Evolution of your play style?

[Kar]

Well, I've gone from exploding stuff on the ground…

http://jscript.ca/ksp-images/beta/Screen%20Shot%202014-12-12%20at%208.15.56%20PM.png

… to collisions in orbit…

http://jscript.ca/ksp-images/beta/Screen-Shot-2015-03-24-at-10.09.24-PM.jpg

… so I would say I'm making good progress!

LMAO!!!!

Really, this one really gave me a kick lol.

I'm writing this and laughing at the same time.....

hehe...

[Trann]

Started with either 0.20 or 0.21 -- pre-science, definitely -- and had the demo for barely a weekend before I committed to purchasing.

My style is to play with minimal mods because my machine can't handle it. I tried the beauty mods for a while and they are indeed very nice but I have to do without. Before mods, things were always over-engineered because I didn't know about the required delta-vs to succeed. However, no Kerbals ever died for quite some time. I would mount rescue operations or abandon a mission if there was a fatal flaw in the ship's design with a deorbit burn and recovery. I learned Hoffman transfers and visited Mun and Minmus regularly. Figured out my first free-return trajectory. But I was still throwing up 8 orange tanks to push a lander can with far too much fuel. I went for months without knowing about quick saving/restoring or about restaging outside of the VAB.

My first mods were functional: KER, Lazor Docking Cam, Crew Manifest. KER alone got me to see how much delta-v was going into my ships. This is when I found the delta-v map. Once I got the hang of docking, I began to build space stations and refueling depots, which in turn allowed me to build smaller and lighter launch vehicles, appropriate landers, and stage my operations so I could reach further by topping up before departure. I discovered you could push a capsule then, out of desperation, EVA your pilot into orbit until he could be rescued.

Finding SCANsat gave me a reason to put up my first satellites. This is when I dug up docs for orbital heights and other planetary body details. My sats reached most major bodies and my probes hit them all (some literally) except Moho. Career mode came and I finally found my way to putting a Kerbal on Duna and stranding him there for a while. While deciding what to do, I went through a period where I built an ISS-like replica and it's here where I learned my machine had limits. Any multi-staged missions to Jool would have to be done at half-speed. I've done a sat-6 mission which was a success (and learned not to use radial decouplers on them lest they leave niblets behind and unbalance your probes) and then a lander probe-6 mission which wasn't as much of a success. My current sat/lander probe mission is about to depart with 12 remote probes (one lander is a sacrifice for balance since one cannot land on Jool).

It's always fun to start again with each release. I still don't enjoy SSTOs much and never fly around Kerbin because of all the constant input required. To me, this game is all about the space. My current style seems to be to drop in the mods I need, admin multiplier to gain science, hit contracts and Minmus biomes to unlock the tree and gain funds, then explore the rest of the system with a sat, a probe, then a body. Moho is still my brass ring.

And I still love playing it.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Trann
a word

[michaelhester07]

My style evolved with KSP pretty much.

I started on .22, remembering a time before I knew how to switch between ships, before I knew how to rendevous I had built a square shaped rig that launched the command capsule and the transfer stage on top of a big lifter. I don't remember where it was going. I reverted the flight every time until I got the command capsule control when I disconnected it.

Before I knew of deltaV and kerbal engineer I had a 1.5 rule to engines. Each engine could carry 1 long and 1 sort tank for its matching size

My play style changed when I discovered Kerbal Engineer. Rockets became a formula of DeltaV rather than number of tanks to an engine. I don't think i ever landed on the mun without KER. An old metric was born after my mun landings that I still live by: 2700 deltaV in the payload to land on the mun and return to Kerbin safely. It's maybe a bit much but all of my mun landers adhere to this number. .23 saw me doing science bombs too. I'd launch heavy ships with massive part counts to Mun and Minmus . Each would have a small probe with science parts on it which would land each on a different biome. They would run the experiments and come back to the mothership where a kerbal goes out and collects them. By this time I had mastered rendevous and switching ships.

.23.5 near the end of it saw me getting into mods: Extraplanetary Launchpads, Kethane, and Near Future Tech came into the picture after the science bomb missions:

.24 introduced contracts and my play style changed. Science bombs became obsolete with contracts awarding science. Career mode ended up with my mun missions never returning home so that they can plant flags whenever that contract came up. My style shifted towards making mods too with the stanford torus mod.

For much of .25 I was playing other games. When I came back I updated the torus mod for .25 when the hangar extender was broken.

This saw my play style evolve into a "think of it... mod it and make it" style. This is where my civilian population mod came from and where i am now.

Ascent profile changed too. In .22-.23 I would launch up to 12k then turn 45 and stay there till 100km apo. .24 saw a lower curve but the same thing. .25.2 through .90 saw me using a more segmented profile. My most recent profile has become burn to 7km altitude or until the first booster stage is release, then turn toward the Orbit prograde and follow it until 75km apo.

Funny thing though, I've never really played KSP beyond Duna's orbit with stock or well balanced mod parts. I hope to change that in the next few weeks.

[Commander Zoom]

I started way back in 2011 with .8 (I think), when there was nothing to do but get into orbit, and the only way to tell if you were was by checking your height and speed against a numbers table.

After we got a Mun (and then Minmus), persistence, etc etc, I made several landings there but still never went beyond Kerbin's SOI. I took a lot of breaks from KSP, both from being distracted by other games and waiting for certain features (like docking) to become stock. I also never bothered with planes, as Unity's stock handling of joystick/control input is rather poor, and it wasn't enough of a priority to delve deeply into the add-ons that purported to fix this.

Finally, somewhere around .18-.20, I looked at everyone else's posts and ribbons full of accomplishments and decided it was time to "get serious" - start launching space stations, satellites, and interplanetary missions, doing long-term stuff, not just brief visits to the moons. I've nursed that save through several versions, converting it to "career" and then to "science sandbox" as those modes became available (while giving myself enough research to fill out the tree - I wanted sandbox play with the fun/option of doing science, and no "you can't do that" messages every time I took a sample). I finally froze it at .24.2 in order to finish playing out my current missions, or at least get them to a stopping point I'm happy with.

Come 1.0, I plan to start over, with my first actual career game. I'm sure it'll take a while to get used to playing with a budget, limited tech, etc. I'll also have to learn to build my own boosters again - I've been using Temstar's Zenith family - and maybe even a jet or shuttle (or both).

[Xaver]

At the start of my ksp time I try to learn all the math stuff. So i made an excel file for dv readings. After some searches in the forum I find KER and loughing how i wasted my time in excel today i see the competition of the game is flying without failures and without delta v readings.

[Caelib]

I play mostly stock with the exception of Kerbal Engineer. Over the years, my play style has evolved to trying to built the most efficient, simplest craft possible. I also usually do a full-run career mode on "Hard" every update.

[maltesh]

I started back in 0.8, so I basically started going up and down. And eventually, up, then orbit, then down. Spent quite a bit of time learning the mathematics so I could tell whether I was in orbit from just the Navball, the MET clock, and the altimeter, (for there was no map screen in those days), at any time, without having to wait for an apoapse or a full orbit.

Through 0.13, there was no persistence, so even when there was a moon, every mission was a one-off.

0.14 brought mods and persistence, which changed things a /little/, but overall, not much. I learned how to parse the orbit sections of the persistence file, I could throw multiple spacecraft to the Mun (and to Minmus in 0.15), but Kerbals couldn't leave their capsules, so there wasn't /really/ much point in leaving Kerbals out there in their instlallations. 0.16 borught EVA. 0.17 brought planets.

And then there was 0.18.

0.18 brought Docking, and stock Fuel transfer, whiche were both well and good, but not really the /largest/ change in the way I play the game.

The largest change was Kerbal Alarm Clock.

When I stumbled across Kerbal Alarm Clock in 0.18, my playstile altered completely, once I realized what it could do. Instead of gently dipping toes into space, sending one, maybe two missions at a time, I could turn Kerbin into something that performed like a spacefaring civilization. Admittedly, my reach shrunk signficantly during those next few versions,never leaving the Kerbin SOI in my main save, but I'd typically be moving a dozen or more spacecraft at once between the Mun and Minmus and back. I'd often refer to this as "The Tyranny of Kerbal Alarm Clock."

The second biggest change was the announcement that Resource Extraction was coming in 0.19.

So at the time, it was clear that I was going to be searching for resources, landing resource-extraction machinery, and lifting resources or finished products back to orbit. Which is what finally got me to look into how Kethane did things, building resource-extraction vehicles, and starting to modularize what I was building. And because I was still throwing many spacecraft simultaneously, the combination of having these modular spacecraft and resource depots, and limited time to get things docked before I had to deal with the next spacecraft meant that I learned to dock fairly quickly in the two to three minutes I had before KAC demanded that I deal with something else.

The third biggest change was prompted by Scott Manley's "Reusable Space Program" series. Not the reusability of his lifters, I've never really aimed for that. My two biggest takeaways were "Why am I destroying perfectly good spacecraft after just one use?" and "Holy crap, the LV-N makes an /excellent/ landing engine on medium-sized and larger Mun-rated craft."

Which is what pretty much brings me to where I am now. Even with Science, and Career, my typical play is to do what I need to do to uncrack the Tech Tree and/or cash as fast as I possibly can to get where I really want to be, slinging fleets of about a dozen reusable modular spacecraft to interplanetary destinations and setting up permanent bases and stations when they get there.

[helaeon]

I used to make things big. Very big. Now I like things small and elegant. I used to really like having silly TWR then I got tired of dealing with throttling in the very bottom reaches of the throttle... yeah I could tweak it but the whole reason I liked that high TWR was for being able to get myself out of trouble. I also used to really like to design a vehicle system specifically for each mission. Now I'm more into making vehicles that I can pull off the shelf and go do almost any mission I want, or can with slight modification for further refinement. Kind of like real-world a bit I guess where you want a proven vehicle not a purpose built one with untested engineering.

But landings... I still like landings. Launches from Kerbin are a nuisance for me. The purpose is going to strange new worlds, landing, and science vacuuming.

[Francois424]

Learning to stage properly was a headache.

Learning to get that moon lander to the moon was a headache.

Learning how to retrofire and land was a headache.

Learning interplanetary transfer was a headache.

Learning how to manage dV was INSANELY hard (it all sinked it quickly with kerbal engineer... )

Then learning to dock was... actualy pretty simple as I think about it.

Finally, last time I was playing intensively, I learned how to send a je-powered ssto in orbit. I've not bother with sending payloads with it tho as I priorize time instead of efficiency/reusability for launches, and rockests are far faster.

Now I am trying to learn to minimize my crafts. Do I really need that orange tank as second stage for my satellite? (no I don't). Can I do that transfer to Jool with a really small craft instead of a huge 700 pats mothership ? (yes I can). So I'm experimenting and changing A LOT of launchers/crafts as I go along.

I should be ready when 1.0 hits !

[G'th]

When I started I usually just made cool sci-fi type ships that half the time I'd have to hyperedit into orbit. Then once I started actually building rockets, I always went for direct ascent.

Eventually I started looking into Apollo and from there I was hooked to the LOR concept (and I still haven't broken out of that addiction either lol) and I spent a lot of time playing around with it on Mun and Minmus. (Varying in style from grounded rocketry all the way up to Interstellar stuff depending on what tickled me) But even back then I hadn't yet really learned how to rendezvous and dock.

Then I got on the SSTO spaceplane bandwagon. Then I really got into the Shuttle (Because I had installed CSS out of boredom and fell in love with it).

After a while I ended back with Apollo, and I started looking at Eyes Turned Skyward to spice it up a bit.

And now, after getting bored with that, I'm going to up the ante and go for Realism Overhaul, and I'll likely go for the Apollo route with it.

[Bev7787]

I started with flying straight up, orbit, then mun and Mingus and now Duna and Jool. I am now finally doing career after months of messing around on science and sandbox.

[AmpsterMan]

I first started in 0.15. My first goal, like most when they first begin, is Mun; Go big or go home. After I mastered that around 0.17, planets came about so it was mastery of interplanetary space. Shortly thereafter it was mastery of rendezvous in 0.18.

Since then, the flight sim part of the game has basically gone unchanged (I've argued before that 0.18 was the last update that changed the way we fundamentally played the game. Career was also a change but much less fundamental imo.)

Ever since roughly 0.19 (back in early 2013) I've mainly tried mastering different building challenges.

SSTO Planes, VTOL planes, VTOL Carriers (like the GDI Orca ship), ATVs, Jet propulsion cars, Mobile Launch Platforms, my patented Science Bombs, etc.

Now I'm just waiting for 1.0 to hit so i can release my various inventions as a fun way to hopefully teach some people how to possiblybuild (semi) useful stuff.

[eddiew]

Interesting question and answers, seems everyone has their own development curve I've had five distinct careers so far...

(TLDR: newbie -> mod maniac -> all of the flights in progress -> probe guy -> SSTOs are epic)

"The Rookie"; early Nov 2014 (0.25)

- Leapt into pure stock, fumbled around obsessively for a week, landed on Mun by force and ignorance.

- Went off to watch youtube tutorials and learn why everything seemed so hard.

"The Adventure Seeker"; mid Nov 2014 (0.25)

- NEAR, Remote Tech, TAC, and a bunch of parts mods.

- Built everything using everything; bulky, awkward, but functional.

- Learned about rocket aerodynamics.

- Became a regular visitor on Mun, sent probes to Duna, Eve, and Moho.

- Realised the Outsourced R&D strategy is broken when the entire tech tree was unlocked within three weeks.

"The Realism Guy"; Early Dec 2014 (0.25)

- No strategies other than transponder fitting. Determined not to cheat!

- FAR instead of NEAR.

- Developed a strong parallel-mission habit, leading to 2 weeks of real time between launching my Gilly lander, and it actually arriving at Eve.

- Only 50% science and 50% funding. Surely it would be challenging now? (It wasn't.)

"The Armchair Explorer"; Late Dec 2014 (0.90)

- Mod review; dumped all that weren't updating to 0.90. Added a lot like DMagic Orbital Science and Station Science, MKS/OKS, added a new, bigger tech tree, turned down science gain to 20%, disabled science from contracts and basically tried to calibrate it so that to unlock the whole tree, I'd have to send multiple missions to all bodies in the system.

- Removed Remote Tech since I felt it introduced a bunch of problems without providing any solutions. Used Antenna Range instead.

- Munar landings, one manned Duna landing. Probe landers to all bodies. Fun exploration but... I wasn't seeing my crews often, since TAC kept them near home.

- Started to get into SSTOs and spaceplanes. Eventually they took over my game and I stopped launching rockets for all but the heaviest and bulkiest loads. B9 heavy lifter drones became my mainstay for getting things to LKO.

"The Recruitment Drive"; Mid Mar 2015 (0.90)

- No unmanned landers allowed! This is a boots-on-the-ground career, designed to put Jeb and his companions in as many places as possible. Eve is now a purple boss monster, Duna is an alluring red lady.

- 10% science, 50% funding! Need challenge!

- Dumped the parallel play style after realising it just meant spending an awful lot of time in Kerbin's SOI and rarely seeing other planets.

- Removed TAC since I was feeling it was just added weight that doesn't fit with an SSTO space program, and that it actively discourages rescue missions and living with your mistakes/crashes. I respect it as a mod, but it's not for me this time around.

- Still ongoing Just managed to put boots on Ike, squeaking home with 20 delta-v to spare, with the science income just covering supersonic aerodynamics in the (community) tech tree. Spaceplanes are now an option again for the first time in this career!

[CelticCossack51]

I started in I think it was 0.20 or 0.21. I got into orbit very easily. I had my struggles trying to get to the moon, but after 5 attempts, I got there. I soon then got into installing mods and began modding (still working on my first one.) After a long time, I was finally able to dock, by using the Gemini. Now, I have nothing to do, but make tanks and aircraft, but I should go back to exploration (and colonization with meh tanks).

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

I had a very significant breakdown when i was 1000 hours into the game.

At that Point i realised that instead of taking more and more fuel I should build my payloads with less parts/weight to save fuel (what made the game it utterly hard )