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Is Normal career mode too hard?


Lohan2008

career mode too hard?  

298 members have voted

  1. 1. career mode too hard?



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Too hard, not really, at least not if you know what you're doing. It can be a bit grindy though. That being said, I do think the career mode (especially, but not exclusively, the tech tree) needs some rebalancing in order to make it more useful as a learning tool for people new to the game.

You know, Silanda, I used to think that but now I'm sort of the opposite. I think Sandbox is the best place for newbies. I mean, anyone who was here for early access probably got their start playing sandbox before career mode was implemented. In that, career was never really meant to be a springboard to the rest of the game because most of the people playing it were people who were already really familiar with how to play! The restrictions were and are what usually seems to be what people like about career mode, no one ever says the like how it eases you into the game! Which makes sense, career mode does nothing to teach you the basic skills you need to be 'good' at KSP. Managing your finances is not how you learn how to dock. Trial and error play that role. So while you have less parts to tinker with, and that seems more beginner friendly, at the same time you have to worry about your funding, reputation and gathering science to get new parts to keep the ball rolling. That's an awful way to introduce the person to the game. Sure, contracts give a sort of vague direction for the player but an open sky is an equally-if-not-better starting point for a new player.

For that I think a good KSP tutorial mode would what many of us had to begin with, the rocket parts and a space bar. Career mode is more apt for people who have a good grounding in the game already, at least that is what I've come to believe.

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Yeah, thanks. I don´t have solar panels yet, though, one of the things why I am stuck science wise, but I am optimistic that the EVA missions will give me now my sorely needed science points. I still maintain that it should be a bit more intuitive for new players of how and where to get science points. Mission contracts about exactly this, poppoing up at the right moment, would be really helpful.

Solar should definitely be your next research priority, although you can manage Munshots without it; just carry a decent amount of battery reserve and be absolutely fanatical about locking off the batteries (right-click menu, change the green tick to a red cross) at any time that they're not needed. Basically, keep the probe in hibernation except for a few minutes at each end of the flight.

But, yes, KSP has an infamously steep learning cliff (albeit not as steep as it used to be). Fortunately, there are the forums.

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You know, Silanda, I used to think that but now I'm sort of the opposite. I think Sandbox is the best place for newbies.

For that I think a good KSP tutorial mode would what many of us had to begin with, the rocket parts and a space bar. Career mode is more apt for people who have a good grounding in the game already, at least that is what I've come to believe.

In effect, to me this is saying that career is not good for anyone (not sure I even disagree with that :) ).

Replay on career, or an advanced player in career is patently awful, IMO, for a number of reasons:

1. We know what to expect everywhere, there is no sense of exploration.

2. We know exactly how to make the early game crafts required to progress (the only time when career is actually challenging is the early game, and more so if you are a noob).

3. We can quickly figure out where to game the system or make choices on tech/upgrades since we know what we are doing.

The basic notion of career in KSP is entirely wrong, IMHO, I'd love to see a ground-up change.

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In effect, to me this is saying that career is not good for anyone (not sure I even disagree with that :) ).

Replay on career, or an advanced player in career is patently awful, IMO, for a number of reasons:

1. We know what to expect everywhere, there is no sense of exploration.

2. We know exactly how to make the early game crafts required to progress (the only time when career is actually challenging is the early game, and more so if you are a noob).

3. We can quickly figure out where to game the system or make choices on tech/upgrades since we know what we are doing.

The basic notion of career in KSP is entirely wrong, IMHO, I'd love to see a ground-up change.

I agree with this, currently the only replayability to career is found in trying an entirely new tech or exploration route, or min maxing to push your limits.

I'm getting more and more convinced that an option for a randomly generated solar system, preferably with much of the information in the dark at the start (i.e. not knowing if an atmosphere even exists or its altitude till you hit or measure it somehow) would be the best method of both adding replayability and meaningful difficulty (i.e. average gravities and atmospheres weighted by difficulty options), plus it would create a large niche in which to add meaningful interaction between the player and science equipment.

With that everything would change, the 'optimal' tech and building upgrade paths wouldn't necessarily be the same between two worlds.

I would also like to see the exploration type contracts be treated like record achievements, as in always being accepted. Right now they add an arbitrary restriction on the order you visit planets and moons. Doing this alone would add a little replayability to the current career mode.

Well, here's hoping for a random solar system mod anyway.

Edited by ghpstage
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I completely agree on a randomized Kerbol system. That would make career about managing a space program for EXPLORATION. Default Kerbol system is a checkbox for new players, or die-hards.

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Not hard at all, heck even hard can be played normally (i just refuse to have no reverts so thats always enabled), its just a matter of how grindy you are willing to get.

Personally the ONLY way i can even touch career is to give myself some funds/science so im not stuck with the early junk for half the game. Then again, career and i dont mix, given that the main thing i do with KSP is make SSTOs, capital ships, and vehicles, and then have them shoot at each other in glorious battles, not something that makes any sense in career mode.....

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If you allow quicksave, any mode, even hard, is fairly simple, with hard mode maybe a little challenging at the beginning. If you don't allow quicksave any mode is suicidal, mostly due to computer crashes and some bugs and stupid mistakes like sleeping at the controls on a long flight while sitting on a nice couch with my laptop on my knees... yes, it happened to me, several times :P or warping too much to hurry things up and messing thw whole mission.

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Not hard, but did not find it much fun up to the 90 science points nodes (too grindy). After unlocking those, missions to mun and minmus are easy and yield a ton of science..

I play on moderate.

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I think the level of grinding required (of the spam contracts variety) is largely a result of poor tutorials, a severe lack of vital information (TWR, dV, aerodynamic centre) and a lot of contracts that aren't worth bothering with to lure people in. All this does in my opinion is add fake difficulty, slow down learning and build a much larger barrier to entry.

If you know exactly what your doing, it is more than possible to land a Kerbal the Mun and come bring them home on your fourth launch on hard, or alternatively go the Minmus and clear the entire T1 R&D tech block. Once you know the rocket designs and methods the only challenge is avoiding crashing some designs that are pushing it a little.

The problem is that when you know how to do it then it becomes very formulaic, to the point of becoming a grind in its own right, which comes back to what Tater posted,

2. We know exactly how to make the early game crafts required to progress (the only time when career is actually challenging is the early game, and more so if you are a noob).

3. We can quickly figure out where to game the system or make choices on tech/upgrades since we know what we are doing.

Edited by ghpstage
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No, Hard or even Super Hard (with everything apart from penalties turned off or to 10%) isn't hard, it's just super grindy; Hard doesn't make it harder, it just makes it take longer.

More time =/= More difficulty.

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Oh, lord no! Like Random Tank just said above, career mode isn't hard, it's just grindy.

Building a proper rocket, getting into orbit, landing on Mun, finding a good Duna transfer window...those all take time and effort to learn. But if you know how to play KSP, career mode is just more of the same.

But I NEVER recommend new players go right into a career game. Start in the sandbox and learn the basics first.

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No, Hard or even Super Hard (with everything apart from penalties turned off or to 10%) isn't hard, it's just super grindy; Hard doesn't make it harder, it just makes it take longer.

More time =/= More difficulty.

That's what I'm seeing too, as once you get the rep => money strategy in place, it boils down to grinding out enough cash to fund the base improvements, then it's business as usual.

I don't mind the increased difficulty, but not when grind is being used as a substitute for difficulty, because that's just tedium, not difficulty.

The hardest thing for me, at least, is having to accomplish the missions within the part, height, and weight restrictions. Unfortunately, this forces you into grinding contracts to get things upgraded. It leads to not-fun scenarios as I'm grinding out cash to get the R&D facility upgraded so I don't waste science from missions to the moon and such, which is also delaying advancement, and basically had to stop advancing as I had to grind out contracts to get parts of the base upgraded so you can use maneuver nodes, despite being able to build a rocket that can get there. Thankfully, you can build a pretty decent money maker with the tourist contracts, but it gets very repetitive as those are the primary source of income.

Perhaps there needs to be more flight based contracts (and flight tourist contracts), as flying is a part of the game that I've been overlooking until recently, and find it rather fun.

Edited by almagnus1
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It is WAY to grindy. Funds should fall from the sky on easy. If you want a degree of grinding to be relative to difficulty, then make funds more scarce on hard. The problem as it is now, if you adjust the slider % for funds returns on contracts, it linearly increases the costs of the buildings!! So there is no way to reduce the cost of the buildings, regardless of difficulty, without using mods. The grindiness is cooked right in at present. the cost of the buildings needs to be the same regardless of difficulty, and let the amount of funds available scale.

I frequently just sit on the contract screen and decline mission after mission hoping to see one that i'm remotely interested in. If i'm going to have to do that all the time, it'd be nice to have keyboard integration or make the decline button closer to the list of missions. Honestly I reject 20 missions for each one I take.

And contracts suck. Badly. Testing parts and things like that should be one time only. Since it's my space program though - I should get paid to do whatever I think is important to kerbin, so long as I achieve it. I think that there should be a weekly/yearly budget or something like that that grows so that as you progress you end up with more disposable income.

^^

Consider the following. On each career run, the amount of funds you have at any given time is usually just enough to launch 1 or 2 new interplanetary round-trip crafts. If you have an upgrade that you need, it adds to the problem. You NEVER have enough money to launch "pleasure crafts" where you can choose to just fly an interplanetary mission for the science or experience. All the way through the career you might earn enough funds to launch 2 major crafts of your own free will. It sucks when the majority of the experience is acquiring science while you're grinding out pointless contracts for the man.

Full disclosure: Right now I play with the science funding mod - which I have found to be quite satisfactory in terms of supplementing my income. The amount of funds is still small enough that it needs to be managed carefully. I certainly cannot unlock buildings recklessly, yet I still have enough to launch crafts for fun to go to new places, or try new concepts without waiting for a suitable contract to try a new design out.

Edited by Violent Jeb
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I have to agree with the grindiness. What makes it "hard" is the fact you're spending the whole beginning of the game struggling to scrape together some meager science from suborbital hops performed with a tiny amount of equipment. Last time I had fun in Career I started with a few tiers worth of science and I found that worked much better. Being able to use at least a solar panel and reach the Mun after maybe two launches feels a lot better to me.

But! I'm glad the game gives you the option to do so, or not. :)

EDIT: That said, the fact that you need to struggle against the available (limited via tech tree progression) technology may be on purpose. I just did a Mun flyby in my 1.0.2 career save because a) I had a contract to do so and b)it was pretty much the most I could do with the limited parts at my disposal. With that science, I unlocked parts to go on to land etc.

But that beginning part! :/

Edited by moogoob
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It is WAY to grindy. Funds should fall from the sky on easy. If you want a degree of grinding to be relative to difficulty, then make funds more scarce on hard. The problem as it is now, if you adjust the slider % for funds returns on contracts, it linearly increases the costs of the buildings!! So there is no way to reduce the cost of the buildings, regardless of difficulty, without using mods. The grindiness is cooked right in at present. the cost of the buildings needs to be the same regardless of difficulty, and let the amount of funds available scale.

The buildings need to have a constant value, so that way the increase/decrease of fund availability would make it so that I'm not grinding out a couple million on hard mode, just to get the necessary functionality so I can do a Mun launch without loosing science. It's bad enough having to buy the parts, it sucks hardcore having to budget for parts + save up for building expenses.

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Well, I used the tips I got from here and collected about 90 more science points from orbital EVAs and another Kerbal biome at the ground. This finally enabled me to unlock the tier two fitting fuel tanks in addition to the hitchhiker passenger module. However, the only missing thing was a proper engine, and my EVA science source had run dry. By sheer luck, I picked up a test contract for the tier 2 Poodle engine. Bingo! Like this, I completed a Mun orbit with three tourists and a scientist as passengers and a lot of scientific equipment. This netted me about 320 science points. Things finally get going!

It was a very exciting and challenging mission nevertheless, and my best experience with the game so far. Untested re-entry with all those passengers and science on board was an extremely tense affair. First, I missed the point where I could still flip the ship retrograde during re-entry. Boom. Only the cockpit was left. I still could have saved the passenger module because it had also parachutes attached, but the game would not let me switch over to control from there. So I reloaded. For the second re-entry, I could maintain retrograde position long enough for the worst heat to dissipate before I lost control. Thankfully, the ship´s uncontrolled tumble also caused it to aerobrake enough to not break down again.

It is a thin line to struggle with limited tech as a challenge or as a nuisance. Now - with this little requisition from a test contract - I actually have the basic means to fulfil most contracts, the game starts to be a lot of fun. This just confirms again for me that Squad should probably just need to tweak a bit the concept of the first few tech nodes in connection with the science collection and contract system as I discussed here before.

I still could not unlock solar panels, can you imagine!

Edited by Falkenherz
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Well, I used the tips I got from here and collected about 90 more science points from orbital EVAs and another Kerbal biome at the ground. This finally enabled me to unlock the tier two fitting fuel tanks in addition to the hitchhiker passenger module. However, the only missing thing was a proper engine, and my EVA science source had run dry. By sheer luck, I picked up a test contract for the tier 2 Poodle engine. Bingo! Like this, I completed a Mun orbit with three tourists and a scientist as passengers and a lot of scientific equipment. This netted me about 320 science points. Things finally get going!

It was a very exciting and challenging mission nevertheless, and my best experience with the game so far. Untested re-entry with all those passengers and science on board was an extremely tense affair. First, I missed the point where I could still flip the ship retrograde during re-entry. Boom. Only the cockpit was left. I still could have saved the passenger module because it had also parachutes attached, but the game would not let me switch over to control from there. So I reloaded. For the second re-entry, I could maintain retrograde position long enough for the worst heat to dissipate before I lost control. Thankfully, the ship´s uncontrolled tumble also caused it to aerobrake enough to not break down again.

It is a thin line to struggle with limited tech as a challenge or as a nuisance. Now - with this little requisition from a test contract - I actually have the basic means to fulfil most contracts, the game starts to be a lot of fun. This just confirms again for me that Squad should probably just need to tweak a bit the concept of the first few tech nodes in connection with the science collection and contract system as I discussed here before.

I still could not unlock solar panels, can you imagine!

Congrats. :D

Incidentally, that "coincidence" is a major part of the reason why the testing contracts exist; they're there to give you emergency access to parts in advance of researching them. For the reentry: heavy bits at the bottom, draggy bits (radially attached goo pods etc.) at the top. Do that, and the capsule will be aerodynamically stable with the bottom (i.e. heatshield if you install one) pointing into the wind, even without SAS activated.

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Thanks! It seems that enginges double for a good heat shield, at least when you do a flat re-entry vector from LKO. I also noted that the parachute trick does not work anymore; Squad fixed a proper damage calculation for equipment under stress. It already tore off my landing gear during an extended plane flight near Mach 1.

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I am playing on normal, and just now completed a Minmus Flyby. So far managing funds/rep and getting science is not hard. What I dont like is the re-entry heating.

Granted, Im on normal, so re-entry is at 100%, not the 120% that hard has, but there seems to be almost no heat.

From Minmus, I used the rest of my fuel to zero out my periapsis, and fire straight down into kerbin. I hit atmosphere at over 3600m/s, got the temp gauges to a dark green on a solar panel, a goo canister, and the engine(I entered butt first), and....that was it. I slammed into it trying to cause a failure, and then fell essentially unharmed until I hit the ocean at a gentle 140m/s.

Whats up with that? Sure its normal difficulty I'd still like a bit of danger.

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I don't think it's too hard, the start's just a little bit slow, before you get all the money needed to upgrade your facilities at least once, get parts strong enough to get you into a proper orbit, and all that. I generally start unlocking airplane parts, because that way I can do most survey tasks and even get back, generating a lot of money and a fair bit of science, too.

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