thing that took me the longest to master was.....

[Dimetime35c]

what was that one thing that took you ages to finally master? for me it was well two things. landing on other planets and docking. it seemed like i could do everything else but those two things were like the killers for me. id get so close many times only to smash into the surface of the planet or ram my ship into the other or run out of RCS fuel trying to hard to get a perfect dock. please share with us your stumbling point. also no bashing others please. we were all new and all had one thing that we couldnt do that everyone else it seemed could do with no trouble.

[Col_Jessep]

Ages to master? Powered landing on worlds with high gravity. (Hello Tylo!) But there is one thing I dread even more: Having to land near a target on a world with an atmosphere! Can't do it. Without F5/F9 it pure luck if I manage to land on the same continent. The only way to land near KSC is to basically waste 1.5-2km/s on reentry. That's why I like SSTOs so much. Only good way for me to get back to KSC reliably for me....

[wolfedg]

I think precision landing would be a lot easier if they would make altitude appear on the orbit line in map view when you mouse over it. Then all you would have to do on Kerbin would be to put the 30,000 altitude point near KSC.

EDIT: On a related note (Protip: When planning your return to Kerbin from the Mun, put your Periapsis at 34km over Kerbin for a safe yet imprecise Low G re-entry.)

Edited March 27, 2014 by wolfedg

[cantab]

Likewise, the thing I have attempted and have yet to master is landing at KSC.

[FITorion]

aerobraking...

In fact I still haven't gotten it right.

Docking took 3-4 attempts to really nail down. But that first attempt was a 3-4 hour ordeal.

Landings I never had much a problem with... except when I need to land close... and if there is an atmosphere involved then I'm really going to have problems getting close.

[Mitchz95]

Orbital rendezvous. Docking wasn't too hard, but figuring out how to get two ships to the same place at the same time had me tearing my hair out in frustration.

[GamerMitch]

I agree with you, Mitchz95. I actually learned from mechjeb on how to do so.

[Deadpangod3]

How to Laythe...

DR is a complete jerk.

[Tex]

My biggest obstacle right now is interplanetary travel. For some reason I can never get big rockets to work well! I have only ever landed on Duna!

Before then, though, my biggest problem was also docking. The funny thing is... After that first time (I used Clamp-o-Tron Sr ports because I was a cheater) I can dock like a pro now. I still laugh that I had such a tough time with docking.

[merendel]

orbital rendezvous was my biggest hurdle. Took forever for me to get to the point of being able to do that by hand without alot of trial and error. The one thing that still eludes me is landing a non spaceplane at KSC. I've goten withen about 20km with a pod landing although even that took a couple F5/F9s. If I can glide or powered flight for a fair bit of crossrange distance I'm fine but finding that sweet spot for unpowered reentry eludes me.

[Redrobin]

Anything RSS...

[DisarmingBaton5]

SSTOs. I just cannot seem to get them right...

[_jack]

Docking was just straight up awful for me. I ended up doing it the 10th or 11th try. (with no quick saves)

[Stargate525]

Second stage thrust-to-weight ratios. I can never seem to make them strong enough.

[Xavven]

For me it was gravitational slingshots. I practiced with a lightweight probe against Duna and Ike to try to learn how it works and how I could change my orbit shape with the least dV expended.

[CalculusWarrior]

For me it was how to get into orbit efficiently. I could never get the hang of getting my gravity turn right, and usually wasted fuel burning too low or too high.

[Temstar]

Launching interplanetary ships from Mun orbit using the perikee dive method. I mean theoretically I understand the principle behind it:

1. Wait for correct phase angle (minus 8 hours head start, since that's how long it takes to reach Kerbin PE from the Mun) from Kerbin to target planet, just like transfer from LKO

2. Wait for the Mun to be 180 degree out of phase with the normal ejection angle. That way the Kerbin PE will be actually at the correct spot to eject to Kerbol orbit

3. Eject out of Mun orbit to Kerbin at the correct ejection angle so that Kerbin orbit AP will be at around Mun orbit and PE is at the correct point for Kerbin ejection

So basically one will have to line up three points on three separate orbits (Mun orbit, Kerbin orbit, Kerbol orbit) correctly so that by using two burns, you shift between the three orbits and get to the target planet. I can get my head around it but it feels like it will be difficult in practice. I mean the Mun orbits Kerbin once per month (munth?), so instead of one correct ejection window per 45 minutes or so in low Kerbin orbit, you get one correct ejection window per month. So unless you're very lucky you're going to be off a little bit either with planetary phase angle or ejection angle, plus whatever error you're already carrying with your when you eject from Mun orbit.

[Jart]

Building the perfect rocket. Everything else... if I cannot do it yet I will be able to, but building that perfect rocket for the mission will probably never happen.

[ArmchairGravy]

Docking. It took me forever to figure out that I need to point my target port north/south. Once I did that I docked easily.

Things I have yet to master: Eve & Tylo returns, and landing a capsule at KSC. I probably could master landing at KSC if I bothered to orbit Kerbin on returns, but it takes more fuel so I don't.

[problemecium]

Thing that's taken me longest to master?

ACTUALLY GOING to other planets xD

The other day I went to Jool in a sandbox save, just because I'd never been there. Of course, despite having put twice the fuel I thought I needed on my ship, I still got there without enough to return, so I just let it eat my ship. And last time I went to Eve I ended up in the middle of the ocean without the resources to get back into space (obviously... it is Eve after all). Good thing these were both probes!

[SkyRender]

Not much about KSP really took me very long to master once I got around to actually doing it. Though if you go by what I took the longest to get around to doing (a much more interesting metric by my estimation), that would be all of the key components surrounding spaceplanes: designing, flying, and landing them. I didn't really bother with that until 0.23 came out, as I'd had little reason to care when rockets worked perfectly well. The RAPIER engine was enough to make me decide they were worth checking out after all.

[boomerdog2000]

Definitely precision landing anywhere, atmosphere or not it took me a while to get that right. But a new Munbase speaks to at least some measure of success.

[kookoo_gr]

Docking, even by watching Manley's videos it took me 2 weeks to make my first docking, after that within a month i could do effective and fast dockings.

[Kasuha]

Landing on bodies without atmosphere. Particularly that part where you need to find a place where your ship won't topple. In fact I'm still having problems with that, although I believe the main reason is that the game just does not tell me what slope can I expect when I touch down. Building wide landers of course works in most cases but it's more of a workaround than a solution.

[Endersmens]

Something i'm still struggling with is deciding how much rocket i need. I feel like i add too many stages and i end up using huge 2.75 booster stages for a 2.5 mun lander that probably only needed a 2.5 rocket under it. But i add so many stages. i just gotta learn.