Self-imposed KSP rules. Things we do that make things more difficult.

[Tourist]

Hi all.

I was reading a forum post today, which made me think about the little self-imposed rules and restrictions we place on ourselves which really make KSP much more difficult. Now, I'm not talking about the old "is (blank) cheating" debate. Rather, what are the idiosyncrasies in your playing style that make your missions much more challenging (and sometimes more frustrating) to complete.  

I'll start things off.

I don't send Kerbals off on long duration missions alone... even if the other crew are not needed. 

I insist on having sufficient living quarters and work space for a long duration mission. My usual crew size is around 4, so this would mean having living quarters, a capsule/cupola where the pilots work, and a science bay as a work area for the scientists and engineers (I also consider the science bay as a general recreation/study area). 

No crew transfer through parts which would not support an tunnel/hatch. For instance, through engines, girders, service bays, the science Jr, the refinery etc. I have complex rules about crew transfer through fuel tanks. Generally its not permitted, except for the adapters which I imagine have a small tunnel through the centre.

Related to this point, design to avoid EVA. The space agencies don't undertake EVA lightly. Its meticulously planned. I'll therefore try to avoid transferring crew from one ship to another via EVA, or, in accordance with the rule above, between non-connected parts of the one ship by EVA. Docking ports between crew supporting parts are are necessity, which of course has design implications.

Over to you. What do you do that makes your life more difficult?   

[regex]

I play with the Realism Overhaul mod suite and fly everything manually because vanilla isn't difficult even with self-imposed restrictions.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

I always rotate Kerbal crews from stations on a regular basis, I find it to be fun and I hate the idea of leaving them up in space to rot!

[Findthepin1]

I don't land stuff on Laythe.

[Temstar]

I don't like space junk. Everything that gets launched must have a plan to eventually come down somewhere. Upper stages are either reusable or have simple deorbit equipments. Injection stages generally crash into the body that they payloads are traveling to.

In addition no crashing RTGs and cold NTR engines into Kerbin or Laythe. Once NTR has been fired it's considered a hazardous object and I won't deorbit any of those into Kerbin, Duna, Laythe, Mun, Minmum or Ike.

In the past I've built recovery vehicles to safely return fired NTR engines back to Kerbin to simulate "end of life" but I'm rethinking this.




This might seem like a good idea at first but it's probably less practical than just leaving it in high orbit for geological time. When this thing lands in the ocean you basically have an unshielded warm reactor core irradiating everything around it. And there's really not much you can do about it expect mark that spot on the map with "Here be dragons" and never go near it pretending it doesn't exist.

I'm considering designing my spacecraft and mission to take into account the need for shadow shield with NTR engines. So basically if you're not behind the shadow shield and have line of sight to the nuclear engines and you're within 300 meters of them, you're probably already dead. So anytime a nuclear engined craft approach something else it has to be from a shallow angle. And when the craft want to leave it has to back away to several hundred meters distance before it can flip around and fire up the NTR engines.

 

[Trentendegreth]

no debris is allowed ever... not allowed in-between planets, around planets or even allowed to survive crashes into planets, moons or other space rocks. if some form of debris dose find its way into existence it must be recovered. not destroyed. i will say that even for my thousands of hours playing, I'm still not good enough to keep it 100% debris free...

[monstah]

On living quarters, I assume (before I installed USI-LS, that is) that I need 2 times the crew space for a long duration mission, plus company. That means at least 3 aboard, with room for 6.

[AbacusWizard]

Never send anyone anywhere without a way to get back home.

(This may be why I enjoyed reading The Martian so much.)

 

General vehicle design: no abrupt changes from one size to another; any diameter changes should be joined by smooth connections (to make it look streamlined-ish, if nothing else).

Edited January 5, 2016 by AbacusWizard

[kotomikun]

1 hour ago, Tourist said:

No crew transfer through parts which would not support an tunnel/hatch. For instance, through engines, girders, service bays, the science Jr, the refinery etc. I have complex rules about crew transfer through fuel tanks. Generally its not permitted, except for the adapters which I imagine have a small tunnel through the centre.

Connected Living Spaces does this if you want a more direct way of doing it.

For long or interplanetary missions, I generally require bringing at least two Kerbals (or zero) so they don't get space cabin fever; and there needs to be space for each Kerbal in a Hitchhiker, lab module, or similar non-pod part, in addition to some sort of seated pod for flying the thing. Don't want a HAL situation in deep space, after all. You sorta need a scientist and engineer on every mission anyway, though, to reset science parts and fix parts or do KAS assembly/disassembly, so that's not really much of a restriction.

Near Future Electrical adds uranium as a resource, which I've been avoiding dumping anywhere except, potentially, in a gas planet or the sun. Before the atmospheric destruction of any nuclear ship returned to Kerbin, the nuclear fuel and waste has to be moved into something that can bring it to the ground safely. For other space junk, though, I just delete it if I couldn't leave it on a suborbital trajectory. Removing all debris by hand would just take way too much time; the invisible secondary space program can take care of the boring stuff.

[razark]

I start with three Pilots (Class).  They fly the early missions.  The roster rotates to maintain a mostly even level of flight experience.

Once I unlock multi-crew capsules, I hire five more Pilots (Class). 

From this point on, each flight will have a Commander (Role), who must be a Pilot (Class) with at least one previous mission or Any (Class) with at least three previous missions.  Each mission will also have a Pilot (Role), who is usually a Pilot (Class), but can also be Any (Class) if the Commander (Role) is a Pilot (Class).  Flights deemed to be test flights of new technology must also carry an Engineer (Role) (who could also be a Scientist (Class), in certain cases).  Any Space Station crews (which get rotated) must contain a Commander (Role) and an Engineer (Role and Class), in addition to any Scientists (Class).  Larger stations may be required to staff more than one Engineer (Role and Class).

The third group and beyond are a mixture of Pilots, Scientists, and Engineers (Classes).

All are assigned a rank based on a random selection (1d4), with the first two groups given an extra bias (+2 and +1).  After certain mission counts, promotions are assigned.  If a Kerbal is promoted to a certain level, they are given a desk job and pulled from the rotation.  Passengers in transit are not given mission credit for that flight.  For example, a Station Crew will receive credit for their Station assignment, but not for their launch and return flights, but the flight crew that performs the crew lift/return will get credit.  In addition, aborted flights do not count for mission credit, and will likely land the crew (or at least the Commander (Role)) at the back of the rotation schedule.  However, a crew that manages to pull off some sort of contingency mission (Science observations in Kerbin orbit after failing to reach the Mun, for example) will avoid the negative consequences.

Edited January 5, 2016 by razark

[AbacusWizard]

I actually stopped using the big red "delete" button a version or two ago. It's been an interesting challenge designing launch vehicles that ditch their last expendable stage just before reaching orbit, and I've been having fun disposing of the inevitable "rescue mission" orbital junk by means of a two-seat "H-Wing" fighter armed with a KAS harpoon gun.

[Geschosskopf]

OPM, life support, Antenna Range (RT is so 1940).

[MaxL_1023]

There are no rules!

[Overland]

Each train has a soul and her place in the world.. As such ive gone great lengths to recover a disabled locomotive even if it means launching another rescue train and retracing the sometimes 200km journey.. Being ever mindful that on the way to her destination to assist the disabled sister train, the rescue train herself..can..and has in the great history of the KTP, fallen to the same difficulty as the one before

Vs simply strapping a train on a rocket or using hyperedit

Also any accident outside of the 10km threshhold outside KSC depot that results in the destruction of the train warrents a whole new train..individual rather than simply another copy launched of the same..bearing a higher class number as her fallen classmate and some changes unique to that locomotive...which at times isnt always good...nor always bad

 

This are the ways of Kerbal Train Program - Landliner division

 

Easy...no.. Traditional..respectful..and no train is just a throwaway copy of the last

 

 

But kerbals... Like startrek..its the ship thats the star of the show..kerbals just happen to operate the machinery.. After all... All they are is dust in the wind

[softweir]

15 minutes ago, MaxL_1023 said:

There are no rules!

... except those we think are fun!

I play a lot of those rules, but just want to add one:

"All manned launches have a tested and working Launch Escape System."

I never hardly ever need it nowadays, but it feels like a good self-imposed rule.

Edited January 5, 2016 by softweir

[SelectHalfling0]

My ships need to be plausibly equipped and roomy to provide for multiple kerbals during long voyages. Likewise, my stations and bases have extra living space (which acts as beds, exercise area, etc...)

[Jarin]

No debris, or as little as possible. I built a "garbage scow" based off of my LKO/Minmus transfer tug for clearing and deorbiting unavoidable or accidental debris in local space. As part of the same design philosophy, since all stages should be deorbited, as much as possible should be recoverable. Since I am not l33t r0kket sc!ent3st like regex, this is plenty difficulty for me.

[Just Jim]

Never, ever, EVER allow one of my Kerbals to be harms or killed.  I am really, really strict on myself about keeping everyone alive.

[adsii1970]

All experimental craft (those new designs I'm creating) must have some sort of pilot ejection system until the design is stable.

Rescue mission (rockets) must be on a launch pad at all times starting with when orbit is achieved until landing back on Kerbin.

My Kerbal's space agency's missions must follow a straight-forward NASA like progression.

[Gaarst]

Here are a few I use on my main RSS save:

• LES on all manned flights;
• More ablator and life support resources that would be needed in the worst case scenario;
• No launcher debris, spent orbital stages are allowed, but sent to crash trajectories when possible;
• No high G-forces on manned missions: keep it under 3.5g during launch and under 8g during reentry;
• Make all living space connected by pressurised parts (Stock Station Parts Expansion mostly);
• No crew over 150 days in orbital stations (subject to change when considering interplanetary missions);
• Test flights, a lot of test flights: my first manned Moon landing was the 17th mission of the program and 6th landing, including unmanned missions;
• Realistic designs: no upper stage radial non-sensical boosters, aerodynamic rockets only, avoid non-chemical propulsions if possible...
• Extreme caution with nuclear stuff: no radioactive debris sent down to Earth, no RTG or nuclear propulsion on manned flights (for now), use RTG only if absolutely necessary (outer solar system probes);
• No cryogenic fuels for long terms missions;
• Some mods I use: TAC Life Support, Real Heat, Real Fuels...

I've been following these few laws to add a little challenge to my space program, and as a result of the security measures I only lost one Kerbal because I did some important modifications to a crew shuttle without testing and because I didn't make sure I had enough resources for an emergency situation, the result: EC ran out during a reentry at night because batteries were drained by a probe core, couldn't maintain the AoA anymore so the cockpit overheated and exploded.

Edited January 5, 2016 by Gaarst

[Superfluous J]

My only current rule is to not play the game again until I will find it fun.

Hopefully that will happen again, eventually.

[ouyin2000]

I like the idea of specifying certain orbits for certain roles. Such as stations at 200km, ships leaving SOI orbit at 250km until the window opens, ships returning orbit at 100km until deorbit directly to KSC is open, etc. I saw someone post on here a complete list.

[Captain Sierra]

Because of how my missions end up being designed, revert is usually not an option past LKO. Quicksave early, quicksave often.

All kerbals take up two crew slots worth of space for missions spanning one week or more.

Connected Living Space rules apply even without the presence of CLS.

Launch vehicle upper stages must deorbit themselves after L/HKO insertion.

[problemecium]

- Never send Kerbals on long missions with spartan accommodations such as the Mk1 pod, alone or in groups. For any interplanetary journey at least a Hitchhiker container is required, if not a whole ring of crew cabins to provide imaginary artificial gravity. This usually ends up including the aforementioned rule about two seats per Kerbal for long missions.
- I've never used Mechjeb. And inb4 "everyone who says they've never used Mechjeb is lying": I hope repeating that to yourself helps you sleep at night because otherwise you're making false accusations for no reason. ;P
- Never abandon Kerbals anywhere, or leave them deployed for too long, depending on the mission: if at all possible, keep EVAs and rover trips under one Kerbal day and don't leave anyone in a station or surface base more than maybe a month. I have yet to set up any interplanetary outposts, so I'll have to see what feels comfortable when I get that ball rolling.
- No dead strut nubs on non-temporary installations, including shuttles, stations, space tugs, and motherships. Anything I intend to use more than once or twice I find some way to stabilize without strutting it directly to its launch vehicle. Usually this involves the use of Small Hardpoints.

[Temstar]

16 minutes ago, parameciumkid said:

No dead strut nubs on non-temporary installations, including shuttles, stations, space tugs, and motherships. Anything I intend to use more than once or twice I find some way to stabilize without strutting it directly to its launch vehicle. Usually this involves the use of Small Hardpoints.

This rule seems rather unusual, what's the rational behind it? Minimize part count?

IIRC if you strut from the part that will be thrown away (say, the upper stage) to the part that you want to keep for long term (ie the payload). Then if you separate the two and go to the tracking station and then load the payload again the nubs on the payload will be gone. It won't work for payload-to-fairing struts though as those can only be created from payload to the inside of the fairing and only if you know that intercept trick.