I am stuck in a rut.

[Whackjob]

I got no energy to build anything big.

I'm out of ideas. Giant transplanetary ships? Check. Giant stations? Done. Huge rover? Rrrrodger.

What left is there? I could theoretically build a giant SSTO rover-lander-transplanetary ship-kethane refueler, but so what?

Nothing grabs me anymore. I am officially out of ideas. I got nothin'. I got whack-block.

[FenrirWolf]

That's something that happens to most of us, I figure. Sometimes I'll stop playing for a few days, weeks, or even longer for similar reasons. Lack of ideas, lack of drive to spend hours coming up with and tweaking a design, things like that.

Sometimes I get over it by just opening the VAB and building something random. I find that I easily fall into certain patterns or habits when it comes to my designs, and it can be refreshing to go for a totally different angle. Then if I'm intrigued by what's happening I'll start tweaking it and figure out exactly what I plan to do with the darned thing. From there I find myself right back in the groove and having fun in different ways than before.

That being said, sometimes the only cure for burn-out is to just stop playing for a while. No shame in that, the game will always be ready for your return when you feel like taking to the skies again.

Edited January 5, 2014 by FenrirWolf

[katateochi]

NO! say it ain't so! I love seeing your world-crushingly large designs.

How about a grand tour, Whack-style? A Colossal monster capable of visiting all planets without refuelling and taking a variety of landers with it to deal with the different landing styles. It took me a long time to complete a GT and that was with a ship that could refuel using Kethane, I'm sure you could make a monster that could do it without refuelling.

[tygoo7]

Same here FenrirWolf. I usually just stop playing until I get into that new ksp feel. Where I am just playing for hours and hours a day. BTW I am in that mood now. Wackjob I agree that taking a break and doing something else for a while fixes it. We all lose that interest at some point but KSP isn't going anywhere.

[EndOfTheEarth]

Interstellar space ark?

[Outback_Zach]

Back in .18 and .19 I was creating a glorious space empire but then I too fell into a rut. I couldn't find an objective. Everything seemed completed or outside my ability to complete. So I left the game alone for 2 months or so. When I decided to open it back up the game seemed fresh, new, exciting again. And now I go forth creating a larger, more glorious space empire! Sometimes we just need a break from space so we can come back and appreciate it. And then start blowing up everything. Like Fenrir said a litte break will fix a big burnout.

[Plur303]

A challenge I have found fun is to build rockets realistically. No huge un-aerodynamic cargo on the top of your rocket held in place by 50 struts. Everything must fit inside fairings (using mods). No asparagus staging. Rockets must be vertically staged like traditional rockets. This changes everything and makes the game challenging again.

There is no asparagus staging in real life. The fuel flow demands for rockets are huge. The Saturn V had 50,000 horsepower worth of fuel pumps for the main engines. A simply little yellow fuel line that weighs a fraction of a ton is a complete joke compared to what a real rocket fuel transfer line would require.

There are also mods to make the Kerbin system realistically scaled. Did you know that Jool is actually about the same size as Earth is in real life.

Jool's PE is 65 million km

The real planet Mercury's AP is 69 million km

Jool is about as far from the sun as Mercury is in real life. Bumping KSP up to realistic scale makes the game so much harder and turns an expert KSP player back into a noob that can barely make orbit.

[Superfluous J]

Love your designs, but have you considered playing the game "straight"? I've been playing career mode where i have to succeed at a mission before I can unlock a tech node, and then I can only unlock *one* node. I got to Mun without fuel lines or struts. I made a ship I described as "asparagesque." I reveled in the limitations of the tech tree.

I don't know if you've actually ever played it this way but if not, it's a totally different game from the amazing contraptions that you've shown us.

And if so, then perhaps you just need a break. Take a week or two off. Play that game you bought in a Steam Sale but haven't played yet. Watch TV or go sledding if you live in the Northern Hemisphere. KSP will drag you back in when you're ready.

[sjwt]

I must say the thing I've allways found that spices things up is limits..

You have sort of been running on a limit as in its limited to been at lest HUGEMOUNGUS!

Try seeing what you can do with out struts, or only using radial mounted engines!

[nine_iron]

I left the game alone for 2 months or so.

Pretty good advice, I find this the case with many games I play solidly. I pretty much rotate Civ 5, KSP, Skyrim and a few other games as my main games then play a variety of other games casually inbetween. I must have played 30 hours of skyrim in a weekend after playing it solid for 2 weeks. Im on a break until I get the need to wield my sword again.

And "whack-block"? Im sure thats what I had when was without internet for 2 months...

[rpayne88]

download a mod that will let you up the max size of your ships to something like 100km and build a city in orbit, around Eello, in a single launch.

[razark]

Build small?

[regex]

You could always try sticking to small stuff...

Recently I decided to build infrastructure on Kerbin: planes, refueling trucks, little habitats that I just scatter around. It's a different sort of playstyle from what I normally do and really got me interested in playing again.

[NovaSilisko]

Do exactly what you did before, but with RealSolarSystem and FAR.

[Markus Reese]

Myself, I found two things that quickly killed my enjoyment of KSP back in the 0.1# areas.

1. Powergaming. Using all sorts of OOG tools to make perfect every launch.

2. Mods - Not all mods. Just ones that can make things simpler. Mostly the large boosters and engines really....

To solve this, I really play only vanilla, I used to have stuff like the Bobcat rovers, and fairings, but the clutter in science sorta took away and now make the similar out of Vanilla. This is especially handy during career play.

I try to make a real mission out of everything. Usually my crafts are more complex because of the roleplay. There is no option to quicksave and no editing of files. Not using any calculators enhances in the fact that I need to actually experiment with every launch. Starting from the manned early missions, then getting probes to launch test flights and scouting planetary systems. I even purposefully pushed the atmos and altitudes from my mind, and run a test to see where I should come in for atmo braking with probes. To add to the challenge, for me to consider the test, I must also land the probe and deploy a communication report.

After determining what the planet is like, I then will launch the manned mission. Now, there are no overly advanced satellites in my parts, so instead, the exploration craft carry a scout probe with them. These are designed to be able to scout a surface area of any planned body to pick a suitable landing area for any lander.

My self challenging doesnt end there however. I also dislike wierd and infeasable rockets. Stuff like my interplanetaries. Sure, I could design and launch them all at once with some extremely wierd setup, but hey, if cost was an issue that wouldn't work. Instead, I send up my ships in sections and assemble them in atmosphere. All my boosters have to be designed to be recoverable, and I do. Instead of 20 boosters, I might have four, that I re-use multiple times. In roleplay. It helps keep me from making all my interplanetaries right quick. It takes a while to assemble the ship, and then once in space, I made the design reusable. I can replace the lander section, then refuel or replace the engines in space onto a main hub. Once the science tree came out, this was even more fun! Now I return the science vessel, and I make upgrades to the ship. Send down the old nuke engines that are a bit wobbly to replace with the bigger tanks and better engines! Mwa ha ha!!!

The free cost on parts is probably the biggest killer for fun since it is easy to make overly expensive rockets and have a ton of fail missions. Is like playing a game with god mode. You do it all really fast and burn out. Plan some limiters, take a break, and will be like a whole new game. In fact, I still havent maxed the science tree since it's release because my missions are such a challenge, combined with flying by the seat of my pants, that one interplanetary can take a week or more to complete! Sure, it is slow, but now getting there is 90% of the fun!

[Whackjob]

I currently have one mod: Kethane. That's it. I refuse to add the mods that add bigger tanks and engines.

Not familiar with FAR and real solar system. I'll look into those maybe.

#EDIT: Apparently FAR makes rockets "four times easier to get into orbit". That's a big no-no for me.

#EDIT2: Real solar system has a bug where "parts are wobbly" and the recommended fix is "get the joint reinforcement mod". Another big no-no for me.

Edited January 5, 2014 by Whackjob

[Seret]

I got no energy to build anything big.

I'm out of ideas. Giant transplanetary ships? Check. Giant stations? Done. Huge rover? Rrrrodger.

Get drunk > play game > inspiration!

OR

Find someone who's never played the game > make them play the game > while drinking > laugh at their dumb questions> realise that their fresh perspective has given you> inspiration!

[Whackjob]

Only moderately amusing thing I did lately. Pretend the launch pad is taken up with something else, Jeb gets impatient, goes to launch from the runway instead. By building his own launchpad and towers.

But then launch the whole thing because science.

Then launch the rocket from the launchpad after launching the launchpad.

That failed amusingly.

[FenrirWolf]

I currently have one mod: Kethane. That's it. I refuse to add the mods that add bigger tanks and engines.

Not familiar with FAR and real solar system. I'll look into those maybe.

#EDIT: Apparently FAR makes rockets "four times easier to get into orbit". That's a big no-no for me.

#EDIT2: Real solar system has a bug where "parts are wobbly" and the recommended fix is "get the joint reinforcement mod". Another big no-no for me.

What FAR does is change the aerodynamics to more closely represent reality. A side-effect is that it takes like 1000 less delta-v to reach orbit because KSP's default system makes atmospheres unreasonably thick.

But that doesn't strictly mean it's "easier" since your rockets are subject to atmospheric effects that aren't modeled in the normal game. Effects that tend to make unaerodynamic things flip out and blow up. I think it's worth giving a shot.

[FlamedSteak]

Kw rocketry is one of the better part mods, it doesn't add anything that is overpowered and to be honest I have never felt the need to use the massive orange tank. Loaded it up once and thought "wow that's big" then put it back in the box.

That being said, I'd say you switch gears from the ridiculous and become an efficientcy guy for a few missions. Set up a base outside of Kerbins SOI.

[leosperry]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/64878-Amphibious-Hydroplane

[r4pt0r]

BUILD A GIANT KSP REPLICA OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY(OR A STATUE OF YOUR OWN DESIGN) AND LAND IT SOMEWHERE. for challenge dont make the statue symetrical.

statue might need to be multi launch

Edited January 5, 2014 by r4pt0r

[Levelord]

I got no energy to build anything big.

I'm out of ideas. Giant transplanetary ships? Check. Giant stations? Done. Huge rover? Rrrrodger.

What left is there? I could theoretically build a giant SSTO rover-lander-transplanetary ship-kethane refueler, but so what?

Nothing grabs me anymore. I am officially out of ideas. I got nothin'. I got whack-block.

You've built Whackjob-style massive ships. Now try building small tiny Jobwhack-style ships.

Turn your intuition upside down and try to make things work with as little as possible

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

Build ships using only 0.5m parts and it has to be a V shape (upside-down)

[Whackjob]

Done it. It was my "Lilliputia" savegame. Maybe I'll revisit it. It's something of a pain... the tiniest radius tanks require huge stacks of them, and have you ever tried to refuel one? You have to do each tiny tank, one at a time. Such a pain!