Mr. Peabody

Whoa mate! I'm not taking sides. Talk to @JAFO if you want the rules changed.

But will people prefer to avoid the challenge altogether if they need to start at normal difficulty and work their way up? When I moderated very few new participants wanted to start with normal or intermediate difficulties.

The thing is that we now have D/V data during VAB assembly, a feature that wasn't available for early challenge participants. Therefore, since charts and other aids are allowed, it shouldn't really be necessary to test crafts in other games. Ideally, a new challenge participant should work their way up the difficulty levels from easy to hard, thereby gaining experience in a more forgiving environment about what works and what doesn't. It was never intended for new participants to attempt the hardest difficulty right off the bat, but that's what is happening in far too many new attempts. Does this behavior merit a rule change in order to make harder difficulties more doable for new participants? Thoughts anyone?

At one point users were using cheat menus in separate games to test the functionality of their spacecraft. (Before DV was incorporated as an in-game mechanic.)

Autopilots most certainly alter gameplay and are disallowed. (Note that mechjeb is explicitly disallowed.) Reverts are fine in lower difficulty levels. @JAFO, what do you think?

OK. This is insane. Best of luck to you!

Precisely.

We must be the KSP kings of dangerous re-entries. Who apart from a caveman would try to bring a top heavy rocket back through the atmosphere with one parachute and no reaction wheels?

Pad construction was encouraged for complex missions before my time as moderator. I think it started with @Moesly_Armlis's stint as challenge manager.

This members of this gaming community must surely be the most insane, in that they earnestly put forward such ambitious suggestions with the hope of seeing them come to fruition. Do the developers even read this forum subsection?

Hai, hai! 0.0 This will make oppressed cavemen everywhere very happy.

Quicksaving is disabled in Nano-Crystalline Diamond. (Advanced Settings) Per previous precedent, users completing hard+ difficulty levels w/o quicksaves were granted reverts after catastrophic glitches. The final decision rests with @JAFO, however.

TBH I completely forgot about mechjeb. After it crashed my lander into the munar surface I deleted it and it never returned to my data folder. I always enjoyed piloting my crafts by hand. Additionally, it was well understood that the challenge should be attempted with a "vanilla" (unmodded) version of KSP. This understanding was somewhat muddled by recent game updates and the release of expansion packs.

That comnet constellation is so nearly equilateral that it makes me feel happy just to look at it. Brilliant stuff!

@JAFO, Good luck and have fun!