Any suggestion to make the game more challenging ?

[Maxwell Fern]

Hi there,

I humbly consider myself an experienced KSP player. Prior to .24, I always designed small, minimalist rockets that would do exactly what I needed, nothing more nothing less. And it's really paying off now...

Right now I'm using a selection of mods to make the game harder and more realistic:

- Deadly Reentry, "hard mode" (everything burns up during reentry, unless it is shielded)

- TAC Life Support

- FAR

- Remote Tech 2 (although it's kinda buggy right now, which basically means I never transmit anything, only recover)

And of course I disabled quicksave/quickload, revert and respawns in the debug menu.

So far, I'm having a blast. This new irreversibility of my actions really made me re-discover the game. Every mission is carefully planned, has at least one contingency plan, every ship has an "abort" action group to try and save its pilot(s) in case of a Rapid Unplanned Disassembly. And many destructions occured. Many unfortunate deaths, too.

However, I literrally never look at that number in the lower left corner of the VAB/SPH, and never got anywhere near a financial situation. The entire Funds and Reputation part of this update is oblivious to me. I just pick contracts that fit my goals, and do my things.

Am I the only one on that case ? What could I do to really need to watch over how I spend my money ?

Thanks

Edited July 23, 2014 by Maxwell Fern

[morph113]

Well regarding the money spending I don't know. But for an increased challenge (you didn't mention you do it), you can fly in IVA and use the mod rasterprop monitor for it, which makes your IVA interactive and you can use cameras to see the outside, show your orbit, vessel information etc. on the monitors inside the vessel. So you basically fly IVA only (no map, no maneuver nodes) and try landing on the mun and get back and stuff like that. This compared with the other realism mods plus no F5 or revert will make for a nice challenge I guess. If thats not hard enough, try going to Duna in IVA without map, now that should keep you occupied

[Xavven]

Hey, Maxwell! Those mods are a great start for increasing the game difficulty. Have you considered self-imposed restrictions as well? For example, no command chairs except for rovers, landers must have at least TWO kerbonauts, long missions must have a hithiker container to simulate living quarters, no asparagus, etc.? This forces you to build larger rockets to fit the bigger payload, and thus costs more money.

I know some folks have figured out how to edit one of the game files to increase the cost of all parts by 3x or more. Can someone chime in on how to do that?

Lastly, you could intentionally not take "transmit science around X" contracts where you already have a satellite, and perhaps even self-impose the restriction that interplanetary missions must have a fully blown space station in orbit in the system to serve as living quarters while the kerbonauts wait for the right phase angles for the return to Kerbin. The space station must have multiple hitchhiker containers, a mobile lab, and 4 gigantor solar panel arrays minimum.

[Diazo]

For me, the "tweak difficulty" mod is the ISP Scaler mod.

Set the ISP modifiers at 80% and you have roughly increased the amount of fuel you need to do anything by 20%. (One of the presets does that, FAR to Stock I think it is.)

Needing to bring more fuel along requires larger vessels, more fuel tanks, more stages, etc....

Does not actually change gameplay like the mods linked in your opening post, just makes you build bigger (and spend more funds) to accomplish the same objectives.

D.

[Maxwell Fern]

Thanks for your replies, I'll give them a try.

I know some folks have figured out how to edit one of the game files to increase the cost of all parts by 3x or more. Can someone chime in on how to do that?

This sounds the most interesting. Anyone ?

[Tortoise]

I recomment "Engine Ignitor" as-well.

That's all I can think of right now.

And no mechjeb. If anything, KoS.

[Superfluous J]

I think this will work, assuming you have modulemanager installed. Make a *.cfg file and put it in your gamedata folder, and in it:

@PART[*] {
	@cost *= 3
}

If it's not right, it's really close. I can't test it right now.

[Tortoise]

Oh yeah, also install RSS. That'll give you some real difficulty.

And maybe Near-Future too.

[KerbMav]

.

You are almost there.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87587-Higher-Part-Cost

[Superfluous J]

You are almost there.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/87587-Higher-Part-Cost

Hey he asked for parts, not resources!

But no, I didn't really think about it that much and didn't know about that post. When I'm ready to restrict my game way down I'll surely be referencing that. Thanks!

[Fingal]

Drink half a bottle of whisky before you attempt any landings. Finish the bottle before rendezvousing and docking.

[TrooperCooper]

Wait for the next BTSM mod update for 0.24.

[-ELF-]

One suggestion that will affect \Funds will be to not accept any contracts related to testing parts. Only scientific ones, flag plantings and so on. And of course, each time accepting a contract to get scientific data from somewhere - send a ship there, even if you have 20 similar already orbiting the same place. Also, if the transmitted science value will be 0 - do not take this contract, science pool is exhausted.

Flag planting follows the same rules - only a totally new mission.

Add the rotation of personnel. All kerbals in orbit must be replaced with some new blood at least once per year. This will make you send more ships for something that not gives you \Funds, thus spending them...

[victory143]

Manufacturing parts

[sarkun]

The SpacePlaneProgram - Play the game as normal... but do not use VAB, only SPH. All crafts must take off like planes (so no cheating and building rockets in SPH). Prioritise tech that focuses on aerodynamics and plane parts. Try to fill entire tech tree, launch interplanetary missions, etc.

I did not invent this, saw a forum thread a while back - so it can be done (at least could be before contracts). I'm planning to try this for my new 0.24 career save.

[Tobyz28]

Hi there,

I humbly consider myself an experienced KSP player. Prior to .24, I always designed small, minimalist rockets that would do exactly what I needed, nothing more nothing less. And it's really paying off now...

Right now I'm using a selection of mods to make the game harder and more realistic:

- Deadly Reentry, "hard mode" (everything burns up during reentry, unless it is shielded)

- TAC Life Support

- FAR

- Remote Tech 2 (although it's kinda buggy right now, which basically means I never transmit anything, only recover)

And of course I disabled quicksave/quickload, revert and respawns in the debug menu.

So far, I'm having a blast. This new irreversibility of my actions really made me re-discover the game. Every mission is carefully planned, has at least one contingency plan, every ship has an "abort" action group to try and save its pilot(s) in case of a Rapid Unplanned Disassembly. And many destructions occured. Many unfortunate deaths, too.

However, I literrally never look at that number in the lower left corner of the VAB/SPH, and never got anywhere near a financial situation. The entire Funds and Reputation part of this update is oblivious to me. I just pick contracts that fit my goals, and do my things.

Am I the only one on that case ? What could I do to really need to watch over how I spend my money ?

Thanks

The #1 thing you can do to make the game much more challenging is to never revert to launch or VAB. Makes mistakes much more costly

Secondly, if you find the game still too easy $ wise, Adjust the cost of science experiments and radio equipment drastically to reflect the R&D or infrastructure costs . This can be done in the config files for each part. The antenna may be cheap but you need a control centre funded behind the scenes to really use it, same goes with science data!

[Liowen]

You really want a challenge try using Modular Kolonization System and make bases that can fend for themselves.

[WeirdCulture]

In that fact you plan, every mission carefully, just for the immersion: Telemachus

[Cdr_Zeta]

Hi,

I have the last 2 mods mentioned above and have yet to try them.

I added required Science on the nodes 30-40% increase on the vertical default node lines; no 10 18 45's etc - try 25, 50, 100, 150, 250, 500, 750, 1000; this will make the middle game a good challenge.

It took me 3 days to sort out the mods in the Science Tree; treeloader is my friend (32bit mode only).

I had a thread going about changing funds; actually now it is a question of mission payout amounts that I want cut in half, and the part recoveries cut by 25%; IE 25% reduction in part recovery; I think the current amount is too small.

Stage Recovery which I have but not tested yet should compensate a little for the drop.

I dont know how to change the 'no revert' which I defintely need because I read it can mess up the economy system in KSP; how do I do this?

I went into the persistance file after game start and set no respawn of lost Kerbals to TRUE - or whatever I forget; anyways they dont respawn they are gone forever.

I added a Jeep in the survivability node; ya they should have wheels to get around; also this may be needed for some compensation too.

Cmdr Zeta

[munseeker]

My personal ground rules to make it more interesting: Enforced living space,

For missions over one week, the total living space has to be 2x the number of Kerbals.

For over one month, 4x.

This means if 3 Kerbals go to Duna, there better be space for at least 12 Kerbals on that ship. It's the Union rules. :-)

[Ruthgar]

Would like to point out asparragus staging is used by space agencies in real life, though I can't recall if it's liquid or solid rocket boosters that they do so with. Think it's SRB asparragus staging that they typically do, could be wrong.

Also I know there's a mod or two (can't recall the names off the top of my head) that you can use to tweak the amount of science you get. Once I get my manned duna/eve & possibly Jool sat manned explorations done in my current .24 career, I think I'll be loading one of those mods and tweaking the science experiments down to 20% (Current .24 career is currently at 5k science with all techs researched, and haven't done a manned mission outside of Kerbin SOI yet, unmanned missions only have moho, dres, and eeloo left to do)

[Grover]

Would like to point out asparragus staging is used by space agencies in real life, though I can't recall if it's liquid or solid rocket boosters that they do so with. Think it's SRB asparragus staging that they typically do, could be wrong.

Also I know there's a mod or two (can't recall the names off the top of my head) that you can use to tweak the amount of science you get. Once I get my manned duna/eve & possibly Jool sat manned explorations done in my current .24 career, I think I'll be loading one of those mods and tweaking the science experiments down to 20% (Current .24 career is currently at 5k science with all techs researched, and haven't done a manned mission outside of Kerbin SOI yet, unmanned missions only have moho, dres, and eeloo left to do)

Its a european liquid fuel launch vehicle, cant recall which one, but altough it is used, in KSP it is a lot more expensive, since a liquid engine alone with no fuel costs more than a comparable solid fuel motor.

[Red Iron Crown]

Would like to point out asparragus staging is used by space agencies in real life, though I can't recall if it's liquid or solid rocket boosters that they do so with. Think it's SRB asparragus staging that they typically do, could be wrong.

Asparagus staging has not been done in real life, and SRB asparagus cannot possibly work in KSP or real life. The critical thing in asparagus is feeding all engines from a single pair of tanks at a time, something only possible with KSP's unlimited-flow fuel lines.

There's a couple of designs with simple crossfeed to the core from radial boosters on the drawing board, but nothing closer than that to real life asparagus.

[monstah]

Deadly Reentry, "hard mode" (everything burns up during reentry, unless it is shielded)

Could you elaborate on that? I have DR installed, but I've had Skylab-style larger debris surviving the reentry more than once, plus some happy accidents where I ejected the heatshield prematurely, but the pod managed to survive somehow.

Drink half a bottle of whisky before you attempt any landings. Finish the bottle before rendezvousing and docking.

THIS. BEST. ADVICE. E-VERRRR.

[Bloodlance]

alt+f12

remove quicksave and rollbacks to launchpad and design screen.

= harder