Why do you play KSP?

[FanaticalFighter]

Because KSP is set in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

And also because its more fun than just about every other game in existence.

[Ayo99]

I like explosion

[Vallius]

I have always been inspired by the dream of space travel. I became an engineer partially because I want to design interstellar spacecraft. But since the job market in manned spaceflight fluctuates with every election, I will content myself (for now) with KSP.

In KSP, you may have over a thousand in-game hours of play, but you can still crash just as easily on the Mun as you did on day 1. You aren't artificially better just because you've grinded out science, or launched over 100 rockets. Your skills (and luck) are earned the hard way. Every mission, I find myself having to solve unexpected problems and having new adventures due to mistakes in ship design or piloting. (Ever try docking without RCS, or delivering a landing stage (designed to be manned) to a multi-part spacecraft without probe cores or kerbals on the key stage). No two flights are quite the same, and every new 'routine' mission has the potential to become another Apollo 13. What other game allows you to feel that kind of accomplishment, and lets you learn so much from failure?

It seems like modern gaming companies don't always recognize that people like limits, not in the form of artificial walls or 'levels' to the game's world, but real consequences for player's decisions. Nothing stops me from making a nonsensical rocket in the editor, but then nothing forces the design to work either. That's my kind of game. I play other games from time to time, but I'm always drawn back to KSP--because I feel like I learn something every time I play, and there's always more to do.

[CarlosMaximus]

Because SPAAACE!! and FOR SCIENCE!! Nah, seriously, I'm not the world's biggest fan of violent games (if you are, each to their own, who am I to judge? ), which pretty much leaves me with racing games (good for about 30 - 45 minutes) and sports games (all of which apart from management sims I am universally pony at playing). Then along came KSP. Jaw hit floor, rainbows were puked. I now launch at least one design a day, and have so many ongoing missions I'm tempted to rename my career file The United Federation Of Kerbal Planets... or something.

[KvickFlygarn87]

I like space

I like science

I like challenge

I like intellectual games

I like explosions.

How could i *not* like KSP?

THIS. Then some more of this and then even more. BOOSTERS!

[michaelhester07]

It's about the exploration, not just of space but of the near future of spacetravel. I'll be exploring my Kerbals expansion of technology from the early flights into a truly space-faring race. I'm planning to make my first mod be this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_torus: A space station that can house countless kerbals in comfort for permanent orbital presence. (of course it will be multiple parts 8)

If I were to place the year my current save is in it would be somewhere around 2080-2100. Kerbals regularly launch. My space program has a limitless budget thanks to saving the world from a mile wide asteroid. Minmus has a bustling shipyard in orbit of it. The Mun will start to get work as Minmus' resources dry up. They're building space cruisers that otherwise would be impossible to build to explore Eve and Gilly (which BTW if Squad or any modder knows how to change the warp altitude for I would be REALLLY HAPPY). Maybe Eve is a prediction of what will happen to Kerbin soon!

Duna now has a huge construction facility in orbit of it's massive moon Ike. From there I'll be building Duna One: the first Stanford Torus station I'll make. My scientists will eventually make a breakthrough on FTL travel (I'll try to reinstall KSP interstellar) and we'll "discover" new star systems to visit (thanks to that new planet mod that I found).

The next exploration of tech will be 2100 to 2200 with the introduction of:

- Efficient Ion engines to replace nuclear engines (you saw my Titanic transfer cruiser already)

- Sealed hull cruisers with better hangars and crew capacity.

- Permanent space station cities with orbital construction facilities

- Orbital particle accelerators for mass Anti-matter generation. Why would you make this stuff on a planet you care about? Could you imagine the Large Hadron Collider in orbit instead of in Switzerland?

[Felsmak]

It's what keeps me alive.

[bawr]

Because Dwarf Fortress doesn't let me build rockets.

Yet.

[Franklin]

It's one of the few games I've found that keeps me stimulated but doesn't rush or pressure me. I can play as leisurely as I'd like, while still having plenty to think about and consider.

That said, I've kinda burnt myself out on it. I still want to play, but more than half the time now I find myself asking why I'm even bothering. I think I'm lacking an overarching reason to do anything now that I've unlocked the whole tech tree.

[Megalodon 720]

It has a truly challenging aspect, it took me 3 months to learn how to land on and return from the Mun.

[tutrakan4e]

I literally have no idea. I play it 'cause it's fun.

[CarlosMaximus]

...

That said, I've kinda burnt myself out on it. I still want to play, but more than half the time now I find myself asking why I'm even bothering. I think I'm lacking an overarching reason to do anything now that I've unlocked the whole tech tree.

MODS!! So much extra playtime.

[Deadpangod3]

To you, it may just be a game, but for me, its more then just a game, the feeling, of commanding an entire space program, leading an entire planet into the void, a tiny, blue dot, circling a giant sphere of plasma that at any moment could flare up and eliminate it, asteroids that zoom past at tons of km/s, any number of which could come crashing down and destroying half the planet, with a moon that catches some, but not all of them, a tiny little comet orbiting far from its planet, an entire solar system to explore, any which planet could happen to tug on an asteroid slightly and send it towards an impact, and that would be the end of it all, millions of years of evolution led up to that moment when a light streaks across the sky, not stoping or burning up as it carves a path leaving smoke and fire in its trail until it hits the surface. and in mere moments you have a super volcano times twenty. Half the planet is wiped out, all up to that moment, all for nothing, just because a little rock fell from space and the nations were too busy fighting each other and sabotaged each others atempt to push the asteroid away, because that's what we are. That tiny blue dot in the distance amidst a black infinity, that's us, imagine that dot disappearing, its gone. All for nothing.

For me, its more then just a game, a planet united together to stop any little death potato that threatens us, the will, to go beyond.

[xzxvrx]

It's fun to play.

[Blind Dead McJones]

I enjoy KSP because I enjoy making things and doing stuff with them. I did not go to school to be an engineer, but I nearly did, and if I ever decide the career I went with isn't working out and I have to go back to school, it would almost certainly be for engineering.

I also like having objectives, even if I set them myself. I never got into Minecraft the way I got into KSP, possibly because I never felt like survival mode was very fun and at the time creative mode didn't exist (or it was out of the game for some reason, I can't remember).

[Franklin]

MODS!! So much extra playtime.

You'd think, but a hundred more engines, a couple winches and a Kethane drill and still I don't see a point once you've run out of constructive things to do. No amount of parts detract from the fact that you've got no real reason to do anything in the game beyond 'just because'. Which is great at first, when the game's still new and fresh, but I don't wanna put up another floating art installation.

Maybe I could try to find all the easter eggs, but even then I'm just putting around in my best-performing rocket I've long-since stopped tweaking, so how much incentive is that gonna provide, really.

I can't wait for some actual competitive/productive/constructive elements to be added to the core game. The contracts stuff has me real stoked.

[SpenSpaceCorp]

Hmm, Why do I play KSP?

Well,

(I do not own this photo)

[Aragosnat]

Hmm, Why do I play KSP?

Well,

http://i.imgur.com/0RaRShw.jpg

(I do not own this photo)

That looks like Whackjob's picture? Or very least someone who likes to build big.

[Xacktar]

Hmm, Why do I play KSP?

Well,

http://i.imgur.com/0RaRShw.jpg

(I do not own this photo)

That... is a pretty good reason.

[Basketcase]

I went to school for aerospace engineering. I learned more in KSP than I did in my first Orbital Mechanics class! The most efficient transfers, the dV calculations, the inclination changes, and orbital rendezvous! There are some missing elements to KSP, but that doesn't take away from how awesome this game is.

I design small drones/UAVs in real life, so once I got the FAR mod installed, the spaceplane hanger really peaked my interest. Building a stable plane in KSP isn't much different than the real thing now. You have cg location, neutral point, sweep, dihedral, and so forth for stability. KSP still doesn't worry about moments, reynolds limits, or washout; but I can get a KSP plane to fly stable without SAS using real aerodynamics (after FAR mod of course). That is awesome! It's like one of the first games ever with aircraft design required before the flight simulation part.

[Tux]

This is not the main reason but its the only reason that KSP specifically holds for me over other games.

When people suggest playing games is bad for you I can just rest in thinking that I know orbits and rockets and they do not...

[aman608]

i found KSP while watching YouTube (stumbled across Scott Manley)

became hooked on videos of KSP got myself (and i'm not proud of this) a "free" version of KSP but after a while i felt bad and deleted it then downloaded the demo instead.

after a while i couldn't get it out of my head so i almost begged my parents to buy it for me( i didn't have Paypal so i had them buy it and i pay them back) after i got KSP i was hooked (i got it during .23 so very recent) i couldn't quit and i now could never quit ( i even cal the Moon the Mun)

oh back to the point i play KSP because i wish to learn about orbital mechanics

Edited June 6, 2014 by aman608