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Question on KSP game length


cyberKerb

How long does your typical save games usually last before you shift your primary focus onto another save?  

46 members have voted

  1. 1. Typical UT Time in your save before moving on to new save

    • <= 1 Month
      4
    • <= 6 Months
      5
    • <= 1 Year
      1
    • <= 5 Years
      10
    • <= 10 Years
      4
    • <= 15 Years
      2
    • <= 20 Years
      3
    • <= 50 Years
      4
    • <= 100 Years
      1
    • > 100 Years
      2
    • I'm Just Jim / Kuzzter / Parkaboy / Cydonian Monk
      4
    • What do you mean "New" save? I thought you only have one and have been playing since before vesion 1.0
      6
  2. 2. What is your LONGEST save game UT time?

    • <= 1 Year
      5
    • <= 10 Years
      10
    • <= 50 Years
      15
    • <= 100 Years
      2
    • <= 200 Years
      3
    • <= 500 Years
      1
    • >500 Years
      5
    • I still don't get what you mean with having multiple saves.
      5


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I'm interested to know how long people play in a KSP save game (Any mode) and why.

With many reasons to move onto a new save (KSP update, Mod update, IRL stuff, slow progress, tech tree completed, etc...) I'm sure people have a their own natural rhythm regarding when they start a new save.

I'm sure people who do those crazy long term missions with lots of time warp utilization are out there and was wondering where they would fall into a poll like this.

I'm not really taking into account "breaks" in gameplay for this poll.  Yes, you might get busy with IRL for a month / year(s), but if you continue the same save game (and do all the work involved to keep it going after KSP updates) when you return to playing, that's still what I'm interested in knowing.
Also would like to hear from people in the comments section as to why you might stick around in an old save.

Side note: I added a few of the people who I regularly read their mission reports just for fun. Mainly because I'm a fan and (to me) they seem to be playing forever in their single save.

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I tend to have one of two types of saves, a one-shot for a challenge or test or something, and a long term one that easily breaks 100 years.

My longest save was over 200 years, but less than 500.

I generally end my (longer) saves because I get bored with the mod cocktail I brewed up and want to try something else, or actually complete whatever goal I set out for myself.

This is all of course back when I played. I've actually not opened the game for several months.

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Earth years or Kerbin years? I always use Earth time. I don't particularly pay attention to the time before I kill a save but I do know my current science game is in year 7 at the moment, and it'll probably go for much longer because I'm now doing multi-year missions to OPM planets.

E: So like, year 24 Kerbin or so.

E2: Ah, it's also about time between starting a new save. Yeah, I usually start new saves with a new version since I almost exclusively play modded and I don't trust anything to update cleanly.

Edited by regex
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Just started my second-ever career yesterday. My first (which I will never get rid of and still play, of course), is in year 80 something and has now encompassed almost 2,500 hours. I started it the day I bought the game and, until yesterday, it's the only game I've ever played. And why keep playing it? Cuz there's always one more contract. I don't warp years ahead of time (or it'd probably be over 1,000 years by now), I just send a ship to Eeloo, or Jool, or wherever, and move on to the next ship. I may warp a few months at a time, but there's always something to do. Alarms pop up for ships I've completely forgotten about and, when I jump to it, it's almost like someone else built the thing. I sometimes can't remember why I designed it a certain way or what I meant to do. Couple that with the fact that I'm not exactly sure it's going to work (I don't use info mods; and I'm too lazy to try to calculate it myself), and it really keeps things interesting. I have bases pretty much everywhere at this point (in case a mission goes awry}, so I really don't want to abandon the whole thing. It was a big decision to start a new career. I had forgotten about the charm of the early, low-tech space program. It's been a lot of fun, so far.

Another reason I keep using my career save is for challenges. The tech tree is unlocked, obviously, and I have about 100,000,000 bucks, so it's a lot like playing sandbox, but I can see how much each rocket costs. Even though the money means nothing at this point, it still provides incentive for some reason. I don't wanna feel like I'm wasting money. Which is also why I keep taking contracts. I see a contract for 4,000,000 bucks and I can't resist. Must be my inner greed. :)

In closing, I finally accepted the "Ultimate Contract". After completing it, I may finally give this save some rest. But I'll definitely come back to it again. You never forget your first. :wink:

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My career save is just about to hit year 10. I've been using this save since I first started playing KSP back in 1.2, and the only time I restarted was a couple of months ago when I wanted to try going through the early parts of the tech tree again with what I know now about the game and what its parts can do. I've since gone back to my original save, though.

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I tend to start a new save whenever a major update drops. So it can vary a bit depending on SQUAD's schedule.

My current save is actually my longest I think, since I didn't count 1.3 or 1.3.1 as "major" updates since they didn't include any game changing features.

I'd have to check the actual years elapsed, but I think it's about 10 so far?

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13 hours ago, Cpt Kerbalkrunch said:

why keep playing it? Cuz there's always one more contract. I don't warp years ahead of time (or it'd probably be over 1,000 years by now), I just send a ship to Eeloo, or Jool, or wherever, and move on to the next ship. I may warp a few months at a time, but there's always something to do. Alarms pop up for ships I've completely forgotten about and, when I jump to it, it's almost like someone else built the thing. I sometimes can't remember why I designed it a certain way or what I meant to do.

Exactly this. I'm currently on my third long-term savegame ever. I ended my first (science) because 1.0 changed a lot of things, especially aero. Then I was playing almost-stock career, from 1.0 to 1.2, and I ended it on April, this year, only because I finally got bored. I visited most of the bodies, completed tech tree and all that. All in ~8 years of game time. Then I started heavily modded career, and I'm again on year 8, but now I have OPM, base parts, SCANSat etc etc and I still have stuff to do and places to go! So I don't plan to leave it anytime soon.

6 hours ago, wile1411 said:

I figured most people would be 2-3years tops

Why? That's like, two transfer windows to Duna? What can you do in so little time?

Edited by The Aziz
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6 hours ago, wile1411 said:

I had no idea that people kept their games going that long! That's amazing. I figured most people would be 2-3years tops and the hard core people around 20-30 due to travel time before restarting.:o

2-3 years isn't even enough time to get to Jool! :-D

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10 hours ago, wile1411 said:

I had no idea that people kept their games going that long! That's amazing. I figured most people would be 2-3years tops and the hard core people around 20-30 due to travel time before restarting.:o

Really? Have you never left the Kerbin system? I go through an average of 2-3 years per day.

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15 minutes ago, RatchetinSpace said:

Really? Have you never left the Kerbin system? I go through an average of 2-3 years per day.

As per above... no... I don't count hyperedit. I always get stuck on making a ship that will make an interplanetary jump - That and my games usually devolve into updating stuff to the latest versions of mods - yes I'm afflicted by "ohshinyitus" and can't help updating even if its only a language pack that I don't speak. I blame AVP as my trigger as it points me to the latest update and I end up reading that something new was added / something was fixed and can't help myself.  

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I play almost exclusively sandbox, so in-game-years really isn't a factor for me. I usually start a new save after every major update when there's lots fixed or added to the game just because I've had bad experiences with trying to salvage a wonky mess from version to version to version.

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I just start a new game every new version-that-breaks-things. Usually use a different set of mods anyway. However I still have every install playable all the way back to 0.18, so technically nothing has ended yet. No idea what the longest in-game is, probably some mad attempt at landing on all the outer planets at the same time.

Edited by Van Disaster
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11 minutes ago, wile1411 said:

As per above... no... I don't count hyperedit. I always get stuck on making a ship that will make an interplanetary jump - That and my games usually devolve into updating stuff to the latest versions of mods - yes I'm afflicted by "ohshinyitus" and can't help updating even if its only a language pack that I don't speak. I blame AVP as my trigger as it points me to the latest update and I end up reading that something new was added / something was fixed and can't help myself.  

Ah I see :P I recommend trying to go interplanetary, it's really satisfying when you manage to pull it off.

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I've got one save (my original sandbox) with something over 10 years on  the clock (because of a Duna flyby that wound up having to be very, very penurious on dV on the return -- wouldn't have gotten back at all without a lucky gravity assist from Duna -- and waiting around five years to get a low enough energy kerbin encounter; total voyage time 7+ years).  Other than that, I haven't been playing long enough to build up lots of time on the meter.  My science save has around five years (same deal with a Gilly landing, return took almost three years due to a bad transfer window -- I'd have just waited in orbit around Eve if I'd had a way to determine the correct departure phase).

Alternatively, my current (and first) career game has something like 24 days on the clock, and I'm just about to launch the first attempt to land on the Mun.  I'll most likely have regular tourist excursions to the surface of Minmus by the time i've got 120 days on the clock.  Operating at a profit is a good thing...

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4 hours ago, OhioBob said:

My typical game would be a lot longer if not for the constant updates.  It seems that every time a major release comes out and all the mods get updated, enough things break that's it's just easier to start over.

This. So 'this' for me. Added to the complications is that I only install stuff manually, so sometimes I make mistakes which makes things get into a jumbled mess quicker than normal.

 

@Just Jim Glad you enjoyed. Out of curiosity, what IS the actual time of your save? I remember a chapters in both black & white and sepia at various points.

 

4 hours ago, RatchetinSpace said:

Ah I see :P I recommend trying to go interplanetary, it's really satisfying when you manage to pull it off.

I'm trying! hopefully will make it THIS save game (Like I haven't said that to myself before :) ) Oh and to make the point much clearer about 'OhShinyitus', I've played with OPM installed for all my career games since it was released (and kept it up to date) as I'm ever the optimist that I'll make it there... 'one day'.

Edited by wile1411
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