Is perfectionism driving you crazy in 0.24?

[allmhuran]

I haven't spent too long playing 0.24 so far, but as I prepare for my second launch (after completing the first four missions) I am worried about my sanity.

I want to land every craft, even rockets, back at KSC. I want to pinch every penny on launch. I want to grab every contract available and do them all in one launch. I have spent 3 hours just designing my rocket for mission 2 to do 6 contracts (decoupler test, parachute test, SRB test, rescue, Kerbin orbit science, Mun landed science).

Anyone else?

Edited July 19, 2014 by allmhuran

[magnemoe]

Perfect is an enemy of good enough.

On the other hand its fun to make complex missions like landing on all of minmus biomes in one go.

I found that most of the in flight test are best done by probes, as they are launched strait up they land back on pad and most only use 45 liter fuel.

[xcorps]

Good enough is the enemy of success.

Yes, I am actually making attempts now to build reasonably and land back at KSC.

[Rithsom]

I'm always tempted to do this too, but I try really hard to stop myself. I want to make as much money as I can in my new career save (as much as it takes to completely fill the funds meter sometimes ).

[Arran]

Yes, allthough my perfectionism is also going hand in hand with estetics, it has to

A : preform perfectly

B : As simple as possible

C : looks smooth / Real as possible

This high standard does mean alot of my designs even though perfectly good working, end up in the scrapbin.

And thus means my program is progressing very slowly

[SkyRender]

Here's a better strategy for the skilled player: just ignore the procedural contracts entirely. The contracts outside of the non-procedural ones are generous, and you can return to the space center mid-mission to get more of them (so if your first launch sends you out towards the Mun, Minmus, or the sun, you can get the relevant missions for them without having to finish your current flight). You could also opt to troll the procedural contracts and only pick out ones that your currently-in-flight mission can easily complete as-is.

[Starwhip]

My only rule is:

No more just-the-capsule-returns missions. Those are long gone. I land whatever orbital maneuvering system went up, as close as I can get to KSC.

Another thing I try to do is max the science/contracts I can do per launch. My first Mun mission brought 2 materials bays, 4 mystery goo canisters, an orbiter and a lander. Soon I'll put up stations and such, but as of yet I've still got some contracts to wrap up.

[morph113]

Well in general yes I try to be as perfect as possible. I have started the new career mode a few times over to test stuff. What I can say is, that if you are progressing too fast you are missing out on a lot of easy early cash. Like there are missions for setting a new height record, first at 5000 meter, then 11k, then 22k, then 33k, then 56k.... and everytime the amount of money you get from it doubles. You pretty much do them one after another with the first science node and get good cash quick. Or you can instead just leave Kerbin atmosphere on your very first flight and miss out on all that money. It's up to you

[TUFOM]

Yap, kinda ocd action in 0.24 for me. not one kerbal can die, every contract requirement must be accomplished. Everything must be designed efficient as possible. etc. But I like it!

[Jouni]

Good enough is the enemy of success.

Bad judgement is the enemy of success, not matter whether it manifests as perfectionism or as too low standards for "good enough".

[Xavven]

Hm, I usually only do 1 or 2 contracts at a time and find that the payouts are so large that I don't have to worry about money at all. I started playing really strategically at first, but ended up with 1.7 million Funds by the time I finished planted a flag on Mun and doing a Minmus flyby. I don't worry about where I'm landing and in many cases just return the capsule. I found that the parts payback might be 10,000 Funds, but the mission is paying out 70,000, so I spend less time optimizing each mission and more time doing more missions. Kind of like what NASA has done in the past couple of decades -- cheaper missions with less testing, but more of them.

[Yemo]

It is not perfect, if you spend 3 hours on 5contracts and one launch, instead of doing 10 contracts in 5 launches, earning twice the funds in profits...

[dryer_lint]

Yep, instead of just returning the capsule, now I spam radial chutes all over the ship. Radial chutes are my best friend.

[Razor235]

Money isn't really an object for me. Even after launching 3 consecutive Mun missions, two of which had no payout because they were to rescue Jeb, I still have a tidy 550,000 in the bank.

[adge]

Same as above: money is so easy to come by, I decided against trying to save every penny possible. I wouldn't find the constant planning and focus-shifting and returning everything enjoyable - but that's just my style. If you love the challenge, excellent!

However, that being said, I do try and return more than just a capsule now. If my lander has some fuel left in the tank, I'll not jettison it and just capsule return, for example! But I'm not actively looking to have enough fuel to return for the extra cash, just if it happens

The only perfectionism striking me is wanting to be a completionist and fulfill every single contract offered

[bmyers831]

Yep, that's me. I started a new career for the contracts and found myself fussing over doing as many contracts in one flight as I was capable of and then doing a lot of reverting to get it right. I'm going to have to set some standards for myself for non-perfection or I'm going to burn myself out.

[merendel]

Some of the procedural ones give very weird requirements. I got one that was pure kerbal... needed to test a seperator in flight. whats so special about that you ask? it had a speed requirement of 480 to 700m/s. Still not all that intresting? the test also had to happen between 1km and 6km. the TWR to get going that fast that low is silly I've also had a few that required moveing very slowly at 20km+ I've just ended up skiping some of the more outragious ones, not worth the headache although i did do the hyperspeed seperator test because more boosters is fun.

[LordCorwin]

...

I want to land every craft, even rockets, back at KSC. I want to pinch every penny on launch. I want to grab every contract available and do them all in one launch. I have spent 3 hours just designing my rocket for mission 2 to do 5 contracts (decoupler test, parachute test, SRB test, rescue, Kerbin orbit science, Mun landed science).

Anyone else?

Yes, me

I haven't seen any mission regarding biomes and these places provide a lot of science. So I'm trying to do as many contracts as possible to get funds in order to leave me enough cash to do the science missions I want.

Of course this also involves to return as close to KSC as possible.

Lord

[nimbim]

I hand-picked the contracts with big rewards and have no trouble. There is no point (financially) in most test contracts, since you would need to combine a lot of them AND return most parts to KSC to make only a marginal profit.

[RidingTheFlow]

I don't bother about reusability at all. Doing exploration & rescue contracts left me swimming in cash very quickly with basic multistage designs.

I think the most important bit is to use minimum amount of cheapest parts to do the job (e.g. don't build 2.5m ship if 1.25m tiny ship will work, use boosters for first stages - they very cheap, etc).

[zarakon]

You just have to realize that there are an infinite number of contracts, so there's no reason to try to do all of them. Wasting time on little ones with not much reward just takes away time that could be spent on more lucrative ones later.

Try to just do the biggest contracts you have, especially with regard to reputation so that you can get access to even bigger ones sooner.

[allmhuran]

I guess it's about picking the challenge.

The challenge I've set myself isn't simply to "play KSP". Yeah, I could launch one rocket and do one contract. That's probably all you need to do to keep your space program going.

But... that's not enough. If I have 5 contracts, well dagnamit, I'm going to complete 5 contracts in one launch! If I launch a rocket, then I'm damn well going to land it at KSC and not break anything on landing!

It's not about doing only what needs to be done. It's about... well... it's about the same thing that the "single launch to unlock the whole tree" mission in my sig was about. It's about the challenge!

[Tortoise]

Yep; p.

The max ive done is 4 contracts at once though. Ive yet ro lans directly Back at KSC yet. Waiting to unlock better parts to either make a resusable SSTO rocket or planw. Or maybe just a shuttle.

[No one]

Perfectionism is driving me crazy, but in a different way.

I'm attempting to do everything I do for as cheap as possible. I have over 3 million funds, but every launch which costs more than 50k makes me die a little on the inside.

Also, doing everything as cheap as possible has a downside: On my latest mission to Kerbolar orbit I opted for a light LFO rocket to return (48-7S) rather than an ion thruster because ion thrusters are too expensive. Now Neilzon is trapped until I send up a rescue probe, which will basically be a clone of what I used to send him up except with an ion thruster, making the mission cost almost twice as much as if I had just done it right to start with.

[LethalDose]

I haven't spent too long playing 0.24 so far, but as I prepare for my second launch (after completing the first four missions) I am worried about my sanity.

I want to land every craft, even rockets, back at KSC. I want to pinch every penny on launch. I want to grab every contract available and do them all in one launch. I have spent 3 hours just designing my rocket for mission 2 to do 6 contracts (decoupler test, parachute test, SRB test, rescue, Kerbin orbit science, Mun landed science).

Anyone else?

Not me, not even a little. I already tried to do as much as I could with each launch. I'm also not obsessing about getting every Kredit back, there's no need, since I wasn't using obscenely large launchers to begin with. My stuff has always been pretty efficient.