So what ended your Career mode play through?

[Archgeek]

For me it's been real life getting in the way (.235 "Budget Concerns"), or getting distracted by some experimental project in sandbox mode (.90 "Betta Den Evva" < Eve Ionic Explorer (very stupid 2kerb Eve return lander with ion engines for some reason not docked to the orbiting transfer stage and giant Whackjob-style-lite landing legs...a prototyped got dubbed "SPRINGY!"), 1.0+ "Messing around with Stock" < Re-entry testing/an ISRU test rig that still hasn't landed on Minmus yet/pre-radiator nuke testing/Project Helios)

[wumpus]

1 hour ago, regex said:

I actually tried a normal "difficulty" playthrough using only milestones and I found I ran out of money pretty quickly.  They're finite, the milestone-specific Strategy is way too expensive to set up before you've picked up a bunch of milestones already (all Strategies are basically useless until you're well into the game, and even then they basically ease the end-game), and upgrading the VAB, tracking station, and launchpad to take advantage of even newer milestones will quickly run your program dry.  KSP's career mode is not very well though-out and feels slapped-together, IMO.

I only just started a normal career as a forum thread test (landed on Minmus, probes to Duna) and things were going great (I tend to obsess about low cost rockets and like to use SRBs).  If I run out of money on my main career, which is in the doldrums due to overly ambitious planning, I will probably just bring up the cheat menu so I don't have to transfer all my ships to sandbox mode.

Career mode just seems like "the main game" (mostly so keeping costs down makes some kind of sense, plus at least you can do science) to me, but I am no longer interested in grinding contracts.

[Superfluous J]

On 3/9/2016 at 7:01 PM, regex said:

I usually used the debug window because it was so much faster than the UI.  That probably wouldn't give a penalty.

This is kinda genius and I'm going to do it from now on.

[gogozerg]

On 8/3/2016 at 10:38 AM, Aperture Science said:

Boredom ended it for me.

 

Same for me.

I always give career mode a chance everytime a new KSP version comes out. Don't know why exactly, still hoping for a better system I suppose.

It's just a series of random uninteresting missions, and easy to collect questionable science points.

[Nich]

I love the contract mode.  The progression has made perfect sense for me.  A little annoyed that I sent a mothership and landers to Duna at the window (on contract) and after the window got 3 more contracts I would be interested in but I am already done with Duna and prepping for an Eve/gilly exploration so I am going to have to send 1 empty base 1 worthless satellite and 1 empty station to Duna system next window.  But that is mostly my fault as I used an explore Duna, and explore Ike contract to fund a landing on every biome while I was there.  My Eve/gilly mission is paid for by 2 gilly contracts but allowed funding for 3 kerbals to mine out most the science from Eve.  I may make it a 2 window mission and send supplies next window as I am playing with life support.

 

I am killed by part count I would love to set up 300-400 part bases in every system but my limit is about 200 to keep the game playable.  I am dreading a contract to upgrade my Kerbin station.  I have to add 8000 EC and 15 kerbals but the station is already at 210 parts.  I may take an engineer and remove a bunch of unnecessary parts with KIS/KAS but I have not used that station in a while

[Jhawk1099]

Just barely 5 minutes ago I had to end an around 100 hour campaign. This was due to a series of game breaking glitches that made it unplayable. What a sad day.

[Loren Pechtel]

On 3/9/2016 at 0:28 AM, ag3nt108 said:

There is not much love for the career mode contracts I see.  I find them to be quite reasonable most of the time and I always use tourism as a source of funding my space program.  I admit they are repetitive and need some balancing (some contracts seem to have a much greater financial reward that isn't in line with the difficulty of the task).  My main gripe with contracts would be the satellite placement missions mostly.  I find the requirements are often fairly absurd.  In my recent career I have an option to accept a contract placing a satellite arround Kerbin in what is basically the same orbit as the Mun.  

Yeah, many of the satellite missions are pretty odd.

I think the stupidest one I've been offered was testing a solid rocket booster 200km up, though.  Who uses solids in space?!

Also, there's one on offer right now to mine some ore and bring it back to Kerbin.  Why??  I'll either refine it on site or refine it in orbit.  Why haul ore around the system??

[regex]

1 hour ago, Loren Pechtel said:

Who uses solids in space?!

The United States put their first satellite into orbit on solids in space.  New Horizons used a PAM (Payload Assist Module, in this case a Star 48B SRM) to help get it to Pluto.  LADEE was put into Lunar intercept using a Minotaur V, which is five stages of solid rocket motor awesomeness.  And so on.

[Malich]

My most recent play through just ended because all my ore miners stopped working. They worked in sandbox but not in my career save. I had a power cut and it corrupted a few parts of the save game and while i fixed most of them that one eluded me. 

Hadn't planned on starting a new game this close to 1.1 but it will keep me Kerballing until my mod list is 1.1 compatible and I restart again.

[panzer1b]

Personally career came at a time way too late for me to get into it.  I started this game before science mode even existed, and while initially i did do the usual peaceful exploration (as i insisted on getting to and returning from EVERY planet, which i managed to do), i eventually ended up going into capital ship and starfighter battles (with a few tanks/vehicles/bases thrown in the mix too).  The thing is, when career came out, i was only interested in fighting on some level, and in career such things are impossible as you cannot afford to actually destroy anything intentionally, and space battles tend to leave one side kinda destroyed.

Another reason i never really got into career (although i did give it a solid week or so when it was released before i went back to sandbox) is that it limits your creativity.  Playing career you have limits imposed on you by the game.  Personally, i have enough of an imagination that i can impose my own limits and make my own mission scenarios that are arguably far more interesting then what the stock career mode gives.  It is far better if you are one of the typical gamers that finds sandbox games without any real purpose, and there is nothing wrong with that, but for us gamers that prefer to set up our own game the way we like it without anyone telling us what to do or how to go around doing it, career is just annoying.  Ohh, and even i actually employ my own part limitations during my own sandbox games, i have certain factions that have tech limits which make sense such as pirate factions being unable to use most of the engines as well as more advanced seeming parts.

Finally, while i know its gotten better then it was, the initial implementation of career (sorry squad) was honestly horrible.  Most of the missions had no thought put into them, with stuff like test part at X location with Y speed.  that and it was really farmy which is not something i really enjoy in any game.  There are those that enjoy farming simulators (or games where you need to farm XP or money), but i do not fall into that category, and career (back when i played it) was just too much farming (and alot of that was actually running around the bloody launch pad with a kerbal spamming ground sample readings).

 

 

I have nothing against career, but it just does not fit my playstyle whatsoever, and unless they open it up with some sort of story (and make combat a part of it), im probably never going to bother even trying to play more career.

[HorusKol]

14 hours ago, panzer1b said:

I have nothing against career, but it just does not fit my playstyle whatsoever, and unless they open it up with some sort of story (and make combat a part of it), im probably never going to bother even trying to play more career.

I think that's what it really is about - KSP gives three fairly different ways to play - and then there are mods - so, there's lots of ways to play the game the way you want to play.

[Skorpychan]

I realised that I couldn't be bothered to grind for funds AS WELL as science to do what I wanted. So I just switched to Science mode because I'm an adult and I don't have to deal with what I don't want to.

[jonrd463]

My last career ended when Roverdude updated USI-LS and wiped out a 10-Kerbal team I had on a base on Duna. I like Roverdude, really I do. His mods are awesome. The constant fiddling, however? Not so much. 

[Moh1336]

Here there be Krakens. I got fed up of the constant crashing (mods vs ram/32bit issue) and kinda gave up on KPS in general while I wait on 1.1.

Did play a while today though, just made orbit again for the first time.

 

One of my biggest gripes that push me away from the game though, contracts. The system is just too flawed. I make sub-orbit and get contracts for reaching orbit. That's great, a natural progression. Giving me part tests while in orbit when I haven't even made sub-orbit on the other hand is ridiculous. Particularly now that they cost -1 rep to decline.

[T.A.P.O.R.]

Never ended career voluntarily.

New versions and corrupt saves have done me in every time. Back in January I had a rather nice base on Minmus after a lot of effort. After a failed resume from sleep on Linux, my career was destroyed.

Sad days

[Nich]

oh man when did contracts start costing rep to decline?

[T.A.P.O.R.]

12 minutes ago, Nich said:

oh man when did contracts start costing rep to decline?

1.04?

you can turn it off or reduce it when you setup your save.

theres always the option to edit your configuration file

[AlamoVampire]

@panzer1b Sorry to bring you the news, but, combat will NEVER be a part of stock KSP. I forget who said it tho, but its not something Squad wants for the game.

[HorusKol]

Well - ended another career last night.

I was getting impatient with Kerbal Construction Time delaying new parts from research (yeah, I know I can warp - but then, that's 180 days of game time with the Kerbonauts twiddling their thumbs) - so I removed the module. When I restarted, the research was not unlocked, but the science had still been spent...

So, career 4 begins.

[FullMetalMachinist]

2 minutes ago, HorusKol said:

Well - ended another career last night.

I was getting impatient with Kerbal Construction Time delaying new parts from research (yeah, I know I can warp - but then, that's 180 days of game time with the Kerbonauts twiddling their thumbs) - so I removed the module. When I restarted, the research was not unlocked, but the science had still been spent...

So, career 4 begins.

I hope you didn't delete your save, because that's fairly easy to recover from. In the space center view press and hold Alt-F12 for a few seconds and you'll be able to add your science points back. Just don't get carried away. 

[Shania_L]

Nothing yet, over a year on the same career save and its still going (0.90).

Although once the mods catch up I expect 1.1 will kill it, but then I said that about 1.0 and 1.0.4 and 1.0.5 ... so take that as a maybe

[HMIC]

My KSP career did not end, it's on hold, large part count ssto spaceplanes, refuel stations with multiple docked ships and bases are making the game too slow to play. Specially in Minmus, which is my stating area for launching, refueling and ending interplanetary missions.  No point in expanding large part operations to gilly or Jool's low gravity moons. Until full use of the CPU cores, GPUs (SLI) and RAM (64 bit)  is available in the 1.1 version  with unity 5 or even further releases, all operations are small and medium ship design  and testing.

 

 

[HorusKol]

2 hours ago, FullMetalMachinist said:

I hope you didn't delete your save, because that's fairly easy to recover from. In the space center view press and hold Alt-F12 for a few seconds and you'll be able to add your science points back. Just don't get carried away. 

ack - to late... oh well, I'm already in orbit and only one fly by the Mun needed to catch up to where I was...

[Draco T stand-up guy]

On 12/03/2016 at 6:30 PM, Loren Pechtel said:

I think the stupidest one I've been offered was testing a solid rocket booster 200km up, though.  Who uses solids in space?!

Yeah, I've had a few like that. Getting tests for 200 or 300 km up when you haven't even broken atmosphere yet can be really irritating but at the same time push your rocket design capabilities.

[Camaron]

Got careless in Hard Mode. Killed Jeb, Killed Val.

Well.......damn.