The "Quickloading Withdrawal" Thread

[moeggz]

Before the release of .24 I started a thread saying that, due to the nature of contracts, I would quit quick saving and quick loading cold turkey for the .24 update. I plan to stand by that. But I was far from the first to suggest such, and wasn't the last one either.

So I figured us "hard core" (really just pain loving) players should have a thread to discuss how playing with out f5 is going. We can discuss the difficulties, the stories, death counts, or anything related to the experience of playing this way.

I'll start. I'm going through withdrawals. My fingers hover over the f5 key and I have to remind myself that I'm not using that anymore. Simple missions make me worried I could lose Jeb, yet I can't force Jeb to sit out the starting launches so I'm nervous of having my ace pilot riding all of the crafts. I'm playing much more conservatively, and planning my missions more.

That was the purpose of the change and I can honestly say that, at least for now, I am enjoying this play style very much. Now once I get a Jool capture and have to aerobrake without quick saving it may be a different story... Buy so far no regrets. How about you?

[Jarin]

The biggest temptation for me - which I have not successfully resisted at ALL - is the "revert to launch/hangar" option. I try to explain it off as 'running simulations' or somesuch, but it still sort of feels like cheating. It's just... I don't know how to design without testing, and even if I managed to make all my testbeds fully recoverable, I'd still be bleeding fuel costs for each run. =/

[quantumpion]

I wasn't going to until I saw how difficult some of the contract requirements were. Do X between 300 and 400 m/s between 9000 and 10000m? Yeah I'm going to revert a couple times to get that one...

[sickboy]

I turned off reverting and quicksaving in the debug menu entirely, which doesn't really mean much as I can always activate it but it gives me a second to breathe when stuff happens rather than mash those keys. The effects it had weren't too bad, I didn't screw up my career or anything, floating at around 800k funds right now thanks to my latest mission, a probe to Eve ( probes are worth something now, science is still bad with them, but at least I can make money out of those contracts). I would have more though had I not had to send 2 ships to the mun because the first 1 crashed (and killed Jeb) and 3 to minmus as the first one crashed (nearly killing Bill) and the second one smashed it's engine on landing. all in all though, I like it, I have to carefully plan out my missions to try and make a profit or else I may end up having to do a bunch fo random contracts if I run out of funds.

[MadChris48]

I turned off quicksaving\quickloading, and revert to launch pad or VAB. all launches final. unfortunately i've already lost the main three: Jeb, Bill, and Bob.

Initial thoughts: Some of the contracts can be weird, and consequently can be tough (and hard to do multiple contracts in a single flight). testing a large booster in orbit, for example. or one of my first missions, which i still haven't completed, is something like testing the small SRB (not sepratron) at an alt between 2500 and 6500km but at a decent clip of 380m/s plus. Both of which are pretty difficult with low tech early in career. Needless to say, playing this 'Hardcore' mode has been tough and utterly unforgiving. It's the worst feeling watching Jeb plummet to his death knowing reverting or quickloading can't save you. Or trying to get some mission done, coming up short, and having to watch it land without having done a damn thing.

Definitely tougher, makes you plan more, and favors efficient building. The challenges are great, but the rewards are oh so tasty.

P.S. the only mod i had installed still seems to work fine with the update, and adds a bit more of a challenge/realism. Remote Tech 2.

[No one]

I didn't use quickloading/quicksaving at all, so nothing is different now that I've actively turned them off.

That said, I also turned off respawning Kerbals, and now I'm terrified of anything going wrong. I'm currently going to Minmus, and rather than risking any of my precious Kerbals I'm rescuing one from Kerbin's orbit and making him land on Minmus before coming home.

[Jarin]

If I went truly hardcore, I'd have to have Bill/Bob/Jeb stuck somewhere safe first. Maybe put them in a 3-capsule ghetto-buggy and roll them under the arch in the crew facility or something.

[sickboy]

If I went truly hardcore, I'd have to have Bill/Bob/Jeb stuck somewhere safe first. Maybe put them in a 3-capsule ghetto-buggy and roll them under the arch in the crew facility or something.

You know, speaking as someone who after a couple hours already lost Jeb and Bill, I think they'd rather die doing what they love than be stuck in a boring place for eternity... or not who knows they're just characters in a video game

[ansaman]

I wasn't going to until I saw how difficult some of the contract requirements were. Do X between 300 and 400 m/s between 9000 and 10000m? Yeah I'm going to revert a couple times to get that one...

Hey, I am with you. I have a LOT of experience playing KSP and the timing for some of these research contracts boils down to less than a couple of seconds each way.

[boxman]

I will still probably hit the f5 button all the time in case i meet kraken.

I will only use the quick load if I come across a mission breaking bug like that and only if I am 100% certain that it was a bug.

[Renegrade]

I'm not too sure I could do without the revert button, for one simple reason:

All too often I launch a 1-seat rescue mission, stage, and then realize Jeb or Bob's in the only seat the instant the rocket starts climbing.

I really wish we could set a seat to 'fill' or 'not fill' by default in the VAB...

[timsfitz]

I am playing "ironman" mode as well having disabled loading and reverting in the debug menu. Poor Jeb successfully returned from both Minmus and the Mun, only to die during a stupid engine test contract when my baby cried and I forgot to pause the game. So far I am enjoying the game more than I have in a long time.

[Barklight]

I got around this by the fact that I basically never use it anyway - I keep forgetting that it's even there.

[moeggz]

I am playing "ironman" mode as well having disabled loading and reverting in the debug menu. Poor Jeb successfully returned from both Minmus and the Mun, only to die during a stupid engine test contract when my baby cried and I forgot to pause the game. So far I am enjoying the game more than I have in a long time.

I like that name for it, "ironman mode" I have to say, all these death stories are scaring me... I was only able to play the new update for an hour due to work. I've unlocked probes... Maybe I will have to play even MORE conservatively. I agree with the majority though... This style is more fun. ^^

[AlexanderB]

My Jeb got pancaked when physwarp ate the parachute, I descided not to revert. Cost me a lot of rep points too.

Since I just downloaded KER for 0.24, I don't have to run "simulation" launches to determine liftoff TWR either, so I might just turn on the "Iron Man Mode" too.

I never really used quicksaving/quickloading either, only occasionally to fine-tune aerobraking manouvers, for example. Guess I'll have to do that with actual math from now on.

[edit:] oddly enough, after a game restart, hes back alive. Odd.

Edited July 18, 2014 by AlexanderB

[0x7be]

Some idea on "Revert to ..." buttons. To balance this feature for career mode I suggest that on reverting you lose some percentage of funds. Explanation behind this feature is following: you model your flight using some supercomputer and it costs some money.

Ideally, you should chose beforehand if you are modelling flight or launching actually.

[nimbim]

I will still probably hit the f5 button all the time in case i meet kraken.

I will only use the quick load if I come across a mission breaking bug like that and only if I am 100% certain that it was a bug.

I also disabled everything except quicksave, just in case.

So far it's awesome. I didn't screw up anything yet and 1 test mission had an insane reward (~950k funds), so it feels pretty easy, but I look forward to wasting 500k or more on failed Tylo attempts. That place is a pain to land on without quickloading.

[xmaslightguy]

In my experience with this update, I've discovered a few key things. I'm currently playing without quick-loads or reverts.

- I'm using probes a whole lot more! Unless its a mission that requires a kerbal, I consistently opt for the probe so I don't risk killing my pilots

- Screw real science! I'm totally in love with the contract science rewards and focus on those rather than actual experiments now

- One at a time. I'm discovering less stress and more fun only going for one or two closely related contracts in a launch, rather than trying to get 15 and not getting a single one

Overall loving this update, and finding the experience not reduced at all by avoiding the revert launches and quickloads

[Kerbart]

The biggest temptation for me - which I have not successfully resisted at ALL - is the "revert to launch/hangar" option. I try to explain it off as 'running simulations' or somesuch, but it still sort of feels like cheating. It's just... I don't know how to design without testing, and even if I managed to make all my testbeds fully recoverable, I'd still be bleeding fuel costs for each run. =/

The way I see it is that if your ascent gets screwed up because of interfacing issues there's no "cheating" in reversing a launch. Yes, you can't do that "in real life" but we're talking about mistakes that wouldn't happen in real life either. Staging trees that get shuffled because you exchange a part, extra parts or missing parts affecting balance because symmetry mode was activated or deactivated when you didn't expect, etc.

[Soda Popinski]

I tried. I really tried. I too also lost Jeb*, Bill and Bob (no respawns). Started a new game, and on my first rescue mission from orbit, I kept killing the kerbal when deploying the chute due to g-forces. Playing with Deadly Re-entry 2 will be difficult.

*Jeb and maybe Bill died due to mod incompatibility issues - parachutes wouldn't deploy until I removed RealChutes. Bob was due to incorrect staging. R.I.P.

[Geschosskopf]

I'm good enough at designing and flying rockets that they usually work the 1st time. And I don't care about the safety of Kerbals because all mine are pressganged vagrants we're trying to get rid of anyway. So in theory I could do without quicksaves. I rarely revert and in many cases I can't anyway because I never have just 1 ship in flight, I have dozens I'm always switching between. However, there are 2 reasons that I continue to quicksave religiously.

1. Aerobraking:

The map view currently does not take atmospheric drag into account when showing your future path, so there is no way to know if you put your Pe at the correct altitude without actually playing it through. And I'm not going to go to the trouble of building, launching, and flying a 20-ship flotilla to Jool only to have the mission collapse because of failed aerocapture passes. No, I'm going to tweak my Pe, quicksave, see how it works, and if I don't like the results, reload and adjust the Pe. For each ship in the flotilla.

2. Bugs

KSP is pretty stable but it does burp periodically. When it does, I don't want to have to start over from scratch, especially if it happens towards the end of a complex flotilla mission that's gone flawlessly to that point.

Videographers would add a 3rd:

3. Multiple Camera Angles and Retakes

IMHO doing without quicksaves is only a daredevil sort of thing if you don't have a whole lot going on in your game. Beyond a certain level of complexity, however, quicksaving is a necesessity.

[Epthelyn]

I find myself pressing F5 every so often even though I've disabled everything (and I mean everything. No QL/QS, no revert. Launching anything costs money, and reverting after a test flight is like cheating in money ).

However, I've yet to regret doing that* but at the same time I haven't left Kerbin's SoI on my 0.24 Career save. I'm sure I'll hate myself when Jool, Moho and Eeloo are involved.

*Almost. I over-warped towards the Mun and found myself travelling at 600m/s at fairly low altitude with only a 909 to slow me down (2-3G acceleration on the lander I was using, but eh...), immediately pushed the throttle to full and managed to pull off a perfect landing; I reached 0m/s at exactly the moment the landed touched down. It's a shame I didn't save the Shadowplay recording of that...

[SlyReaper]

The biggest temptation for me - which I have not successfully resisted at ALL - is the "revert to launch/hangar" option. I try to explain it off as 'running simulations' or somesuch, but it still sort of feels like cheating. It's just... I don't know how to design without testing, and even if I managed to make all my testbeds fully recoverable, I'd still be bleeding fuel costs for each run. =/

If you're a real engineer, you do test runs. I see no reason to feel guilty about reverting to hangar.

[Skigazzi]

So...what Im reading here is that the Immortals are no longer immortal in career mode?? if thats the case, Im going to take a mulligan, and restart (Im only the first few basic missions in). I killed Jeb during a very daring attempt to get SCIENCE while descending very quickly in the reach 5000m mission.

Edit - I also pretend I have a simulator for brief test flights to make sure A) the thing doesn't fall apart sitting still Has aerodynamics that make flight at least remotely possible C) make sure the chute doesn't deploy in the first stage.

Simulator only runs to 70,000m in my world..after that, they are on their own

Edited July 18, 2014 by Skigazzi

[Geschosskopf]

So...what Im reading here is that the Immortals are no longer immortal in career mode?? if thats the case, Im going to take a mulligan, and restart (Im only the first few basic missions in). I killed Jeb during a very daring attempt to get SCIENCE while descending very quickly in the reach 5000m mission.

All Kerbals respawn unless you turn that off in the new ALT-F12 menu settings. Then no Kerbals respawn.