Reccomend difficulty settings for a 'proper' challenge in career mode?

[HlynkaCG]

Hi Y'all,

I messed around with KSP years ago (when it was still a freeware project that HarvesteR and Nova would post updates to in the basement of the Orbiter Forums) but set it aside due to a lack of time, computing power/bandwidth, and (after KSP became payware) money. Half a decade later I am no longer a starving student, nor am I subject to the vagaries of 3rd developing world internet so I picked up KSP during the latest Steam sale and have been having a blast (literally!). I've spent almost all of my time thus far playing in the sandbox, or doing one-off missions and now I'm looking at dipping my toes into career mode a change of pace which brings us to my question...

What settings would you recommend for someone who's already has a solid grasp of orbital mechanics and vessel construction and is looking for game that will be both challenging and rewarding? I don't want to have the entire tech-tree unlocked by the time I finish my first Duna mission, but at the same time I want to be able to have a Duna mission without having to grind out 500+ contracts to build up the required funds/science.   

Note: As far as Mods are concerned assume stock 1.2x with the exception of Kerbal Alarm-Clock, KER, and Precise Node. Using MechJeb and a lot of the part packs just feels like cheating.

Edited February 5, 2017 by HlynkaCG
spelling

[Enceos]

@HlynkaCG Stock difficulty settings change only the grind part of the game. If you want to make your game more difficult rather than more grindy - you'll have to resort to mods.

Best mods to pump up the difficulty are life support mods like TAC Life Support or USI Life Support. These mods introduce some new variables which you'll have to juggle in your vehicle designs. If you want to add more variables for juggling there are mods like Kerbalism and Connected Living Spaces. If you want to force yourself to build bigger rockets you can rescale your Kerbin and install a mod like Sigma Dimensions. The Kerbal Construction Time will add a building timer for your rockets and a research timer to your tech, it adds a mission and time management aspect to the game, means you certainly won't be able to launch two rockets a day and research won't be instant (but all is configurable).

If you want to grind, at least make it interesting by installing the Contract Configurator and some contract packs of your choice.

In the stock settings you can only buff up the reentry heat, remove ground communication stations and decrease the g-tolerance of Kerbals.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Enceos

[GoSlash27]

I agree with Enceos; difficulty settings only change the grindiness. Here's the way I'm doing it to keep it interesting:

1) Open your career caveman- style.

2) Build up your roster and facilities

3) Scour the Mun and Minmus for science

4) Try to get all of this done before the first window to Duna (Day 236) without killing any Kerbals. Or even better, Eve (Day 197).

If you want to make it especially taxing, disable reverts.

Best,
-Slashy

Edited February 5, 2017 by GoSlash27

[Wjolcz]

I actually remember playing a sort of career hard mode. It was when I tried to do my flights reusable SSTOs only and one mission yielded less money than the cost of the launch so I had to do a few of them at once, but then I had NEAR installed so SSTOs were super easy. It was pretty fun nevertheless. Felt like an actual pilot career.

I know it sounds monothematic, but you can visit my modlist thread and give the modpack a go. Maybe you'll find a way to make it more challenging via settings.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Veeltch

[HlynkaCG]

@Enceos, I'm actually talking about the grind, at least partially. After all, if I set my Science or Funds reward rate to 0% I won't be able to unlock anything. On the other hand I've seen people say that the default (100%) is far too generous and can result in a player having everything fully unlocked/upgraded before you even leave Kerbin's SOI. That said I will certainly take a look at those mods you listed.

@GoSlash, that is essentially what I was planning to do. I just don't have enough of a feel for what the reward rates and modifiers actually do to determine their effect on balance.

[GoSlash27]

HlynkaCG,

 In all honesty, it actually takes very little tech to mount a successful expedition to Duna. In fact, it's technically *easier* to do this than it is to go to the Mun. So in all honesty it doesn't really matter if you unlock all of the tech or not prior to sending an interplanetary expedition. What I'm trying to do right now is use the same motherships I employed for my Mun and Minmus expeditions to conduct my Ike and Gilly expeditions as well.

 I know that playing Caveman on "hard" mode is ridiculously grindy, but it can be done.

Best,
-Slashy

[HlynkaCG]

Caveman?

[Enceos]

@HlynkaCG You can change the difficulty options during the game and adjust them to your feeling of content. I play on 100% funds and 30% science rewards. And I use Science Labs only to level-up my Kerbals off-world, no researching. With this setup I'm encouraged to send science probes and rovers everywhere. Full scouring of Mun and Minmus doesn't open up the tree. Finding random monoliths opens up a random tech in the tree, and it makes them quite valuable later on.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Enceos

[GoSlash27]

55 minutes ago, HlynkaCG said:

Caveman?

 HylnkaCG,

 "Caveman"= "In accordance with the rules of the Caveman Challenge".

Best,
-Slashy

[HlynkaCG]

@GoSlash27, damn... I know I said I'm looking for a challenge but that's taking it to a whole other level.

@Enceos & @Veeltch, between the two of you I think I've gotten a pretty good idea of how I'm going to move forward.

Thanks all.

 

[regex]

I've preferred 50% science returns for the longest time, that seems to work really well with my playstyle (methodical exploration with no timewarping longer than about 20 Earth days between activities, usually less). I allow myself flyby, orbit, and single landing science from the Mun before farming most of the biomes of Minmus, then moving out from Kerbin SOI, which gives a good progression. Science labs work pretty good under those constraints and you have to hit a good amount of the solar system to complete the tech tree. I stopped playing career mode because I find it very poorly done, even now after all the work done on it, but if I was forced to go back I'd stick to 100% funds return, maybe 70% if I wanted to actually worry about funds (anything less is too grindy for me).

Edited February 6, 2017 by regex

[Kvakosavrus]

If we talk about pure stock: 20% sc. and 30% funds return seems balanced for me. And don't use science laboratories. They genereate tons of science - feels like cheating.

[MalevolentNinja]

The thing is, this depends so much on your knowledge of / experience with the game. If this is your first career, even with your sandbox experience, I would recommend a normal difficulty career with no changed settings. Yes, the rewards are generous, but chances are you would get frustrated really quickly with anything harder.

For example, sandbox teaches you nothing about maximizing science returns. You'd be amazed at what an experienced career mode player can do on just their first launch or two.

Yes, I know that's a really old video. No, I don't think 6000 science on the second launch is possible in the current version of KSP.  I'm just using the concept to illustrate my point.

Or maybe your a steely-eyed missile man, in which case ignore me.

p.s. No-one plays just one KSP career...

Edited February 7, 2017 by MalevolentNinja

[bigcalm]

In many respects, I think the difficulty levels in KSP should be revamped (though these would require changes to the stock game to add life support!):

Easy: Don't have to worry about either CommSat network or Life Support, re-entry heating off.

Normal: Don't have to worry about Life Support

Hard: Have to worry about Life Support, crew permadeath

Extra Hard: As hard, but no reverting and no quicksave.

Right now, the difficulty levels aren't all that different in that it just means extra grinding to get funds.  Science isn't too much of a problem on any level but goodness don't those contracts grind on the higher levels.

So I play my own version of "Hard" - I have USI life support which means my interplanetary vessels are at minimum 25 tons of payload - lots of living space, plenty of food, and greenhouse facilities to keep supplies topped up.  When I get to my destination, I have to set up a semi-permanent surface base with better habitation ratings so that the crew don't go stir-crazy.  The fact that I have funds jacked up to 300% rewards doesn't worry me (all other rewards set to normal).  It's still hard enough!  (I have crew perma death on, kerbal g on, comm net on, re-entry 100%).

 

 

 

[cantab]

No quickloads or reverts. (Except for blatant game bugs). That more than anything else ramps up both the challenge and the sense of achievement, when you know that one false move will at best mean flying the whole mission again, and at worst means a zillion credits go up in smoke or a bunch of Kerbals die. On the minus side I find it slows my progress down a lot.

The next most important thing, for real difficulty, is probably a modified solar system. Preferably something that either adds significant inclinations, or makes Kerbin a moon with no moon of its own, or even both. Either way it makes transferring to other worlds considerably more complex. And if those worlds are new too, then you don't know how to land on them. New Horizons is great, Galileo Planet Pack is very 'in' right now, RSS is always a challenge, there are others.

I think after that, most other things are secondary. To address the science and tech tree issue, probably the best way is a modified tech tree that will require a lot more science to unlock everything. Dropping the science gains is likely to make the early game too grindy, although if I'm using extra science parts such as DMagic I drop the science gains enough to compensate for that. And you'll want the comms system on its strictest settings and a life support mod.

But no reverts and modded solar system are my big two. At the moment I'm playing RSS (with stock parts ) , Science Mode, but I am using reverts, and it's still been pretty challenging. I nearly wasted a Duna probe fleet because it turned out that launching into the ecliptic plane wasn't the right way to do things, but fortunately I was able to set up Moon flybys to fix the inclinations, but of course I can only do that because I'm pretty experienced with gravity assists.

[Birdco_Space]

To make career more challenging:

Turn Technology unlock costs on:  Require both science and funds to gain access to new parts.  Frequently drives strategies to turn science into funds, and delays full tech tree unlock until you visit bodies outside Kerbin and its moons.

Turn off the extra ground stations.  Drives an absolute requirement to build out a comsat network, especially if you are trying to get unmanned missions into space.  it also limits the approach vectors you can enter other planets at, so you have comms contact when you make your insertion burn.  Drive need to place high powered relays at strategic locations in the Kerbol system, or use pilots using relays to control things in system

Require comms network contact to control probe cores:  the above reason, and it makes your first comms satellite more challenging to launch.

Turn re-entry blackout on:  added difficulty returning unmanned probes and reusable launchers

Increase re-entry heat:  works to prevent Mk-1 spaceplanes, which can be ridiculously efficient in completing Kerbal rescue missions in LKO.  a well designed Mk1 space plane can recover a kerbal from LKO for under 2000 funds if you land back on the runway, making these stupidly profitable (70k made for 2k in expense, and don't have to hire the Kerbal).  Drives the need to use Mk2 or Mk3 space plane parts if you are looking to go to orbit off the runway, or drives design compromises with Mk1 space planes to use them for re-entry.