Maolagin

Okay, I guess I'm sold on the idea that there's no practical limit to the amount you can grind a single mission under the current setup. Especially if it's just a question of avoiding whatever flight situation unlocks the next set of contracts -- but doing some clicking around myself, even after landing on Mun I can still reliably get new orbit-only science contracts apparently without end. So here's a question -- would any of you be more interested in a rebalanced version of this challenge, one that rewards both how far you get AND how few contracts you use to do it? If so, how would you like to see that work? Simple XP less # of contracts (with appropriate scaling factors), or something more elaborate?

Okay, I see your screenshot gallery now. Clever solution, tuning your landing speed to break off your first stage! That's got to be close to the max science points you can reasonably get from a first flight. I can't believe I've made it this long without realizing there's a sliver of tundra right next to the KSC, though. I have to ask, how many contracts were you able to do on that polar orbit flight? It doesn't look like you made enough from your first flight to upgrade the mission control center, and if you unlocked the FL-200 tanks then you shouldn't have had enough science to also unlock batteries. That only leaves you with enough charge to transmit one additional science result before recovering.

I'm looking forward to seeing your pics! Make sure to include some good shots of your craft, I'm curious to see how you implemented the hopper with just the starting parts. 50 science points might be the biggest haul we've seen yet from a first flight.

As long as your screenshots show that you never went below 10,000 funds, then I suppose I'll allow it. Images are not hosted on the forum itself, you have to use an outside service. The most common thing to do around here is go to imgur.com and create a gallery. Then you can use the imgur tag to embed the gallery in a post.

Okay, I was offline for most of the weekend but I'm back now. Let's see what's up... It's true that the game counts XP additively as you describe, but it also doesn't award XP until the Kerbonaut is recovered back on Kerbin. So in the spirit of rewarding "furthest progress" above all, here's what I propose: Basic score remains as in the original rules -- highest single XP achievement for any Kerbal in your space program. After that, ties are broken by additive XP accomplishments for your entire program -- that is, add up the highest XP accomplishments per SOI just like the game does, but total it as if your entire space program was executed by a single Kerbal. So if Jeb went to Laythe but Val also orbited Mun at some point, your headline score is 20 points, and your tie-breaker score is 37 + 3 = 40 points. And in the interest of not relying TOO heavily on the "Jeb can come home on flight 6" rule, let's give a 20% bonus to the tie-breaker score if all Kerbonauts are recovered back on Kerbin after five flights. Let me know if any of that seems horribly broken to you guys, otherwise I'll update the rules with this next time I edit the top post. That would certainly be tedious! I'm also not sure if it's true, because what I'm observing is that as you complete contracts the game gradually ups the difficulty, probably going by your reputation. So if you're looking to unlock the whole tech tree by spamming "transmit science from Kerbin orbit" contracts, after the first couple of times you're only going to get a couple of science points, and I am seriously skeptical that the game even will give you that contract a thousand times without you doing something in the meantime to lose rep points. - - - Updated - - - Just a note, timewarp 4x and holding shift to run is your friend. You can run all over the KSC in just a few minutes that way. It's still minimal payoff, as those surface EVA reports are only worth a point or so each, but if that's difference between unlocking two or three nodes for Launch 2 it's worth it. Nice start! Looking forward to seeing how flights 4 and 5 turn out! If I can make a request to everyone, in your screenshots please include a shot of the KSC before you start, to confirm to us all that you're starting with 0-0-0 funds/science/rep. If you want to screenshot the difficulty settings dialog that's great too, but I'm willing to take you at your word that you correctly set the difficulty. Also, let us know which buildings you upgrade when, as that's also an important element of the strategy to this.

Wow, very impressive! You are the first to finish, and according to the table planting a flag on Laythe nets you 20 XP points! Since the only way to beat that score would be to visit Eeloo, I may have to think of a way to do tiebreakers ... you're dangerously close to maxing out my scoring system here!

I'm looking forward to seeing if you can do it!

Indeed, I was surprised to find that you really can't turn them off in Sandbox. I even destroyed the tracking station outright, and all the advanced features you get with the station kept right on working in map mode! Funny thing, if you do that, the only way to return to a flight in progress from the KSC is to launch a new vehicle and switch to the old one from the new one's map view.

Hah, nice work blowing up the VAB on your first launch! Yes, I'm fine with reverting, this challenge is about clever ship design and game mechanic exploitation. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of your flights! However, the spirit of the rule was supposed to be that you get to deploy five craft, period, so I would count your pod-roller as craft #1. I'll see if I can edit the top post to make that clearer.

Meh, I'm not really a fan of speed-run challenges. Most of the challenge and creativity in this game is in puzzling out your design in the VAB, but to be competitive in a speed run you are slapping together designs that you've already practiced and refined in the sandbox. What's left seems like it would boil down to "who's computer is beefy enough to power through all the atmospheric phases at 4x?" With the challenge I posted, I'm hoping to see that creativity on display. Early Career 5-Flight Challenge

Yeah, I'm sorry that my reply came out so flippantly. I didn't mean to imply that you don't! Funny, I'm also an astronomer and occasional spacecraft engineer. How many of us are on here, anyway? So the message I was responding to was about powering scanners and such, and that probably should be hard to do with solar. That said, the issue of ion-engine realism was and is a curious rabbit-hole with both the old and the current solar power curve. I'm willing to assume there's good technical reasons why "thrust in the background during timewarp" is hard to implement. Given that batteries are cheap and pretty light, that batteries *do* recharge during timewarp so long as the craft is loaded, and given that ion engines have drastically higher thrust and electricity consumption than is realistic, it seems to me that the intended approximation to real ion missions is the one we have right now: load up on batteries, run them to empty with the ion thrusters, then recharge on timewarp. Rinse and repeat until desired delta-V is achieved, or do it periodically during cruise.

Yes, that's kind of the point. In the real world, solar power really is almost useless out past Mars. JUNO in particular is a groundbreaking mission precisely because it was able to combine the latest panels with the latest low power electronics to pull off a very basic solar powered mission at Jupiter. Before that, everything that has flown beyond the asteroid belt has been radioisotope powered.

PSA: I've seen several people say this. Spare yourself the tedium. Park someone in a capsule with a thermometer in a low polar orbit of Mun or Minmus and rack up the "visual surveys" and "temperature scan" contracts. Since you can timewarp over airless worlds, and they pay out several times as much, you can generate Kerbucks at a phenomenal rate with fairly early tech if you need to.

Uh yeah, in the case of Moho it IS natural law. If you're transferring to Moho from a higher orbit then your craft is overtaking the planet. Usually you want to capture into a prograde orbit. If you are overtaking, then the prograde side of Moho is the one facing away from Kerbol. You want to do your burn in sunlight, aim for a retrograde or polar orbit instead.

Okay, there's been some debate back and forth about whether the new career mode is too easy or too grindy. Let's put it to a challenge! So here you are with a fledgling space program. Pity nobody's heard of you or allocated a budget, though. Sure, you could work diligently and spend weeks sending out explorer after explorer to boot up your program, but why wait? How far can you get in EXACTLY FIVE FLIGHTS? As your starting scenario, select "Hard Mode" and set starting funds, science, and reputation to zero. Obviously feel free to prototype your missions before flying for real -- whether this means trying first in sandbox or turning Revert back on doesn't matter to me. Your game should be 1.0.2 Stock. Informational mods are fine in the VAB, but turn 'em off in flight. Otherwise MJ and friends negate too much of the downside of the Tier-0 Tracking Station. Other than that, the only rules are, get as far as you can with your five flights. If you roll it out on the Launchpad/Runway and hit Spacebar, it counts, even if it's just a "Test on the launchpad" contract. To make things clearer in your screenshots or video, name your craft like I do below, "Number One" through "Number Five" or something similar. EDIT: RULES CLARIFICATIONS * Yes you can revert or use quicksaves if you want. * You get to deploy five crafts from the VAB/SPH, period. A pod that rolls around the KSC still counts as one of your "flights." SCORING: The interesting variable is how far you got, not how rich you got. So scoring will be by experience. Refer to the Experience table here: http://wiki.kerbalspaceprogram.com/wiki/Experience Your score will be the highest experience award any of your Kerbals would get over the course of your missions. So if you got a Kerbal to Kerbin orbit, you get 2 points. If you planted a flag on Duna, you get 12.5 points, even if they haven't gotten the XP yet because the return craft would be Number Six. Since the first contestant to submit a finished campaign also nearly maxed out this method of scoring, you also get a tie-breaker score. Ties are broken by total XP accomplishments for your entire program -- that is, add up the highest XP accomplishments per SOI just like the game does, but total it as if your entire space program was executed by a single Kerbal. So if Jeb went to Laythe but Val also orbited Mun at some point, your headline score is 20 points (Flag on Laythe), and your tie-breaker score is 40 points (Kerbin orbit + Mun orbit + Kerbol orbit + Jool orbit + Laythe flag). And in the interest of not relying TOO heavily on the "Jeb can come home on flight 6" rule, you get a 20% bonus to the tie-breaker score if all Kerbonauts are recovered back on Kerbin after five flights. Here's my take, to give you the idea. As you see, I manage to get set up to farm almost unlimited funds, but only make it to Mun orbit. So only 3 points for me: Good luck! LEADERBOARD: 1. RocketPropelledGiraffe -- Laythe flag = 20 points, tie-breaker score = 40 points (Kerbin->Jool, Laythe flag, Mun orbit, no return bonus) 2. ... 3. ...