Is your pride talking or are you really that good? (Sentimental questions)

[bobcook]

I've been playing for about 6 months. I am in awe of the amazing missions of many people here in the forums and on YouTube videos. But I'm a "decent" player who can launch largish things into LKO, easily rendezvous + dock without using MechJeb, go to the Mun or Minmus without any difficulty at all, and most recently I've managed a successful Duna + Ike return mission. I've done Jool and Eve flybys but only landed probes. I simply do not understand how anyone manages an Eve return mission. Also remain baffled by the process of building huge bases on Laythe with precision landing. Simply cannot do it or anything like it. Maybe someday I'll manage it, but not yet.

[bsalis]

IMO it don't matter how good or bad you are, as long as you are having fun. You will get better the more you play, especially if you look and learn from others.

Personally I consider myself a pretty good player. I have been playing for a long time, with more hours sunk into it then I can even care to contemplate. No surprises that i'm good at it now.

People new to the game may think it has a steep learning curve, especially if they see the amazing stuff others are doing then go try to do that themselves right away. Rather I think it has a very long learning curve. If taken step by step (like players who started in earlier versions were forced to do by a more limited game), you will climb up to higher ability and, well, pretty much do whatever you can imagine within the game constraints.

[Rickenbacker]

Can you do perfect encounters, land without quicksaving or get 4000 science after tech-tree 2 in carrier mode? Ask yourself the question.

Yes, I can. I don't think that makes me anything special, though, just someone who has played the game for maybe 1000 hours. Anyone would get pretty good at the basic stuff at that point.

[Madrias]

I'm the inversion of common KSP players. I'm absolutely terribad with rockets. Give me 30 minutes and I'll whip you up a shiny new SSTO. Give me an hour and I'll even try to hide the intakes.

That being said, my range around the solar system is a little shaky. Sure, I can get out to almost any planet and orbit, but landing is a bit tricky for me. Always has been. If there's no atmo to glide in with, I struggle to try landing without rendering my vehicle incapable of return. Yeah, I brag a little about my skill with the SSTO, but only because I know I'm the inversion of common. I make no mistake in saying that I've never successfully landed a rocket on the Mun. Vertically descending SSTO doesn't count, in my opinion, as a rocket. I struggle in Career mode because I have so little access to plane parts early on, so I'm forced to defy common convention, aim for Aerodynamics and Flight Control before staggering lazily down the tech tree in order to unlock more science stuff, then try building spaceplanes out of what can best be summed up as junk.

And I'm honest: if I find myself having difficulty, I ask for help. At this point, I consider worlds with high gravity and no/low atmo to be impossible because my skill is not that good. Worlds with atmo are a gentle breeze as I can glide in, pick my LZ, drop gear, and make a beautiful, gentle touchdown on soft dirt.

I consider myself good, but by no means an expert. Oh, and I officially can say I much dislike the RAPIER engines. Makes SSTO too easy, and the second stage is way too inefficient for the workload it does. Better to use Airhogged Turbojet, then 2 LV-T45 to make space, if you ask me. Can run the '45s at about 1/3 thrust if you're good with your intake planning and can get 'er up to about 25-30km altitude before flameout on that jet. Running Machingbird trials helped me make better SSTO's. Everyone says rockets are faster, but I can kiss orbit in 10 minutes flat with a well designed plane, although it is kinda done with brute force and ignorance with a 45 degree flight profile.

In the end, I consider myself good at half the game, and the other half I'm lacking in, so that makes me average.

[KerbMav]

I am quite good at building launch vehicles, although heavier and bulkier payloads with a gigantic fairing require hands on steering a lot and often more then one change in design.

Getting an encounter got easier and easier, and well balanced crafts are easier to dock, so a good docking maneuver starts in the VAB. Also picking the right launch time for a quick encounter is something I recently got better at - but only for equatorial orbits really ...

But I suck at pinpoint landing, landing is easy, getting into the general vicinity of something too - but landing close to another craft without wasting fuel and many emergency aborts ...

IMO it don't matter how good or bad you are, as long as you are having fun.

Yep, and I would loose all fun without using infinite fuel once in a while to make up for my crappy landing skills. I keep trying and learning, but the time has not yet come to do it always without this optional safety net.

I also rely on KER for more visible numbers, the Editor Extensions for its invaluable help to align everything right and Enhanced Navball with Navball Docking.

So, all in all, I am not a god at KSP, but I am doing quite well and have loads of fun.

[Ferrit]

I like to think of myself as good but (and it's a biggie) I'm overly cautious. Though the Mun was landed on within hours of its introduction to the game I only landed on Duna for the first time in .22 (both probe and Kerballed). So thanks to my caution and over engineering habits most of the solar system remains unexplored, even by probes!

On the upside I've only lost 1 Kerbal in .23 and that was due to pilot error (Note, retracting landing gear with a spaceplane landing on the runway instead of applying the brakes is very, very bad).

[Dirty Bob]

I'm the greatest thing that has ever happened to KSP.

[SkyHook]

Yes, I am very good. I have been playing since 15.2, so it's pretty logical to assume that with the triple-digit hours that I have put into the game that I am good (Fun Fact: I only bought KSP because they added the runway and the SPH). Navigation isn't a problem for me and small projects normally don't interest me. Space stations, planetary bases, and the like are the only things that interest me. With that being said, there are a couple of planets that give me an extreme challenge that I haven't gotten around to beating (Moho, I am looking at you). Maybe I'm really not that great and it's just my pride talking

[peadar1987]

I thought I was awesome.

Then I visited the challenges subforum...

[TimePeriod]

I'd rate myself 4.5/10 due all my inaccuracy...

[Major "zubb" Tom]

Someone put jebs face on the people that aren't the old lady.

Lets try MORE now.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I'd rate myself at a 9/10 at KSP

Orbiting, rendezvous, docking, landing, areo capture I'm all good at.

But I cannot build a stable rover to save my life.

[Pecan]

I'd rate myself 4.5/10 due all my inaccuracy...

I thought you were 4.6 - do you have a rounding error there? (joke)

[morph113]

I am not sure, I actually would consider myself a below mediocre player, by what I have seen other players are capable of. But looking at the recent post above me saying

"I'd rate myself at a 9/10 at KSP

Orbiting, rendezvous, docking, landing, areo capture I'm all good at."

I guess I would be a 10/10 then because I can do all of those with relativ ease, no mods and stock parts But I have seen what amazing things other people here are capable of and I don't feel more than a 5/10 seeing their accomplishments. But as with any other game, it's still a computer game and nothing I consider worth boasting about. The science part in the game is rather basic, not too complicated. Thankfully it's not rocket science.....oh wait...

[Javster]

Carrier mode? That should be a thing.

I'd rate myself as 7.5/10

[mellojoe]

Am I good? Meh.

I'm good enough. I'm not great, but I'm not bad. I've put a monster space station in orbit around Kerbin, an FPS-destroying, lag inducing monster that was my pride and joy. I've put orbital stations around Jool and landed air breathing planes on Laythe. I've touched down on every celestial body and I've put rovers on many. I'm now installing some interesting mods like Kethane and KAS which look to add to the gameplay.

I still crash everywhere. I've probably blown something up on just about every celestial body, and I kill Kerbals faster than your mom eats cocoa puffs. Most of my missions are aborted half-way through because I forgot to include solar panels and ran out of electricity. Or I didn't put any ladders on. Or I put them on and blocked a hatch. Or i forgot landing gear. Or I put them on, but forgot to turn on symmetry. Or I didn't put struts on. Or an engine randomly falls off. Or I get all the way to Duna and realize I don't have enough fuel to land. Or I have just enough fuel to THINK I can land ...

Edited February 4, 2014 by mellojoe

[Spartwo]

Do you proclaim yourself as a god among men? Can you do perfect encounters, land without quicksaving or get 4000 science after tech-tree 2 in carrier mode? Ask yourself the question.

No,Dependant on planet,Always have,Yes,just did.

I'm also good at carrier mode.

[SkyRender]

Eh, I make bad launches on occasion too. Usually during the testing phases, or when the aerodynamics model goes nuts on me. (I still don't know what the heck happened on one of my save files, but I cannot launch anything without control surfaces on it now. If I do, they'll go into a dead spin and point at the ground without fail around 10KM up. Try and figure THAT one out...) Most of them work out just fine, though; the last time I screwed up a non-testing launch was quite a while ago.

[Tank Buddy]

I'm pretty good considering I've never used any data or flight assistance mods, and I do all math by hand (calculator). I can't help but mention, I let myself "mature", for a lack of better words, until failure for any mission was near impossible.

For more than a year I stayed within the Kerbin system, MASTERING all skills that I could, and when it came time to leave, I had no fear of failure. (But not in the way it is meant in my sig.) Now I have no doubt that I could perform any mission, I just would need to put the time, effort, and thought into it.

I can get things on the first try, excluding aerobraking, which sometimes requires f5+f9 to figure out.

I can just recommend trial and error, practice, and YouTube tutorials. I knew half of the construction techniques before I even bought the game because of all of the videos I watched, so I had a "head start".

[O Nerd]

I think i'm quite good at it.

I've started using FAR, TAC LS, DR and some other hardcore mods (except for the real Solar system) because i thought i could do better than i was doing before, i could go bigger, bulkier and hardcorer(....er? erer?). That made me so better on the game! Oh god. I had only gone to Eve, but with all these mods and career mode, i've got even better! Science teached me how to dock efficiently, how to have good TWRs, pack enough food, equip MOAR BOOSTARS, do polar landings... it teached me a lot! I'm so glad i can make it to Jool and back now... But i still can't do some things.

SSTOs? Impossible. (I would accept suggestions!)

Landing planes? They're mean!

Anyway, i think i could give me an 8,7/10. At least i know how to do stuff! ^^

[PUNiSH3R]

Probably an 8/10 overall. I'm all of 300 hours in though, so I hope that improves. Docking takes longer than I think it should, I think MechJeb is an abomination, I also didn't know about quicksave until after I had finished out the techtree (found that about the same time as I found maneuver nodes...) Every landing I've ever made has been full manual, including a couple of unplanned, full abort landings on Eve and Duna after overly aggressive aerobraking (The chute failed on the first Eve abort too...busted a few solar panels before it was over, but landed it). Got through half a comp book of manual calculations before I discovered KER (THAT made me feel stupid...), and I manually land base components for my Mun base within 200 meters of each other within two correction burns after leaving Kerbin's SOI. (To be fair, the first time I tried it I overshot the landing by almost seven kilometers... That was a *****ty drive...Made an album of it on Imgur to remind me not to do it again ).

So, yeah. Good, not great. Lots of room for improvement in the areas of LV efficiency, in-atmosphere craft, SSTOs and (of course) orbital docking. I'm in the analysis phase of a Mun co-orbital refueling station (and a resource mining station on Duna) in an attempt to practice lots of those skills that I'm currently soft in.

[Redrobin]

I can build, but am just too lazy and never get around to flying my creations. Probably 6/10.

Sample builds for proof:

http://imgur.com/a/FpFYP

Also got more rep than Scott Manley if that counts for anything.

Edited February 4, 2014 by Redrobin

[Felsmak]

My rockets aren't bad; they're advanced.

[fireflower]

I am proficient. I would hope so, as I've been an amateur for years. I work to become more than proficient.

Something I encourage other players to do is separate their skill from their identity, stop putting importance on innate ability, and discard entirely the concept of innate superiority. I've seen a lot of people - entire nations - hurt themselves by such notions. Pride is not the opposite of shame, it is its source.

A Westerner moved to Japan to teach. Originally they taught English but as their Japanese became better they became a general instructor to young students. One day they drew a cube on the blackboard with chalk and asked the children to try to reproduce it in their notebooks. One child seemed to be having trouble, so they asked the child up to the board and tried to show them how it was done again, and again asked them to reproduce it. They kept trying and failing, again and again. The Westerner felt like bursting into tears out of empathy for this child's embarrassment, but the child felt no embarrassment. The Westerner was prepared to yell at the other students for disparaging the slower student, but the howls and taunts never came. Eventually the child figured it out, and smiled briefly before sitting back down to draw cubes over and over again.

This is because the child inherited the meme that struggle is inevitable, and it is how you respond to that struggle that makes you a good person. Contrast to the Western meme that struggle is a sign of sin or inferiority, and that if you aren't "naturally talented" at something (whatever that means) you should never try. This is particularly damaging as long and diligent practice is the how to acquire any skill in any thing.

[Dirty Bob]

I thought I was awesome.

Then I visited the challenges subforum...

That pretty much sums it up for me right there.