Nerfed Space Program

[Pds314]

Mission

The aim of this challenge is to do space missions with very inferior quality equipment.
Specifically, parts will be deliberately underperforming, with at most half their normal thrust and fuel/ablator/ore capacity.

Difficulty levels

Bob
Sandbox mode: unlimited tech and resources from the minute you start.
Max thrust 50% on all engines.
Max fill of 50% on tanks with a non-massless resource.
No mining on Kerbin.
No fuel transfer above 50%.

Bill
Science or career mode: you start with a minimum of technology.
Max thrust 50% on all engines.
Max fill of 50% on tanks with a non-massless resource.
No mining on Kerbin.
No fuel transfer above 50%.

Jeb
Career mode: You need to worry about tech, funds, reputation, and facilities.
Max thrust 30% on all engines.
Max fill of 30%  on tanks with a non-massless resource.
No ISRU.
No fuel transfer above 30%.

Val
Career mode: You need to worry about tech, funds, reputation, and facilities.
Kerbal G limits on.
Plasma blackout on.
Max thrust 20% on all engines.
Max fill of 20% on tanks with a non-massless resource.
No ISRU.
No fuel transfer above 20%.
Disable revert and quicksave.

Goals

There are no specific scoring methods, however, some basic goals to shoot for might include:
Get a Kerbal to orbit.
Complete the stock tech tree.
Complete a Kerballed Mun mission.
Land a Kerbal on another planet and return.
Reach level five for one or more of your orange suits.
Build an aircraft that can break the sound barrier.
Build an SSTO.
Build a space station.
Complete a Jool 5.
Send missions (kerballed or not) to every planet.
Upgrade all the facilities to max level.
Redirect an asteroid.
Land on an interstellar comet.

Edited August 21, 2020 by Pds314

[Miguelsgamingch]

Two Words.

I'm In.

Question: Is Mods Allowed?

Ima go jeb

Edited August 21, 2020 by miguelsgamingch

[Pds314]

Well... My attempt at Val's difficulty is going well... Val and Jeb are both dead forever from rocket explosions on the pad, my rockets are approaching size, mass, and parts limits of the vab/launchpad, and I still have not reached space, let alone orbit.

[Miguelsgamingch]

Mission Progress: Not Great

Eh.. I Launched A Rocket With 30% Thurst..

thats all actually.

[EveMaster]

An unmanned two stage rocket I built in sandbox mode nerfed to 30% landed on the surface of the mun. There were no extras on the lander, not even an antenna or a battery. The battery run out seconds after landing.

I'll try Jeb difficulty level. I hope it is not too grindy.

[vyznev]

I'm trying a Val-level run at Hard baseline difficulty, just to see far I can get. So far, I haven't even managed to reach Kerbin's upper atmosphere.

I'm having a lot of fun doing this, though.  It actually makes getting to space hard — while, a bit surprisingly, leaving early aviation relatively unaffected. I have a basic science plane powered by four Junos at 20% thrust and it flies just fine (and lets me easily grind survey contracts, as long as the altitude is manageable). Range is a bit limited (each Juno has only one Mk0 liquid fuel tank, 20% full of course) but I could always stick in an extra Mk1 fuel tank if I needed to. So this actually feels a lot more realistic than usual.

I'm still not sure if I can actually make it to orbit, or if the difficulty curve will just go vertical at some point. But I'm willing to give it a try. At the very least, if I can grind enough money and science, I should be able to send a probe out of the atmosphere.

[vyznev]

22 hours ago, vyznev said:

At the very least, if I can grind enough money and science, I should be able to send a probe out of the atmosphere.

After grabbing literally every bit of science I could from KSC* to unlock reaction wheels and the OKTO, I finally did it!

Spoiler

 

 

The rocket itself is very simple, consisting of four solid-fueled stages. The payload inside the materials bay consists of the OKTO, a small reaction wheel, two batteries, two science experiments and an antenna. The tricky part is keeping it going straight up during ascent — if you veer even a few degrees off vertical, which it naturally wants to do due to Kerbin's rotation, it won't reach space.  

Getting to orbit is going to be tricky, and will probably require upgrading the VAB and the launch pad. Which looks likely to take quite a bit of grinding with the reduced contract rewards from Hard difficulty. But I can grind survey and parts testing contracts for about 10k to 15k cash each, so it's only a matter of time and persistence. And if needed, I still have several biomes on Kerbin that I haven't fully scienced.

*) Did you know that the SPH, VAB, DSN and R&D main buildings are separate mini-biomes, as is the astronaut complex flag pole? You'll have to either climb or land on top of them or squeeze your rover really close to them to get the science from them, but it's well worth it if you're strapped for science. And the upgraded versions of the buildings have even more unique biomes. And you also shouldn't forget the generic "KSC" biome that covers e.g. some of the triangular grassy spots between the various building areas.

[EveMaster]

My space program on Jeb level, normal difficulty settings and both DLCs makes good progress. I have upgraded most buildings to level 2 so far. My admin building strategy is "Fundraising Campaign" at 25%. Using that I have enough money without having to grind. Right now I have 442000 funds. My biggest achievement was orbiting the mun right now.

Pictures of some craft I built from left to right that achieve

• escaping atmosphere
• escaping atmosphere with 2 tourists
• escaping atmosphere with 4 tourists
• achieving orbit
• rescuing mission from low equatorial Kerbin orbit
• rescuing mission from low equatorial Kerbin orbit + putting 2 FL-TX900 to orbit.

Spoiler

Combining the missions of putting fuel tanks into orbit more than pays for themself if I combine them with Kerbal rescue mission. The two fuel tanks (30% full) with two docking port jr is the maximum payload that I can put into orbit with level 2 VAB and launch pad.

Right now I have transported two of these fuel depots to orbit. My next plan is to use them to land on the Mun and on Minmus.

[vyznev]

Meanwhile on Val-level Hard mode, even after upgrading the launchpad, unlocking the Terrier engine and cheating my way into early Kickback boosters by grabbing a contract to test them, I still can't quite make it to LKO.  

Spoiler

I also nearly ran my space program into bankruptcy because I forgot that, with the Kickback testing and "Orbit Kerbin" contracts active and a level 1 Mission Control, I couldn't take any survey or part testing contracts for cash. And it turns out that failed orbital missions don't pay for themselves.  Finally I had to cancel the Kickback contract, which left me nearly out of funds.

Spoiler

I grabbed a contract to haul a rover wheel into flight instead, and then realized that I couldn't launch even a stripped-down version of my plane because I didn't have enough money. Fortunately it was one of those contracts with no altitude limits, so I managed to complete it by putting the wheel on a rover and having Val drive up the side of the runway to get off the ground. 

Spoiler

Oh, and Jeb died a while ago in a tragic and completely avoidable plane crash.  Since then, I've been a lot more careful with my landings.

I'm now back up to 60k funds after grinding a bunch of easy contracts, but I can't retry my orbital mission because I no longer have access to Kickbacks. Instead I've been trying to see if I can get enough acceleration from nerfed engines to make a tourist pass out, as those contracts seem potentially lucrative. No real success there either yet, but at least my test vehicles are safely testable and fully reusable, thanks to being fitted with a probe core and plenty of parachutes.

Spoiler

Now, maybe if I managed to squeeze about 45 more science from Kerbin's surface, I could unlock Kickbacks and the Pollux for real. But I think upgrading Mission Control is a higher priority. And upgrading the VAB could help too, although that's really expensive.  

Edited August 28, 2020 by vyznev

[vyznev]

As a quick update, my attempt at space tourism is a failure. I managed to get the tourists to pass out just fine (by coming down fast and spamming drogue chutes), but I overlooked the fact that the contract requires a suborbital trajectory. Which means an apogee above 70 km. With a manned capsule. Which I just cannot do yet with the facilities I have, especially now that I no longer have access to Kickback boosters.  

Addendum: I did manage to grab another high-gee tourism contract that didn't require going to space. Unfortunately the damn VIP I have to make pass out also turns out to have a really high gee tolerance. Isn't 15.2 gees enough for you, lady? I guess not…  

Edited August 28, 2020 by vyznev

[EveMaster]

@vyznev Do g-forces from crashes count for the high-gee tourism contracts or does the g-force have to last for some time? That would be risky though when playing without reverts. Maybe you could build a rotating device to achieve the g-forces.

I now build a relais network around Mun and around Minmus with the smallest relais dishes.

For my first mun landing I forgot to put a decoupler on the lander. I do play with F5/F9 and with reverts, but I do not use any other savegames. The nerfed Terrier engine was not strong enough to burn it away. I had enough fuel left because I have refueled in orbit from another craft (No fuel tank at more than 30%"), so I decided to attempt a landing anyway. After some F5/F9 reloading I managed to land without tipping over. I also had enough fuel left to put Jeb back to orbit together with the help of his EVA jetpack.

Spoiler

For my second Mun landing I built a 794 kg SSTO that can bring 3 Kerbals holding onto ladders from low Mun orbit to the surface and back. Unfortunately without an antenna it cannot connect to my relais network but only directly to Kerbin. Unintendedly I descended during an eclipse, so I had no solar power during descend. But by putting the probe core to sleep mode for part of the descent the 10.0 units of energy lasted just until touchdown.

Spoiler

The Kerbals are currently back in orbit at my space station in low Mun orbit. The station now has only place for 3 Kerbals, but I have accepted a contract to build a station with 20 Kerbals around the Mun.

At the moment I have 1,8 million funds.  I'm planning to explore more parts of the Kerbol sytem. Until now the nerfing mostly affects the ascent from Kerbin, not so much the lower gravity bodies and the orbital maneuvers.

[vyznev]

3 hours ago, EveMaster said:

@vyznev Do g-forces from crashes count for the high-gee tourism contracts or does the g-force have to last for some time? That would be risky though when playing without reverts. Maybe you could build a rotating device to achieve the g-forces.

Not sure about crashes, but I'm pretty sure centrifuges don't actually work, because the game calculates the g-force from the vessel's center of mass, not from the capsule the kerbal is actually in. Which might count as a bug, but it is what it is. Although I guess if you decoupled the capsule and had it in a bucket of some kind, that could work. Not that I see any way of doing that with a level 1 VAB (hence 30 part limit) and low tier parts. I don't even have launch clamps unlocked yet, much less any BG robotics.

[EveMaster]

Updates from my space program at 30% nerf level:

After having unlocked more parts this is now my standard lifter for around 172k funds without payload and a lifting capacity of around 20 tons:

Spoiler

With this lifter and similar ones I built my mun station with several launches. The mun station contract was not profitable on its own despite a reward of several thousand k funds but I combined it with other contracts.

Below is my mun station with my nerv engine mun lander. The mun lander can visit 2-4 Biomes before having to return to refuel in orbit. The station has plenty of fuel for refueling due to the contract requirement of 6000 liquid fuel on the station. I also brought dlc surface science instruments to the surface of mun and minmus. Later I moved the entire station from mun to minmus orbit.

Spoiler

My first interstellar mission combines several things. It has a rover and directly lands from Kerbin transfer, breaking using a heat shield. The heat shield stays on until the landing for a testing contract. My launcher also has 5 small relais satellites and one interplanetery satellite. Third it has a lander can with room for 2 Kerbals, Jeb and Bob.

Spoiler

I separated the lander can from the other parts shortly after leaving orbit. The kerballed craft I tuned at an Eve flyby to do multiple gravity assist on the route Eve-Eve-Kerbin-Kerbin-Jool. When entering Eve SOI, I separeated the lander with the rover from the relais sats and tuned the orbit, that the lander arrives 12 minutes before the relais sats reach periapsis.

My Eve rover:

Spoiler

I retroburned with the relais sat still docked together into a captured orbit. Then I aerobraked into a lower orbit. I left the interstellar relais sat in a highly elliptical orbit that also has some inclination from the intial capturing. That way there is a higher chance that it can connect to Kerbin. The other 5 relais sats I put into a low Eve orbit with equidistant spacing.

My Eve relais network:

Spoiler

With the manned lander I captured around Jool using a gravity assist at Tylo. I flew by all moons of Jool and landed on all 4 biomes of Pol. Then I used gravity assists at Laythe and Tylo to transfer back to Kerbin. At Kerbin I used a flyby at the Mun, an aerocapture at 50km and retroburning to capture in an orbit around Kerbin. I set the apopasis to 40km on the next orbit and aerobraked to a landing.

With the science returned from the Jool system I now have unlocked the entire tech tree and have 15.8 million funds. Next thing I want to try is to a Jool 5, if possible with a single launch.

[EveMaster]

I now have completed a Jool 5 mission on a single launch at 30% Nerf-level. Not everything went as planned, but I managed to land on each moon of Jool and return safely.

The mission report can be found here: https://imgur.com/gallery/mYeFzvM

[Ultimate Steve]

On 8/21/2020 at 3:06 AM, Pds314 said:

Val
Career mode: You need to worry about tech, funds, reputation, and facilities.
Kerbal G limits on.
Plasma blackout on.
Max thrust 20% on all engines.
Max fill of 20% on tanks with a non-massless resource.
No ISRU.
No fuel transfer above 20%.

Me: Okay, sounds great, when do I - 

On 8/21/2020 at 3:06 AM, Pds314 said:

Disable revert and quicksave.

...Oh, so there's a catch...

Will make an attempt, unsure if I will get very far though.

[Ultimate Steve]

Edit: That was a stupid question, never mind.

Edited October 1, 2020 by Ultimate Steve

[Ultimate Steve]

I've had an interesting time with this so far. I did Val mode, but with a few difficulty changes, nothing too major though. Pretty close to standard normal mode. I have managed to reach orbit. I think this is the first time in vanilla KSP I've sent probes to orbit before Kerbals. Also, both DLCs are installed.

 

Val mode, Part 1

Spoiler

 

I have slightly modified the difficulty settings, in some ways easier, in some ways harder.

The first launch, "The Sound of The Wind," was a fairly standard first career launch that went pretty well.

The second launch, "The Sound of The Thunder," sought to fly higher by adding a lower stage. However, it didn't fly as high as expected, although it was still successful.

Next up, "Sound of The Mountains," used a liquid fueled core and three thumpers. The goal was to get substantially high into the upper atmosphere.

We got that high, but unfortunately just barely. We were only in the upper atmosphere for seconds, and at this point I started to realize what I had gotten myself into.

The fourth launch, "The Sound of The River," built on the previous rocket, but with MOAR BOOSTERS!

Unfortunately, it didn't get much higher.

And we just barely didn't land far away enough to get a new biome.

We managed to snag a contract to test the Kickback, so we attempted to go full suborbital with launch number 5, "Just Random noise IDK"

However, due to a lack of control, we turned over sideways.

This is infuriating. An insignificant amount of distance away.

Undaunted, we repeated the flight (we hadn't completed the kickback contract thankfully) with the sixth launch, "The D.A.V.E." On the first stage boosters, there were two more command pods, just added because of their reaction wheels.

This time, we stayed upright and reached suborbital space! Woohoo!

The science gained from space allowed us to unlock the materials bay, so we quickly sent two up on the next flight, "The S.T.E.A.K." to get even more science!

Unfortunately, despite adding drogue chutes, the pointy nature of the craft meant that Valentina Kerman could not slow down enough to safely land, and was tragically killed on impact.

After a substantial amount of mourning, we sent two more science juniors on a smaller rocket, "The RAMONE," to just get atmospheric science.

It also tested brakes so that the Valentina tragedy would not happen again.

The test was a complete success.

Next up, "The RAMON" launched in order to succeed where Valentina and "The S.T.E.A.K." had failed.

Unfortunately the vehicle tipped over and failed due to the brakes, causing Bill to not reach space.

At least they worked on the way down...

Changing focus for a bit, we decided to try to make a plane for survey contracts. With the engines at 20% thrust, this would be annoying, especially as the only jet we have unlocked is the Juno.

We came up with the MUSTANK. It used a rocket booster for the initial takeoff because the jet TWR was so low. This booster was jettisoned just after takeoff.

On the first flight, it flew around to a few nearby survey areas, and its mission was successful!

Also, somewhere in there we launched this thing to get science from the runway.

Next up came our first ever attempt to place an object into Low Kerbin Orbit, the "SpudNick."

The middle Pollux is run at 15% thrust. I never thought I'd go below 20, but here I am...

The second stage is powered by a Bobcat.

And the third stage is powered by a Terrier.

And finally... Just barely...

The SpudNick entered LKO!

We were shortly after offered a contract to return from LKO, so we tried to get SpudNick back.

Unfortunately, that didn't work so well.

It did make it through the atmosphere intact, though...

Next was another survey flight on the Mustank.

And then we prepared to launch our second satellite, the "SANTAN." It was randomly named after Santa and the Tangent function. The goal of this satellite was to get to an orbit with an apoapsis high above Kerbin and then return safely to the surface of Kerbin while carrying basic science experiments. This satellite was 260 ish kilograms, about 3.5 times heavier than the previous satellite. The middle SRB's thrust was lowered further to 13.5 percent thrust, and the second stage fuel tank was stretched to allow for a higher payload, although much of the efficiency increase would come from flying a better ascent profile.

SANTAN was a complete success!

Now we looked for how to make money, and we considered suborbital space tourism. This was SUBTOR, a spaceplane designed to fly a pilot and four tourists up and down.

Unfortunately it only got to around 30 kilometers. We will, sadly, need more boosters. Luckily, those tourists get a second flight for the price of one.

Also this happened.

The next flight we accidentally left some of the adapters full, but they worked against us as there was nothing to use that fuel so I'm not going to count that as a major rules violation. Either way we only reached 50 or so kilometers. Disappointing. We were going to lose money on this project.

Unfortunately, during descent, Jebediah got distracted, and only noticed the ground coming up at the last second. He pulled up too quickly, causing everyone to pass out.

And the SUBTOR went splat.

Along with Jebediah and 4 tourists.

It became clear that the Valentina disaster was not an isolated incident and people began running from the space program.

However, Bob didn't get away, and was forcibly strapped into flight 15 "nO pLEASE nO" in order to get science from space.

He did get to become the first spacewalker, though.

Fortunately, he didn't die this time.

We then forced Bill to take the MUSTANK on a tier 2 survey mission. The lack of SAS was very uncomfortable, unfortunately.

So we "hired" a "volunteer," pilot Siefel.

The next mission would be demanding, but according to our calculations, the MUSTANK, slightly modified, could just barely do it on a one way trip.

The next survey contract, accepted mostly by accident, was 1/5 of the way across Kerbin. However, the MUSTANK was modified to be more aerodynamic and a bit of extra fuel was added. Despite the 20% thrust, cruising speed was around 200m/s.

However, the F3 menu lied, we didn't have nearly enough fuel to make it. So we reduced throttle and tried to fly as efficiently as possible. The engines burned out, so we glid...

...And splashed down right there.

Painful.

PAIN.

Undaunted, we added auxilliary tanks and tried again!

Unfortunately, the MUSTANK didn't like taking off this heavy, so we did a few more modifications.

MOAR BOOSTERS!

And this time, we were able to successfully complete the survey contract, and even make it to a nearby continent afterwards, with a whole 3 units of fuel to spare!

 

Next big project will either be getting space tourism to work, putting a Kerbal in LEO (probs requires pad upgrade), or sending a light probe to the Mun.

 

 

 

[vyznev]

10 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Changing focus for a bit, we decided to try to make a plane for survey contracts. With the engines at 20% thrust, this would be annoying, especially as the only jet we have unlocked is the Juno.

We came up with the MUSTANK. It used a rocket booster for the initial takeoff because the jet TWR was so low. This booster was jettisoned just after takeoff.

That's odd. I never had any serious takeoff issues with my survey plane in Val mode, even though it looks pretty similar to yours (except for the lack of a JATO unit, that is).

Spoiler

One real-world pilot trick I did use was keeping the brakes on until the Junos were fully spooled up. That way you get to start the takeoff at (nearly) full thrust and don't waste any runway length crawling slowly forward.

Edited October 2, 2020 by vyznev