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

[Hotaru]

(Second attempt, thanks a lot new forum software.)

I tend to agree with the two-seats-per-Kerbal philosophy for long-duration missions, although it sometimes ends up more like one and a half on shorter, cheaper missions. Usually this means a Hitchhiker module or two, sometimes a Mk 3 passenger cabin on larger ships. Since most of its volume appears to be unused in game--we only ever see the passenger deck, and it hold no fuel, monoprop, reaction wheels, engines, or avionics that could be taking up space--I generally assume it to have living and sleeping quarters on an invisible lower deck.

On the other hand, I have the opposite feeling to a lot of people about autopilot; I don't consider a rocket successful unless it can make a fully automatic ascent; sometimes I'll even automate the staging sequence with the "smart parts" mod. This isn't a serious issue for conventional rockets but can be a limiting factor on space shuttles, where the shifting center-of-mass can confuse MechJeb. (I used to use a mod that automatically vectored the engines through the CoM, but unfortunately it hasn't been updated since 0.24 or so, and hasn't worked since 0.90.)

I also stick to the rule of no manned launches without some sort of LES--although since I use the Vanguard parachute mod, sometimes on spaceplanes the "escape system" is "stop the engines and everybody bail out!" Which has actually saved more than one spaceplane crew, so it's not completely silly. The LES rule can be a tricky one to follow in early-game career, unfortunately, since a proper LES is basically impossible without an action group to fire it. I make upgrading the VAB a high priority for this reason.

[Bill Zarr]

1) All Kerbals with real or amusing names must be rescued.

[Matuchkin]

8 hours ago, Talavar said:

I just posted this on the forum a few minutes ago.. My own rules... NO FUEL!
 I've been playing KSP in a different way. Starting with electric generation and full steel structurals and wheels and mining capabilities, but no fuel.. so the objectives are switched around... the first thing to do is, Get fuel!. Im also using Extra planetary launchpads, INfernal robotics, KSP foundry, and KAS KIS.  I first moved to a location and plopped down a launchpad near a good fuel source. This took a while.. I built paddle boats to transport everything, and some large land rovers to haul my stuff to the new location. Since Im no longer using the default space center, (other than to design my rockets for EPL) I have to mine for everything.. Also my new base is on top of a mountain in the western desert 4000 meters above sea level, (saves some fuel when launching) . This was a REAL job getting everything up there, (I built a spider that grapples the terrain to climb the mountain).. This enhanced my gameplay INCREDIBLY.  I've just wiped my save, and am starting over in a new location for a different experience. Just thought I'd throw this up here for an IDea for people who may be getting bored with the same ol same ol. Take care!

Holy god, you're awesome. I would never have the guts to do that.

[Talavar]

16 minutes ago, 073198681 said:

Holy god, you're awesome. I would never have the guts to do that.

 Don't really need guts, just alot of spare time, and some hot coffee. lol

[Guest]

My only two ironclad rules:

1. Death is permanent.
2. Quick load only upon a game crash.

Other than that, I just try to keep things realistic through gameplay.

My rocket design process is exhaustive, my mission planning is thorough, and my Science is never spammed.

[Zoidos]

I always use life support mods. Sending Kerbals on a 4-year Duna-mission and not sending any supplies just feels wrong.

I also never send them alone on long trips (anything lasting longer than a week) and make sure, they have enough space (habs, labs, etc... UKS is very useful with inflatable living space), like you do. I, too, rotate the crew on bases and stations. Not only to not let them rot in space, but also to let the Kerbals level up.

A certain amount of realism in the aesthetics of my craft is also mandatory. Already in .90 I always used nosecones and fairings, despite the fact that they added more drag to the craft. But sending up a rocket with a completely flat surface pointing upwards is just weird. 

Another thing is the use of Mechjeb (without wanting to slide too deeply into the "is xy cheating" debate), which is exclusive for circularization and interplanetary transfer maneuvres, but never for landing or ascent.

[Starhawk]

I must accept every rescue mission I see.

Just rescued Kargee from Eeloo.

Thank goodness I haven't been to Moho yet in this save.

Happy landings!

[Number R09]

My personal rule that is rarely broken, the mission must go as planned.  Any failure or mishap, burn too much dV on maneuvers, etc., Revert to SPH/VAB/Launch and try again.

[Rath]

NTRs must be launched unmanned and have the reactor and uranium(Personal mod of NFT) sent up separately to stop launch failures from irradiating a Large area.  Kerbals must all have an way to escape a launch explosion.  Parachutes, heatsheild or another landing system must be added to any craft that returns to kerbin at high speed or ever has the trajectory intercept the planets surface.  All craft must cary emergency shelters via KIS if they land upon a planet besides kerbin.  Certain areas are exempt from landing except in an emergency and then the kerbal is marked 'Interned' on a sheet and is unusable.  Debris must not be in my standard 120KM parking orbit (A few sepatrons and a probe core to fire them at the right time is usually enough).  (The debris rule occoured after the largest singular death event in the history of my space program where AN ENTIRE ROCKET hit my soon-to -be-complete space station.)  The second clearing method I have is explosives from KIS.  These are either added before flight or strapped on by an 'Nuclear Firefly' orbital runabout (Quite possibly by favorite craft besides the station itself--a small capsule with a parachute and heatsheilding built in, small porkjet Kandle nuclear rocket with hydrogen, KIS/KAS container and winch with grapple or attachment points on one side to be able to act as makeshift propulsion unit).  

[Rath]

One more thing, No reverts.  And 'Hot' (Used) Reactors must be softlanded on an airless body inside a metal shell for over 1 year for smaller/low sue time reactors.  Up to 5yrs for nuclear stuff before kerbin return landing on icecaps or desert.

[Hotaru]

12 hours ago, Starhawk said:

I must accept every rescue mission I see.

I do this as well, but unfortunately I also like to send probes first. In my 1.0.2 save, whatever agency sends those Kerbals out there has beaten me to Ike (and by extension Duna) and Dres. Really hope 1.1 adds (or 1.0.5 has already added, haven't checked) a system to check whether you've sent Kerbals to the planet in question before spawning rescue contracts, not just probes.

[Kobymaru]

- Cluttering space with debris is discouraged, but:
- Deleting debris is forbidden! Everything must be properly (physically) deorbited.

With the advent of my very first Heavy SSTO, I have started to harvest valuable parts of derelict ships in LKO, to return them for funds.

- No crewed launches without a launch-escape system. (Does not count for planes, obviously)

Edited January 8, 2016 by Kobymaru

[Randazzo]

I've just started imposing a new one on my current career: Any part testing must be done via Airplane, barring actual impossibility of such.

Had to test an engine in flight over kerbin, so I strapped one on top of a Mk2 chassis craft and flew it up to test. Had to test one splashed down, so I built a Mk3 cargo plane and dropped it from the cargo bay into the water. Landed the plane, then switched back to the engine "probe" and complete the test. It's been interesting so far.

[Snarfster]

1. Life support mods will be used.
2. Enough space not to be too crowded. (Generally at least 50% extra seats available).
3. Crew will not be abandoned. (This makes for interesting rescues, fly-by intercepts to refuel, etc.)
4. Accidents happen. So yes, kerbals may die.
5. Quickloading only used for landing spaceplanes at the KSC. (For some kerbalforsaken reason, about 40% of my spaceplane landings end in a collision with the launchpad, about 10 km out and at 5k altitude).
6. We don't hire, we only rescue.
7. Tourists pay a lot of our bills.

 

[Beowolf]

Most of my techniques resemble yours, Mr. Tourist. I went through a bunch of involved calculations scaling NASA and the US Navy's guidelines for space/person to Kerbals, and concluded for long-duration spaceflight I needed 6 cubic meters per Kerbal minimum, and 7.5 for comfort.

I also once played a game where the goal was to build a huge Munar base supporting 100 Kerbals, and all I had for launchers were one Falcon Heavy and one Falcon 9, both reusable as long as I keep successfully landing all the stages. I used the SpaceX mod by LazTek for the boosters, and made extensive use of robotics and Kerbal Attachment System...so naturally my base eventually self-destructed since those two mods have never been particularly stable.  But I had a great time up to then, and had enough experience to know it was going to happen someday.

[Raptor9]

1) No clipping resources inside each other; unless it's very minimal for a streamlined design, and in that case, the clipped part will probably have some sort of nose cone or other adapter-like part to blend its contours into the parent part.  This increases cost, weight, and at times drag, so it's not like I'm helping myself in any way .  And I absolutely will not clip engines inside each other.

2) Any craft files I publish are strictly stock.  I may toy around with parts mods to check them out, but I keep them out of my career and "official" craft files.

3) No Mechjeb, Kerbal Engineer, Atmospheric Trajectories.  I've used these in the past (last time I used MJ was 0.21), but I've forced myself to learn to do my own calculations or estimations.  This usually leads to my designs having a margin of error in fuel capacity to account for a little wasted delta-V from hand-flying everything.  But I end up learning a helluva lot more about orbital mechanics and such.  I used to sweat Mun landings and trying to figure out how to use the navball, now it's a breeze and the navball and symbols are second-nature.

4) No reaction wheels except for maintaining space station attitude and stabilization.

5) To go along with some above posts:
- No stranding Kerbals
- No long-expeditions in single-cockpit craft, plausible living space is needed.  Kerbals are crazy enough as it is without locking them into a Mk1 Capsule for a round trip to Duna.
- No internal transfers through fuel tanks or non-plausible ship components

Finally, function and aesthetics are both important, but only in that order: Functionality is always first, aesthetics is second.  I don't care if it looks pretty if it can't perform it's job efficiently and effectively.

[theJesuit]

A reasonably longish list.

1. Hard Career mode in spirit, but reducing science further to 50% and reducing penalties back to 100%
2. Launchpad and runway taken no further than Tier Two to limit to 140 tons for launch.  This really is to make me focus on how I might construct interplanetary craft and launching fuel.
3. Mods (for the limiting you understand)
   1. Antenna Range being a game play changer
   2. IFI Life Support, mainly because I felt TAC-LS would be more awesome if the values were given as per day, rather than weight/volume.
   3. Kerbal Planetary Base Systems for the awesome habitaton parts
   4. The rotational hub and spindle only from DSEV with of course Infernal Robotics (I'm a very basic user)
   5. Stock No Contracts because I get sick of the part tests and rescues.
4. All trips longer than 3 kerbin days must have some form of rotational habitation and space.  This is where the KPBS mods and the spindle come in.  A home away from home!  Try doing that with only 140ton launches!  Also, rotational set-ups can't break with game play, No side swung habitats if you catch my drift. Will only use KPBS habitats on Interplanetary craft so I don't worry about 'additional' seats.
5. No stranding kerbals.

Peace.

[AbacusWizard]

20 hours ago, Hotaru said:

Really hope 1.1 adds (or 1.0.5 has already added, haven't checked) a system to check whether you've sent Kerbals to the planet in question before spawning rescue contracts, not just probes.

Nah; clearly the stranded kerbalnauts are there because they stowed away aboard your tiny uncrewed probe. Very sneaky, those kerbalnauts.

[Columbia]

1. No space station ever in LKO can go above 150,000 m in Apoapsis.

2. All jet-powered airliner replicas must have reached a speed of at least 83 m/s by the time it passes the Spaceplane Hangar from the start of Runway 09.

3. To be defined an atomic bomb replica, the bomb must have the capacity to destroy ths Spaceplane Hangar or any other major KSC building when dropped.

4.Heavy Probe Launchers may only be 3.75 or 2.5 m in width. This results in either a lot of Delta V, or a lot of weight wasted. 

5. All manned Mun or Minmus missions must have a rover.

 

[quasarrgames]

must be at least a meter of stuff between a crew cabin and a nerv, dont want the kerbals getting irradiated.

for missions longer than a few days there should be one extra crew seat (for extra legroom)

for missions longer than a few weeks there should be significant crew room (like two crew seats for every kerbal) until high up in the tech tree when "cryogenic storage" is a thing

once i used the outsource research strategy to get millions of science, and to make it fair i made the research team "go on permanent strike" so i had to pay for every part unlock.

[Guest]

Redundancies, and clear abort sequences. That goes for launchers and landers. If a crew does manage to get stranded, rescue is undertaken by a robot craft to prevent further personnel risk. If the Mun gets blown out of orbit, make a kitschy TV series about it starring the Kerbal equivalents of Martin Landau and Barbara Bain.

Edited January 10, 2016 by Jack Wolfe

[Andem]

On 1/5/2016 at 7:47 PM, Just Jim said:

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

Same here. seriously, Bill went missing after bailing out of a plane that had lost a wing and I legit almost cried... I get really attached to my kerbals...

[Andem]

My personal Rules:

1: Loss of Life is unnacceptible.

2: If a Kerbal is killed, a MK1 Command Pod Will be put into orbit of the object they died in the SOI of.

3: If a kerbal is trapped on a planet/moon without shelter, all non essential projects will be halted to preform a rescue mission

4: RTGs should be  taken out of proximity of kerbals ASAP

5: If connection with KSC is lost, All kerbals are to return to Kerbin

6: An orbit must be at least 100 K up above the surface

7: At any point that it is available, refuel your vessel.

8: every space station must have enough escape pods for double the crew

9: No debris

10: In the event of a catastrophic mission failure, return to Kerbin

11: If a vessel runs out of fuel, a recue mission will be sent to recover the crew

12:if equipment is damaged or missing, a replacement vehicle will be sent before the original is destroyed.

[DrMarlboro]

1. All vessels must splash down or land within 25km of the KSC to be recovered. If they are outside of this range a reclamation vessel must either a) return the landed module, or b ) return the crew. 

2. All vessels intended for out of atmosphere use must have some launch escape or ejection procedure.

3. while within Kerbins SOI, at least 3 comsats must be orbiting the body before a crewed vessel can land, and any body outside of Kerbins SOI must have a com network prior to a crewed vessel may flyby.

4. Reverts are not allowed.

5. loss of life is unacceptable. all crew must be returned and all missions must have a rescue mission waiting. any crew that IS lost will have a memorial placed at KSCs flag. 

6. asparagus staging is unacceptable. cross feed is ok.

7. nothing can leave the atmosphere without a heat shield unless it is a probe or station part not destined for reentry.

8. station crew must be rotated every month, unless that station is outside of kerbins SOI, in which case crews will be rotated every orbit.

9. if a station or base part breaks, an entire module must be sent to replace the defective module. that part must then be deorbited to burn up in the atmosphere.

10. rocket parts are encouraged to be reusable. if it is not reusable it must be burnt up in atmosphere (this means boosters have to have lots of chutes or left with enough DV to land safely)

11. NO biome bouncing. a seperate vessel must be dispatched to each biome, or a rover must land with the lander.

 

most of these don't really make things difficult, but the exploding docking port bug made for some scary situations. i once had a station i KSO, and a docking port blew hile i was doing a crew transfer. i had to build a resue mission on the spot. was quite unexpected and made for a very fun scenario.

[rocketbuilder]

For up to 20 day missions 1 seat per kerbal, 20 - 60 1.5 seats per kerbal, and then I impose rules on where I'm going. If I go close to Jool, radation levels will be high and I have to take a few tonnes of water (fuel that I'm not allowed to use) to protect myself. SNACKS! For my duna mission I had 4 kerbals going to duna and 16 seats due to the length. For long missions you can't have only 2 kerbals on their own. No nuke parts hitting objects. Every now and then there is a solar flare and kerbals cannot be outside of ; a habitat on duna, interplanatery asteroid base (shielded inside the asteroid), kerbin space station, kerbin atmosphere, laythe atmosphere and certain space stations around large bodies with active cores. No reverts! Everyone has to be rescued. And try not to explode.