What are your IronMan settings/rules?

[Tazin]

Yesterday i started a new career game, with the idea of playing it ironman style, with hard settings and no saving/loading. I quickly realized this was not possible as the game crashed before i even made my first orbit. So i started again, and changed the settings to allow for loading games. I had two more restarts after catastrophic missions, and realized the "moar boosters" approach leads to a quickly depleted astronaut's complex, so i toned down my ships and my general mindset to be much more careful with everything. Now i'm thinking about "allowing" a single reload per mission, simply to allow some wiggle room in the many cases of forgotten solar panels or antennae.

what are your settings/house rules for ironman KSP, and what do you recommend? maybe there are mods specific to it?

[LostOblivion]

My game crashed a lot in 0.90, but has not crashed once for me in 1.0. Might be because of the DDS textures and because I dropped B9 except for its nice RCS thrusters which I modded back in.

[Pecan]

...I quickly realized this was not possible as the game crashed before i even made my first orbit...

That, must, really, suck! I feel your pain.

My settings are sandbox + design + test, then let MJ and KAC take care of the boring bits. So that probably doesn't count.

[Vegetal]

Not loading games is impossible right now with the alpha state the game is in. I've had ships disintegrate randomly by the kraken, solar panels not deploying, ships disintegrating on the launchpad, wings falling off when approaching the runway, and a ton of other bugs I don't quite remember now.

I tried a hard mode career once, but I put the save/load option back on.

[Captain Sierra]

KSP, due to its propensity to inconveniently crash (particularly when modded, which it borderline needs to be), true Ironman mode is not possible. The thing about XCOM is it autosaves after every move you make. KSP doesnt do this, so you have to manually do it via quicksave. If the game crashes, use debug menu to unlock quickloading for a minute, and reload your previous place (I believe the game autosaves on quickload so the persistence is instantly caught up). Also, unless you're a seasoned craft designer and use KER, I highly advise the use of a sandbox test save.

[Cryova]

This is what I do:

I have the no research purchase required thing on.

Auto hire crew members on.

Everything else up there off.

Then everything else is typically normal settings, with me changing science gain to 150-200% depending on how little I feel like grinding science.

Sometimes I do this just all on easy mode if I am feeling lazy, but that gets boring pretty quick because it is absurdly easy.

[regex]

Ironman mode? Kerbals set to permadeath, add in a life support mod, no saves, crewed missions when ever possible. Any changes in career mode to add "difficulty" just add grind, so I don't really care about that.

[CalculusWarrior]

I play with normal settings except if a kerbal dies, they stay dead. Also, I try not to revert new launches. If I screw up a landing, certainly I'll F9, but I use Kerbal Construction Time's simulations so I will do all my testing in that, and if any unfortunate accidents happen on the way up, I have to live with them.

[Slam_Jones]

Usually just set to Hard mode... no reverts, no quicksaves, etc. If I screw up, I screw up. If something glitches, I blame it on the Kraken.

[John FX]

I play with no quickloading, pay for parts, full heat etc. I reduce financial payout to about 50%

Additionally I like to use persistentrotation, Remotetech (might switch to Antennarange), RWSaturatable, Realchutes, Kerbal Construction Time, Stagerecovery and of course MJ and KAC.

Sometime I play full IVA with RasterPropMonitors and Vesselview.

In case of crashes I use Jebretary which keeps every save I make, also every craft version.

[DoToH]

Any changes in career mode to add "difficulty" just add grind, so I don't really care about that.

^^this. I play with science and funds at 250% to reduce grind.

Permadeath on, Remotetech and life support mod (LS is a must with remotetech installed). No reverts. Test launches are part of the game, I pay for them and, if manned, sometimes not just funds but kerbal lives. Asparagus staging and nervas are forbidden by Kerbin Law in my saves.

[klgraham1013]

Sandbox. The lack of grind is glorious.

A self-imposed periodic budget. I've got a spreadsheet and everything.

No mulligans unless the Kraken interferes. I decide at the beginning of a flight whether it's simulation or real.

Dead is dead. There ain't no coming back.

[Tazin]

Wow, so many ways to play this game. Thanks guys.