In a scale of 1 through 6, how efficient are you?

[Commissioner Tadpole]

Fact: Efficiency is something that's great when you have to manage finances - especifically, in Career mode. However, it's obvious that not all players are so inclined to make all stages to be recoverable, and that some are so finicky that they only use 100% reusable spaceplanes that can go Single Stage to Eeloo and Back, and will revert the entire mission if a small wing is destroyed.

Ahem... so, we get to the main point. In a scale of One through Six, how efficient are you in Career mode?

One - 1: Not efficient in the slightest. Will make extraordinarily big rockets that pack way more Delta-V and costs than necessary just for the sake of it. And out of that, only the capsule is recovered. The player is essentially dependent on cash earned from contracts to not go into bankruptcy. He/she won't care whether he/she lands in the KSC or in the South Pole - as long as it's in Kerbin, it works.

Two - 2: Barely counts as efficient. Will try to make rockets carry only the needed, but will often do the job poorly or just not enough. One could say there are more flags scattered around his/her save file than money in his/her wallets. He/She wants to land in KSC, but won't actively try to achieve that and won't mind if he/she lands somewhere else.

Three - 3: Moderately efficient. Will only pack the necessary to optimize costs and part counts, and will try to land as close to KSC as possible. Will also try to use a reusable spaceplane, but not too often, and will be mostly for flights within the Kerbin system.

Four - 4: Highly efficient. Will keep a threshold of a value for each stage, and any stage whose price is higher than said threshold will be remapped to be efficient. If possible, will also use Kerbal Engineer Redux to monitor the delta-V levels for each stage to make sure that they're not packing much more than needed, but will also leave a little extra fuel. Other than that, the player is mostly similar to Level 3.

Five - 5: Finickily efficient. This is where things start to get creepy. Rockets are mostly really tiny, sometimes even trying really hard for that. There is also a pair of parachutes for each stage, which is triggered as soon as it is ditched.. Basically most of the program is Spaceplane-oriented, and designed to be as much recoverable as possible. Nuclear engines may or may not be common, depending on whether the player priorizes cost and weight or fuel savings.

Six - 6: 100% efficient. All vessels are as small as possible, any ship that doesn't land squarely in the runway is considered a failure, if a course has a mismatch and a correction is required, the entire flight is reverted to start, and Delta-V is as tight as possible to minimize costs.

If you don't play Career, those can also apply to your Sandbox/Science save file.

I guess I would be a Level 2.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Commissioner Tadpole

[nine_iron]

Between 2 and 3... Probably 2.75

[RocketPilot573]

3... I use a fullyreusable falcon 9 style rocket, but I also use spaceshuttles. The launch price is a big nope.

[Trentendegreth]

i have to keep a low part count, my pc screams at me with 300parts, that and i use sstos a lot so im a 4.

[TheJoseph98]

0 (Zero)

[Xacktar]

Can I be a negative number?

[mythbusters844]

Can I be a negative number?

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/22838132252200085/6D121C6CAD9C05EF1F3ACDB7FCE3B13D87813F62/

Lol Xacktar. You're so funny

Anyways, I would probably be a level two or thereabouts. I always try landing my capsules back at KSC, but only sigh if I miss.

[problemecium]

I voted 5, but my personal play style still does use a lot of rockets rather than spaceplanes. Instead I do a lot of orbital construction using my family of reusable single-stage lift rockets and shuttles.

[Sirrobert]

I gues I'm a 2,5. With the help of mechjeb I make my rockets as small as possible, but I do include a comfortable safety margin. And I save money where possible by using solid boosters.

But I can't fly spaceplanes (well, actually I can't build planes worth jack crap. I have once landed on the island runway with a plane someone else designed, after only a few failed attempts), so that limits me to multi stage rockets, which always costs money

[r_rolo1]

A) Planes are not inherently more efficient than rockets. In fact it is the opposite in the current version of the game

Single Stage to Duna ( or anywhere besides LKO, and even then ... ) is NOT efficient There is a reason for staging and it is called Physics

That said I consider myself a 4, but just because IMHO your 5 and 6 are somewhere between your 0 and 1

[bigyihsuan]

0 in my Sandbox save. all launchers are custom built, and usually over-engineered. And I usually have tons of KW struts everywhere.

For example, my Duna mission has a TWR of roughly 3 on Duna. And even though the lander only uses 2.5 m parts, the launcher is an asparagus-staged, 3 m monster.

[Loligoat]

I'd say I'm a four. I use spaceplanes for crew transfers and small payloads, and I use minimalist rockets for larger ones. In career mode I always set myself a budget for my missions. (ex. If my total rewards for a contract is 150,000, I'll try and keep the launch price below 75,000) If possible I return my second stage, but I don't always make it a priority. My standard Duna lander consists of 1 standard command pod, 1 half sized 2m tank, 1 poodle engine, 3 lander legs, a few solar panesl, and whatever science I need. The whole thing is returned.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Loligoat

[MartGonzo]

Can I be a negative number?

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/22838132252200085/6D121C6CAD9C05EF1F3ACDB7FCE3B13D87813F62/

maybe a Xacktar scale would be more appropriate, 5/5 for big, silly, spinny and explodey things

somewhere between 3-4 for me on the Efficiency scale

0 on the Xacktar scale

Edited October 11, 2014 by MartGonzo

[Commissioner Tadpole]

0 (Zero)

Can I be a negative number?

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/22838132252200085/6D121C6CAD9C05EF1F3ACDB7FCE3B13D87813F62/

Zero - 0: "Efficiency? What's that? Did you mean Exxageration? Lemme see an 'efficient' rocket. Wow, are your astronauts ants? That thing is microscopic! Go build something bigger!"

In a more serious note, I guess you two would fit in One, as it is specifically for the players who aren't efficient at all. Zero or Minus One would imply that you're so inefficient that you actually end up being efficient.

I voted 5, but my personal play style still does use a lot of rockets rather than spaceplanes. Instead I do a lot of orbital construction using my family of reusable single-stage lift rockets and shuttles.

A) Planes are not inherently more efficient than rockets. In fact it is the opposite in the current version of the game

Single Stage to Duna ( or anywhere besides LKO, and even then ... ) is NOT efficient There is a reason for staging and it is called Physics

That said I consider myself a 4, but just because IMHO your 5 and 6 are somewhere between your 0 and 1

Edited, thanks for clarifying.

Edited October 11, 2014 by Commissioner Tadpole

[Norpo]

I am actually a 2, I pack in at least 1000 m/s extra delta-v for EVERYTHING, however, let me tell you a story from my hard mode career save...

I'm CRAZY about trying to recover as much as I can, but mainly out of greed. I seriously can't stand losing a stage, so i'll try to recover as much as I can, but I have.. kinda lost a kerbal to that recently, I forgot engines don't turn off when you decouple them, and my parachutes were cut cause I was going up, and then the capsule, with a ton of Mun science, and a kerbal, were in that capsule. Splash into the water at around 20 m/s, which is too much for a mk 1 command pod to bear, and, well, you can see the rest.

A successful mun flyby, only to fail because I forgot to hit "X". Oh well, it happens.

All this loss for a possibility of 1000 extra funds. >.> Thankfully, the second mission with Bill at the command seat went better. But, sending a second mission put a SERIOUS dent in my funds, and i'm doing a bunch of contracts to try to get it all back.

[bitbucket]

I'd say I'm around 3.25  I do tend to over-engineer a bit, don't really care for planes at all, and every time I land something back on Kerbin I try to bring it down in the water just off the coast from KSC.

[Overfloater]

I would* vote for 6, seeing as my space program consisted exclusively of spacecrafts that return 100% intact, I perform burns only where it's really necessary & most efficient, and the crafts are packed with just the right amount of DV needed.

But then I started doing standard rockets for Eve, Jool-5 mission etc'... let's call it an"emergency"... yeah... xD

Edited October 11, 2014 by Overfloater

[Blind Dead McJones]

I put myself at 3 for the following reasons:

1. I've been experimenting with spaceplanes and I've achieved orbit with some designs, but I haven't yet been able to use them for any real missions.

2. I try to land at the KSC if I can, but with dV budgets and timing sometimes there's only so much you can do. Example: I usually do a return from the Mun on a direct-into-atmosphere trajectory because it saves fuel at the Mun. But if I don't put myself near KSC with that, it often takes a lot of dV to correct, not to mention time (in the game universe, anyway).

3. I don't like to make massive rockets just for the sake of massive rockets. I recently redesigned my main Mun lander to be about 2/3 the size of the previous design, both for efficiency and aesthetic appeal.

[superm18]

Id say about 3,75. I'll even start career over if I fail a big and costly mission....a bit of ocd I think

[Rainbow-Dashie]

I'm a 2, my rockets aren't needlessly big, but everything besides the capsule and few science parts attached to it are jettisoned at some point... I dont think I have ever tried to land near KSC.... Never used spaceplanes much (im trying to move towards em now, with SP+ and all that)

[montyben101]

Almost all my launches are space shuttles, and since I only play sandbox money is no problem for me.

The shuttles I use are very efficient, I even took one to minmus and plan to go to the mun with one (check my sig)

[Ravenchant]

Barely efficient. I haven't tried career mode yet, and even in sandbox function follows form

[Sirrobert]

A) Planes are not inherently more efficient than rockets. In fact it is the opposite in the current version of the game

Single Stage to Duna ( or anywhere besides LKO, and even then ... ) is NOT efficient There is a reason for staging and it is called Physics

That said I consider myself a 4, but just because IMHO your 5 and 6 are somewhere between your 0 and 1

Well they may not be efficient when you're taking about fuel, but when it comes to money they are, because you can recover a much larger portion of the initial launch, and thus only pay for fuel used

[merendel]

kinda between 3 and 4 closer to 4. I dont nessicaraly tune later stages to exact dV requirements, I like haveing a 10-20% margin when I can get away with it. However I tend to cut costs on the launch as much as possible. I strap quite a few of the huge solid boosters, sometimes enough that stage 1 is just solids. the remainder of the launchstage is often recoverable and only carrys enough fuel to get the payload to orbit and return back to atmo. I do try to land near KSC whenever possible but I'm not OCD about it. If I miss by 100km I call it good enough. well good enough for the non spaceplane returns, those go to the runway unless I'm outa gas and cant glide that far.

Its amazing how cheeply you can get to orbit on solid boosters. theres no reason to recover them as they are nearly worthless once empty and its cheeper than liquid fueld launch stages of similar peformance.

[Mitchz95]

4 describes me pretty well. I try not to use much more than I think I'll need, but I try to give myself a little extra fuel in case something goes wrong during the mission.