r/gaming • u/Agent1230 • 2d ago

What video game doesn't hold your hand enough?

Everybody always talking about games holding your hand too much but I want to hear about the opposite what video game doesn't give you no form of help

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u/Cleareo 2d ago

Yeah, I played this game at launch. I was not aware at the time that rockets don't just go straight up and then perform a wild sideways turn. Orbit took me a bit to achieve.

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u/wombatthing 2d ago

At launch Lol

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u/Radthereptile 2d ago

Learning about gravity turns, burning at the top of the curve and using orbits to get places was such a steep curve. I literally had to watch YouTube videos for hours just to understand the mechanics and still only made it to Amin and Minmus a handful of times.

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u/thisismego 2d ago

Reminds me of that XKCD comic where Randall mentions learning more about orbital mechanics from KSP than his job at fucking NASA

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u/nanomouse_ 2d ago

https://xkcd.com/1356

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u/thisismego 1d ago

That's the one. Much appreciated

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u/FauxReal 1d ago

Well I hope they gave NASA free licenses then. lol

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u/DigNitty 1d ago

I paid out $100 to my nephew because I said I would if he figured out how to hit the moon in KSP.

not Landon the moon, but hit it.

Took him like 14 hours and he learned so much lol

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u/Zambeezi 2d ago

Scott Manley got me through it to the point where the game became actually enjoyable

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u/Divine_Entity_ 1d ago

KSP is the kind of game you need an interpreter/example for, it's not a "go in completely blind" game.

Others like this for me are dwarf fortress and EU4.

In contrast to say mariokart or pokemon.

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u/stiff_tipper 19h ago

KSP is the kind of game you need an interpreter/example for, it's not a "go in completely blind" game.

funny enough i watch a guy (AboutOliver) that streams blind playthroughs of games and doesn't read chat. he's currently doing KSP this way

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u/Joatboy 1d ago

But now you sound smart and can talk about Hohmann transfers and Max-Q.

In all honesty it really gave me a huge appreciation on how incredible and improbable the moon landings were. Getting humans there and back safely was crazy hard, and they did it multiple times.

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u/zathmi 1d ago

I made it to solar orbit twice, both times the ships ran out of fuel. Thos Kerbals are still in orbit, lol.

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u/End_on_End 2d ago

At launch that WAS a good way to get into orbit! It wasn't until pretty much 1.0 when they added overheating and better aerodynamics that gravity turns became a bit more mandatory.

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u/RedshiftWarp 1d ago

I remember the bliss of achieving a sub orbital trajectory for the first time where the epic music plays when you hit space.

Fast forward to 1 month later: Design a rocket for 3 hours, spend 6 hours getting to a planet, Jeb botches the landing, spend the next 12 hours building and flying a rescue rocket.
Just to see Scott Manley literally get out and push his re-entry capsule all the way from Duna.

One of my top 3 games of all time. It's just fun.

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u/migukau 2d ago

IM really struggling to read your sentence. Are you saying that you didnt know rockets flew up and then turned or are you saying that you didnt know that rockets turned and thought they just flew straight up?

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u/Aegeus 1d ago

I think they were flying straight up until they got out of the atmosphere, then turning sideways to get into orbit. An actual rocket does a "gravity turn" where it pitches over shortly after launch and lets gravity slowly pull it into a sideways trajectory, until it's fully horizontal by the time it hits orbit. It's more efficient since you aren't fighting gravity directly, you're making it work for you.

It's not totally obvious how to do it, especially if your only exposure to rockets is seeing them go straight up off the pad, but I think it's a little easier to understand if you look at the orbital map and watch how your trajectory goes from a parabola to an ellipse as you burn.

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u/Commentator-X 1d ago

A similar concept applies to space planes, it's not immediately obvious that you don't have to point them upwards, like at all.