A change of plans when playing career mode...

[frizzank]

I wish the plane parts were unlocked first. I used them once and so I got little points for using them and then went back to rockets.

[lajoswinkler]

After Jebediah has flown and parachuted here and there, I went to explore the universe with probes first. I've placed an equatorial geostationary probe and a polar one at the very edge of Kerbin's SOI.

Mün now has a set of probes. Two of them have landed on each pole, one on the equator. There's still work to be done. Minmus has one probe which has done a lot of work in a single flight.

I've already started such policy in v0.21, but now I'm stricter than ever. I'm not sending Kerbals yet, and when they start going on missions, I'm planning to return them home. No Kerbal left behind.

I don't care about bringing home every sample because I'm sure I'll unlock the technology tree even with unmanned missions to the nearby planets.

So yeah, I like how the new version proceeds.

[SkyRender]

I've done pretty much what I always do with game limits like this: broken the hell out of them. I sent a ship to do a full Joolian system observation for my third mission (without LV-Ns, just 'cause I could), and it was only the third instead of the second mission because my first "mission" was just gathering data around KSC to unlock Basic Rocketry and Survivability for my first "real" mission. Which was a Minmus landing plus Munar flyby that got me the 600ish science I needed to run the Jool mission. Looking back, I could have done that with the default parts and gotten to Jool on the second flight. Hmm...

[fcdrifter13]

I never really used solid rockets before .22, and I can say that this has changed my play style a ton. They are always my first stage now, I have been finding it easier and easier to get into orbit with the SRBs than the LFO engines and even now where I am on the Tech tree it is nice to use SRBs .

[pigletx2]

REDACTED, needs removal

Whoops, did I just necro that.... and I can't delete it. >_<

Edited January 17, 2014 by pigletx2
WHOOPS

[G'th]

The way I've been my first try at Career is to try and mirror the early history of NASA leading up to Apollo. (Currently up to midway between Mercury and Gemini. Just need to explore Kerbin a bit more then I'll have probes)

Then after Apollo, I plan on breaking away from NASA and doing my own thing. IE, skipping that whole shuttle mess.

[regex]

So little information given to you about how to build a successful rocket, I can't see how anyone can think its easy.

There's nothing stopping you from doing the maths yourself or building a spreadsheet. I fumbled through 0.20 and did a pure stock Eeloo mission complete with rover, it just takes persistence and a willingness to learn.

As far as changing my playstyle, I did a ton of Mun and Minmus landings instead of immediately setting up LKO infrastructure and moving outward. Then I set it aside because career mode is kind of silly right now. Slowing down the science helps somewhat, but not much. There's a lot left to do on the feature before it really changes my playstyle and building style.

[katateochi]

For me career brought a massive change to my game style; I went 100% stock for the first time since I got KSP back in 0.15.

I feel things have become a bit more sane (which I do regret a little) and missions have more tactical planning (which is no bad thing).

I've not built a single rover as they serve little purpose in gathering science (which I think is a pity).

I used to build lots of stations, in career I've only made one and that was after the lab module came out.

Like regex said, I focused on Mun and Minmus more because I felt it was silly to be going to further planets on low end tech (at least from a role-play pov).

For the first time I became aware of time passing, in game time that is, and set up to complete career in the shortest in-game time possible (and also fewest missions). Have a sense of "space race" changed plans quite a bit so my plans have been for shorter missions.

All in all, I feel that career mode has been fun, has changed my approach/plans a lot, but I've felt that having a set goal has constricted my creativity as the kind of daft things that I'd usually do have no purpose.

I wish the plane parts were unlocked first. I used them once and so I got little points for using them and then went back to rockets.

I was really getting into planes before career came out and I also had wished planes had a greater potential. So just to see what was possible I did (doing, almost done) one career using only aircraft and its been the most fun, challenging and creative career I've done. link to thread about it in my sig if you're interested.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

Building realistic looking craft. And not asparagusing-afilying-antaing-potating everything