What gameplay rules do you impose on yourself?

[Klapaucius]

I'm finding as I am gaining more hours and experience playing Kerbal Space Program, that I am starting to impose rules, or at least methods of play on myself.  For example, I don't like using additional reaction wheels in most aircraft (and I usually turn off stability-except for long distance cruising). I feel like my planes should at least be able to fly with as little aid as possible. That is not an absolute (I break that rule for some of my really weird ones), but it is an ideal.  

I know some people only play in stock. Others may eschew certain mods or only use mods like Realism Overhaul or FAR that make things harder.

So, what is your limit?  Are their certain parts you won't use or certain building methods you stay away from?  Do you not allow yourself to revert flights?  What line (if any) do you draw for yourself and why? 

Edited June 23, 2018 by Klapaucius

[eddiew]

Currently I seem to be running with "Only one crewed science-gathering trip per body." This is leading to long and interesting expeditions with rovers and planes that I would previously have done as several identical landers over multiple repeat visits  

Another rule I seem to obey a lot is "No probe landers on distant vacuum bodies," because aside from Rosetta, we struggle with that IRL. Also it means I have to send kerbals, which is more fun anyway.

Other than that I'm pretty loose. I will use the cheat menu to simulate a mission by jumping to a specific orbit and quickly testing a lander, or an ascent vehicle, etc, but afterwards it must be reverted and done as a proper mission from the ground. I F9 game bugs, or failures of piloting that kill the crew, e.g. misjudging an aerobrake, because a proper space program would have a dozen scientists running the numbers before anyone went near the joystick and that would never happen.

I have no real desire for mods that make things harder, because harder in KSP usually means more repetitive, or comes with an fps drop. I would rather do a variety of fun things than the same realistic thing several times over

[Lisias]

It depends of the "Mission" - I have 3 different installments, each one with a specific "Space Program".

The one I'm playing right now is Career with some mods, and to make things not too easy:

1. Do not kill Kerbals.
   1. If there's no way to fulfill a contract without killing a Kerbal, the contract is ditched.
2. Go Space-X : fuel is cheap, hardware is expensive.
   1. Recover everything I can.
   2. Do and redo the mission again until I manage to recover every stage
3. Delay every facility upgrade until there's no more way to advance
   1. Always exhaust all the current facilities capability before upgrading
4. Delay investment on the Tech Tree the most I can
   1. Always exhaust all the current parts applicability before advancing tech
5. Be a bean-counting cheap "stand-up guy".
   1. Somewhat hard, due the rules 1 and 2.   

I ended up doing a lot of Science using biplanes.  

Edited June 24, 2018 by Lisias
"stand-up guy"? hehehe

[Superfluous J]

On 6/23/2018 at 7:06 PM, eddiew said:

No probe landers on distant vacuum bodies

Interesting restriction. I may try this.

I have a long-standing "No Science Lab" rule and just initiated a "One Contract Per 'build a new craft...' Craft." As in, no building a single satellite to complete 4 contracts. And no building a single ship to satisfy "new station around kerbin," "New station around Sun," "New station around Duna," and "New base on Ike" contracts.

I also have an almost inviolate "everything must crash or be thrown free" rule. No debris on any stable orbit. Ever. Mostly.

Edited June 25, 2018 by 5thHorseman

[linuxgurugamer]

This is what I do:

 

Before every launch, it will be decided that it will be a test launch or not, and announced as such.  Test launches will usually be reverted, except when it canactually complete a mission.  For example, putting a satelite into orbit.

Reverts are done in the following circumstances:

• Game glitch
• On pad, no launch
• A single Mulligan is allowed per evening (ie: Single goof)
• No more than one launch per day from the launchpad. Does not apply to airplanes.

[Gargamel]

Kerbals have value.  Not only does this mean perma death (Poor Jeb, found the re-entry flaw in a tourist bus...  and the tourists too, but they don't count), but I use Final Frontier and Life support to give meaning and value to their existence, they just aren't a noisy and heavy probe core anymore. 

Ships are tested in a sandbox save, but once the testing phase is thought to be complete, any further testing is done "live" and costs money. 

Automation is allowed.   Even simulated automation.  But only once I have manually done a mission by hand (or at least with help).  Routine launches and docking are automated.  Stages are recovered.  Milk runs, ie supplying a station with fuel, is simulated by using Hyperedit (*Gasp!*) to change fuel levels in the station.  But I must have the infrastructure in place and have demonstrated it works.  This requires time though, and I will warp through an orbit or two before doing so.  RL time is valuable.

I have no issues science farming with labs, as in RL, we have completed the majority of the tech tree as described in the stock game, with only going to the Moon a few times.  So when I max out the tech tree, I convert most of the science I get to rep.  

 

But I really haven't been down the self imposed hard mode out of boredom yet, as I have only been playing career for a year or so.  I figured in .24ish I'd wait till they got all the bugs out before committing to a full game.   Yeah, I gave up waiting. 

[Vanamonde]

No intakes placed where they couldn't actually get airflow to engines. 

Anything going interplanetary gets at least one Hitchhiker module as living quarters. (Assuming it's crewed.) 

[Freshmeat]

I use lots of mods, but only stock engines. While almost all modded engines are balanced against stock, I do not trust my judgement in the matter.

Max stack diameter is 3.75m. No 5m or 7.5m vessels.

When traveling interplanetary, everyone gets ample living space. I use MOLE or CxAerospace station modules for that, as they have proper beds.

Right now I build a station with an additional restraint: Every module must fit in a Mk3 cargo bay and launched by my designated cargo SSTO.

 

[riki2048ksp]

In career mode:

No reverting  flights;

No  quicksaves.

If a  bug  kills a kerbal,  he  is  respawned  via  the  save  file

 

[eddiew]

8 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

I have a long-standing "No Science Lab" rule and just initiated a "One Contract Per 'build a new craft...' Craft." As in, no building a single satellite to complete 4 contracts. And no building a single ship to satisfy "new station around kerbin" "New station around Sun" and "New station around Duna" contracts.

I also have an almost inviolate "everything must crash or be thrown free" rule. No debris on any stable orbit. Ever. Mostly.

I handle the (ridiculous) excess of science by custom tuning the costs in my tech tree. From nervas onwards, each tier pretty much doubles the cost of the previous, and my final tier is a 50k unlock   An expedition across all the biomes on a distant moon with a lab might just produce that. Or maybe I'll never get that much science and will have to choose. Either option is fair gameplay, imo  

Also I cheat and set persistent debris to zero ¬_¬  Occasionally it catches me out when I forget to put a probe core on something I wanted later and it gets lost in deep space, but that's my own silly fault.

[ARS]

1. No alt+f12 cheat, unless testing something ridiculous

2. Do not kill kerbal. If a single kerbal is even listed as MIA/ KIA in astronaut center, whole save game is considered bricked and must start over from scratch

3. Parts and ships are considered as expendable asset. Especially if it can bring back a kerbal/ prevent their death

4. Cheaty mod are allowed, but blatant cheating is not allowed

5. Except for the first 4 "tutorial" contract that appears on mission control, I tried to minimize the number of contract used to fund my space program

Edited June 24, 2018 by ARS

[RealKerbal3x]

I have a few:

1. On all trips further out than Minmus each crewmember gets minimum 2 seats to themselves so they don’t go stir crazy.

2. No transferring crew through fuel tanks. I EVA them across instead. If there’s no way around this, I remove fuel from the tank so there’s space for a ‘crew tunnel’ through the centre.

3. Nuclear material (eg. NTRs and RTGs) must have ample shielding if used on a crewed vehicle.

4. On space stations, the number of kerbals on board can never exceed the number of seats available to return to Kerbin.

5. I’ve never actually needed this rule before, but no kerballed missions lasting more than a kerbal lifetime (which I imagine is 150-200 years).

[kerbonara]

Here it goes:

1. Never kill a Kerbal. I use USI LS with deadly consequences in case of lack of supply.

2. Reverting and quick saving/loading is ok. This balances the lack of actual planning which happens IRL.

3. Explore the first bodies progressively: First probes, later kerbals. First mission will do a fly by a only, then another mission to orbit, finally I will land. Later on the career I consider kerbals to be technologically advanced so a single probe mission may do it all.

 

[A Soviet Tank]

For me, it is unacceptable to kill a kerbal or leave a kerbal in space with no way home. All Kerbals who are stranded must be rescued as soon as possible. 

I know, I'm surprisingly humanitarian for a Soviet armored vehicle. 

[Gargamel]

9 hours ago, ARS said:

2. Do not kill kerbal. If a single kerbal is even listed as MIA/ KIA in astronaut center, whole save game is considered bricked and must start over from scratch

That's pretty strict, even NASA didn't go that route...

[RoboRay]

1. No deliberate space junk.  I drop all spent stages on impact trajectories, or give them the means to set themselves onto an impact trajectory if it's not feasible to just drop them on one.
2. No suicide missions.  Every crew-member has a way to come home.
3. No reloading to avert a disaster or screw-up.  Problems happen and I deal with them. 
4. Every manned launch needs an in-flight abort capability to save the crew.  See #2 and #3.
5. New launchers get unmanned test flights before carrying crew and new manned spacecraft get low-orbit tests of all features before leaving the SOI.  See #2 and #3.
6. Probes go everywhere before people do.  See #2 and #3.

[ARS]

9 minutes ago, Gargamel said:

That's pretty strict, even NASA didn't go that route...

Well, I'm not really a type of player who enjoy killing, even in videogame. If I can play a game as non-lethal or pacifist, I'll do it. And what I wrote above is true. I deleted my savegame quite a lot and restarted from scratch simply because there's a kerbal that's beyond saving, such as in munar suborbital trajectory with no way of slowing down, dies because the lack of supplies, or simply dies in crash with no way of reverting it. Not being perfectionist, I just prefer to keep things safe and everyone alive. Probes are considered as expendable. I always send a pilotless craft controlled by probe to another planet and test it if I can make it back home. If successful, then I'll be confident enough to send a manned mission. On the other hand, once a save file has completely unlocked a tech tree, then I'll make a backup of it so I didn't have to do the science grind all over again (Unless when I forgot to backup the backup )

[bigcalm]

* All crew must get a unique first.  (For all bodies, possible firsts are: Orbit, Orbit EVA, Landing, Footsteps on the surface, Planting a flag, Driving a Rover, Docking in Orbit, and for some bodies, Atmosphere-Entry).

* Whilst I don't play with the "harder" mode of MKS mods switched on (mainly due to bugs in previous versions), if I run out of supplies, or Kerbals go stir-crazy, they will be retired.

* I must do it manually myself before allowing use of MechJeb (exception:  Fine tuning intercepts).

* No Kerbal left behind

* No hyperedit except shunts, and only then after I've launched twenty of them.

* In the early part of my career I often run "No unpiloted craft" - as in, if I want a satellite up there, it has get into its target orbit with a Kerbal on board.  No robotic piloting should be required except for de-orbiting burns.  This phase is officially ended on the first interplanetary shunt which is typically a SatNet.

 

 

[Lisias]

I need to make an ADDENDUM to my rules set:

1. <ditto>
2. <ditto>
3. <ditto>
4. <ditto>
5. <ditto>
6. Scare the sheet out of the tourists.  

Due rules 1 and 2, my reentry profiles and landing procedures are… not for the faint of heart. I didn't noticed before because both Jeb and Val appears to be BadAsses . But the poor's tourists… 

[Just Jim]

10 minutes ago, Lisias said:

I didn't noticed before because both Jeb and Val appears to be BadAsses . But the poor's tourists… 

Yeah, both Jeb and Val are BadS... But about 95% or so of the tourists are not... and they're a riot to watch!!!  

[RealKerbal3x]

5 hours ago, Just Jim said:

Yeah, both Jeb and Val are BadS... But about 95% or so of the tourists are not... and they're a riot to watch!!!  

AaaaaaaAaaaaaaaaaAaaaa!

[Gargamel]

Just broke one of my rules.  More like modified it to work under the "automation" clause of my other rule.

After cresting each hill on Eve, my Rumbler mobile base always ends up with a few broken wheels.   After the 4th time hopping out with the engineer to fix to wheels, I turned off crash damage to keep the wheels from breaking.  Otherwise, it just wasn't fun to play. 

[avengerki]

When I originally started playing there was only sandbox. This was fun, I then found mechjeb and all of a sudden I could actually get a craft landed on a planet. This quickly got boring because mechjeb made it way too easy. I stopped playing.

I now own ksp on the console and the fun is back.

My rules:

1. No using an autopilot. If you can't land it or orbit it yourself, then keep trying until you can do it or the controller breaks.

2. Make as much of each vehicle reusable as possible. No SRBs.(although I occasionally do have fun with mass SRBs)

3. No space debris.

4. No cheat menu

5. Stock or DLC only.

6. If you send a kerbal up that kerbal needs to come back alive...... eventually.

7. Design the vessels so that they can be joined with others somehow. (Early game vessels don't count until you have at least the dock jr. available.) You never known when an emergency will happen and being able to dock two vessels together can help bring home the bacon, I mean Jebediah.

8. A vessel designed to fulfill a contract needs to cost less than what the contract is paying out.

I just found having mods or using the cheat menu made it too easy and took the fun away for me. I actually do find the fun in manually calculating twr and dv. Although I do miss out on some of those cool looking parts.

I did try using no clipping, but trying to fit some things into a mk3 cargo bay you just gotta clip.

[Jimmidii]

For me personally...

No mods.

No reverts.

Permadeath.

Comms network required for control.

Extra groundstations off.

Signal occlusion at 1.0 for non-atmosphere planets and 0.98 planets with atmosphere.

Plasma blackout on.

Kerbal g-force limits turned on. (1.0 tolerance)

If a tourist dies, it would be the end of that particular save and I'd start again. (Although in practice it means I rarely take tourist missions. When I do they're completely nerve-wracking, and I've managed to avoid losing a save to this so far...)

Kerbals level up immediately.

I avoid clipping functional parts (fuel, control etc.) but don't mind clipping structural parts.

I try and avoid leaving any debris in orbit and try to design anything that's not meant to stay in space as crasher stages. (Mistakes do happen here)

 

I love the challenge this gives, and think of this as my 'official' save, but I do have others without restrictions for testing and goofing around.

[Dafni]

7 minutes ago, Jimmidii said:

Signal occlusion at 1.0 for non-atmosphere planets and 0.98 planets with atmosphere.

 

I like this one. Always thought the stock signal occlusion is a bit too forgiving.