What do you find FUN in KSP, or how do you play to make it fun?

[Moonfrog]

I'm asking this because, recently I've found the way I played K.S.P has changed since I learned how to do most stuff. The most biggest change was how I built my rockets and landers. After I learned about delta V and the wiki telling u how much you need to do this and get there. I found myself trying to build rockets specifically able to go to one place or the other. Like I need 850 DV to go to moon, so I would plan around having double that to get there and back.

That's not how I used to play before I knew all this stuff, I used to just build rockets and then fly them out into space and go exploring. I never used to care if I had too much fuel left over after going to a place thinking, I didn't really need that fuel canister. Also things with science in that, once I learned how to collect science in a efficient manner as some call it on the forums, I started building rockets around that.

That's why I am asking, trying to find the fun again, rather than have it feel like I'm doing a maths puzzle. Spend more time putting numbers into a calculator than actually building the rocket.

[Skyler4856]

I assign my self a challenge. Put 100 kerbals on a trajectory to jool. Land a colony on minmus. etc..

[DonLorenzo]

Overcome challenges, mostly through design and planning, but also through improvisation and piloting skill. First is was getting to orbit, then it was reaching things. Next landing on them. Still later returning from those. Then came orbital rendez-vous and docking and making the assembly of stuff there second nature. Now, with the Kerbal system well and truly conquered, it's back to square one with RSS in career mode with realism mods, where I've just mastered reliably getting to orbit again.

[TheBedla]

Try Kerbal Engineer, if you don't use it already. It does most of the calculations for you, so you can focus on building the payloads and lifters.

[Boris_T_Roach]

I fear I maybe following Whackjob down the path into darkness and ever larger payloads/ships.

Boris

And boy is it fun

[Monkeh]

As others said, set yourself a challenge and then go and have a go at doing it.

Next up for me, one launch and all five of Jool's moons landed on and home again....might be a tricky one this mind you.

I like a challenge!

[Z-Man]

trying to find the fun again, rather than have it feel like I'm doing a maths puzzle.

Can't help you there, then. That's where most of my fun came from so far: Doing all the various optimization calculations myself. What is the optimal ascend speed? What is the best engine for which job? What TWR is best for optimal orbit insertion? What launch TWR is best if I want to only use one stage? How do you dimension traditional stages optimally? (To the overeager helpful souls: No, I don't need the answers.)

Apart from that, my fun in this game comes from doing meaningful and challenging new things. I'll run out of those in a week or three. Maybe I'll find new things to do, maybe I'll try new mods. But maybe the fun just ends then for this version, that would be OK too. If every game on my backlog had such a hours_of_fun/price ratio, I'd be doomed.

[allmappedout]

If every game on my backlog had such a hours_of_fun/price ratio, I'd be doomed.

This is definitely going in my sig!

[r4pt0r]

i dont do calulations. so my most fun was returning the main 3 from a duna flyby/probe drop off mission with only 2 units of fuel left in the tank.

[Epthelyn]

It would be easier for me to list the things I don't enjoy.

The only thing I don't find fun in KSP is travelling interplanetary distances. That's only because I forgo all calculations when building rockets because it takes x minutes to find out how badly the rocket will fail or, in rare circumstances, succeed

Launches in Kerbin orbit are a little boring, but it's near to home and so I can find new and exciting ways to make them fun...like SSTOs, stupidly large lifters or minimalist rockets weighing very little.

As for explosions, and failing, and having to replan entire missions, well...

To quote the old dwarfish proverb

"Losing is fun".

[Major "zubb" Tom]

Once temperatures matter in game losing could possibly be !!FUN!! also a dwarfish term.

[Duke23]

If I find myself stuck or getting bored with what I'm doing, I make up some random goal that has nothing to do with anything and go for it. That usually leads down a long road of distraction until I figure out the next step. Like build a modular base on the polar ice cap of Kerbin. Which was such a success I decided to put one on the Mun which spawned a whole new set of obstacles, solutions, catastrophes, etc. And the bonus was I was testing an interplanetary prototype ship at the time and ended up being able to test it for a variety of things that would have been overlooked had I just checked the delta v and shot off out of Kerbin SOI (stability, payload capacity, maneuverability, did I forget anything stupid like lights or docking ports, etc).

I also find that quicksaves can sometimes take fun out of a mission. Like if I use them every time I screw up the slightest thing, it becomes a little monotonous. On the other hand if for example I accidentally crash somewhere and then have to stop everything and launch a mission to save the pilot, it's just more variety and more fun.

I think next I'll be trying some of the popular mods that open new doors.

[ArmchairGravy]

A lot of the fun is figuring out how to do stuff like docking and interplanetary intercepts. I'm at the point where I can orbit probes everywhere and do a Duna return with ease. Doing returns from the rest of the system seems like it will be just a matter of sizing ships to the delta-v chart. That being said, figuring out the designs that will fit those mission requirements I am still finding challenging. I dread the day when I can do an Eve return as easily as I can do a Duna return.

What I'm doing is trying new ways to do those things that I now find routine. I've been working on SSTO designs to do those Mun and Minmus runs, trying out a glider probe on Eve, and trying different rover designs.

What you're experiencing is veteran's blues. The only person who can make the game fun again is you!

[Mmmmyum]

I've started getting bored of rockets so KSP is more of a flight sim for me nowadays. I enjoy building planes with FAR and B9, today I've done a mission to the south pole and back, and I'm currently circumnavigating Kerbin (1 hour, 6 minutes in - around a quarter done)

[Tw1]

I get the most fun when I'm just poking around. Mucking about at the space center, testing and tweaking things, hopping about at an interesting landing site.

I like exploring and tinkering.

[Lazro]

I like building! Building is the most fun in the game for me. If I can make it look good and be functional, then I've done my job.

[cmoody]

I use RemoteTech2 as my drug of choice. Makes probe missions pretty complicated when you go farther out. I'm currently trying to build a Kerbol Communications network in Career Mode, which is taking enough time...

However, I will agree that after a while things start to get a bit slow. But his looks like fun: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Planned_features#Celestial_Bodies mmm...20 moons...

[lammatt]

the fun part of the game to me is:

you play the way exactly how you want,

not many games can give you this degree of freedom; most of the games inevitably have some sort of storyline that at some point in the game you have to follow it, even Terraria and Minecraft have something you have to accomplish before you build you own world; i.e. you have to boss fights and grinding for gears.

but in this game, the fact that you have infinite resources (at least till now and in sandbox mode) and the huge collection of mods, you can play your own game that no other games can offer.

(kethane, intersteller, remote tech, B9 are the main mods i am using)

[The Jedi Master]

1.Challenges, as mentioned.

2. That tense moment when you're just about to land is always really fun, and nothing beats the sense of accomplishment when you touch down.

[Xacktar]

1.Challenges, as mentioned.

2. That tense moment when you're just about to land is always really fun, and nothing beats the sense of accomplishment when you touch down.

Same here. I give myself a lot of silly challenges. Christmas tree to the Mun? Done. Kerbal Fling-a-tron to Eve? Done. Exploding boxes with rovers inside? Popcorn maker that pops Kerbals? Ion-powered aircraft? Duna Space Station? Flip-proof rovers? Self-destructing aircraft?

Tried em all, not all were successful, but all of them were fun.

That moment when something insane DOES work is magical.

[Rowsdower]

Has anyone told you about challenges yet?

Seriously, though, creating your own challenges or going through those featured here/on Reddit may add more spice to your gameplay. What mods do you use, too?

[maccollo]

I like giving myself a destination, or multiple destinations, and then designing the best vehicle I can to get that particular job done.

[Collin Dow]

I've been entertaining myself lately with designing the largest IP boat I can reasonably run on one 3.75m nuclear-thermal engine with an upgraded 3.75m reactor and generator, from KSP interstellar, while doing it with only one launch (no orbital assembly.) The current paper plan is an approximately 300t payload to LKO, where the approximately 3000kN of the nuke-therm will take over, with an ISP of 1800.

[Dwight_js]

Right now I've set up career mode pretty much the way I hope to see it in the final version. That is, with Deadly Reentry, Remote Tech, Kerbal Attachment Systems, Kethane, TAC Life support, Interstellar, Alarm Clock, and Engineer. I haven't found an economy mod that I really like, so I've found another way to make progression a challenge. I only let myself unlock a new node if I have total science points that are three times higher than the cost of the node, and I've successfully completed a mission. Also, I never revert to a quick-save to recover from failure - I either rescue the crew, or they die.

So far it's made for some really interesting game-play, and is forcing me to gather much of the local science points. I've run a few sub-orbital flights to figure out safe re-entry angles (Kerbalkind will be forever in the debt of Jeb, Bill, and Bob for making the ultimate sacrifice), run two orbital missions to get eva reports for all Biomes on Kerbin, and am currently running a polar-orbit mission of the Mun to get reports over all of its biomes (this one might necessitate a rescue mission if I can't get back to Kerbin with the 275dv I have left over. Anyone know if you can jettison science containers to save weight?

Edit: Made it home with less than 0.8 of fuel and oxidizer (Engineer read it as zero dv)! Now I'm in a development race to send a probe to Moho. Might be tricky with remote tech installed. So many things I still need to unlock!!! Antennas, solar panels, struts...

Edited January 15, 2014 by Dwight_js

[pigletx2]

If a kerbal gets ut and grabs the science from it and puts the science in the pod, then yes. Also, kerbals can carry science home that they didn't create.