Has anyone else not bothered with career mode?

[Kerbart]

3 minutes ago, wumpus said:

It isn't that hard if you are going to use expensive liquid rockets.  Before, there was zero point for wasting that money as parachutes worked wonders.  Now they barely work at all and you either perform miracles with aerobraking (I haven't bothered to find if it's possible) or use liquid rockets and use them for braking (within limits: if you wait too long you will lose control and quickly die.  If you fire early you will waste them.  No idea how a beginner is supposed to know). (...) The problem is the chutes.  They are absolute killers compared to the old "easy mode".  Even the side chutes are "easy mode" compared to what you get in career mode for this mission. 

If you're going straight up and down, then yes, it's a problem.

I've never encountered problems when blasting off on a column of three Hammers (no need to bother with decouplers in between them). Yes, getting that contraption at an angle is a bit of a challenge (right after launch; don't wait until you're doing Mach 3) but the basic fins will keep you going after that. And the science and funds of that suborbital trip are amazing (at least for the stage of Career you're in). Now, a 45° re-entry is far from perfect and the window to open your chutes isn't that big, but it doesn't require lightning fast reactions either.

Is it easy? No, but nobody ever said spaceflight was. Is it hard, let alone exceptionally hard? I'd prefer “challenging” but nothing beyond that.

[regex]

3 minutes ago, wumpus said:

It isn't that hard if you are going to use expensive liquid rockets.  Before, there was zero point for wasting that money as parachutes worked wonders.  Now they barely work at all and you either perform miracles with aerobraking (I haven't bothered to find if it's possible) or use liquid rockets and use them for braking (within limits: if you wait too long you will lose control and quickly die.  If you fire early you will waste them.  No idea how a beginner is supposed to know).

I'm pretty sure I managed to complete the "into space" mission with only solid rockets (might have been 1.0.2), but a quick run through in their defense left me giving up and using liquid fuels (which made it easier to haul science jr. for big science).

The problem isn't the thermal.  The problem is the chutes.  They are absolute killers compared to the old "easy mode".  Even the side chutes are "easy mode" compared to what you get in career mode for this mission. 

What are you trying to do?  If you're talking about some fully reusable hard mode challenge thing then you might want to rethink what the "beginner" is supposed to know.  The starting chute is really only good enough for a capsule and maybe a Flea so I plan accordingly, and a little testing by the beginner on Normal difficulty should confirm that.  I don't bother trying for orbital until I've researched a decoupler (which usually only takes a launch or two) because the only thing coming back from orbit should be the capsule and its parachute, and I would expect a beginner to either completely flub that launch several times or ape something like Mercury-Atlas and only bring the pod back, on Normal difficulty.

[JoeNapalm]

 

I've made several attempts at Career mode since it became a thing...

...I never get very far.

Not because I can't, but because to me, having started when Sandbox was all there was, KSP is about building over-the-top ridiculous machines that somehow succeed...mostly.

I know, logically, that the bigger the rocket, the more fuel, the more fuel mass, the bigger the rocket.

But in KSP I just want to build it bigger until it works, and enjoy the fireworks when it doesn't. And STILL make it work.

Heck, my current lift platform is so overpowered that if I don't mind the throttle it will tear itself apart at basically any point of flight - yet I'm using it to lob satellites into orbit in my "CareerLite" game (basically sandbox with contracts and leveling).

I get that Kerbal Spreadsheet Program is more challenging, but I don't want to be bothered with a budget or being told that I don't have enough science to use a part. Kerbals use debris they found on the side of the road and duck tape! Their science wears a jaunty hat and looks before it leaps.

-Jn-

[kstark]

It seems we're speaking about strait up suborbital flight early on carrier mode. Yea, it was first challenge that I personally really enjoyed When you have decouplers and RT-10 Hammers there is not a challenge to gain speed, but to break your speed enough to deploy chutes is challenging. And you are not having drogue chutes or dedicated aero-brakes to do the task.

Google replied that most ppl goes orbital and not performing dedicated suborbital flight. But I have found multiple solutions.

1. Add girder segment just behind your cockpit. It produces drag heavy enough to stop a 1.5-tonn ship falling steep on Kerbin to deploy chutes. But it also symmetrically produces drag during lift so you need more powerful booster.

2. Add more power to hit 70 km height in more easy trajectory so your path through dense lower atmosphere is longer and enough to brake. But again - add more boosters.

3. I don't like that 'add more power' idea when I recognize that what I already have is powerful enough. So I personally carefully designed that craft on the picture. It has slightly aerodynamically unstable upper-stage so mk1 cockpit's flywheels have enough power to interrupt that nose-down descend and effectively break with all the broadside. You can achieve less than 100 m/s speed during final few thousand meters that is overkill. Piloting that craft is tricky and the whole thing was very fun

Of course, when you have control surfaces later on you can effectively brake while exceeding maximum angle of attack. Also you can than build cheap 'one stage to suborbit' liquid rocket that will land intact at KSC (i.e. for tourists) so you'll pay only for fuel.

[regex]

5 minutes ago, kstark said:

but to break your speed enough to deploy chutes is challenging. And you are not having drogue chutes or dedicated aero-brakes to do the task.

I'm not sure where all this difficulty is coming from with parachute deployment, even on dedicated suborbital flights; I have zero issues with a single pod + parachute.

[kstark]

22 minutes ago, regex said:

I'm not sure where all this difficulty is coming from with parachute deployment, even on dedicated suborbital flights; I have zero issues with a single pod + parachute.

You are so unlucky! You have missed that challenge!

But yes, it's mostly true. You need to strip your ship down to the cockpit alone to brake with blunt side of the cockpit and nevertheless you have very little time to deploy chutes in that case. May be I have landed in mountains so I decided that time that it is impossible at all.

But challenge was fun nevertheless. Next flight I have attached Science Jr. instead of Flea, I lost stage so not reached space, but have gained science points while 'flying high over Kerbin' and landed safely.

Edited February 3, 2016 by kstark

[JoeNapalm]

 

Even with unlimited funds and science, I built minimalist craft all the time.

I also build flying sky castles.

Basically, I can build whatever I want.

Nothing wrong with wanting to do it within constraints - I just don't need some Kerbal with a slide rule to tell me I don't have enough money to run with a fun idea.

I'm doing "Career Lite" to get access to contracts - that way I'll have a reason to use things I normally might not, even if the reward for doing so is really only the satisfaction of having done so.

 

-Jn-

[regex]

1 hour ago, kstark said:

But yes, it's mostly true. You need to strip your ship down to the cockpit alone to brake with blunt side of the cockpit

Well, yeah, that's the way you do it IRL, too.

1 hour ago, kstark said:

and nevertheless you have very little time to deploy chutes in that case. May be I have landed in mountains so I decided that time that it is impossible at all.

Maybe.  I try to aim my landings over water or flatter areas, but there shouldn't be any real problems over a mountain unless you get extremely unlucky and end up on the top of the higher peaks...

[JoeNapalm]

1 hour ago, kstark said:

 

But yes, it's mostly true. You need to strip your ship down to the cockpit alone to brake with blunt side of the cockpit and nevertheless you have very little time to deploy chutes in that case.

I'm using Real Chutes, which kind of alleviates the "time to deploy" problem.

I set the minimum deployment pressure to 0.3 and can arm the chutes for deployment when I decouple the command module. The chutes will automatically deploy at the appropriate pressure, which means I should already be going slow enough for them.

 

-Jn-

[Waxing_Kibbous]

I recently discovered a program in the Admin building that allows you to gain more money from doing world firsts and get less from contracts. I sort of cheated and started a new game with enough resources to unlock this from the get-go. "So Far" it seems to be going quite well- I still even pick up some easy contracts, but don't feel compelled to do so.

[regex]

36 minutes ago, Waxing_Kibbous said:

I sort of cheated and started a new game with enough resources to unlock this from the get-go.

It's sad that we have to do this.  Strategies should be useful from Day 0 of career mode.

[JedTech]

I commonly start careers with 200% Science and Fund rewards. This gives me the career features and a bit of progression through the tech tree, while giving me plenty of freedom to do what I want do(which does not include grinding science and contracts)

Edited February 3, 2016 by JedTech

[kstark]

9 hours ago, regex said:

Well, yeah, that's the way you do it IRL, too.

I'm perfectly aware about similarity between MK1 pod and IRL Mercury spacecraft. Sometimes I wish it have attitude trusters as in IRL, cause you stick with it for long early on. And IRL you have drogue chutes.

9 hours ago, regex said:

Maybe.  I try to aim my landings over water or flatter areas, but there shouldn't be any real problems over a mountain unless you get extremely unlucky and end up on the top of the higher peaks...

Probably I just don't like to have my eyes stick to the speed indicator during descent all the time so feel uncomfortable when unable to aero-break with much reserve.

 

9 hours ago, JoeNapalm said:

I'm using Real Chutes, which kind of alleviates the "time to deploy" problem.

Yes, mods can handle this. But I'm playing stock game for now and even stock game has good solutions - i.e drogue chutes, just not avalable from the start.

 

8 hours ago, regex said:

It's sad that we have to do this.  Strategies should be useful from Day 0 of career mode.

Agree. I have found only Unpaid research program useful for now. But hey! I have enouph money and I want to pay these guys... but not so much as for outsourcing, cause gain 90 sciense for 1M money is not a deal, better I build more Mun and Minmus landing probes.

[JoeNapalm]

7 hours ago, kstark said:

Yes, mods can handle this. But I'm playing stock game for now and even stock game has good solutions - i.e drogue chutes, just not avalable from the start.

 

I suppose the early rocket program pre-dates the invention of the AAD.

Though make no mistake, almost all of my several games in Career Mode have been low tech stages. I just find the challenge of having so little to work with doesn't hold my attention as well as building things Kerbal mad science style.

I build plenty of sub-optimal minimalistic designs without the game forcing me to grind and budget.

I currently have two Career Mode saves (one stock, one with mods), a Sandbox save, and a CareerLite (mods, Tony Stark levels of science and funding from the start).

I consider myself to be "playing" all of them, but in reality I only ever muck about in CareerLite.

-Jn-

Edited February 4, 2016 by JoeNapalm

[Findthepin1]

Me

[wumpus]

Anybody start with 1.0.5?  I'm curious how many brave kerbals died learning the various tricks to get into space.  After fussing around with it a bit more, it looks like using two SRBs* (with the second one set to half of maximum thrust) and two decouplers.  It takes an *immediate* pitchover (if you wait past ~300m/s, you can't change your attitude).  Coming down from a ~45degree angle will save your kerbal (and give you a generous ~10 seconds to hit the space bar and open your parachutes).  Hopefully new players can either see the importance of liquid rockets or figure out how to change thrust on SRBs.

Hopefully squad is checking things like Steam's "hours played" and not noticing a sudden peak of players who have played for more than 10 minutes but less than an hour or two (of course, that might be common across all Steam games, but I'd be worried about *that*one*mission being such a problem.

I'm not sure if my feelings about orbit should be the same.  I suppose that my feelings that "space should be easy" come from starting the game before 1.0 and too much space-x propaganda (look at how many X-prize competitors fell by the wayside), but it really feels like getting into orbit is easier than surviving the return from space (largely because coming back from orbit *forces* you into a survivable angle of descent.

* PS: The "three hammers" trick didn't seem to work for me.   I seemed to be stuck with ~30,000m tops.  I was afraid to use less angles, and thus wound up with the two hammers and two stages rocket.

[kstark]

2 hours ago, JoeNapalm said:

Though make no mistake, almost all of my several games in Career Mode have been low tech stages. I just find the challenge of having so little to work with doesn't hold my attention as well as building things Kerbal mad science style.

Also make no mistake - I'm only beginner with KSP and my tech level is low

I personally just see the game without missions and money/science limitations a way too boring for me now. Also I'm not having played a lot with simple designs to the point that I'll want something really cool and hi-tech and need all the parts unlocked now. So I play Carrier... and have found it very comfortable at Normal difficulty. But it can be better of course.

1 hour ago, wumpus said:

Anybody start with 1.0.5?  I'm curious how many brave kerbals died learning the various tricks to get into space.

I do. Have bought 1.05 and know nothing else. In my case there were two - both Jeb and Valentina - and both while I have learned recovery from steep suborbital. I replayed of course. I also have found learning 1.05 a bit tough at the very beginning and it should be fixed in 1.1 with more detailed tutorials. Also having Stayputnik from the start would be enough in my case.

Edited February 4, 2016 by kstark

[nosirrbro]

I have previously stated that I used to like career mode but kinda got bored of it once I became more experienced and wanted to move away from kerbal style rockets into realistic stuff which is considerably more difficult.

However, like many people, I have gone on a KSP hiatus for 1.1 in fear of losing any big projects I do, and being burned out when it is released, but since I won't care too much if I lose something in career because it's not my favorite game mode and because the gameplay is different enough were I might get burned out of career but not KSP as a hole, I have decided to try career again, as I long for more KSP. I will post something here based off of anything I may have to say about it

[nosirrbro]

Well, I played it over a few sessions, and after the inital "woo more KSP!" wore off, career just could not grab me. I began to see where I would need to start going to kick off my program, but then just felt my excitement collapse when I saw how much science I would need to get the parts and how much the VAB upgrade to support it would be. I began the grind, and it just really lost me. I left, came back in a few hours, and finished off the grind, finally completing the mission. It was rewarding, but then I noticed that I would need to restart the cycle and add in the grind. Thats when I stopped. I could have kept going on, and eventually the grind with occasional fun mission would stop and just have missions, but at that point it only happens because I unlocked most of the tech tree and upgraded everything, at which point it becomes essentially sandbox except because I still have funds I am discuraged to make more roleplay oriented craft, my favorite kind of craft.

Welp, I think I will definantly stay with sandbox, career is really only for those which are relatively new and have difficulty setting and having fun with their own goals, as a way to introduce first timers to all of the parts in a sensible mannar, or for anybody who loves to grind for a long time until they get to the sandbox point, where it just turns to sandbox where you get told mission ideas, many of which are weird, boring, tedious and often confusing.

Edited February 5, 2016 by nosirrbro

[suicidejunkie]

Personally, I haven't bothered with non- career mode.

Take only the contracts that sound fun or can be added to what you were going to do anyways, and you're golden.

Money is no object once you've got the T3 science labs paid for, but the simple existence of that number is important psychologically.

 

The main trick would be finding good difficulty settings, and I'm thinking I need to scale the finances down more (Building costs are too high compared to the rockets).

[Evanitis]

25 minutes ago, suicidejunkie said:

The main trick would be finding good difficulty settings, and I'm thinking I need to scale the finances down more (Building costs are too high compared to the rockets).

If I remember right, the Funding Penalty slider controls building costs. Sadly, it's kinda' a guessing-game to find out what aspects are controlled by what slider.

[AlamoVampire]

Ive said this before, but, it needs to be said again: career mode atm imho is poorly done. It feels awkward and disjointed. Contracts feel limited and dont really come at you sensically. There is no story at all. Each contract is an island unto itself. 

I see no reason to play a mode that has to me no depth.

[wumpus]

This should be the end of my short restart of 1.0.5.  Lessons learned:

Forget anything you knew about going into space pre-1.0.x.  It isn't hard, but all the problems are encountered coming down.  Expect kerbals to die due to this.

The kickers may or may not be all that valuable.  The 75k cost to upgrade the landing pad isn't bad.  The 90 science costs to unlock them is another story (if you can get them as experimental, go and unlock the pad).  The ability of a kicker to replace multiple parts (cost to unlock >30 parts: 337k) is invaluable (in funds, you still could begrudge the science costs).

I'm curious as what Squad uses for goals of career mode.  Since starting with the science unlocks, it seems that they have made it more for experienced KSP hands to have new goals with KSP.  Once they added the part limits (and made things like the "open the tech tree in two missions" effectively impossible, it seems like it is more for beginners.  Currently, it looks like there are two obvious paths.  The first is the beginner's path, which follows the contracts.  The second is the NASA path, which follows the abilities of the rockets (the "milestone" bonuses help build this path).  My main issue is with the "beginner's path", mainly because it wants to go to Mun first, and also because that it puts an artificial "450k Mun-tax" to block you from a kerballed landing (and soil sample).  

The "NASA path" [how I ran this game]:

[optional] probes to Minmus/Mun (strongly recommend for beginners) [make sure you have thermometers and barometers before going to Duna].

probes to Duna/Eve (barely any more delta-v than Minmus/Mun, but complications and need for external websites  and examples make them less than beginner friendly).  [Duna unlocked ~500 science, and I botched the landing.]

kerballed mission to Minmus [monster/unwieldy kicker plus 2 liquid stages and tons of delta-v gave me 5 different landings on Minmus (not beginner friendly, especially that rocket.  Still had pretty wasteful landings) full science dance=>3000 science.]

kerballed mission to Mun [quit before this.  Basically the tech tree is unlocked enough to no longer be "starting out"]

However, the contract system gives us these in roughly the opposite order.  To add to the injury, the cost to unlock soil samples is 450k funds, which is quite a lot at that level (but you should cover it after a Duna probe).  There isn't much point landing a kerbal on Mun/Minmus without unlocking this level.

This might not be much of a bug.  You probably need to learn enough about orbital mechanics via "put a satellite in this orbit" missions to go to the Mun by the time you can afford the soil samples.  My real objection is putting Mun first, mostly because the lack of flat areas and the high delta-v requirements (landing on Minmus is beginner friendly, not so Mun).  Note that NASA fired Mariners1-7 (all to Mars) before launching Apollo-11 (to Moon).  The Soviets fired plenty of interplanetary probes in that time as well (but presumably they knew the issues and were willing to do *lots* of hand/slipstick calculating on paper).

[Entropiated]

On 2/5/2016 at 3:08 AM, nosirrbro said:

"Welp, I think I will definantly stay with sandbox, career is really only for those which are relatively new and have difficulty setting and having fun with their own goals, as a way to introduce first timers to all of the parts in a sensible mannar, or for anybody who loves to grind for a long time until they get to the sandbox point, where it just turns to sandbox where you get told mission ideas, many of which are weird, boring, tedious and often confusing."

Was it really necessary to slag off those people who happen to enjoy career mode? Couldn't you have just said "Well, I tried it, but it's not for me!" (with more grammar errors in your version, obviously) and leave it at that? Instead, you have to insult me, and every other player who likes the dynamic of career mode, by insinuating that doing so means we are "newbs" who don't know how to have fun. Thanks a bunch.  

[Entropiated]

I like career mode, myself. Gives the game some structure, and it presents challenges that just aren't there for me in the sandbox mode. My only complaint so far, and this only happened to me yesterday, is about the impossible contracts that pop up. I've had DIFFICULT contracts come up before, but always found a way to complete them. But yesterday I got a contract to "Test a launch clamp while flying over Kerbin." Stupidly, I accepted it, thinking the moment of rocket launch would count as "flying." WRONG. As far as I can tell, this mission is impossible because you can't just attach launch clamps to your craft without them automatically being bolted to the ground. Eventually I had to drop the contract and just take the hit in funds and reputation. Word of caution to anybody playing career mode: do not accept this contract.