Looking for a bigger challenge

[michal.don]

Hi guys,

I would much appreciate your insight.

I've been playing KSP for a while now, and since I got better by time, most of the things are by far not as challenging as they used to be. Apart from Eve, I manged to do mission to every stock body, and have bases or stations on many of them. Mun, Minmus and Duna are permanently inhabited by Kerbals in modular bases. I have designed and piloted my share of spaceplanes and SSTOs. But.... It's just not the fun as it used to be. I believe most of the fun that came from experimenting and horribly failing could come again if I started another playthrough with a more challenging system.

And I would like to know what you would suggest.

- Should I just play with a resized system? And if, which version did you have most fun with? 2 x the size? 6,4 x the size?

- Or should i go straight for RSS or even RO? Do you think I'll manage, or I should get some experience in mid-size system?

- Are the resized systems playable with stock parts, or should I get some mods that rebalance the engines and fuel tanks? And if, which do you find the best?

- Am I missing some obvious, simpler option to change the game to be different and fun again?

Thanks,

Michal.don

 

[cubinator]

RO means a lot of new stuff to learn about, fail repeatedly, and learn some more. It also generally means a lot longer loading time. I've sorta kinda not really started playing with RO recently (my computer won't let me enjoy it though, so I haven't been playing much of anything on it lately) and I think it'll be a lot of fun once I fix the blue screens. If you're looking for new, complex systems to master, RO has all sorts of stuff like ullage, unthrottleable engines, a plethora of different fuel types, and more. The larger systems aren't really much more of a challenge, they just mean your burns will be much longer. Expect 8-10 minutes to reach orbital velocity around Earth, for instance. It seems like the stuff in RO is what you want. You can ease into some of the mechanics in the Kerbal system beforehand, though, such as life support and antenna relays. All the stuff in RO is a lot to take in at once, but it can be very rewarding.

[Dman979]

Do RO. It's my favorite right now, because it's between Orbiter and KSP.

You should be able to do it, and from what I've heard, it's running really well right now.

[Hodari]

5 hours ago, michal.don said:

- Are the resized systems playable with stock parts, or should I get some mods that rebalance the engines and fuel tanks? And if, which do you find the best?

If you go for a full-sized real solar system, you'll definitely want a few other mods with it to rebalance things.  Just getting to low Earth orbit will need almost 10k dV and good luck getting that with early career mode stock parts.

There are 2 main options for which mods to use.  RO is better if you want to go straight for the biggest challenge and the most realistic experience.  If you want something much closer to stock gameplay, but with the RSS instead, use SMURFF.

Currently, I'm running a career mode game with RSS, SMURFF, SpaceY heavy lifters, SpaceY expanded, KER, Historic Missions for RSS, and Historical Progression tech tree.

[evileye.x]

I chose to go for 6.4 and after that RO 

[michal.don]

Thank you all for your insight guys. I think I'll go the SMURFF+RSS+Historic packs way first, and once I'm a bit used to the bigger size of planets, I'll try to master the real fuels/chutes/everything that RO brings. And if everything goes south and I'm not able to send anything to space, I can go back to my stock-ish save and practice some more

Thanks again,

Michal.don

[michal.don]

A quick update - just for the LOLs

I managed to install the 64k RSS, started the game.... And wow, everything is HUGE!!!! It's gonna take a while to get used to.... Anyway, I clear the first two V1 and V2 contract, and Sputnik comes. And no matter how hard I try, I can't reach orbit.... And I am nowhere close.... What's the deal? is my launch profile so bad? What am I missing? 

Wait a minute.....

40 000 kms.... radius.... That's not circumference!!

I somehow managed to resize the real-sized solar system, so I made Earth and everything else 6,4 times bigger than in real life 

So a change of plan, I'm playing the regular RSS, and I managed to put Sputnik into orbit with a lot to spare on the first try

Michal.don