6 ms·

Is KSP1 any fun for casual gamers with only an hour or two and a joystick? Will I have to read up on lots of math and orbital mechanics to get anywhere in it?

godtoldmetodoit 7y ago
Can definitely just pick it up and go, no need for a joystick. Just slap some boosters together and have fun blowing stuff up.
- Diederich 7y ago
  > Just slap some boosters together and have fun blowing stuff up. This might sound like a flip comment to some, but it's 100% legit. After playing KSP way too many hours over the years, I'll still get an unreasonable amount of joy from creating a new sandbox game (which has unlimited resources), creating an absurd but monstrous rocket and spend two hours trying to get it into orbit. Yes, that process will cause many explosions. Yes, you will destroy parts of the space center. Yes, it's all-together fun.
ziddoap 7y ago
It's one of those games that has a fair amount of breadth for those who just want to jump in and have some fun, but a ton of depth for those who get hooked.
standardUser 7y ago
I consider myself a connoisseur of ridiculously time-consuming single-player games (Civ series, Crusader Kings, city builders and the like) and I have found no game as ruthlessly time consuming as KSP. If you happen to have heroic self-control, you could find a lot of enjoyment simply doing a few moon landing missions over the course of 5-10 hours.
- skykooler 7y ago
  > I have found no game as ruthlessly time consuming as KSP. I wonder if you've tried Factorio?
  - Baeocystin 7y ago
    Simple test: if we never see them post again, the answer is yes.
  - TylerE 7y ago
    I could never get into Factorio. I despise games where the main gameplay loop is inventory management.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      The point of Factorio is to automate inventory management. Well, now that I put it like this, it sounds way too close to my dayjob...
    - Rychard 7y ago
      The main gameplay loop is entirely based around ever-increasing the level of automation in your factory. Any perceived struggles relating to inventory management should be recognized as a signal that you should be carrying carry fewer things, which can be accomplished by automating the production of various intermediate components.
  - cbanek 7y ago
    I absolutely love KSP, Factorio, Civ, etc. I'll just add Rimworld here into the mix, my newest obsession. It's a rare game where you can harvest people's organs. And the mod community is really good, just like KSP's mods. So very excited about KSP2!
hughes 7y ago
I have hundreds of hours in KSP and have never wanted a joystick. It's extremely forgiving and encourages learning by experimentation. This includes developing an intuition for orbital mechanics.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Part of the "forgiveness" here is space itself - most of spaceflight consists of periods of inactivity interrupted briefly by burning the right amount of fuel in the right direction at roughly the right time. It's not a kind of flying joystick will improve much. That said, I did use a joystick with KSP briefly, and it made docking much more fun. And, of course, flying airplanes.
  - shostack 7y ago
    Out of curiosity, how much does the "not using a joystick" piece align with reality? I feel like all of the movies I see have the shuttle pilots using joysticks for everything.
headcanon 7y ago
You won't need to read a textbook or anything, but you'll want to invest more than an hour or two before you make orbit for the first time. The great thing about this game though is that it teaches you orbital mechanics in an intuitive and fun way, much better than reading a textbook full of vector calculus ever could.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Hour or two is 1-5 "missions", depending on complexity of your craft and planned flight. However, you'll quickly discover you want to do "just one more mission", and suddenly it's 5:00 AM. As for math, you won't have to read up much - KSP is the ultimate textbook. Watch some introduction videos by Scott Manley or whatever the community currently recommends, and fire up KSP. Make your first orbit, then first transfer to Mun or Minmus, then back, learn to change planes, intercept objects and dock... you won't even notice when you've gained intuitive understanding of basic orbital mechanics.
- isostatic 7y ago
  > you won't even notice when you've gained intuitive understanding of basic orbital mechanics. You will, because every time you watch sci-fi where a ship drops from orbit by accelerating towards the planet you’ll be screaming inside.
  - kaibee 7y ago
    > you’ll be screaming inside. Just like the passengers.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Fair. You will cringe hard. I haven't been to a cinema for a space movie since Interstellar, but I vividly remember watching The 100 at home, standing up and almost walking away from the computer screaming "THIS IS NOT HOW YOU DEORBIT A SPACE STATION". Other KSP side effects include: wondering how much Δv your car has, calling reverse "retrograde", calling right/left "normal"/"antinormal", calling up/down "radial-out"/"radial-in"...
  - Diederich 7y ago
    > a ship drops from orbit by accelerating towards the planet you’ll be screaming inside Aww hell that'll work if you have sci-fi amounts of delta-v. (:
    - DuskStar 7y ago
BitwiseFool 7y ago
No math needed at all. It's hard to explain, but you end up understanding orbital mechanics visually and by feel. It's really just a game about speeding up and slowing down.
- derefr 7y ago
  Is there a space game where there is math required? I'd like to play a game where I'm less of an aerospace engineer, and more of a 1960s astronaut, doing Emergency Slide-Rule Sums™️ during landing.
  - dTal 7y ago
    "Orbiter" might be what you're looking for. It's less "game" and more "sim". There are computerized aids for most things, but you don't have to use them. You might find that rather challenging, though - even 1960s astronauts had electronic computers! Bonus - it's free. I've burned a lot of hours in Orbiter. http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
  - krallja 7y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbiter_(simulator) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbiter_(simulator)
  - samfriedman 7y ago
    You can also use the kOS mod for KSP and restrict yourself to only flying spacecraft for which you've written the control logic by hand :)
mhh__ 7y ago
The thing that KSP got right was making orbital mechanics "intuitive" e.g. you just drag maneuver nodes and go by eye. You can do the mathematics if you want (or look at a summary in the game) but it's not required.
joveian 7y ago
You do not need math but do need quite a bit of time. I suggest some DRM-free builder alternatives at the end of my long comment above, but even most of those need quite a bit of time and all much less than KSP. I'm not sure builder games in general are the best option on limited time, but maybe you are much faster than me :).

godtoldmetodoit 7y ago

Can definitely just pick it up and go, no need for a joystick. Just slap some boosters together and have fun blowing stuff up.

Diederich 7y ago
> Just slap some boosters together and have fun blowing stuff up. This might sound like a flip comment to some, but it's 100% legit. After playing KSP way too many hours over the years, I'll still get an unreasonable amount of joy from creating a new sandbox game (which has unlimited resources), creating an absurd but monstrous rocket and spend two hours trying to get it into orbit. Yes, that process will cause many explosions. Yes, you will destroy parts of the space center. Yes, it's all-together fun.

ziddoap 7y ago

It's one of those games that has a fair amount of breadth for those who just want to jump in and have some fun, but a ton of depth for those who get hooked.

standardUser 7y ago

I consider myself a connoisseur of ridiculously time-consuming single-player games (Civ series, Crusader Kings, city builders and the like) and I have found no game as ruthlessly time consuming as KSP. If you happen to have heroic self-control, you could find a lot of enjoyment simply doing a few moon landing missions over the course of 5-10 hours.

skykooler 7y ago
> I have found no game as ruthlessly time consuming as KSP. I wonder if you've tried Factorio?
- Baeocystin 7y ago
  Simple test: if we never see them post again, the answer is yes.
- TylerE 7y ago
  I could never get into Factorio. I despise games where the main gameplay loop is inventory management.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    The point of Factorio is to automate inventory management. Well, now that I put it like this, it sounds way too close to my dayjob...
  - Rychard 7y ago
    The main gameplay loop is entirely based around ever-increasing the level of automation in your factory. Any perceived struggles relating to inventory management should be recognized as a signal that you should be carrying carry fewer things, which can be accomplished by automating the production of various intermediate components.
- cbanek 7y ago
  I absolutely love KSP, Factorio, Civ, etc. I'll just add Rimworld here into the mix, my newest obsession. It's a rare game where you can harvest people's organs. And the mod community is really good, just like KSP's mods. So very excited about KSP2!

hughes 7y ago

I have hundreds of hours in KSP and have never wanted a joystick. It's extremely forgiving and encourages learning by experimentation. This includes developing an intuition for orbital mechanics.

TeMPOraL 7y ago
Part of the "forgiveness" here is space itself - most of spaceflight consists of periods of inactivity interrupted briefly by burning the right amount of fuel in the right direction at roughly the right time. It's not a kind of flying joystick will improve much. That said, I did use a joystick with KSP briefly, and it made docking much more fun. And, of course, flying airplanes.
- shostack 7y ago
  Out of curiosity, how much does the "not using a joystick" piece align with reality? I feel like all of the movies I see have the shuttle pilots using joysticks for everything.

headcanon 7y ago

You won't need to read a textbook or anything, but you'll want to invest more than an hour or two before you make orbit for the first time. The great thing about this game though is that it teaches you orbital mechanics in an intuitive and fun way, much better than reading a textbook full of vector calculus ever could.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Hour or two is 1-5 "missions", depending on complexity of your craft and planned flight. However, you'll quickly discover you want to do "just one more mission", and suddenly it's 5:00 AM. As for math, you won't have to read up much - KSP is the ultimate textbook. Watch some introduction videos by Scott Manley or whatever the community currently recommends, and fire up KSP. Make your first orbit, then first transfer to Mun or Minmus, then back, learn to change planes, intercept objects and dock... you won't even notice when you've gained intuitive understanding of basic orbital mechanics.

isostatic 7y ago
> you won't even notice when you've gained intuitive understanding of basic orbital mechanics. You will, because every time you watch sci-fi where a ship drops from orbit by accelerating towards the planet you’ll be screaming inside.
- kaibee 7y ago
  > you’ll be screaming inside. Just like the passengers.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Fair. You will cringe hard. I haven't been to a cinema for a space movie since Interstellar, but I vividly remember watching The 100 at home, standing up and almost walking away from the computer screaming "THIS IS NOT HOW YOU DEORBIT A SPACE STATION". Other KSP side effects include: wondering how much Δv your car has, calling reverse "retrograde", calling right/left "normal"/"antinormal", calling up/down "radial-out"/"radial-in"...
- Diederich 7y ago
  > a ship drops from orbit by accelerating towards the planet you’ll be screaming inside Aww hell that'll work if you have sci-fi amounts of delta-v. (:
  - DuskStar 7y ago

BitwiseFool 7y ago

No math needed at all. It's hard to explain, but you end up understanding orbital mechanics visually and by feel. It's really just a game about speeding up and slowing down.

derefr 7y ago
Is there a space game where there is math required? I'd like to play a game where I'm less of an aerospace engineer, and more of a 1960s astronaut, doing Emergency Slide-Rule Sums™️ during landing.
- dTal 7y ago
  "Orbiter" might be what you're looking for. It's less "game" and more "sim". There are computerized aids for most things, but you don't have to use them. You might find that rather challenging, though - even 1960s astronauts had electronic computers! Bonus - it's free. I've burned a lot of hours in Orbiter. http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/ http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/
- krallja 7y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbiter_(simulator) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbiter_(simulator)
- samfriedman 7y ago
  You can also use the kOS mod for KSP and restrict yourself to only flying spacecraft for which you've written the control logic by hand :)

mhh__ 7y ago

The thing that KSP got right was making orbital mechanics "intuitive" e.g. you just drag maneuver nodes and go by eye. You can do the mathematics if you want (or look at a summary in the game) but it's not required.

joveian 7y ago

You do not need math but do need quite a bit of time. I suggest some DRM-free builder alternatives at the end of my long comment above, but even most of those need quite a bit of time and all much less than KSP. I'm not sure builder games in general are the best option on limited time, but maybe you are much faster than me :).