Best thing I've done in .24: Turn off Quicksave

[munseeker]

Turning off quicksave has made KSP so much more fun! It's a much bigger challenge and I'm really invested in the well-being of the Kerbals.

I'm now doing robotic test runs of challenging mission and new craft designs, spend time to make sure I bring ALL the resources I'll need (I use TAC Life Support), and my docking and landing skills have gone up considerably since I can't just wing it anymore.

I've also turned on perma-death to force myself to really consider what I'm doing with my Kerbals and I use Final Frontier - having Kerbals earn achievements is another way to create investment in our little green friends.

I do allow myself to revert completely borked launch attempts, but once the rocket flies straight, I stick it out and emergency land if something goes wrong during upper staging.

I can only recommend this approach for a more immersive experience!

Edited August 1, 2014 by munseeker

[J3ansley]

I also really enjoy it. For me, it makes the contract rewards much more balanced. I do have some spare funds for outside contract activities but a couple wrecks and I'll be in the poor house. I love it.

[Wanderfound]

I've got quickload off but quicksave on. Too many crashes/glitches/time-acceleration-SNAFUs not to keep the option of restoring them. The need to go via the debug menu to reload stops me from abusing it too much.

[Maxwell Fern]

IMO that's the only real way to enjoy the contract/fund system. If you can reload any failed mission, where's the challenge ? You can never fail a contract.

I really wish there was a "hard" mode that you can pick when you start a new career, which permanently disables quickload/revert. Of course you'd need an option to "simulate" missions in order to test your design.

That could be actually really simple: instead of clicking "Launch", you click a "Simulate" button which lets you do everything, except no contract can be completed, obviously, ships doesn't cost anything and you have a 'Revert simulation" option in the echap menu, once you're done, which acts like a "revert to VAB".

Hey wait... Isn't there a mod that does that ? That's actually a pretty good idea for a mod.

[Cirocco]

while I haven't disbaled the quicksave/quickload function, I have also vowed to not use it anymore except in circumstances that go FUBAR and are beyond my control. It really does make the game more engaging and it does indeed give probes a purpose: you really want to test your stuff before sending kerbals up there.

Most notably, I recently had a rocket go wildly out of control just off the launchpad due to staging error. My first instinct was to immediately hit the "revert to hangar" button, but I stopped just in time to remind myself that I now build in abort mechanisms for a reason. Decoupled command pod, flew clear of explosions, parachuted safely down.

Rocket was lost (thankfully it was a simple orbiter, not even Mun capable and therefore not too expensive) and Jeb went through a few very scary seconds but came out none the worse for wear.

[Biff Space]

That could be actually really simple: instead of clicking "Launch", you click a "Simulate" button which lets you do everything, except no contract can be completed, obviously, ships doesn't cost anything and you have a 'Revert simulation" option in the echap menu, once you're done, which acts like a "revert to VAB".

Hey wait... Isn't there a mod that does that ? That's actually a pretty good idea for a mod.

Kerbal Construction Time does this, among other things.

[Superfluous J]

I have also stopped loading, but won't stop saving. I do it less often, but still save on occasion because of crashes and the occasional brain fart where I forget to record the video I was planning on recording. But no longer will I save/load for anything in-game that's not a bug. If I hit that mountain that I think I can clear... well too bad.

And yeah, it's a ton more fun this way

[Wanderfound]

IMO that's the only real way to enjoy the contract/fund system. If you can reload any failed mission, where's the challenge ? You can never fail a contract.

I really wish there was a "hard" mode that you can pick when you start a new career, which permanently disables quickload/revert. Of course you'd need an option to "simulate" missions in order to test your design.

That could be actually really simple: instead of clicking "Launch", you click a "Simulate" button which lets you do everything, except no contract can be completed, obviously, ships doesn't cost anything and you have a 'Revert simulation" option in the echap menu, once you're done, which acts like a "revert to VAB".

Hey wait... Isn't there a mod that does that ? That's actually a pretty good idea for a mod.

No mod needed: use the debug menu to disable quickload, and keep a sandbox save for simulation runs.

[montyben101]

How do you "manualy" quickload? I would love to turn off quicksave but as Wanderfound said there are to many glitches/crashes on my game to do that

[Superfluous J]

How do you "manualy" quickload? I would love to turn off quicksave but as Wanderfound said there are to many glitches/crashes on my game to do that

I don't see anybody using that term before you asked, but if I had to define it I'd say exit out of the game, rename your persistent.sfs to something else, then copy your quicksave.sfs to persistent.sfs. Then load the game and it'll load your quicksave as if it was a persistent file.

That, or alt-f9. But alt-f9 doesn't seem any more "manual" than just hitting F9, to me.

[Lukaszenko]

I really wish there was a "hard" mode that you can pick when you start a new career, which permanently disables quickload/revert. Of course you'd need an option to "simulate" missions in order to test your design.

That could be actually really simple: instead of clicking "Launch", you click a "Simulate" button which lets you do everything, except no contract can be completed, obviously, ships doesn't cost anything and you have a 'Revert simulation" option in the echap menu, once you're done, which acts like a "revert to VAB".

To make it even more challenging and fun, I don't "simulate", I test. And I use my own funds to do that. SpaceX doesn't "simulate" (well, I'm sure they do to an extent, but bear with me) their rockets and engines, they put them on the pad or strap them on the test rig and fire them up. And they pay for it. If they piggyback their test on top a contract, all the better, but if not, too bad.

So far it's proven fun, and I'm still left with more that enough money. How it pans out after I start flying (and testing) interplanetary missions is yet to be seen, but there's always a profitable contract available if I run short of funds.

[micha]

Yeah, playing without resorting to quickload/revert all the time makes the game much more challenging.. and sad. I lost Jebediah two nights ago due to a botched plane landing after testing some aero parts.

I just -can't- land a plane in KSP. Will have to stick parachutes on them.

[WWEdeadman]

I have quicksaving/loading still enabled, but I haven't used it in 0.24 yet. I only save in case the game crashes, or the kraken attacks ever since the 0.23.5 save I had before 0.24. Also I have perma-death on since then (although in 0.23.5 that rtequired savefile editing)

But, yeah, it makes the game way more enjoyable if your failures are not "revertable". Makes you think twice whether you have enough delta V left to land/get off an air-less body.

[Wanderfound]

Yeah, playing without resorting to quickload/revert all the time makes the game much more challenging.. and sad. I lost Jebediah two nights ago due to a botched plane landing after testing some aero parts.

I just -can't- land a plane in KSP. Will have to stick parachutes on them.

Hard mode has inspired me to be much more careful with crew safety. Every crewed vessel that I build these days has an abort system that kills the engines, detaches the capsule and deploys the chutes. And I don't send anybody interplanetary unless I'm confident they'll survive: if there's any doubt, a probe mission goes first.

Probe-piloted drones are also getting a fair bit of use in prototype aircraft testing. All three Kerman brothers still alive so far, although Jeb's had to take advantage of EVA parachutes a few times when a ship disassembles on reentry or such.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Wanderfound

[Wanderfound]

How do you "manualy" quickload? I would love to turn off quicksave but as Wanderfound said there are to many glitches/crashes on my game to do that

I keep quickload turned off, but when I need it I just go to the debug menu (alt-F12) and turn it back on. You don't even need to toggle it off again afterwards; if you set quickload off at the start, turning it back on lets you load once and then returns to "off".

[Wanderfound]

To make it even more challenging and fun, I don't "simulate", I test. And I use my own funds to do that.

Same here; prototype testing is a good way of disposing of accumulated funds, especially when it's a √150,000 spaceplane with repeated landing gear failures...

[Maxwell Fern]

And I use my own funds to do that. SpaceX doesn't "simulate" (well, I'm sure they do to an extent, but bear with me) their rockets and engines, they put them on the pad or strap them on the test rig and fire them up. And they pay for it.

Are you kidding me ? You think the rockets and engines they put on a launchpad haven't been tested in computer simulations millions of times before being unit tested in facilities thousands of times before being put on the launchpad ? There's a reason they don't fail... They know it's gonna work.

While you can achieve that level of confidence in KSP with enough experience building rockets, it's an entire other game when dealing with spaceplanes and SSTOs. Those reusable crafts need testing and fine tuning.

[montyben101]

I keep quickload turned off, but when I need it I just go to the debug menu (alt-F12) and turn it back on. You don't even need to toggle it off again afterwards; if you set quickload off at the start, turning it back on lets you load once and then returns to "off".

Oh... derp sorry....

[Lukaszenko]

Are you kidding me ? You think the rockets and engines they put on a launchpad haven't been tested in computer simulations millions of times before being unit tested in facilities thousands of times before being put on the launchpad ? There's a reason they don't fail... They know it's gonna work.

well, I'm sure they do to an extent, but bear with me

Besides, in KSP the engines and other parts are already KNOWN to work. It's just a question of whether the whole contraption slapped together will. You can be pretty confident that it will hold up (in KSP and in real life), but nobody's going to go sit in the thing until it's been demonstrated to work.

[munseeker]

Yeah, playing without resorting to quickload/revert all the time makes the game much more challenging.. and sad. I lost Jebediah two nights ago due to a botched plane landing after testing some aero parts.

I just -can't- land a plane in KSP. Will have to stick parachutes on them.

I hear you - there's a deep-cut valley on the Mun that I have been exploring that I also picked for the first full crewed mission. That valley is very scenic with huge craters capping off side canyons. Great place for sight-seeing. Everything went well, landing, several EVAs, rover drives.

Until pretty far out on a rover EVA all three Kerbals got stuck after flipping the damn rover on a very steep incline, so far out that they would probably run out of air if they try to walk back. That enjoyable little outing turned into high drama real quick.

Aldfrey Kerman flew his space suit with RCS high into a cliffside and literally exploded.

Bill Kerman fell into a crack in the Mun's surface while walking through an otherwise unremarkable side canyon and disappeared, never to be seen again.

Only Rodmin Kerman made it back to the lander. He executed a perfect return to the expeditionary ship in Mun orbit and returned home on a long, silent flight.

[Red Iron Crown]

I don't get the need to turn it off in the debug menu. Want to play without saves or reverts? Don't save or revert.

I only revert when doing testing, and generally only load to deal with game bug issues. Test reversion seems to be simpler than backing out of the save to enter another one for testing, as I read many people are doing.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Red Iron Crown
Fixed a typo.

[FleetAdmiralJ]

Heh, I know this isn't exactly the same thing, but I killed a kerbal the other day (I have permadeath on) but then I accidentally reverted just b/c I'm still used to doing that when Kerbals die. I've been trying not to do that as much if I can but it's still a bad habit that I'm used to

[RocketPilot573]

For me, its not fun until I turn off revert too, so ANY failure will hurt my funds.

[norup]

Yay, I just completed the science tree, with quicksave/load and revert disabled, permadeath on and an absolutely vanilla KSP with no mods.

That was my first and only 0.24 career - without these options, it would not have been interesting.

A single Kerbal perished in a stupid accident with a landed rocket that toppled over. Funds was never really a concern.

Now I will take a break and later have a go at a BTSM career when the interest picks up again.

[munseeker]

I don't get the need to turn it off in the debug menu. Want to play without saves or reverts? Don't save or revert.

I only revert when doing testing, and generally only load to deal with game bug issues. Test reversion seems to be simpler than backing out mof the save to enter another one for testing, as I read many people are doing.

The Force is strong in this one. :-)

Turning it off means that I don't even think about it anymore. It's just not an easy-to access option, so it's gone from the game for good as far as I'm concerned. But either way, the important part is of course that not using quicksave really improved the game for me. And reverts to VAB on launch of a new rocket just to discover that I complete messed up staging is still OK in my book. Once it flies straight I stick it out.