why do people think noobs cant handle far/near?

[ostrich]

when I was a noob at ksp i always made aerodynamic designs so why cant others?

[Janos1986]

I kind of miss the point of this thread.

[KerBlam]

Which people are you referring to?

The people who find NEAR/FAR hardest, are the ones who got used to designing and flying Stock Aero... I was one.

Now I use FAR and I barely have to think about it anymore, but it was a pretty big adjustment to begin with.

[ostrich]

I keep seeing people saying noobs cant use far its to hard for them even though it has less of a learning curve (for me atleast)

[eddiew]

I installed NEAR on my 4th day of KSP. Stuff started to act like my everyday experience said it should.

After a month I upped to FAR, with aerostructural failures turned off, which doesn't really seem any harder, and has all the nice graphs and predictions to tell you whether your plane will fly.

FAR is only hard if you don't know where to start with it. It's perfectly possible to use it as a tool that makes the unintuitive stock aerodynamics (pancake rockets, really?) match up with your expectations

That said - FAR with aerostructural failures is a pain and I wouldn't want to start with it. In fact I still don't turn them on. There aren't enough tools in the game to help you understand, or counteract, being pulled apart in this way, and it does nothing to make the game more fun.

[Linear]

It's going to be difficult for people who've never used FAR/NEAR (there are many people who wouldn't even know how to install a mod that play KSP, or haven't used it out of choice). So unless those people have a decent understanding of aerodynamic/lift physics they're going to have a lot to learn to be able to make planes fly properly again.

[eddiew]

...they're going to have a lot to learn to be able to make planes fly properly again.

But that's part of the problem - KSP stock has trained people into ridiculous expectations. Flat topped rockets that are wider than they are tall are nonsense. They shouldn't fly, and you have to learn the fact that they do and are the way to go. Start people off with a sane aero model from day one, and they'll go with their mental image of what a rocket should look like; tall and pointy with fins on the back. Which flies just fine in NEAR and FAR

[ColourOfFire]

I thought I was going insane trying to build SSTO's in stock, installed FAR and most of my designs went to space with fuel to spare. Rockets get a bit more finicky though, I was never a fan of pancake designs, but you do have to be a bit more sensible with FAR.

I thought FAR made a lot more sense, but then again, insane rocketry was never my thing.

[John FX]

I always felt that I needed to make rockets that looked like rockets even before I installed FAR.

Now I have FAR the game is easier when launching than stock. Just tip over just after launch by about 20 degrees, activate SAS, turn it off when over mach 1 and let gravity turn you adjusting throttle to maintain a good flight path.

Sometimes things fall apart or spin but mostly that is my own fault for trying to turn too quickly.

[Red Iron Crown]

I think the only thing that isn't newb-friendly about FAR is the analysis screen, it's pretty intimidating at first.

[sporkafife]

It's not that noobs "can't" use FAR or NEAR, it's just that it changes rocket design quite a lot, so you it's a very different experience. If anything, a complete noob would probably be better off designing a rocket good for FAR, because FAR forces you to make realistic (-ish) rockets instead of asparagus beasts

[SorryDave]

Massive asparagus staged rockeys are better left to experienced players, they can be difficult to hook-up.

Noobs don't make them. The new players I intriduced to the game all make long wobbly rockets.

[OrtwinS]

I think the only thing that isn't newb-friendly about FAR is the analysis screen, it's pretty intimidating at first.

This.

FAR was salvation for my rocket program. Suddenly everything worked as I would expect it to work.

The air-plane part however, was horrible at first. I had NO idea how to read that HUGE table with numbers I knew nothing about.

The '?' button was pretty useful, that and a thorough Wikipedia read allowed me to understand the data table. The graphs were easier to pretty easy to grasp.

The only things FAR really needs are graphical UIs to display lift (im)balance and control balance, in stead (or in addition) to the 'Big Scary Table' with numbers.

Edited February 9, 2015 by OrtwinS
typos

[m4v]

Because when you're building there's no feedback about how the plane/rocket will fly until you're 20km up and in an uncontrolled spin, and you will not know what is wrong until you ask in the FAR thread. The graphs and numbers aren't simple to use nor to understand.

I'm playing with FAR and I like that planes glide instead of falling like rocks when the engines are out, but building a craft is annoying when you can't get it right after an hour of tweaking, hoping that this time around you will get rid of the bloody roll instabilities.

[Alshain]

People just assume for some reason that it is a difficulty mod. It really makes things easier, mostly. I agree on above comments on aerodynamic disassembly, it isn't for beginners. That is the only difficulty part of it, but it is easily turned off.

The only thing I don't like about it from a usability standpoint is the default wing strength seems too high so every plane I build I have to cut that value in half on every single wing/control piece. It's a bit a annoying... but not hard.

[Xaiier]

Some people intuitively try to design for aero...some don't. Depends on personal experience really, though in my experience it's been the latter.