Which gamemode are you playing? Sandbox, career or science, with or without mods?

[nremies1]

Playing a science-only save which was a career game before the patch. I'll start a contracts career mode eventually but I didn't want to have to deal with it since I am still just trying to learn how to build stuff that works. Penny-pinching can wait.

[Volcanix]

I said "without mods" but to be totally accurate I do have Kerbal engineer redux installed, I just don't use it and haven't removed it (not sure it even works in .24).

I don't think KER is a really gameplay-changing mod. It just provides information, it doesn't change anything. I also use it and it's really practical to know how many ∆V your ship has.

[MarvinKitFox]

I tried career mode again for a while, but I didn't like it. By default, you get way too much money for the costs to matter. If you tweak the rewards from contracts, the game forces you to concentrate on recovery and other bureaucratic stuff, instead of building rockets and flying missions.

Try contracts without access to a timemachine or TARDIS for cheating.

i.e.

Disable revert mission.

Disable quicksave.

Disable Undead Jeb from resurrecting himself.

You will be amazed at how much more challenging, and thus FUN, it can be!

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/60181-Disabling-quicksave-quickload-and-revert-flight-in-a-campaign

[MarvinKitFox]

Myself, I play contracts (career), with mechjeb.

MJ only for the tedious delta-v calcs, and for the inflight data such as apogee, etc.

[Jouni]

Disable revert mission.

Disable quicksave.

Disable Undead Jeb from resurrecting himself.

You will be amazed at how much more challenging, and thus FUN, it can be!

I'm sure you meant "tedious, and thus BORING" instead of "challenging, and thus FUN".

I'm more interested in big missions these days. When a single mission takes tens of hours, the real options are either using reverts and quickloads liberally, or practicing for hundreds of hours before each mission.

[Claw]

Myself, I play contracts (career), with mechjeb.

MJ only for the tedious delta-v calcs, and for the inflight data such as apogee, etc.

Yes. If this information was in Stock, I would probably go completely clean. (Even giving up Alarm.)

Like Jouni, I would disagree with lack of quicksaves (at least at this point in my KSP life). I don't like spending all that time just to find out that my aerobrake was to high or to low. Or some random bug caused my kerbal to poof out of existence. I already spend a lot of time designing and planning. If I didn't allow myself to ever quickload, I would only ever sit around overdesigning everything. That's just my personality though...

Also, having some quicksaves lying around is nice for those times when the persistence gets eaten for some reason.

~Claw

[Pecan]

Sandbox, as we have discuseed, partly because I dislike the tech-tree organisation but mostly I'm too busy with sandbox builds anyway.

Mods we didn't talk much about. Currently I'm using:

Action Groups Extended (AGX) - 250 action groups that can be edited in flight

Active Texture Management (ATM) - saves memory, for more mods!

Aviation Lights - nav lights, although I'm not sure they're really necessary or useful

Bargain Rockets - go to space in a cardboard box! (a funny parts-mod that makes the sorts of ships a kid might build in the garden)

Chatterer - Proudly boasts it is "totally useless, totally fun"; it is. Adds meaningless random radio-chatter and beeps that just make things feel more 'alive' **Highly Recommended**

Connected Living Space (CLS) - (dependency of SM, below) calculates parts Kerbals can move through - such as docking ports - so they can move between parts without EVA

Environmental Visual Enhancements (EVE) - Pretty clouds!

Kerbal Alarm Clock (KAC) - set reminders for manoeuvre and other events so you don't forget them or time-warp past them. Indispensable when you have several flights in progress. ***Essential***

Kerbin Cup - Footballs, courtesy of Squad. Not that I've ever used them.

KerbQuake - would be "totally useless, totally fun" if Chatterer hadn't already grabbed that claim. Adds camera-shake in IVA view for acceleration and atmospheric turbulence.

KSI MFD - (dependency of RPM, below) better Multi-Function Displays in IVA view.

MechJeb (MJ) - information display and autopilot. ***Essential (or replace with KER/VOID)***

Module Manager (MM) - (dependency of several other mods) a 'behind the scenes' mod that others use

NavBallDockingAlignmentIndicator (Get An Abbreviation!) - adds a docking-alignment indicator to the, er, navball. Did you guess? **Highly Recommended (or replace with NavyFish's original)**

NavUtils - landing and other navigation instruments, more pretty displays I use in IVA.

NRAP - configurable test weight. Saves having to make dummy payloads for test flights.

Procedural Fairings (PF) - streamlined fairings, just adds to mass and part-count with stock aerodynamics but still looks good.

RasterPropMonitor (RPM) - Wonderful IVA instruments with lots of buttons to click and things to look at and all sorts of add ons and... you get the idea **Highly Recommended**

SCANSat - mapping satellites. Great fun but non-intrusive **Highly Recommended**

Ship Manifest (SM) - transfer crew and resources (fuel, electricity, etc.) between parts of a ship

SH_mk2CockpitInternal - IVA for the stock Mk2 cockpit (having problems getting RPM to work with this at the moment)

Toolbar - (dependency of several other mods) a toolbar mod that others use, being replaced (?) by the stock toolbar

TT Mk3 IVA - IVA for the stock Mk3 cockpit (having RPM problems with this too)

Vessel Viewer (VVRPM) - diagrammatic ship display, in IVA!

[Volcanix]

I've just installed hell of a lot of mods.

Erm, okay, so that's my mod folder, I guess.. wait.. http://imgur.com/Pciy1d6 this is it. Yes, I'm using a Mac. Yes, I know it's not a gaming computer, but the performance is great. And no, I've not just bought it for gaming, my grandparents bought me it for school and stuff like that. Just to cover some questions.

I just hope this won't crash my game and enhance my gameplay, thanks a lot! Maybe i should also add TAC Life Support... well, first i should really ... build a space station without accidentally quick loading so i can do everything from the beginning. ._.

Edit: First got a blackscreen when loading, now it works after removing Kethane from the mods.. Don't ask, I've got no idea.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Volcanix

[Wanderfound]

I tried career mode again for a while, but I didn't like it. By default, you get way too much money for the costs to matter. If you tweak the rewards from contracts, the game forces you to concentrate on recovery and other bureaucratic stuff, instead of building rockets and flying missions.

Don't think of it as "do contracts, avoid bankruptcy", think of it as "do contracts, be rewarded with the ability to waste funds on fun expensive stuff".

You can burn through your funds fairly quickly when you disable revert and start prototyping √200,000 spaceplanes. I spent about √1,000,000 just sorting out a collapsing landing gear problem.

[Hodo]

I have two installs and both are different.

One install is stock sized Kerbin system with a few dozen mods, and that is career mode.

The second install is my full Realism Overhaul, and it is in sandbox because I don't feel like dealing with the funding issues yet.

[Jouni]

Don't think of it as "do contracts, avoid bankruptcy", think of it as "do contracts, be rewarded with the ability to waste funds on fun expensive stuff".

I can already do that in the sandbox, without having to grind through random contracts first.

[Colonel_Sanders]

Career. I started playing it again with the last update, and after a while it pretty much became sandbox with optional contracts. For mods I use kethane, K.A.S, and kerbal engineer.

[nadreck]

Doing it vanilla in 24.2 career mode, except I have self enforced rules not to Revert (and am generally testing anything I am not sure of with a probe core), and I consider that I am trying to beat the clock and look at cash as a score as well. So my goal is to get through the tree in a minimum of elapsed Kerbal time, and then to each celestial body and return in the minimum time on the clock. However being cash conscious hasn't stopped me from building stuff like this:

However, my tank farm is mostly recoverable and I will salvage what I can when I feel a need to update it with parts further down the tech tree. Still working on filling it as I wait for my next burst of Science from my first Minmus contract and mission.

[Volcanix]

Doing it vanilla in 24.2 career mode, except I have self enforced rules not to Revert (and am generally testing anything I am not sure of with a probe core), and I consider that I am trying to beat the clock and look at cash as a score as well. So my goal is to get through the tree in a minimum of elapsed Kerbal time, and then to each celestial body and return in the minimum time on the clock. However being cash conscious hasn't stopped me from building stuff like this:

http://i.imgur.com/NtZs1qe.png

However, my tank farm is mostly recoverable and I will salvage what I can when I feel a need to update it with parts further down the tech tree. Still working on filling it as I wait for my next burst of Science from my first Minmus contract and mission.

Why should you recover that? It's great!

[thylordroot]

I'm currently doing Career with FAR, Deadly Reentry, and RemoteTech 2 (along with a few other mods). Like Nadreck, I have explicitly disabled revert and quicksave, but I have an additional rule such that when my reputation gets in the orange range, I delete the save. In vanilla stock, that seems easy enough to avoid, but because FAR makes flying rockets a lot more difficult, I've quickly come to prefer probes. I've just recently added in Station Science (which adds contracts of its own) and ScanSAT. Once Kethane and Kerbal Attachment System are released for 24.2, I will add those in as well.

[Pecan]

Career. I started playing it again with the last update, and after a while it pretty much became sandbox with optional contracts. For mods I use kethane, K.A.S, and kerbal engineer.

This is rather the point, as Jouni (I think) said with:

I can already do that in the sandbox, without having to grind through random contracts first.

If you're only doing career because "after a while it pretty much became sandbox" then what is the point? Squad are still working on it, as they've said, but at the moment the 'end game' of career mode is simply to become sandbox - it just doesn't add anything, unless you're already experienced and want to see how quickly/efficiently you can meet otherwise pointless contract 'challenges'.

[Dispatcher]

Lately I'm playing Career. The only mods I am using are my own custom parts (fueled adapters) and KER.

[dci]

Career mode with Kerbal Engineer Redux mod only.

[Volcanix]

Pecan is right. I'm just still searching for challenges or mission structures / tasks for sandbox .. Has anyone got some? I may post a thread where I collect all "Things to do in sandbox". Would you like such a thread?

[WeirdCulture]

I am playing a modded carreer because of moar fun fopr moar boosters Playing with some mods which makes that stuff harder like RT2 (nobody gives me a contract for communication satelites ) and DRE (my stuff is burning up at reentry)

[DrMonte]

In stock we trust!

I've restarted my career with 0.24 after "some" delay.

[Clockwork_werewolf]

Career, mostly stock. After completing career without mods I decided to run it again but with x8 costs. Getting the money to get a satellite in orbit was hard although I do like to man everything so that didn't help. I'm also using EnvironmentalVisualEnhancements but no game changing mods otherwise.

[Volcanix]

Okay, I think that's enough answers.

Thanks to everyone who participated ! Have a nice day!