How in the world did this game escape my attention prior to release? I first downloaded KSP on the day 1.0 was released. I heard about it reading an article by Elon Musk, that he enjoyed this game. From a brand new players perspective, the game is difficult, sometimes frustratingly so, but this is not a bad thing... it means my achievements mean that much more to me. I make mistakes, lots of them, I overbuild, I am trying and failing to teach myself that less is more. I tried some mods... but quickly deleted them. I don't want cheats, I don't want to make the game easier, the only mod I kept was Chatterer for a while, I am now playing with that as my only mod. The largest problem I have with the game is re-starting, ( which is me, not the game ). I restart.... a lot I started in sandbox... and quickly deleted that game, It was like playing Minecraft in creative mode... no thanks. So I tried Science mode ( easy ), got to Orbit, did a Mun flyby, did a Minimus flyby, landed on the Mun, and restarted. I felt like I was cheating.... so I started a Career mode ( easy ), this was better, but I was quickly right back to having more money and science faster than I could put them to use. I was advancing too fast. so I started Career mode ( normal ) with a few tweaks, Got all the way to Ike with a lab orbital station later met by fuel a fuel tanker and later by a lander, made it to the surface of Ike .... but I felt guilty about the tweaks.... I restarted Normal Career mode, no tweaks to the difficulty... and then a release happened that seemed to change everything, my parachutes were being ripped off from G forces, landing even on the Mun became much more difficult ( this is also when I happened to get a new much more powerful gaming rig PC at home. I don't know what happened but everything that worked before, was failing now. I restarted again. I felt like I needed to re-learn after that update, or perhaps it was the drastic increase in my PC's processing power. Health problems kept me from playing for a few weeks, but I am back at it again. Normal Career mode, no mods, no difficulty tweaks, tonight I will be launching my first Mun lander ( again ) I cant say enough positive about this game, I cannot fly a spaceplane well, and I don't ever see myself actually landing one, ( the jets I fly I have to eject my command pod with a parachute ) but I don't want it easier. The charm of this game, is the challenges it puts before you. I can only play in Career mode, everything else feels like a cheat now. But hats off to the KSP team... I am hooked.
