gigantic heavy-lift vehicles, Eve returns, ridiculously huge space stations... it just takes time to get the hang of these.

Of course, it helps to have starting points. If you're having problems making SSTO spaceplanes, look at someone else's design to see what they're doing that you're missing. The stock designs are just terrible, really, so these boards are by far the best place to get baselines to compare to.

[McFarnsworth]

One word: Patience

I don't have the patience to do docking maneuvers and by extension build a space station, or fly an SSTO. So I don't have any desire to try and build either.

Interplanetary missions aren't a problem since I can fast forward through the boring parts and I can get a big enough interplanetary ship/lander/rover to LKO in a single launch to get me and my kerbals to most planets and back. Taking off from Eve, Tylo and maybe Laythe could prove a bit much for my current designs.

[McFarnsworth]

The VAB doors. Seriously.

I keep re-designing and overcomplicating stuff. Always trying to make it vetter somehow. Then I don't actually fly the missions.

I hace two Duna probes, an eve orbiter, and a Jool lander "galileo-style". All of them are sitting in the VAB.

This.

I have a few research bases with rovers and return modules attached to them, several interplanetary craft and a few large hybrid landers/rovers. Apart from basic testing around KSC and in some cases see if i can get it to LKO they're all just gathering dust in the VAB despite the fact that I spent hours designing them.

[MrPopcup]

Ha! I have no limits BUT.. I just can't for the life of me make a good VTOL that can also go horizontal without a single mod.. Though I fail so hard even with mods in this thing..

[lazarus1024]

Yeah I just stink at making SSTOs. So I pretty much don't try anymore. I want to try to get decent at them at some point.

The other is just generally having time and motivation to play KSP. I love the game, but just lots of time I am too tired once I get the kids to bed and would rather just stare blankly at my TV screen for an hour or two before giving up and passing out in bed. That or I have to do something in the evenings. Over the course of the last 6 months I have been lucky if I averaged 1 play session a week and it might be 3 hours long (sometimes 4, sometimes 2). I'd really like to get back to a place where I can be playing at least two evenings a week, but I just don't know.

[Eric S]

Making a useful spaceplane. I've done several that can get into orbit and come back, but not one so far has had enough oomph left over to carry a useful amount of cargo.

[Jarin]

My limits? About 700 parts. After that, things start randomly falling off on the launchpad, regardless of how I strut them.

[Mokmo]

-That Kerbal must have a way back home

-Limit at 300 parts, but it seems that with the texture reduction patches and general improvements in 0.22, i can bump it up a bit, maybe 325...

-Seriously, return the Kerbal, even if a white suit

[TechnicalK3rbal]

Any kind of airplane whatsoever.

[spectrhz]

My limits are that of my computer lagging to death or the glitches eating my rockets alive. And game crashes after long missions.

[Elemental]

Landing on Tylo.... have become lazy with all the atmospheric landings or low gravity ones I have been doing. The rover I have in orbit CAN land (mechjeb does it) so the design is solid... my piloting is not there yet.

Then all of the Jet and SSTO stuff. Just started playing with it in earnest as I want to earn my SSTO badge. It has been grueling.

[Aladran]

Returning from Eve surface. Everything else seems within my reach.

[hobbsyoyo]

Anyone have problems with all-rocket SSTO's?

I built a rocket/jey hybrid SSTO for my Laythe base but it was too large to launch with a cruise stage and as I needed 3 landers for the mission I didn't want to do 6 launches and 3 dockings. So I redesigned it so now it is an all-rocket ship that is muuuuuch smaller but can only SSTO off of Laythe.

So I haven't yet built an all-rocket Kerbin SSTO. With Kerbal Engineer (or a spreadsheet) I am pretty confident I could build one. How challenging is it? About how big do they have to be?

[briansun1]

docking... I hate it... randevuing too

[WafflesToo]

Is it just me, or is docking one of those things where one day you could dock the empire state building onto the back of a moving roller coaster, then the next day you struggle to dock your index finger with your left nostril?

That wins the internet

My limit seems to be spaceplanes over 30 tons. Much over that and I just can't seem to get enough wing on it. Gave up and went with a rocket style SSTO

[Trann]

I don't have the patience to do docking maneuvers and by extension build a space station, or fly an SSTO. So I don't have any desire to try and build either.

Interplanetary missions aren't a problem...

I can rendezvous and dock like nobody's business. Built some nice usable space stations and fuel depots. I have yet to make it out of Kerbin's gravity well.

We need to trade places.

[nadreck]

Despite being a licensed private pilot I have difficulty with winged craft - particularly landing. Career mode has led me to overcome issues I had with docking and vertical landing on airless bodies by making me(ok ok my choice to do unmodded career mode) work without MechJeb.

I need winged craft abilities for a a couple of the missions I envisage. So when I am ready for those I will work on those skills again.

I haven't the the time to do everything I want to do - but I will prioritize a few.

One challenge after I get all the way to an unlocked tech tree (currently 4 level 7 and 4 level 8 away and planning first trip to the Joolian SOI with a NERVA manned lander and 4 atmospheric probes to finish it) is to start a new career session and again go through without mods but aim for the shortest elapsed Kerban time before:

A) Completing the tech tree;

and

flying a manned mission to each planetary SOI and putting at least a probe on (in for Jool and Kerbal) every celestial body

On my first attempt at career mode I am on year 10 having only visited and returned from Mun, Minmus, Eve and Duna. Note: it was probe only on Eve and Duna, surface samples brought back from their moons.

Edited October 29, 2013 by nadreck

[3mon]

I have put at least a probe on every body available, but i only managed to return safely from Mun, Minmus, Duna and Ike on a single launch. I also made it to Dres and back, but that was a crazy plan with rescues, refuels and stuff

[TNM]

Hm, i'm interested to know where my limit will be, i haven't reached it yet, but then i haven't been to all planets yet.

Some of the things ppl mention here, like SSTOs, Docking, Landing and stuff i never had a problem with. In .20 i had a solid space station (400 parts, then my rig started to lag), with SSTOs ready to go to and from the station, modular SSTO to swap parts in space to make it a space-taxi to other stations, quite basic stuff.

Never had a problem with planes either, i don't even see what you could do wrong. 2 fuel tanks, cockpit, 2 wings, fin and go. The .22 SAS makes it alot easier then it was in .20, so if you could build one then, you can surely do it now.

EvE surely will be a challenge, at least a mission to get there and back again in one go. Atm i'm still sidetracked with mun-base and biomes, but one day i will take the challenge, maybe when EvE has more biomes.

[Tank Buddy]

I just upgraded from a potato too. I always had to position the camera away from the ground to not cause lag, making flying planes a pain. It was definitely worth it, I am way over satisfied. I can give you recommendations if you'd like.

[Tank Buddy]

Believe it or not, I created a successful SSTO on my first real try (the first one jettisoned its wings) and it is quick to get to orbit, but it requires immediate refueling. Convenient I had a spare fuel module from my space station waiting for it.

[Tidus Klein]

Mine

Huge ssto cargo planes using b9 ( and by huge I mean big enough to squish two rovers in.)

That just doesn't happen for me, I'll get to orbit but with out any fuel to come back. Small ones no problem

Ooo and large payload rockets, but I've gotten so good at docking and saving part count I really don't need to launch a humongous pay load to do what I want,

Because NASA! Baby!

[thiosk]

Mission creep. I add more and more missions to my missions until the missions have missions.

This is severe with space station efforts. My space stations all tend to wobble severely and are typically destroyed by the so called kraken. I've not ever built a mission ready spacestation in orbit. Efforts to assemble interplanetary ships based on multiple engine compartments similarly end in wobble or violent center of thrust problems.

Not sure how the new version has improved things in terms of how many parts a ship or station can handle reasonably.

[Skyler4856]

Docking. It seems that i don't possess the patience to get two rocket to similar velocitys

[boomerdog2000]

Apparently mine is also building small. I just realized that I have 2000 delta-v in reserve on all 3 of my craft returning from Jool, with only 300 or so required for intercept. And I was worried the entire mission if I would have enough...