Hard Career Mode and Funds?

[Beenrak]

So I am by no means a pro at this game (or even very good to be honest) but I prefer a game to be difficult. I decided to start a career mode on Hard and things are going along fine except for cash.

I have enough money to keep running missions essentially forever, but upgrading the KSC buildings is going to take forever! I am only making ~30k-50k profit on each mission and that's if I happen to find two contracts that can be done at the same time. I am just about to launch my first Mun mission, which I am hoping will bring in more lucrative contracts.

My question is: Is the grind going to continue this slowly? or once I hit the Mun should things speed up? Also, I have yet to upgrade Mission Control, would it be in my interest to do that (I have funds for that) so I can complete more than 2 contracts simultaneously?

Thanks.

[Xavven]

So I am by no means a pro at this game (or even very good to be honest) but I prefer a game to be difficult. I decided to start a career mode on Hard and things are going along fine except for cash.

I have enough money to keep running missions essentially forever, but upgrading the KSC buildings is going to take forever! I am only making ~30k-50k profit on each mission and that's if I happen to find two contracts that can be done at the same time. I am just about to launch my first Mun mission, which I am hoping will bring in more lucrative contracts.

My question is: Is the grind going to continue this slowly? or once I hit the Mun should things speed up? Also, I have yet to upgrade Mission Control, would it be in my interest to do that (I have funds for that) so I can complete more than 2 contracts simultaneously?

Thanks.

Mun speeds things up because of survey contracts. The rewards on those "temperature reading above 10,000 ft at xyz" type of missions are pretty good!

[zarakon]

Building upgrades count as PENALTIES for some reason. So the 60% income combined with 200% penalties means that buildings are stupid expensive.

Set the penalties slider to match the income slider IMO. Lower income already means lower margins (less profits) per launch, so even if you scale penalties down to the same amount as income, they'll still hurt more than normal.

[Musil]

I play on hard, but I do slide the rewards a bit higher, up to 80%, to get a bit less grind. Also, quicksaving is a maybe every time I start a new career. Science rewards might get even lower if I feel like punishing myself.

[Beenrak]

Building upgrades count as PENALTIES for some reason. So the 60% income combined with 200% penalties means that buildings are stupid expensive.

Set the penalties slider to match the income slider IMO. Lower income already means lower margins (less profits) per launch, so even if you scale penalties down to the same amount as income, they'll still hurt more than normal.

Can I do this after having already started the career? Would it make sense to just start over?

Also, I enabled reverting flights when I started-- I don't like having the crutch of quick save, but if something goes wrong for reasons outside my control I like to be able to hit the big redo button.

[Domfluff]

I got put off career mode by 0.90, and so tried Hard mode again on 1.0

...and still hated it. Grinding is not fun, and doesn't equate to "harder" in my opinion.

I was playing around with the penalties slider at different levels to see what were decent building costs (since that's the bottleneck really, and the cause of the grind - contracts themselves aren't bad, it's just the requirement to perform repetitive operations that makes it so.

Then I had a re-think, and just started a career on Normal.

...and it's great! I am self-enforcing the lack of quicksaves/reverts (but those could easily be turned on), and I could see the argument for putting part costs back in, or decreasing rewards, but so far the new career is actually a lot more entertaining.

Total missions so far have been five - a basic suborbital lob, Jeb into orbit, Munar fly-by (only just), Two-ship rendezvous and Munar orbit. I've unlocked half of the 45 science tier, and solar panels - I could land on the Mun right now, but I might wait for landing legs to be unlocked.

This is KSP career as I feel it should be - you can push for bold leaps before you're entirely ready, and make large-scale plans.

On hard, I was hitting a brick wall at unlocking the second tier VAB. Whether there will be similar vertical bottlenecks later in Normal remains to be seen, but this feels like this has been balanced pretty well so far.

[Scrogdog]

I did something similar and I have to admit the money pressure is a bit exciting to me.

Much better than just "I screwed up time to revert". Last night I ran a mission where heat came darn close to consuming Val during ascent. But I simply had to push on because I deemed it not affordable to fail. I backed off of thrust and saved her, but it was right on the brink (or felt that way anyway). Then after I circularized orbit I didn't think I had enough fuel to get down. But I did... barely.

Even though I was pretty sure my re-entry was going to be fine, I was still filled with fear during all the flames and such after all that.

One of the most thrilling missions I've ever flown! Probably because I didn't think I could do it but did!

[Stealth2668]

I use a part recovery mod so that I can recover a % (usually in the 90's depending on distance) of my stages, that way I don't lose so much money and the profits are much higher as a result. It's more immersive I find and takes away some of the grind.

[tater]

"Hard" mode isn't harder, it's just grindier, IMO. I tried it a few times in 0.90.