How do you keep the game fresh once the regular career is no longer challenging?

[king of nowhere]

This idea started when I realized the most difficult achievements one can do in this game have to do with aerodinamics. I've never much liked playing with planes, so this thing surprised me. When I became good enough that I got bored with regular career, I started looking towards mods that made things more difficult, coupled with increasingly fancy mission requirements. But apparently, a lot of the most skilled players are trying to save every possible gram of fuel in their ssto.

Then i realized, it's actually the most challenging things in the stock game; with stock isru and some decent mastery of interplanetary transfers, completing a grand tour is relatively trivial. And I can't imagine any challenge more difficult without involving atmospheres. To me it was natural to keep running convoluted space missions with mods, but most people did something different. Surely a lot of them left the game.

So I'm asking out of curiosity, to see how far the gamer imagination has gone to keep a game fresh.

What are your ways to keep things interesting after the regular stuff becomes too easy?

[Xavven]

After getting to the point where unlocking all the career nodes was pretty easy, I set my sights on more sandboxy things like:

• Jool 5
• Eve manned return mission
• Tylo landing & return vehicle
  • Do it again but this time it must be a single-stage from Tylo orbit to landing and back to orbit (no dropping any spent stages)
• Laythe spaceplane
• Build a spaceplane that has the same launch and return profile as the Space Shuttle
• Quad-copter exploration of Eve and Duna
• Build a space station inspired by the ISS
• ISRU operations on Mun and/or Minmus that include the mining rig, ore processing on-site, trucks if necessary to transport fuel to a ground-anchored and custom built (by Engineers using the i menu) launchpad, transport of fuel to orbit, optionally to a space station, acting as a refueling gateway for other missions.
• Apollo 11-17 (pick one) reenactment

And you can do a whole career with additional self-imposed rules like:

• Kerbals require extra roomy spacecraft with multiple rooms for any mission lasting longer than 14 days.
• Kerbals require the above, plus artificial gravity by some means of centrifugal force if the mission lasts more than 1 year. This could be mods that add spinning habitats, or "pretend spinning" by custom building your own circular habitat or just putting the living spaces at the ends of a spacecraft that is reasonably long enough that it could generate enough centrifugal force by just sending it tumbling in the pitch or yaw direction, understanding the game when time-warping stops the rotation, but we pretend the Kerbals keep it spinning when not performing maneuvers.
• Environmental policy bans the use of solid rocket boosters, except seperatrons
• Anti-Kessler syndrome policy: no spent stages or orbital trash is allowed in orbit around Kerbin. No deleting debris allowed (unless its periapsis is below 70km implying atmosphere would decay its orbit quickly), so trash must be manually de-orbited within a reasonable timeframe or when able.
  • Same as above except the rule applies to all other celestial bodies, so transfer stages must impact into the surface. No trash in solar orbit either.
• No landing on engine bells. Must use landing legs (or custom built landing legs that look reasonably structurally sound)

[DunaManiac]

What did the trick for me was to focus on one target in every save. In my current save my single target was the exploration and colonization.

Another thing was to add additional constraints to the game, like above. For me, what got me back into KSP after my hiatus was to combine USI life support and Kerbal Construction time, that I haven't tried before. That combination added challenge to the game - time management.

Edited August 28, 2021 by DunaManiac

[N_Danger]

 If mods are your thing. Try a resized solar system. I've been playing off and on with JNSQ, works really well with stock parts but is 2.7x the size of the stock system with some added planets. 

A different solar system might freshen things up also. 

And it is ok to take a break. I've been on one for about a month or two playing other games.

Though I'm getting that itch again...

[theJesuit]

Life support with say kerbalism, then flag and footprint on every body possible (not jool or sun)

[Superfluous J]

On 8/27/2021 at 10:14 PM, king of nowhere said:

Surely a lot of them left the game.

This is what I did.

Challenges kept me going for a good couple years after I'd gotten everything I wanted out of the basic game + mods. But eventually, with everything, there is a time to stop. So I stopped.

With a little bit of luck, I'll get into the idea of "playing that old game" again right around the time KSP2 comes out.

[DeadJohn]

Here are some things that work for me. I don't have to combine all of them during the same playthrough; pick one or more:

Try a new planet pack. My favorites are JNSQ (2.7x scale) and KSRSS (with its 2.5x patch). It's a nice scale to play at, rockets need an extra stage, SSTOs are a much bigger challenge, and both packs have great graphics.

Build large stations and bases, even if they don't serve much purpose in the game.

Optimize rockets to cost less per launch, even if I don't need the funds.

Optimize rockets to minimize debris in orbit. Drop a stage just before circularizing so it burns/crashes and complete the mission with your last stage.

In career mode, try to do multiple contracts with each launch.

Select a parts mods and structure the game around that.  BDB, Tantares, Knes, or the Near Future collection can support an entire USA,  Soviet, France/ESA, or Lego-like-kitbash career.

Build and fly airplanes, just because. I like Airplane Plus parts for puttering around. For spaceplanes, especially at 2.7x scale, parts from Mk2 Stockalike Extension, Mk3 Stockalike Extension, and OPT are very helpful.