Adding some challenge!

[paul23]

Hey there, I've always found it kind of silly that the most efficient rocket is also the very easiest - one stage to whereever.

This comes from the fact that retrieving rockets is such a good way to not waste money; and most money is in the structure instead of the fuel.

This is often untrue in real life - the propellant is much more expensive than the fuel tanks. Also reentry will damage a rocket leading to substantial maintenance costs. (Which is the reason why NASA phased out the space shuttle in favour of non reusable conventional rockets). So I am wondering: can I change the settings file somewhere to make those two changes: make fuel price around 5 times as high, and change it so that each vehicle is damaged by like 25% simply upon launching.

PS: I'm not sure if I posted this is the correct section - but I'm not looking for a mod, just a manual edit.

[DrMonte]

You can definitely do most of the things you mentioned or even more. I think someone will post more details on this.

Take KSC a bit easier. We have no idea what propellant Kerbals use for their engines. How much they pay for production of metal. Maybe fuel flows free and they are a bit short on electronics. That is why they send Kerbal on the booster directly to the space.

You said no mods but if you want some realism you should take a look at this challenge http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/93234-Ell-s-Ultimate-HardKore-Challenge

[paul23]

Well it is simply boring/silly for me in vanilla ksp - way way to easy. Ideal staging designs don't matter when the optimum is so close to "full recovery".

[KerikBalm]

That is really only true for kerbin orbit.

Take my duna mission for example:

1 stage to orbit

1 stage to duna + duna return

1 stage to duna surface+ back to duna orbit.

100% recoverable does not mean 1 stage.

As it is, I rarely recover anything but the first stage.

I leave my landers refueled in orbit around the destination world with a fuel depot.

My transfer stages are reusable tugs, I just hoist up a load of fuel for them.

I find 1 stage, even to the Mun, to be wasteful, Once I'm in orbit, drop all the weight that i don't need (ideally on a trajectory back to KSC), and proceed from there.

[DrMonte]

I stopped recovering stages after I've reached 1M Kredits. It is boring and not so efficient as it might sound. To lift at least 50t to orbit with SSTO is quite a challenge.

If you'll miss to land this SSTO lifter by few percent you'll loose much more than "launch and forget" asparagus lifter.

Miss a challenge? Build EVE SSTO.

[paul23]

Apart from everyone who says "this isn't true" can anyone tell me how to make fuel more expensive? Doing that adds a lot more fun with delta-v budgetting (instead of of just overestimating delta v each time and getting a negative feedback from the game).

[KerikBalm]

Kerbal SPace Program folder -> Squad Folder -> Resources Folder -> ResourcesGeneric.cfg

I edited this to make Xenon gas cheaper, since it was ridiculously expensive relative to the other fuels (I never noticed until I added high capacity tanks for my orbital fuel depots)

The .cfg file for each resource is like this:

RESOURCE_DEFINITION

{

name = LiquidFuel

density = 0.005

unitCost = 0.8

flowMode = STACK_PRIORITY_SEARCH

transfer = PUMP

isTweakable = true

}

What you want to do is increase the unit cost.

"To lift at least 50t to orbit with SSTO is quite a challenge."

Not really, especially if you use NEAR or FAR, or SLS parts. Even with stock Aero, I made a >100 ton to orbit SSTO space plane, that was a challenge, my 50 ton designs were quite easy to build.

[Pecan]

...I made a >100 ton to orbit SSTO space plane, that was a challenge...

Fully-recoverable 100t SSTO:

Rockets are SO much easier but need a lot more fuel!