JAFO

No.. that's not a mistake. There's a reason why, in over 4 years the NCD challenge has existed, only 3 people have completed it. It's tough. Brutal, even. Possibly, you will have to roll the re-start dice a few times, to get a reasonable contract or two to begin with. Also, since your reputation starts out already in the toilet, and is never going to measurably improve, my understanding is that you have nothing to lose by rejecting any contracts you don't like, until you get some you can work with. That might work out better than a re-start. Also, I REALLY DO hope you've taken the advice offered earlier, and read through the accounts of the three cavemen who've successfully completed NCD. Particularly that of the first to do so, @IncongruousGoat, who made his account quite detailed, in the hope it might be of help to others. Here are more direct links to where their accounts begin: IncongruousGoat: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/172293-a-harder-edge-nanocrystalline-diamond-caveman-challenge-attempt-chapter-9-the-home-stretch-done/ dvader: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/175894-caveman-the-making-of-another-nanocrystalline-diamond/ zanie420: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/167195-the-ksp-caveman-challenge-13x-110x-re-booted/&do=findComment&comment=3527713 Best of luck! Oh.. and @Popestar, my apologies for the long delay responding.. I've been ill the past few days, and hadn't gotten online.

Yes, there is still plenty of value in that. The Community Caveman Jool-5 Mission depended heavily on it. The lack of resource transfer just makes Caveman life harder, is all.

Good stuff, @FloppyRocket! Orbital construction.. that's always "fun".. Just be sure your design allows for the fact that you can't do fuel transfers. That's a mistake I once made with a rather ambitious Mun lander.. it was not a happy day. Welcome to the challenge, @paul_c!

Oh.. you certainly didn't offend... but managing mods isn't really part of a game's job. That's the job of mod managers such as CKAN. You could always make a suggestion to the CKAN maintainers and see what they think of the idea. Good for you! Please do provide progress reports, and even some screenshots if you like. It's always interesting to see the solutions people come up with for this challenge.

Likewise. "Dated" doesn't necessarily mean "no longer cool". It can also mean "classic", and the Thunderbirds/Mark IV look is most definitely a classic. One doesn't mess with perfection.

Sounds a little harsh to call it a kludge.. I can't think of any commercial game that provides that level of support for mods.. feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. It's been a while since I've messed around with KSP, so many of the new features I'm not up to speed with, but my understanding is that yes, in theory that ought to be possible. I might have to try it out and see.

Kudos! Do be sure to read through the NCD attempts of others (mostly, if not all in the last CC series) beforehand. Not only is it SERIOUSLY grindy, but it pretty much requires doing interplanetary missions to succeed. If you've never done interplanetary yet, you may want to give that a shot first in a regular game, so as to have a clear idea of what's entailed. I think there really hasn't been much demand for being able to disable mods. And most people who want to run "more than one different activity setup at a time" simply make multiple installations of KSP, each set up for specific types of play. I regularly have 3 or 4 different KSP installs... one fully modded, one just for Caveman runs, one of the previous version (also modded), and one for experimenting with things like RSS.

Why? Are you experiencing regular crashing?

Unfortunately not. The easiest way is to temporarily uninstall them by simply cutting and pasting the mod folders (found in the GameData folder of your KSP installation) to a separate location for the duration of your challenge attempt. After completion, you then simply cut and paste them back again. That way, you won't lose any settings changes or customisations you've made. Alternatively, if you have the hard drive space to spare, you can make a copy of your entire KSP folder in another location, uninstall the requisite mods from it, then run the main KSP executable in the duplicate folder. In fact, you can do this any number of times, so as to have several custom KSP installations. CKAN is designed to be able to manage several KSP installations at once, for this very purpose. (Using a copy of your main installation is also a good technique for preventing Steam updates from breaking mods in the middle of a game campaign.)

Sure. I'd assumed @Mr. Peabody would have added you as his last official act as moderator of the previous challenge, but I'm more than happy to add you as the first entry for this one instead. Your badge will be in your inbox shortly. (If you decide to take on another level of the Caveman Challenge [and I hope you do!], please do note there is a slight change to the rules, compared to the previous challenge. MechJeb is also disallowed, now. In all previous challenges, it was not permitted, but somehow, in the last challenge, it was not explicitly banned. In this version of the challenge, I have gone back to the traditional rules, in that both KER and MJ are not allowed.) Once again, congratulations on your achievement, @Popestar! An oustanding effort, especially for someone relatively new to KSP. I can't wait to see how your next challenge attempt goes!

FAME AT LAST! Yes, we made it into issue 32 of The Weekly Kerman! As well as the subreddit of the same name..

The new Caveman Challenge for KSP 1.11 is now live!

With @Mr. Peabody's blessing, I am honoured to bring to you the fifth iteration of the venerable KSP Caveman Challenge: KSP Caveman Challenge Facility upgrades are forbidden. Terrible runway and launchpad. Part count of thirty and vehicle mass limit of 18.0 tons. No fancy patched conics, no maneuver nodes and no Deep Space Network. Abhorrent fear of technology as primitive as can be. Acquire 1188 Science Points to unlock twenty nodes of the technology tree. Challenge Rules: Stock career mode (DLC expansions are allowed) EVA construction is allowed and even encouraged Use of Green Monoliths to unlock tech nodes is allowed No mods that alter game play (mods used for graphics, radio chatter, ect. are fine) Use of the KER and/or MechJeb mods, or other mods that provide more information than the stock game does, is not permitted The Making History option "Allow other Launchsites" is not permitted (it makes Caveman life too easy) No use of Mods or Cheat Menu in separate games No cheat menus or any other shenanigans No kraken/ladder drives or similar contraptions Use of spreadsheets and/or external launch window calculators such as the Alex Moon Launch Window Planner, are permitted The minimum amount of proof needed for a challenge entry is screen shots of: Your difficulty settings. (Including advanced/custom settings if needed.) Your Science Archives, showing where the bulk of your science came from. The KSC to show no buildings were upgraded. Your tech tree to show that you completed Tier 5. However, we strongly encourage you to also post interesting screenshots in occasional updates to this thread. It's always fun (and interesting!) to see the different approaches people take to the challenge. Help Resources: Previous challenge threads are the best compilations of previous attempts and useful information, but there are some other places you should check out as well. For your convenience, they are all listed below. There are 7 levels of challenge to aspire to, and one Special Award: TALC: Complete Challenge in Easy Career Mode You should be able to make quick work of this soft-rock career Apatite: Complete Challenge in Normal Career Mode The minimum amount of flare. Vanadium: Complete Challenge in Moderate Career Mode A tool's hard edge can make all the difference. Topaz: Complete Challenge in Hard Career Mode Happy, shiny caveman. Corundum: Custom Difficulty This career would not wear down a tough caveman... Diamond: Custom Difficulty For brilliant cavemen, possessed of fire. Nano-crystalline Diamond: Custom Difficulty Hard caveman. Good luck, you'll need it! The Trilobitic Order Legendary cavemen & cavewomen Badges:

Congratulations @Popestar! I've looked over your impressively detailed documentation, and I am more than happy to support your request to have your name carved into the clan's cave wall. Well done!

During re-entry, you should be firing the engine as a braking burn, which will both slow you down further, and get rid of that nasty, 'splodey fuel. It's a win/win. Funny you should say that. @Mr. Peabodyhas asked me to take over the management of the challenge, and in no small part due to his exceptional skill at flattery, persuaded me to accept. So, early in the new year (I'm currently occupied on a yacht delivery that's gone slighly pear-shaped), there will be a brand new Caveman Challenge thread, with updated rules. Submissions for rules, such as the ones you've just made, are hereby invited.

You might have been better off keeping the large tank, and just use the slider to reduce how much fuel/oxidiser it carries, until you come up under weight. That way you only have the overhead mass of just one tank's materials and connectors, instead of two, meaning you should be able to squeeze a bit more fuel on board than you would have using the two smaller tanks. Antenna signal strength and connections are displayed in the upper left, near the time acceleration display. It pays to take the time to learn what the symbols mean.. but mousing over them will tell you what you need to know. I'd try a Pe of around 50-55km, and see how it goes. You should not need to adjust for each go-around. Unless, of course, it becomes apparent that you are going to end up making a dozen or more passes before you get slowed down enough. Also, a design note for future reference.. it just so happens that engines like the terrier can also do double duty as a heat shield on re-entry. That's all I use when returning from Minmus (with much higher re-entry speeds) with my crewed Minmus lander.

Good to hear! So what's the next mission going to be?

Nope. I was wrong. According to evi1wombat, who made the video @Mr. Peabody posted above, it still works in v1.10!

Assuming that even still works. It was a very old bug. May have been fixed by now.

This is one of the wonderful things about this challenge... it really encourages "outside the box" thinking, and coming up with innovative solutions to problems!

If you go back through old challenge attempts done by others here, you'll come across several variations of a fascinating device called a "Science Roller". It's the solution to your problems. Re landing: Attach a parachute at the plane's center of mass. When you need to land, get above the point you want to set down, kill the engine and pop the 'chute. Of course, this only works once, unless you have an engineer who can re-pack parachutes aboard!

It certainly ought to look familiar... it's basically a refinement of the Mk1 version of my "Flying Sparkplug" Minmus Lander, which itself is based on @Superfluous J's "Kill-Me-Not" Minmus Lander.

Oh, I know it'll "take some time". More than you suspect. Just wait until you've tried orbital rendezvous and docking without patched conics, manoeuvre nodes and all the rest. You thought getting to orbit was hard? But don't let that discourage you.. it can be done. And once you get the hang of it, it's not that bad. But your first few attempts may have you tearing your hair out and grinding your teeth. And then there's the per-flight payload limits.

And now you understand why we say that doing Caveman Challenges will make you a better KSP player in general. Kudos for being so eager to see what you can do with your new-found skills and knowledge! Now this, might be something new in Caveman land. We've nearly all had to do some amount of in-orbit craft assembly before, but to the best of my knowledge, no caveman has specifically gone the route of putting up a dedicated orbital space station before.. everyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this!

It's funny how many KSP players have no idea what an efficient gravity turn actually looks like, until they try a Caveman Challenge.. Hang in there, Popestar... it's more than do-able, and before long you'll be wondering why you found it so hard!