Sandbox Career Advice

[nosirrbro]

While I too dispuse career but hate the tech tree and have been getting a little lost in sandbox, I've recently been enjoying a 64K science mode with the engineering tech tree.

[pasukaru76]

I started a new career on normal difficulty when 1.1.2 came out, just to see what has changed in career since my previous career save from 1.0.4. I haven't unlocked the whole tech tree yet, but the few 550 and 1000 point nodes that remain don't really interest me. For example, I don't need the Rapier engine or the large ore tank. I have 5 million in funds which means there's really no pressure to do contracts for money.

I wish the "explore X" contracts came up in a more consistent fashion, so one would get all the celestial bodies offered in a logical progression (possibly based on delta-v requirements). Right now it seems pretty random which "explore X" contracts show up and when. They could also be fleshed out more, for example by having missions that require you to send a probe, followed later by a contract to send Kerbals. That would give me more interesting stuff to do in late career, because I normally don't bother with sending Kerbals further than Duna (though I did send Jeb to Bop once).

Edited May 24, 2016 by pasukaru76

[SorryDave]

I find that sandbox is good for testing rockets or doing one mission which I enjoy once and a while.

For my longer lasting saves I play career mode.

if you don't enjoy the grind at start, set the options to 5,000 science, half a million funds, and 1,000.

This is a great kick start and the rep gives you higher payed missions right away.

[The_Rocketeer]

There are many suggestions here for adjusting the sliders to super-easy mode, but while they would alleviate the grindfest, they also obliterate the measurable progress. As other have said, if you set up Career so that you don't need Science or Contracts, you might as well be playing Sandbox to start with.

[RocketSquid]

I go with science mode or with a grind-free career. The recipe for that second one is simple:

Start with career mode. Kick up the starting science to somewhere between 50 and 100, and put the starting funds a bit higher. Next come the special rules:

• For any unique variation on a contract, you need only do it once. Write down an estimate of the cost, then for all future contracts of that type subtract that amount of funds and then press "com" for that contract in the contracts window of the debug menu. Just remember, this only applies to particularly grindy contracts, like aerial surveys.
• Whenever you put a kerbal on another planet, you get rep! Pick a number. This creates a use for kerbals in the long run. Bonus rep if there was a pilot onboard.

[herbal space program]

I played through career mode one time with standard hard settings except for f5 in case of crashes. There were a couple of tight spots early on, but then it got really easy pretty quickly. I can't  imagine why I'd want to do all of that again, unless there is a whole lot more content involved next time. I did engage in a couple of career-based challenges after that, like how much science/$$$ can you accumulate for how few missions in the early game, but that got old fairly quickly too. Now what interests me is using sandbox mode to push the envelope of what can be done in the game. I hope one day career gets some serious love from the devs and I have a reason to play it again, but until then I'll just play with my space planes and gravity assist tours.

[Hodari]

On 5/23/2016 at 11:46 AM, The_Rocketeer said:

 I want my Space Program to evolve and grow, but not be choked off by scrounging for Science, and not be set arbitrary task after arbitrary task.

At some point, I think it comes down to you basically having 3 options:

1.  Play career/science mode and use the limitations imposed on you by it.

2.  Do the above, but add mods.

3.  Set your own limitations on yourself.

It's up to you which of those options you choose and exactly how you do them, but if you want growth then you have to start off with some sort of arbitrary limitations, whether those are imposed on you by someone else or yourself, and then work to overcome them.

[JoeNapalm]

On 5/23/2016 at 5:37 PM, Geschosskopf said:

I thought that's what all the difficulty sliders and settings were for?

Those settings can give you about $500K and maybe the lower half of the tech tree (if you spend the $500K on upgrading your Science Center).

That's not even remotely close to being unhindered Sandbox with Contracts.

Yeah, I can hack it, but why not just have a checkbox in Sandbox /  Science modes to enable Contracts?

 

-Jn-

[Just Jim]

I'm not a big fan of the early career grind either, and just do my best to blast thru it and get biome hoppers to Minmus ASAP to fill up my tech tree.

But I love later career, which I suppose is a sort of sandbox career. My Emiko Station game is a very hard sandbox career.  The grind is long past, and I have all sorts of extra funds, so I can pick and choose what contracts look interesting, and design missions to fit.  But there is still the chance of losing funds, and perhaps more important, losing reputation, which keeps things interesting.  And I make it a personal goal to still explore every biome I find, and then use the open-source tech campaign set at 100% to convert all the science points to reputation.

 

[Mister Spock]

Personally, I like playing with gradually-relaxing restrictions; for me, it adds to the feeling of accomplishment.  But I admit that grinding the same old nodes can be a drag.  A couple suggestions:

1. The Engineering Tech Tree.  It's really a fresh take on the tech tree.  I like it.

2. A good contracts pack that focuses on what you like.  In my case, that's severedsolo's Bases & Stations, maybe Strategia, plus the Historic Missions pack.  Trouble with Historic Missions is that it gives you 500-plus (!) historical missions, which may be a few more than you want.

3. The R&D mod, which gives you a reason to pursue science even after you've unlocked the tech tree: science discoveries can lead to part upgrades.  I think it's a brilliant idea, as it addresses my main complaint about the career game -- that science becomes meaningless after that last unlock.  Alas, I haven't tried it yet -- I just posted in the mod's thread that I had trouble finding the download itself.  Link to the mod's thread: 

4. There's a mod by Ippo that makes revenue an issue but not science.  Forget its name.  Might suit you, dunno.

5. Finally, as others have said, just configure your save game to skip the early science tree, but leave yourself some later nodes, perhaps.  

[The_Rocketeer]

@Just Jim this sounds like how I want to imagine all of career being, and it is encouraging to think of that being there once I've gotten beyond the misery of early career, but the reality for me is it bores me and puts me off before I get there. Also, with update releases being still pretty frequent, the idea of rinse-and-repeat is a real turn off to putting in all the effort of reaching that goal.

@Mister Spock some great suggestions here.

I'm now tucked into a new career using some of those ideas from higher up the thread, but if I find it's stagnating I will be sure to try some of these newer ideas. To everybody who's contributed so far, thanks for your ideas. I've slightly altered the top post and I encourage everybody to keep posting their good ideas, so that if other people feel like they're struggling with Career, they can look through this thread to find their own tailored solutions.

[mrclucks]

You could give yourself the max science allowed on the sliding bar to remove alot of the grind, but not unlock the whole tree with one swoop.  I personally max funds and science and then start pretty much doing anything I want that I can afford.

[Carraux]

On 25.5.2016 at 10:17 AM, Hodari said:

3.  Set your own limitations on yourself.

Appreciated, but... isn't that a sad commentary of KSP (or Squad?). If you have to sculpt the game goals for yourself, because the game isn't capable of doing so?

[Hodari]

3 hours ago, Carraux said:

Appreciated, but... isn't that a sad commentary of KSP (or Squad?). If you have to sculpt the game goals for yourself, because the game isn't capable of doing so?

No, not really.  The whole point of a "sandbox" style of game is that it ALLOWS you to create your own goals.  And when I said that those are the 3 options, that isn't really limited just to KSP.  It's true for pretty much ANY game.  Either you follow the goals that the game itself sets out for you, you add mods made by someone else, or you add in your own challenges.  Some people prefer one option or the other, some like to have all of them available, but either way, those are probably the only options that there are.

And I'd say overall, KSP does pretty well at giving you all three of those options.  Career mode certainly has room for improvement, but it does at least provide an option for people who want the game itself to provide some sort of structure and sense of progression.  You could certainly get quite a few hours of gameplay out of just doing the normal career, especially if you're trying to figure out your own designs for all of your crafts and not just copying whatever you saw in someone else's video.  And if you're not satisfied with the default gameplay(or, more likely, if you've simply played enough to have done everything that it offers), there are hundreds of mods that will allow you to change the game in almost any way you could want.  And for the people who DO want the option of setting their own goals, sandbox or even late career/science mode give that option as well.

So if you're not satisfied with any of those 3 options, then what exactly DO you want?

[JoeNapalm]

 

After some futzing around, I've figured out how to actually do Sandbox Career with the debugging "cheats"...

...still leaving me puzzled as to why it's buried so deep, rather than just a radio button.

 

-Jn-

[Carraux]

On 26.5.2016 at 9:01 PM, Hodari said:

No, not really.  The whole point of a "sandbox" style of game is that it ALLOWS you to create your own goals.

Please excuse me for not being clear enough: I was referring to the lack of goals in career mode, not sandbox.

[Carraux]

On 26.5.2016 at 9:01 PM, Hodari said:

And I'd say overall, KSP does pretty well at giving you all three of those options.  Career mode certainly has room for improvement [...]

I allow me the luxury of having a different opinion: I think that KSP doesn't do pretty well. To say, that career mode has room for improvement, is an understatement and eloquence. In my eyes career mode simply does not work (speaking in terms of game design).

[wumpus]

On 5/25/2016 at 4:17 AM, Hodari said:

At some point, I think it comes down to you basically having 3 options:

3.  Set your own limitations on yourself.

The biggest difference I see between using F12 to magic yourself the entire tech tree and arbitrary funds and the sandbox is recovery.  In career mode it will let you recover rockets and tell you how much of them you saved.  In sandbox it absolutely refuses.

If your "own limitations" include going for low costs and substantial recovery, you can't really use sandbox as it is (you probably also want recovery mods as well).

NOTE: If you haven't completely given up on career mode, try looking at the administration building (where the strategies are) and look at the "leadership initiative" option (and move the sliders).  Moving the game from a "grind out stupid contracts and parts testing" to unlocking the game by "boldly going where no kerbal has gone before" should make career mode actually fun (haven't coughed up for this yet, but it is so far scheduled when I have the science).

[TrooperCooper]

 

If you are still aiming for colonizing Eeloo... You are probably aware of this, but just in case you are not... RoverDudes Karbonite Plus mod(s) gives a great reason for actually doing this. You can then mine Karborundum there. A special fuel type that can propel some very powerful engines. It takes quite a bit of effort though to get it all set up. But great fun, did that a couple of times. And probably will do again when I run a non-RSS/RO career again at some point.

 

 

Edited June 2, 2016 by TrooperCooper

[Kerbonaut257]

On 5/23/2016 at 10:14 AM, Lo Var Lachland said:

*drooling*

I also like to unlock nodes for "free" based on missions done. So I'll cheat the science to get a new node or two after an easy mission. Or maybe after a manned mission to another planet I'll take 5 or 6 nodes (using CTT, there's a lot more nodes!)