Are you preparing?

[Wesmark]

Are you getting ready for .24? With it being confirmed to have contracts and money, are you creating a fleet of rockets that can launch a commercial satellite to a low/geo/polar orbit?

[regex]

Nope, doing nothing of the sort. In fact, I suspect career mode will need a lot more polishing even after 0.24 before it's ready for proper play. Should be fun for a few days, though.

[SRV Ron]

Such rockets were tested long ago career

And some extremely inexpensive SSTO ones.

Including a KSP version of Minotaur V

Edited January 21, 2014 by SRV Ron

[Kasuha]

When 0.24 comes out I'll start a new career and play it from scratch. So no preparations necessary.

[theend3r]

I've fallen in love with SSTOs recently but my designs are not sufficient for the more distant locations (e.g. Jool's moons), so I've stated to build and distribute many refuelling stations with ridiculous amount of fuel, usually above ten jumbos left in their final orbits. Unless I start a new save money shouldn't be a problem

[Tada]

Ground refueled SSTOs will be suddenly useful

[Vanamonde]

I wouldn't spend a lot of time preparing for .24 just yet. Remember, the guys took some time off for the holidays. It's not coming soon.

[_Aramchek_]

No, because I don't care about a career mode, the sandbox is far more fun for me.

But I'll have to look and see what else is confirmed for.24

[KerbMav]

Your are not prepared!

For me changes to career mode warrent a new save - so preparing for me means to try and finish my goals in my current save - and probably not doing so once more ... but keeps it fresh in a way ...

[sgtscuba]

I wouldn't spend a lot of time preparing for .24 just yet. Remember, the guys took some time off for the holidays. It's not coming soon.

^this, so I am just getting on with my current career, and see what I learn along the way. (yay KAS)

[Bean]

With money actually coming, a refueling depot at KSC would be really useful. Any mods out there for that sort of thing or do you have to make a fuel tanker on the runway?

[Flowz0r]

Don't you think it's a little early to prepare for .24 now?

Judging by the recent patch cycle, we're months away from a stable update.

[theend3r]

With money actually coming, a refueling depot at KSC would be really useful. Any mods out there for that sort of thing or do you have to make a fuel tanker on the runway?

Recover and relaunch = refuel.

[ArmchairGravy]

I'm trying to develop better habits for when money becomes an issue. Instead of massively over-engineered, bring only the command pod back type of missions, I'm trying to go as efficient as possible, recover as much as possible. This means I've been crashing the heck out of SSTOs.

[Epthelyn]

I'm trying to develop better habits for when money becomes an issue. Instead of massively over-engineered, bring only the command pod back type of missions, I'm trying to go as efficient as possible, recover as much as possible. This means I've been crashing the heck out of SSTOs.

I've been doing this, but not in prep for anything; I just feel that after a hundred hours of crashing very large and very unstable rockets I should try to make things that don't require 8 mainsails to launch, or at least build a launcher that reliably doesn't fall apart (my current heavy lifter falls apart 25% of the time, on the launchpad or at around 20km up).

As with all versions, I will ask the same question: WHY PREPARE?

I mean seriously, if you're going to spend your entire gameplay time waiting for the next version you might as well play something else for a couple of years and come back. 0.23 was released and instantly people say what they want in 0.24 and ask when the release will be. A few weeks later we get these threads.

I just...yeah.

[Bean]

Recover and relaunch = refuel.

That only holds if you get near 100% return on recovering a ship, which makes sense I guess.

[Kasuha]

I strongly believe you will get no money for recovering a ship. That's the only way to keep players calm throwing off their boosters and leaving them disappear in atmosphere.

I have no idea how Squad is going to implement money but personally I'd let players gain money for launching a ship. You put a ship on launchpad, you get monetary difference between your budget and its actual price. Reusing spacecraft = no (direct) money. But you still need to get the fuel somewhere so you can pretty much launch the tanker. And it may be cheap.

Edited January 22, 2014 by Kasuha

[theend3r]

That's the only way to keep players calm throwing off their boosters and leaving them disappear in atmosphere.

So you're saying that it's wrong for an asparagus to be more expensive than a SSTO? It's just an added challenge and an incentive to not build a 1000T laucher for a trip to Mun.

[Col_Jessep]

I'm not excited for money being added to career. There is a mod that does it already. I see a problem with balance. We have seen it with science. Some players can unlock the whole science tree in a couple of launches while others need dozens. Adding budgets to the career will only widen the gap. Experienced players will now gain additional resources from successful missions while new players will have to deal with an even steeper learning curve.

IMO career mode has made many aspects of KSP boring. Look at the Youtube LPs: Before career mode you would see interesting missions to Eve, Moho, Jool... Now it's Kerbin, Mun and Minmus for weeks. By the time they reach Duna I've unsubscribed.

The only way I can enjoy career mode is if I use Real Solar System with it. It's grindy as hell but at least it's a proper challenge.

[regex]

I'm not excited for money being added to career. There is a mod that does it already. I see a problem with balance. We have seen it with science. Some players can unlock the whole science tree in a couple of launches while others need dozens. Adding budgets to the career will only widen the gap. Experienced players will now gain additional resources from successful missions while new players will have to deal with an even steeper learning curve.

I don't think the addition of money and reputation is going to be nearly as bad as you're saying since SQUAD basically has to balance against the lowest common denominator. It'll provide a speed bump or two, for sure, but how can you really restrict using money when a new player needs oodles of it to learn how to launch successfully?

IMO career mode has made many aspects of KSP boring. Look at the Youtube LPs: Before career mode you would see interesting missions to Eve, Moho, Jool... Now it's Kerbin, Mun and Minmus for weeks. By the time they reach Duna I've unsubscribed.

That's hilarious! I don't usually bother with Youtubers but if that's all they're up to nowadays it's a pretty sad day in KSP history.

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I personally am looking forward to money, if it's done right.

I don't want it to be a grind *cough* science *cough* but not to easy, maybe a slider for how much money you recover from a retuned vessel or cost of parts, invest well and get a lot of contracts, a element of strategy.

[katateochi]

Well it wasn't planned specially for 0.24, but I've got some stock SSTO's ready and some (mod based) ground crew to support them.

With money actually coming, a refueling depot at KSC would be really useful. Any mods out there for that sort of thing or do you have to make a fuel tanker on the runway?

You can use hyper edit to refill craft. You just have to set your own rules about when you are allowed to use it for refueling, I allow craft to be refueled with it if they are on the tarmac at KSC.

But I prefer building ground support crew for air craft, but the problem is that it can add some lag around KSC. I'd like to have some way of housing ground crew in a building which unloads the vehicles from the main scene, but retains their attributes (how much fuel, broken parts etc). I'd rather have that than a pre-built way to refuel craft as then its up to me to build them and a pre-built way would take away the point of building your own.

This is my ground crew atm, a tractor and two inter-changeable trailers, one for fuel and one for towing craft.

Recover and relaunch = refuel.

True, but I also like the idea of a reusable craft running multiple missions without being reloaded. I quite like the idea of sustaining some minor damage (like broken solar panels) and doing minor repairs (using the KAS mod) and then carrying on without resetting the craft back to original state.

[csanders]

They could easily have an "easy mode" that doesn't use money, and a "hard mode" that does.

[iBeej]

I suspect, staging will actually be very carefully considered and reduced by most players after economy is implemented. Why staging? Because if they give you incentive to recover all your expensive parts, you're going to reduce the amount of stages to either 1.) reduce the chances of damage and 2.) because you will have to put parachutes on literally everything you intend to drop. (which also increases weight) And once you are in orbit, you are not recovering anything without a second mission.

That's if Squad goes this route. Who knows, but it could lead to some really interesting game play and design.

[Mobjack]

No matter what they put in career mode, experienced players will find a way to exploit it real quick and it will turn into sandbox mode.

My bet is that career mode will be a way of teaching new players how to play the game with more specific missions and challenges.