Which of these sounds like a good self challenge for stock career?

[Dave Kerbin]

I kind of have a thing for early career mode play - I like working with restrictions rather then huge sandbox missions. My .23 career file and my probe only careers are examples of that. They tend to wear out once I've progressed beyond technical limitations and reach the sandbox stage.

I've got a few ideas to challenge myself for a career and I'd like feedback - what you think would be challenging, what you might want to see documented/explored for your own reading enjoyment and what original ideas you might have.

My first challenge rule I call slow scientists: When using science points you must always unlock the least expensive item on the tech tree. This means that once you pass the starter technologies you'll be restricted to choosing techs from the current tier only (45pt, 90pt, etc). There is still strategy in deciding what to unlock but you can't just beeline toward the GravMax anymore which means science point will come much slower.

My second potential challenge rule is lazy engineers: All boosters must follow the same design - 2 fuel tanks and an engine in the center, and an optional set of identical radial boosters consisting of 1 fuel tank, 1 engine and 1 nose cone on radial decouplers using onion staging. The selection of engines and fuel tanks is open but the ship must not use any other propulsion until the boosters have all been released. By limiting the booster design it creates an upper limit on how much weight can be put into LKO at each stage in the tech tree.

An alternative booster rule is skyscrapers only: Boosters cannot use any radial decouplers/fuel tanks/engines. It must be one tall stack (couplers are allowed, so you can have 3 tanks side by side fairly early). Like the lazy engineer rule it attempts to restrict the mass of the payload based on tech tree progress only more so.

I'm thinking I could do a slow scientists building skyscrapers only run, what other restrictions could I place to make it interesting. Is there any good sounding or interesting rule I could use to avoid just landing on the Mun 20 times to collect the whole tech tree?

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As requested here is a list of the rules suggested for making stock more challenging. If you put your rule's name in bold it will make it easier for me to add it here.

(Red Iron Crown)

No massless objects: No fuel lines or struts.

Staging is for wimps: No decouplers with engines above them. Decouplers only permitted for unpowered capsule recovery.

Moons are overrated: Collect no science from the Mun or Minmus.

Go West, young man: All launches must be in the westerly, retrograde direction, whether from Kerbin or another body.

Speed limit strictly enforced: Limit thrust of all engines via tweakables to some arbitrary percentage, say 80%.

Jeb, Bill and Bob forever: You may not recruit Kerbals and you may not revert flights.

(JumpsterG, named by LordQ)

One mission one discovery: Only 1 science unlock allowed following each dedicated science gathering or significant roleplay mission, regardless of the science points collected.

(ScallopPotato)

Selective inclination: All launches from Kerbin must go into polar orbits or an orbit of at least 45 degrees of inclination (choose one of the two)

We went here last year: You can't do 2 missions to the same body back to back (passing by a body doesn't count, so going to Ike after Duna is ok). Additionally Minmus is prettier then the Mun, so you can't do a mission to the Mun if the last mission visited Minmus. And finally Kerbin doesn't count as a vacation, so you can do as many missions as you want there but it won't count as a break between missions to another body (you can't do Mun, Kerbin, Mun because that would count as Mun, Mun).

(Pds314)

Space program of one: Jeb must fly all manned missions and must not die. No reverts or quicksaves.

(sdj64)

Corporate rivalry: No using any Rockomax parts.

Slow computer challenge: Keep all of your ships under a specific part count, say, 50 or 100.

Edited March 4, 2014 by Dave Kerbin

[Red Iron Crown]

Some ideas to increase difficulty if you're unwilling to mod:

No massless objects: No fuel lines or struts.

Staging is for wimps: No decouplers with engines above them. Decouplers only permitted for unpowered capsule recovery.

Moons are overrated: Collect no science from the Mun or Minmus.

Go West, young man: All launches must be in the westerly, retrograde direction, whether from Kerbin or another body.

Speed limit strictly enforced: Limit thrust of all engines via tweakables to some arbitrary percentage, say 80%.

Jeb, Bill and Bob forever: You may not recruit Kerbals and you may not revert flights.

[JumpsterG]

I don't have a catchy name for it, but for my first career game I limited myself to only 1 science unlock (coincidentally following the slow scientists rule) following each dedicated science gathering or significant roleplay mission, regardless of the science points collected. This was fun because I could reward myself for things the game currently doesn't, like putting up a large space station or a communication array (assuming I had pooled enough science).

A second rule I used was to only use prebuilt lifters/tugs (saved as assemblies). I would design a lifter around a dummy payload (say 10 tons), test and refine it until it was reliable, and would only then be able to design science missions that could fit on my existing lifter design. It was nice to become familiar with particular designs that stuck around for a long time.

[Rakaydos]

I'm playing a game inspired by someone's Spaceplane Only carear mode. Getting the first liftoff with sideway SRBs and capsule torque was interesting, but now I'm trying to get enough fuel in orbit to stock a minmus lander. (getting an orbit at all before turbojets was also a challange)

[Dave Kerbin]

I think I might have a rule to nicely handle Mun spam without making it strickly one landing per body:

The we went here last year rule: You can't do 2 missions to the same body back to back (passing by a body doesn't count, so going to Ike after Duna is ok). Additionally Minmus is prettier then the Mun, so you can't do a mission to the Mun if the last mission visited Minmus. And finally Kerbin doesn't count as a vacation, so you can do as many missions as you want there but it won't count as a break between missions to another body (you can't do Mun, Kerbin, Mun because that would count as Mun, Mun).

This way I don't paint myself into a corner with too little science and no reachable bodies left, but at the same time I can't send lots of missions to the Mun or swap between the Mun and Minmus.

[Death Engineering]

If you're looking for a Career mode challenge, look here: Better Than Starting Manned . As the name implies, you don't get crewed pods until you unlock them, includes Deadly Re-entry and implements Electric Charge in meaningful (and very challenging) ways.

Edit: ...and new science parts, new science goals, life-support..

Edited March 2, 2014 by Death Engineering

[Ph34rb0t]

Try Mission Controller Extended.

Losing a probe and booster to a design oversight will, from then on, be way more painful than losing a Kerbal (because money).

[Red Iron Crown]

OP is asking for stock career challenges, not mods.

[kiwiak]

How about visiting all planets with same lander? Of course various transfer stages coudl be delivered across tour (put them on specific orbits before, or send during journey), but lander and pilots stays the same.

[Red Iron Crown]

I'm not sure that's possible. Because Eve and Tylo.

[kiwiak]

I'm not sure that's possible. Because Eve and Tylo.

So, for these planets additional descent/ascent stage can be used. But "core" of lander stays the same.

[Red Iron Crown]

Still not sure it's possible. It takes a really small final stage to make an Eve return lander work (needs >11km/s of delta V), even with a final stage of just a capsule, a small tank and a lightweight engine the lander still ends up in the 150 ton range. Trying to get a complete lander back up is going to require a truly enormous craft if it's possible at all.

Edited March 2, 2014 by Red Iron Crown

[Dave Kerbin]

OP is asking for stock career challenges, not mods.

Actually I liked that suggestion so much that I went ahead and started on it. It's really enjoyable, brings back a lot of the wonder of discovering things for the first time and has presented me with some real challenges. It did help that a life support/realism modded experience was on my list of potential careers, I just hadn't found the mod or combination of mods that would create a truly new experience and not just require me to carry a few extra pounds.

How about visiting all planets with same lander? Of course various transfer stages coudl be delivered across tour (put them on specific orbits before, or send during journey), but lander and pilots stays the same.

I'm not really big on big challenges. My .23 career stalled when I unlocked the whole tech tree and was left with missions like returning from Eve. I like challenges that are more along the lines of "here is a task of normal difficulty, but I want you to do it using only...".

[LordQ]

Woah, a lot of good ideas on this thread. I hadn't planned to start another career mode for a while, but Slow Scientists + We came here last year + One mission one discovery sounds like it might be quite interesting.

I was also thinking of a stock probe only run as well to force me to visit all the different planets and such.

[Andon]

I'm thinking we should start a list of these "Rules" for people. could be neat to see what people come up with.

[ScallopPotato]

How about Selective inclination: All launches from Kerbin must go into polar orbits or an orbit of at least 45 degrees of inclination (choose one of the two). It's a challenge that gives you the opportunity to see more parts of Kerbin from space. It also complicates interplanetary missions.

[LordQ]

I'm thinking we should start a list of these "Rules" for people. could be neat to see what people come up with.

We could do that in this thread if Dave is willing to edit his post and add these rules.

[Arran]

ATM doing something simulair, but in exploration, one planet at the time.. fully explore this, and then move on to the next, with slow research, i dont go to the next tier until the current tier is fully unlocked.

i managed under normal play to complete all tiers in 2/3 days normal play time, this challenge, allready at it for a week, and still working on Minmus

[Jimbimbibble]

Playing probes first with RemoteTech 2 installed could be an interesting combination. It would definitely be harder than stock.

[Weegee]

Right now I'm doing a career with the Better Than Starting Manned mod. It's quite interesting and provides a new type of challenge. I suggest you check it out here.

[Pds314]

Space program of one: Jeb must fly all manned missions and must not die. No reverts or quicksaves.

[sdj64]

Here's a few ideas:

Corporate Rivalry: no using any Rockomax parts.

Slow Computer Challenge: keep all of your ships under a specific part count, say, 50 or 100.

[Andon]

Here's one of mine I've been using:

Rockets don't grow on trees: Rockets can't be launched less than a month apart