Am I the only one afraid to leave Kerbin?

[bsalis]

Try doing an EVA while between Eeloo and Jool.

Then putting a couple of Km between yourself and your craft.

[FlamedSteak]

Try doing an EVA while between Eeloo and Jool.

Then putting a couple of Km between yourself and your craft.

Now that I think about it, interplanetary EVA's are by far the scariest thing you can do in KSP, and the above one is probably the most extreme.

[Flixxbeatz]

Afraid to space? Too bad. You'll gonna miss everything the entire final frontier can offer to you

[Tw1]

I always leave with extreme caution. Overbuild the ship, if possible.

Though the Mun and Minmus are basically home now I have big bases there. Just got a big, unknown backyard to explore.

Edited January 21, 2014 by Tw1

[sgtscuba]

I always leave with extreme caution. Overbuild the ship, if possible.

Though the Mun and Minmus are basically home now I have big bases there. Just got a big, unknown backyard to explore.

^this, I don't have big bases on other planets (been messing around with a space station around kerbin with KAS to bring up extra stuff). But I like exploring the Mun/Minmus. I haven't landed anywhere else but I have done visits of them and flybys.

[DJEN]

You're afraid of going into space, in a game... That's a bit irrational, don't you think?

I sure couldn't handle real space travel for being slightly claustrophobic but in KSP? I kill more Kerbals than there are asteroids in the Solar System.

People. They never understand.

[Garek]

I play with TAC LS, so there is a quite rational caution about running out of life support during longer journeys. E.g. my last Munar fly-by was already critical because a miscalculation resulted in a far longer travel time than planned. I had only 13 minutes of power left when arriving back at Kerbin because the craft had to be running on batteries - it was the flight that finally unlocked solar panels. I'm not sure yet how I will do interplanetary manned missions, but I will propably include enaugh life support to last until a theoretical rescue mission after the planned return window would arrive.

[Great General Kaboomsky]

You're absolutely not the only one. I think I must have played for about 6-7 months before my first trips to Eve and Duna. I had reached the point that I could pull of Mun and Minimus landings in my sleep, dock without worry and bullseye circular orbits with one burn from the surface, but was still intimidated by the long journey in the dark, far away from any sort of support structure, that an interplanetary mission requires. I think my first mission outside of Kerbin SOI was like a 2 week mission that shot Jeb out to a solar orbit just behind Kerbin’s that may have gotten as far as 2500km outside of Kerbin’s SOI before I got nervous and pointed him for home. After your first few missions to Duna and Eve, however, they become just about as familiar to you are Mun and Minimus are now (well… maybe not Eve…. That thick atmo is worrisome to even experienced Kerbonaughts.)

Stick a probe-core, some batteries and a couple of big solar panels on a massively oversized rocket, and point it at the little red dot of Duna (or better yet, use Mechjeb to plot the transfer burn your first few times.) A few missions later Duna will feel just like home…. Just bring plenty of snacks.

[JiWint]

I know that paranoic fear I saw something white on duna,it was human like structure and sice then I've never visited duna again.But I will REVENNNGEEEE!

[Dean Harper]

I sent a mission to Duna, my first manned mission beyond Kerbins SOI. Disaster struck and three lives were lost (the big three, Jeb Bill and Bob). Since then I've only ever sent out probes.

[DauntingFlyer]

People. They never understand.

Sweet Jesus! An Alien in the community!

[Loerelau]

I do understand! Have the same, but my Kerbals still gets killed!

[Sabreur]

It's not quite fear for me, and not quite loneliness. It's something else, an emotion I'm not sure we have an accurate word for. The closest I can come to describing it is to call it a brief understanding of scale - not just of the Kerbin solar system, but of our own world and how utterly small I am.

The feeling is the most powerful when I'm pushing my limits. I kept catching myself holding my breath on my first trip to Duna. Seeing the growing green sphere of Jool was particularly powerful. I'm currently getting ready for my first trip to Eeloo, and just planning it is a little weird for me.

[aeTIos]

I totally agree. I still haven't sent any real manned mission to any of the planets out there. I did lose 7 kerbals on trips to eeloo and jool though. I'm sure I can send a kerbal to Duna and return it, I just don't feel like doing so. Such a mission requires too much planning to my liking

[Aragosnat]

Yeah. I have been very very reluctant to send anything outside of Kerbin's SOI. Even though I could have sent probes out yokes ago. Part of it is. I'm having fun stripping Mün and Minmus of science points. Right now got a ship parked in orbit storing all the points (save EVA reports as they can travel on the radio waves) as I want to see how big a mess I can get from it. But, after that. I might think about sending probes out that have hopefully enough space fuel once they reach their destionation could act as re-fuelers.

=^.^=

[SkyHook]

Well I have never been afraid to leave kerbin, just afraid to miss my planetary intercept! Now THAT is the scary part!

[Thomas988]

I felt the same way too until I recently did my first Solar-orbit probe. It was the first thing I had ever gotten out of Kerbin's SOI (professionally, not messing around with cheats) and I was very nervous about failing the mission, despite the fact no one was onboard.

But the feeling of accomplishing such a milestone is sweet, and I feel I'm ready to go interplanetary. Good luck in the future!

[MajorThomas]

Thank you for this thread. Good to see people being honest about their feelings out there. And kudos to Squad for creating a game with the right level of realism and immersion to create the feelings in the first place.

I suppose the more empathy you have for your kerbals, and perhaps the more unsure you are about your spacecraft building and piloting skills, the more you'd prefer to stay close to Kerbin. My kid, all he wants to do is run around the KSC, do rovers and low altitude testing (and lots of explosions...he'd prefer to blow up the KSC if he could, just like he likes to blow up his worlds in Minecraft). I can understand his fear of the unknown in KSP. There are Krakens out there!!!

I guess I'm too dumb to be afraid.

EDIT: My first interplanetary mission, to Dres, was scary. Wasn't sure I had enough gas to get home.

Edited January 21, 2014 by MajorThomas

[Taki117]

I play with TAC LS, so there is a quite rational caution about running out of life support during longer journeys. E.g. my last Munar fly-by was already critical because a miscalculation resulted in a far longer travel time than planned. I had only 13 minutes of power left when arriving back at Kerbin because the craft had to be running on batteries - it was the flight that finally unlocked solar panels. I'm not sure yet how I will do interplanetary manned missions, but I will propably include enaugh life support to last until a theoretical rescue mission after the planned return window would arrive.

I too play with TAC LS, My Duna mission has about 834 days of food and about that in water and oxygen (Thanks to the Purifiers) two of the large food containers should be plenty for a duna trip.

[Mitchz95]

My first interplanetary mission, to Dres, was scary. Wasn't sure I had enough gas to get home.

I can agree with this. My first Dres mission was a two-Kerbal ship with a Mun lander inside the cargo hold. The landing went pretty well, but I had less that 20 delta-v left by the time I got back to Kerbin. I was biting my fingers the whole time.

[Madrias]

I've had moments where I've set up missions and had 'em go wrong, and so I developed a requirement that no crewed vessel leaving the atmosphere can be flown solo. At least if the Kerbals die, they won't die alone. I set up safety precautions up the wazoo to try getting the Kerbals back home again. My last one was an ejectable cockpit unit with batteries, large solar panels, and an Ion engine for thrust. It took me an hour and a half, but I got my Kerbals home. I've had explosions on the launch pad, so I built launch escape and abort procedures where I press one button, all engines but my launch escape unit shut down, escape unit sends me skybound, then parachutes deploy at the press of button 2.

And I have gone so far as to put flags down by the MK1 Capsule monument to honor the fallen. It makes me less likely to kill them if I have to send out the rover buggy and drive from the runway to there and plant flags.

On the other hand, I'm not afraid to send probes where they should never go, and they don't have to be paired together... Or return home.

[crazyewok]

This is a joke right?

If not then I think you brought the wrong game.

[Commissioner Tadpole]

I never had much problem with space loneliness. Until i've sent poor Bob on a solo voyage to Jool system. My ship was so fuel efficient, i had still a lot left when it finished surveying all the moons there. So i took a look at the map, and noticed that Eeloo was in perfect position for transfer. So caution was thrown to the solar wind, and forward went my brave kerbonaut. Boy, was that a long flight. Perfect transfer window or not, it took almost a year. Alone. In the cold darkness barely illuminated by small, distant Kerbol. Closest Kerbal-made obiect was a lone probe orbiting Dres. I felt so bad for sending Bob there, i swore to never again send single Kerbal on any long-term mission.

I have the same thing. I now actively avoid using the Command Pod Mk1 and Mk1 Lander Can even if going to the Mun.

[theend3r]

I have the same thing. I now actively avoid using the Command Pod Mk1 and Mk1 Lander Can even if going to the Mun.

Me too. Sending a lone kerbal into space is unacceptable, they'd go insane after a while. Then again, I still torture them by leaving them in cockpits and not providing hitchhikers

[Jordanpumah]

love how the thread number is 66666.