The KSP Caveman Challenge 1.11.x - 1.12.x

[JAFO]

4 minutes ago, micha said:

What, we have to READ now?  Bah, all this new-fangled stuff!! :-D :-D :-D

Well... in the rules for the higher difficulty levels at least, there are pretty pictures to look at as well...

[MinimalMinmus]

Huh, I just noticed that in the advanced options, plasma blackout is on and required connection for control is on... was it always like that? I'm pretty sure my attempts were made with the other way round.

[linuxgurugamer]

Hi, Cavepeople

If you would like, I can write a little mod which would simply display all relevant settings in a window, 

Slightly harder, I could also have it monitor those settings over time, and even force them to specific values, or to set them , etc.  

Let me know.

[paul_c]

Setting the settings isn't the issue, its what the settings should be.

When I did my NCD attempt, I never did hardly any EVA in flight stuff. I tried it a few times, building a "flying bedstead" style contraption. The Kerbal never held onto the ladder long enough to be useful for me, so I went down a rabbithole of trying to build some kind of cage/enclosure to ensure they didn't fall off and go splat (and possibly die).

Personally for me it failed the "would NASA do this in real life?" test. (I know about Neil Armstrong's somewhat haphazard attempts at flying the moon landing simulator thing, where he nearly died doing some test flight). So I never really pursued it, and forewent the extra points. I know others have had success though - not sure how? - so its difficult for me to impose my own personal views and say it should be banned etc.

But if its greatly facilitated by a setting, it doesn't seem right - Caveman should be about the basic KSP, no upgrades, and with (harsh) fixed group of settings which are the same for everyone. So whatever the setting is that makes it easy/possible, it would be a "no" from me. But I respect I don't really have a vote! And its up to others to actually decide!

[Terwin]

As someone who finished without even going orbital, not sliding off of ladders seems like something that would already be pretty much solved by those taking advantage of orbital reports, so I do not see it mattering much as far as I am concerned.  

You still need to keep them from being pushed off by drag or other forces, even if they no longer slide around once in orbit.

[JAFO]

18 hours ago, MinimalMinmus said:

Huh, I just noticed that in the advanced options, plasma blackout is on and required connection for control is on... was it always like that? I'm pretty sure my attempts were made with the other way round.

I'm fairly sure it was.. I just copied the earlier settings, nothing has been changed.

 

17 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Hi, Cavepeople

If you would like, I can write a little mod which would simply display all relevant settings in a window, 

Slightly harder, I could also have it monitor those settings over time, and even force them to specific values, or to set them , etc.  

Let me know.

Wow.. I had no idea you even tracked our humble little challenge!  I'm not aware of any challenge that has their own special mod! That would be more than a little cool. All of the above sounds great, to be honest, and being able to choose a difficulty level with a click or two would be fantastic. If you're willing to do it, that would be amazing. (Of course, this means I'll have to increase my monthly Patreon donation. I wouldn't feel right otherwise!)

 

17 hours ago, paul_c said:

But if its greatly facilitated by a setting, it doesn't seem right - Caveman should be about the basic KSP, no upgrades, and with (harsh) fixed group of settings which are the same for everyone. So whatever the setting is that makes it easy/possible, it would be a "no" from me. But I respect I don't really have a vote! And its up to others to actually decide!

Umm.. you DO get a vote. Everyone in the Clan does. That's how tribes work.

 

14 hours ago, Terwin said:

You still need to keep them from being pushed off by drag or other forces, even if they no longer slide around once in orbit.

Very good point.

[Blaarkies]

In my Diamond run, i had bob/bill? (the scientist one) on a ladder to do Minmus samples on a 4 hop lander. By placing the ladder just above a "floor", i had no problems with him sliding off. To me, this kerbal-ladder setting addresses a problem i never encountered.

The hardest part was staying close to the craft while timewarping during the trans-minmus trajectory: I wanted him close for when I need to do correction burns, but it would have probably been fine to drift off much further than i let him.
 

Quote

@JAFO I'm fairly sure it was.. I just copied the earlier settings, nothing has been changed.

I just checked my settings screenshot from the NCD i started in early March, and they match up perfectly (i'm glad, else i screwed up something )

Edited June 18, 2021 by Blaarkies

[linuxgurugamer]

7 hours ago, JAFO said:

Wow.. I had no idea you even tracked our humble little challenge!  I'm not aware of any challenge that has their own special mod! That would be more than a little cool. All of the above sounds great, to be honest, and being able to choose a difficulty level with a click or two would be fantastic. If you're willing to do it, that would be amazing. (Of course, this means I'll have to increase my monthly Patreon donation. I wouldn't feel right otherwise!)

There have been one or two.

Ok, so what I would need from you is the following:

• A list of all the settings which you would like to be displayed in the window

For game modes:

• A list of game modes, with the settings for each game mode listed

 

[Blaarkies]

I found it! Well i really hope so. 

A Green Monolith on Minmus

I know Minmus only has 1 normal easteregg monolith, so the other anomaly must be the green monolith (can we call them Greenoliths, please?).
Now I just need to finish up the 45science nodes, then I can claim this one to give me a free 90sci upgrade (i hope its not the stupid habitat node)

I found these on/after the 3rd probe to visit Minmus. KerbNet on the other probe cores did not pickup any anomalies (because of that 10% detection rate thing), so i hope i get as lucky on Kerbin and Mun.

 

EDIT: as luck would have it, my next 3 landers had the worst of luck, barely brought back any science (but their contracts paid for it which is nice)
- Payload too heavy, only had 200m/s dv left on Minmus' surface
- Or 900m/s dv left, can do a few hops...ended up hopping into the only 2 biomes i have already explored
- Or everything goes perfectly. It turns out that a science container, inside an MK-1 container can still break when dropped at 30m/s

Edited June 21, 2021 by Blaarkies

[joshudson]

I never did kerbaled interplanetary because the ladder dance was too annoying for me. Personally I think it would be much better if we had a mod that enabled time warp on ladders (and actually kept the kerbal on the ladder in time warp) and banned the EVA refueling trick. If you want more fuel, pack EVA fuel packs.

The various level rules had for most of the rules whatever the stock difficulty setting was for that rule; I don't see a reason to change that. My Order of the Trilobyte badge was earned by sending probes to Jool in easy mode and controlling them from home.

Edited June 25, 2021 by joshudson

[fourfa]

News from 1.12 that's relevant for the Cave: additional launch sites (ie the island runway, Baikerbanur, Dessert airfield) have always yielded extra science.  In fact I believe all of them have two additional mini-biomes.  Now there are a bunch more to be discovered on Kerbin.  Not sure how many (no spoilers!) but in tough run like NCD it could make a small difference.  Of course it's nothing compared to a single interplanetary trip...

Edited June 25, 2021 by fourfa

[Mr. Peabody]

On 6/25/2021 at 1:34 PM, fourfa said:

News from 1.12 that's relevant for the Cave: additional launch sites (ie the island runway, Baikerbanur, Dessert airfield) have always yielded extra science.  In fact I believe all of them have two additional mini-biomes.  Now there are a bunch more to be discovered on Kerbin.  Not sure how many (no spoilers!) but in tough run like NCD it could make a small difference.  Of course it's nothing compared to a single interplanetary trip...

Hai, hai! 0.0

This will make oppressed cavemen everywhere very happy.

[Jacke]

On 6/25/2021 at 5:34 PM, fourfa said:

News from 1.12 that's relevant for the Cave: additional launch sites (ie the island runway, Baikerbanur, Dessert airfield) have always yielded extra science.  In fact I believe all of them have two additional mini-biomes.  Now there are a bunch more to be discovered on Kerbin.  Not sure how many (no spoilers!) but in tough run like NCD it could make a small difference.  Of course it's nothing compared to a single interplanetary trip...

As I mentioned recently, when I checked the numbers back a year or so ago, NCD needed nearly every bit of EVA Reports in the Kerbin SOI or to go interplanetary.  That includes almost all of the Mun and  Minmus biomes.

I know nothing of the exact biome and situations with the 4 new launch sites (see here if interested).  Unless there's a lot of mini (area) and micro (touching building) biomes on each, they aren't going to change the numbers that much as they will still have the Kerbin Landed and Flying Low situation multipliers.  And unless they are exactly like the KSC biomes, they may not even have the razor-thin Flying Low situation which gives the better payout.  Even 1 or 2 Kerbin orbit missions with EVA reports, the easiest to get, may give a better payout.

It won't be soon, but after KSP 1.12.1 releases, I'll eventually get back to KSP and start checking things out to update my Science Checklists.  When I do, I'll report back to the Clan what the number changes are.

Even knowing the exact location of the 4 new bases, a mission has to get there to get any possible extra science.  I'm not familiar with the best Caveman practices in Kerbin expeditions, but I suspect they'll still be challenging.

As for the new ladder effects, it's been a while since I did anything in KSP or Caveman.  Our best reports so far indicate there's still challenges using them.  I imagine they still won't prevent separation of the Kerbal and the spacecraft upon time-warping, so even with the best case performance, the whole mission would have to be flown real-time to gain benefit.  Or it'll still be the drift-and-recapture we've seen in the past.

I suggest a Caveman with experience ladder flying check things out and report back to the Clan what they think.

[Blaarkies]

Is it just me, or does the Ap/Pe markers no longer show up in map view?
It's not the end of the world, it still shows up in the orbit info window (bottom-left of the screen)

This is my NCD run, so no buildings are upgraded, and game version 1.12

[Deddly]

Just now, Blaarkies said:

Is it just me, or does the Ap/Pe markers no longer show up in map view?
It's not the end of the world, it still shows up in the orbit info window (bottom-left of the screen)

This is my NCD run, so no buildings are upgraded, and game version 1.12

I can't remember off hand but I think you need to upgrade the tracking station. If that still doesn't help, very files on Steam for instant joy. 

[cod101]

I've started a Talc run in 1.12. I had Breaking Ground installed, but got rid of it. Here it says dlcs ARE allowed, but in the 1.4-1.10 thread it said they'd be in a separate category (but still allowed). Do you still do that here? Anyway, here's the actual report.
 

Missions 1-6
Not even leaving the surface (except for the occasional Flying Low EVA report) for as much science as possible.
 

Spoiler

My settings (easy career)

The first contracts

The first ship

The science haul

Some new tech with that science

New design using that tech

Science haul

Same thing, but on the runway

science

Science Jr.

For SCIENCE!

On the pad

The science

On the island airfield (yes, you can launch to it from the SPH at the very beginning of a new game, don't know why) (I also did this on the runway, but forgot to take a screenshot.)

The island airfield haul

The tech tree

Also, this is my first ever post on these forums! (Even though it says three)

Edited June 28, 2021 by cod101

[Blaarkies]

3 minutes ago, Deddly said:

I can't remember off hand but I think you need to upgrade the tracking station. If that still doesn't help, very files on Steam for instant joy. 

No, the Ap/Pe markers definitely showed up before this update without any building upgrades.
Image from here

But I'll check if steam messed up the update somehow

[Rakaydos]

Since the final update is in the news, I may be coming back to this. I've long had a plan for building my own DSN with spammed mass relay antennas, in order to monolith-hunt on Eve/gilly and Duna/Ike at closest approach.

I havnt played since the SLS part update, though.

What caveman-related changes will I need to watch out for/shamelesly abuse, when completing a basic Caveman run in preparation for Caveman 2: Monolith Hunter? 

[Geonovast]

The no AP/PE markers with an un-upgraded tracking station appears to be some kind of bug with 1.12.0.  I doubt it's intentional as the information is still available by pressing the purple maneuver button.

They should re-appear after upgrading the station, however I believe this is not possible for this challenge.

Hopefully it will be fixed in 1.12.1.

[Deddly]

49 minutes ago, Geonovast said:

The no AP/PE markers with an un-upgraded tracking station appears to be some kind of bug with 1.12.0.  I doubt it's intentional as the information is still available by pressing the purple maneuver button.

There have been several cases of this in the IRC channel, and verifying files on Steam fixed the issue.

[JAFO]

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

I've long had a plan for building my own DSN with spammed mass relay antennas, in order to monolith-hunt on Eve/gilly and Duna/Ike at closest approach.

Best of luck with this.. by my estimate, you're gonna need well over 1000 HG-5's.. maybe even several thousand.

 

22 minutes ago, cod101 said:

I've started a Talc run (easy mode).

Excellent news! Welcome to the challenge!

22 minutes ago, cod101 said:

Just to clarify, in this thread it just says the dlc is allowed, but in 1.4-1.10 it says that they'd be put in a separate category. Which one do we do now?

The 1.4-1.10 rules don't apply for 1.11-1.12. That's why this is a new thread, with its own rules. It was agreed that for this latest round of the challenge, DLC-based entries are no longer a separate category.

Edited June 28, 2021 by JAFO

[Blaarkies]

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

Since the final update is in the news, I may be coming back to this. I've long had a plan for building my own DSN with spammed mass relay antennas, in order to monolith-hunt on Eve/gilly and Duna/Ike at closest approach.

45 minutes ago, JAFO said:

Best of luck with this.. by my estimate, you're gonna need well over 1000 HG-5's.. maybe even several thousand.

 

There's a tool for that 
https://ksp-commnet-planner.blaarkies.com

[cod101]

 Part 2 of my Talc run.
 

Missions 7-10
First flight, and driving around the KSC.

Spoiler

First flight vehicle

On the pad

In flight

Chutes out

Splashdown

Science

The new tech (Stability and Aviation)

It has to be done

SPH science

uhhhh

The science

New tech (Miniaturization)

Have to make sure to grab the EVA kit

15 science for it!

Astro complex science

Admin building science

R+D science

Not again

At least I got lots of science (including the VAB)

Grabbed Fuel Systems and Electrics

Last time

Crawlerway science

Now I realize I brought Jeb. Ugh.

For real now, the LAST time.

For some reason this little triangle is the KSC biome.

Mission Control Science

All the stuff I got

Flight Control and General Construction

 

Edited June 28, 2021 by cod101
missed thing

[JAFO]

6 minutes ago, Blaarkies said:

 

There's a tool for that 
https://ksp-commnet-planner.blaarkies.com

Of course! How on earth did I forget to add this to the list of Caveman resources in the OP?

That oversight has been corrected.

[Blaarkies]

3 hours ago, cod101 said:

 Part 2 of my Talc run.

Missions 7-10
First flight, and driving around the KSC.

Did you get the extra "flying low" EVA reports from each biome? It's tricky, but you have to jump the kerbal, and click report right before hitting the ground again. It's not all that much extra science, but it helps.