Launchpad limited career

[theJesuit]

I'm just a tad interested in how people challenge themsleves as I've been enjoying a particular self imposed challenge on a hard career playthrough.

Along with the usual TAC.LS and no reverts, I require any trip of more than a couple of kerbin days require a rotational habitat built myself using stock or kerbal planteary base systems and Infernal Robotics. So far so

My main limiter though is that I won't move past a tier 2 launch pad meaning that all flights have a limit of 140 tons. Even for creating interplanetary craft. Does anyone else do this?

Peace.

[Xavven]

I also play with some self-imposed rules for the sake of roleplay, but your rules are a bit more restrictive than mine.

I tend to use human comparisons to draft my rules. An Apollo mission took about 12 days and crew members were crammed into the CSM + LEM. A Kerbin day is 6 hours long, 1/4th of an Earth day, so I figure it's okay to go without a habitat or resupply for 12 x 4 = 48 Kerbin days. This makes Minmus missions very plausible with just a 3-man capsule.

And Valeri Polyakov survived in 0g for 14 months (437 days) straight, for example. Not without ill medical effects, and the station needed resupply, but he lived. That means that with resupply, a space station occupied for about 4 Kerbin years is plausible.

This is, of course, assuming Kerbal biology is anything like ours. Who knows - maybe they hibernate and photosynthesize and have no problem with 0g? There are plenty of experiments we're conducting on the ISS involving bacteria, fungus, and plants. A lot of them fare just fine -- Humans are weak!

[AbhChallenger]

Well personally I hope KSP introduces a concept of "Cramming Kerbals into a capsule all the way to duna and back = bad" We have mods that add life support limitations. But seem to not mind about the space and how long they live in that space.

Of course that means we have to have new parts. And of course that is bad for the current 32 bit limit so I can understand. However, in the future I hope things like inflatable habitats and mars direct style habs will be a requirement on normal difficulty for missions to Duna and beyond. Of course that should be a slider so people who like the old way can continue to play without being forced to.

[Joonatan1998]

I usually try to not use rover stats for interplanetary travel to Jool/Eeloo.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Joonatan1998

[Streetwind]

I find that adding KScale2 - a mod which doubles planet sizes and distances - offers a pleasing challenge. I leave all the stock parts at their normal performance values, so you have to put a bit more effort into getting into orbit and moving between destinations. But at the same time, it doesn't add too much extra tedium. Your launch times won't be absurdly long, your rockets won't wobble that much under their sheer size, and there is no need to build weird and unrealistic shapes like when trying to make do with the low-TWR stock engines in larger solar system resizes.

dV to low Kerbin orbit is 4500 m/s, going to Mun or Minmus is 1250 or 1350 m/s. The height of the atmosphere remains at 70km and now feels more believable (stock Kerbin has an extremely high atmosphere for its size), and Kerbin looks more impressive from orbit too. Kerbin orbital velocity is around 3300 m/s, making reentry without a heatshield more of a problem without giving the heatshields undue trouble. The rotational period is still 6 hours, making the equator move faster, giving more of a 'kick' in the eastern direction and making polar or westward launches feel significantly different in a very believable manner. And most importantly, I have found to my surprise that the progression of building upgrades actually flows better than in stock. You can barely wrangle a manned craft into low Kerbin orbit with the tier 1 launchpad, then you need to upgrade. With the tier 2 pad you can do basic contracts in LKO, before running out of part count. You upgrade the VAB and can now do everything you want in the Kerbin system, again barely scraping by the pad mass limit for manned Mun land & return missions. Then you upgrade the launchpad to its final tier 3 form, and go interplanetary. It just feels like it was meant to be.