Stock Propulsion Laboratory : Year 1

[eberkain]

 

 

Introduction

When I first played KSP I wanted to see some stats for my missions, but was disappointed to find the game does not really do any kind of stat tracking over time.   I finally decided to create my own spreadsheet and manually track information after seeing this post on reddit  My first attempt only tracked missions from construction to recovery, but as I progressed and many missions were not recovered and remained active there were many holes in the data I was using, so I elected to restart with more detailed tracking.  For the second attempt I went mod heavy and greatly expanded the data tracking, it did take a little more time away from actually playing and I was happy with the data, but not happy with rate of progression through the early game.  Stock Propulsion Labs is my third attempt and this time includes a rebalanced progression rate and even more detailed stats.

What I want from my career mode experience is to truly get the impression that I am running my own fictional space program.  I have always been a space enthusiast and the idea of having a believable historical progression that makes sense for my game world really intrigued me.   In one sense, this is a heavily modded playthrough, but also light on new parts, which is where I draw the name.  The mods that are used focus more on adding realistic gameplay elements and less on adding new parts.  I will not be using any non-stock engines or fuel tanks, and I will also be flying everything manually, breaking my reliance on MechJeb.  I am also going to leave signal delay on and learn how to use the flight computer for remote controlling vessels.  

General Stats

Total Funds Income : 2,425,376

Total Funds Spending : 1,904,014

Average Cost per Vessel Launched : 12,719

Average Funds Recovered per Vessel Launched : 10,266

Average Final Cost per Vessel Launched : 2453

 

Total Science Income : 917.2

Total Science Spending : 868

Most Science Transmitted at Once : 15.7

Most Science Recovered at Once : 137

 

Total Vessels Launched : 21

Total Launcher ∆V of all Vessels Launched : 28,958

Total Mass of all Vessels Launched : 161.652

Total # of Parts of all Vessels Launched : 354

 

Total Crew Ribbons Awarded : 49

Total Crew XP Gained : 6

Total Crew Levels Gained : 2

 

Link to stats page

 

Rocketry Progression

 

Active Programs

 

	Total Funds Spent : 65,133 Total Vessels Launched : 10 Total Contracts Completed : 13 Total Milestones Achieved : 22 Total Science Returned : 178.5 Total Funds Recovered : 54,225 Total Final Cost : 10,908 Final Cost per Vessel Launched : 1091 Final Cost per Contract Completed : 839 Final Cost per Milestone Achieved : 496 Final Cost per Science Recovered : 61
	Total Funds Spent : 187,007 Total Vessels Launched : 8 Total Contracts Completed : 5 Total Milestones Achieved : 1 Total Science Returned : 354.6 Total Funds Recovered : 103,675 Total Final Cost : 17,322 Final Cost per Vessel Launched : 2887 Final Cost per Contract Completed : 3464 Final Cost per Milestone Achieved : 17,322 Final Cost per Science Recovered : 49
	Total Funds Spent : 80,907 Total Vessels Launched : 5 Total Contracts Completed : 7 Total Milestones Achieved : 2 Total Science Returned : 244.1 Total Funds Recovered : 57,696 Total Final Cost : 23,274 Final Cost per Vessel Launched : 4655 Final Cost per Contract Completed : 3325 Final Cost per Milestone Achieved : 11,637 Final Cost per Science Recovered : 95

 

Graphs & Charts

Crew Members

 

Visual Log

One more thing I want to do for this entire process is to take pictures of important events, but I want to take the pictures from a realistic perspective within the game using the Hullcam VDS mod parts with a consideration of who is taking the picture and how did they do it.  I did not do a good job with this for the first year, so I am instead going to share a different kind of album.  This is just a collection of images from my time spent playing KSP, not necessarily from this specific career mode, but it will give you a good sense of where I have been and what I have done in the game, which I still feel is fitting to go along with this post.

 

Link to album

 

Closing Thoughts

The main goal for year 2 of the space program is to finish unlocking the available tech nodes and design a general launch system that can be used to reliably take payloads into LKO or beyond.   

[HazelPine]

THIS. Is too amazing. You inspired me to do my own career with some sort of flight log as well, but I don't think I can ever get closo to as much detail and info that you have here in yours! Someone should sticky this!  Great job mate!

[Kerbin vonKerbal]

This is phenomenal. Please keep this alive.

[NotAgain]

This makes my notebook full of mission logs and plans look like peanuts. Well done you. Have some rep.

[eberkain]

I made it through 3 full years on a new stat tracking game in 1.1.3, and that is the end of it.  Not happy with how things are going, too much time spent on the spreadsheet vs actually playing.  Not happy with the balance of the funds / science / rep, difficulty settings i chose, etc...  Just not having fun with it anymore. 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1paWwnjoR0dHPa1tbc3d9nvwB-morZZqfXfWbY_l68qg/edit?usp=sharing

I was planning to do a 5 year review much like the OP here, but I didn't make it.   I'm going to do something different but similar, I like my mission log and numbering system, so I think I will keep that kind of thing and just focus less on stats and more on mission objectives, etc..