How would you progress a Campaign?

[Akinesis]

I've been posting in the Mission Reports about my progress, but thought this particular question might be better suited here.

Even if you don't follow a campaign, your thoughts would still be appreciated. I am doing my own campaign based on the one found on the KSP Wiki, but I have also bloated it out with additional elements from the real space race. As I have been following the Wiki format, everything is done in stages so far. Now I am in a place where I need to make a decision, as the real space-race at this point started jumping about a bit. For instance, the Venera missions began while the Lunar probes were still being sent out. And then there was the Mars probes too, while Mercury and then Gemini were under way.

My question is simple, because I can't make a decision and I'm just curious as to what others do:

Would/do you follow a 'block' campaign like the Wiki and focus on one particular thing at a time, or is the jumping about between programs your method?

[Guest]

During 0.20 I followed the plan on the wiki because it was a good way to wrap your head around all the things to do in KSP. By the time 0.21 came out I was setting my own goals.

When I first started my current save in 0.21 I sent a rover to Moho and Eve; both failed. This got me thinking about when I could next launch, which turned into me sitting down and plotting out the launch windows to all the major bodies of the Kerbol system for the entire first year. In-between interplanetary launch windows I've been prototyping Kethane stuff on the Mun and Minmus, and generally just farting around with rovers and landers. I haven't committed to building a space station just yet, but it is on my list. I might do that after my Dres mission gets underway.

So far I've got missions on their way to Moho, Duna, Jool, and Eeloo, with a Dres mission in a parking orbit waiting for the window. The next windows after Dres are Moho, Eve, then Moho again. In fact, there are so many launch windows to Moho during the year that I've been considering a permanent base there complete with orbital station and rotating crew. Sure, the delta-V requirements are pretty high and its a hard target to hit, but the trips are damn short and I'm a fairly practiced hand at the orbital construction of interplanetary craft.

My goals in the game shift a lot but my aim is to get a ton of meaningful flights into space and hit as many launch windows as I can. Everyone plays differently but the wiki campaign is a great place to start if you're new to the game.

[MockKnizzle]

I think for the most part you're primarily motivated by the upcoming launch windows, so if there's a bunch of windows coming up you're pretty much forced to jump around.

[alacrity]

I set my missions by step needs. Anything to make the next step easy. I have been around a while (v.16 or so) so I find myself repeating a few of my own campaign at each version.

First thing I do is get commsats around Kerbin and Mun. The a station at Karbin and a few practice runs at Mun and Minmus. Once a get something landed on each of those, I feel comfortable with whatever mechanical changes have happened to STOCK kerbal and I spend a day downloading mods and designing my new Duna and Mun bases.

After that I tend to go a little off the rails. All the new mods and updates give me crazy ideas. It is my NASA moment there. I start flinging everything not bolted to Jebs billet into space, with out a clear intention other than to see what I can do with it.

I get back to actual forward thinking missions. Stations at Ike, another at Kerbin, and one at Minmus. All staging stations for the Duna run and a step off point for Jool missions.

This time around I did manage to finally get a Jool mission together and launched. Now I have a Minion probe with Kethane detector around each moon of Jool. All unmanned as I am still designing the replenish ships for the jool system.

I haven't played through the Wiki missions tho I will prolly take a look today and se what al the fuss about.

Alacrity

[The Jedi Master]

I do it like a real space program would do it: What haven't we done yet that can be done? It goes slowly up the scale in difficulty, like this:

*Unmanned Suborbital

*Manned Suborbital

*Unmanned Orbital

*Manned Orbital

*Unmanned Mun Orbit

*Unmanned Mun Landing

This continues on, and before you know it you have a base on Tylo that occasionally docks with the space station in orbit for crew transfers. I like the wiki campaign, too, even though it does have an advanced case of K Syndrome (I mean, come on, kontracts? seriously?).

[CoriW]

Back around 0.19 I was always sending missions all over the place all the time, I literally had at least one ship at each planet at all times.

But once 0.20 came out I started to re-consider how I was playing the game, I found that if I did too much too quickly then I would get easily bored while playing the game because I had literally done everything I could think of at the time. So what I decided to do was to start taking it slow in sort of a step by step method, the first thing I'll do is get some satellites up around Kerbin, then tinker around with some escape pod and launch abort system designs to make sure the crew of manned vessels will be safe, after that I do some sub-orbital and orbital flights.

Only after some successful orbital flights will I actually begin to reach out to the Mun, once there I typically do some orbital stuff and get some satellites up followed by some landings. Usually will get some Kethane mining going on and then I'll begin to reach out to Minmus.

As you can see I try to keep it going fairly slow and work my way up in distance from Kerbin, actually in my last 2 saves I've been doing so much stuff with the Mun that I haven't even gotten to the point of getting anything out to Minmus, let alone other planets. Recently my last few sessions on KSP I've been working on a reusable launch vehicle that I can launch up to orbit, undock the payload, land back at KSC, then use KAS to refuel and reload a new payload back onto the docking port again. (Hurray for reusable launch vehicles! It's going to be invaluable come career mode and a budget.)

So anyways, that's pretty much what I've been doing since mid 0.20, and what I've been working on recently. I hope that gave you some idea's.

[Eussorus]

Well, me and a fellow friend weren't exactly too happy with the quality of the missions on the wiki, so we sat down and wrote up an entire space race for me and him to do. It mostly follows NASA's path, but it is still quite fun for the most part. At least until you mess up several times in a row, then it tends to get a bit tense and frustrating knowing that you're behind.

[Lazro]

I would do everything I could with my space program's current technology. Push limits! If I learned anything from playing BARIS, it is be bold!

[annallia]

I never used the wiki missions. My first weeks were spent throwing things together and seeing if they worked. Once I figured out how something worked I improved on it, then I improved some more and so on.

That said I do set my own sort of campaigns but I don't follow through and do them all at once. Operation Snow Cone, a manned rover fleet that would drill for kethane on the Dunar polar ice caps was built in stages with other missions going on while I worked on it. Operation Snack Stand, a station orbiting Duna is in the same boat. I built the parts for the start of the station, put them in a parking orbit and went on with other operations while I waited for my window to come up.

Even now when I have to design the second section of the station (parts 1-3 were section 1) and a new tug I am working on other campaigns of mine. Minmus colony is being designed and tested, sent a probe to laythe, new satellites around Kerbin, further munar exploration. Point is I don't always go in one direction, I split it up to basically whatever I feel like doing that day. Yesterday was a space plane which still has some work to do, today is a vtol sto made from stock parts.

[Akinesis]

Thanks for all the responses, folks!

There is a really diverse approach here (yes I know... sandbox!). I started playing in 0.20 and I didn't venture further than the Kerbin moons (last thing I did was land on Minmus). And then when I heard about the saves breaking I concentrated on building space shuttles. Along side that, I started designing a program to follow based on the Wiki 'Kampaign' -yes, those damn 'K's'- which I threw in a lot of additional elements from the real space race, taking bits of both America and Russian (I'm going on the basis that Kerbin is a united planet). Reason for it is because I didn't want to do too much too quickly and then get bored, which I see posted form time-to-time - even on this thread. I went one step further and I now document each mission with notes (mainly events) which I've then recently started typing up in a blog for my own archive, if nothing else. I've gone to town with it, I know. But I am having a ball with the controlled slow-pace and no quick-saves. I realised today that I haven't been paying attention to my rocket design enough (way too overpowered!!), so I've spent some time doing some decent testing and adjusting. It's bugging me at the moment because there's some stuff I've overlooked which almost makes me want to start again, which is why I'm interested in what other people do so I can absorb any extra ideas.

That's a good point on the launch windows. That's why probes are launched when they are, because it could be a while before the opportunity comes back around! More thinking to do... lol And I know it, probably, all won't matter once career mode is here.

I'd be interested in looking at your program, Eussorus (if you don't mind sharing). I'll post mine up on my Blog once I have progressed it a little more.

Thanks for the responses.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

My campaign goes like this:

1. Unmanned suborbital

2. Unmanned orbital

3. Manned suborbital

4. Manned orbital

5. Unmanned mun flypast

6. Unmanned mun orbit

7. Manned mun orbit

8. Unmanned mun landing

9. Manned munar landing

10. Repeat 5-9 for other moons and planets

11. Docking in orbit

12. Space station construction

13. Mun station

14. Mun base

15. Repeat 11-14 for other planets and moons

16. Unmanned kerbolar escape

17. Manned kerbolar escape

The end

[BananaLee]

My signature probably says it.. The campaign's a great way to slowly learn each and every piece of spacing (from just focusing on getting into orbit to - for me right now, at least - trying to do the first docking ops).