Murphies Law in Hard Career

[PB666]

I've seen some of the live streams on Hard Career so I know that folks are having some difficulty with this mode.

For me however, I find it rather easy to get started because of all the new little 'Eggs' hiding around KSC. But there within lies the problem.

Here are the problems:

1. EVAers getting stuck in the environment, and then being killed on game reload. This is not a new problem, its happened before, the game appears to know when a kerbal has become trapped in its collision mesh and then either makes it disappear, however in career mode, they die.

Solution. Hack gravity and try to use EVA suit to extract to a safe place. However this may be having unintended consequences in the game.

2. The collision mesh of some structures in KSC needs to be reworked. Fuel tanks in particular are problematic; for example, on one of the fuel tanks the EVAer was more than a quarter of a meter from the ladder he was climbing, this is where they tend to get stuck. I was trying to get 'Kit' Science from around another tank, not even close to the tanks themselves (meter away) and no heat source, they exploded. However I launched a Big-Orange 64 tank on wheels (with a factor 3 thruster) at the VAB and it took 4 or 5 tries to destroy it, the best hits occurred on the corner of the building.

Solution: Is the collision mesh tied to the same reference frame as the scenary mesh? Is it just me or do the two meshes differ on the time-reference from each other and cause temporal changes in how kerbols can interact with the mesh. Maybe the wind is blowing them.

3. Freaky stuff. My first orbital mission in latest career, using standard parts went fine until I hit orbit (36K alt), then Kerbol orbital velocity magnitude immediately became the Kerbol radial velocity vector, the two vectors essentially switched. My ship was suddenly in a near perfect (e=1) eccentric orbit toward Jool's orbit with a subterranean Kerbol (not Kerbin, but Kerbol, the star) periapsis. Radial velocity was ~15,500. In the game I tried to hack and unhack gravity but debug was unavailable. I finally aborted and returned but to no avail.

Despite all of this the "Escape Atmosphere" reward was not given, but the Orbit Kerbin was, lol.

Solution. On game return I Hacked Infinite fuel and correct orbit before ships travels too far from planet. I think the problem here is that if one has to use hack gravity to release a trapped kerbal, shut down the hack, alt-F12 and exit the game and restart before continuing missions.

4. Funky ground vessels. Particularly in Physics warp, wheel vehicles will collapse immediately, the faster the warp the more apparent effect of 'gravity'. Sitting vehicles literally collapse, moving vehicles explode (immediately) even on flat terrain.

Solution: No physics warp > 2 while moving vehicle, but works OK on walking and recharging. This means that the parking brake needs to be set on all vehicles during long walk EVAs.

5. Sub-sites in KSC appear to disappear and reappear. The KSC exploitable regions are not completely static. There are occassions where I sampled a site, returned to resample it and the same site is part of a different domain. (e.g. [sorry don't mean to spoil] the VAB main assembly building become VAB) but if I move to the roof or a different site I can resample. The best example I can give is I had established a kerbal on the statute's domain in front of the statue, came back and found the domain in back of the statue.

Solution: make sure to explore KSC objects to see if where-when in space-time they are exploitable, the first attempt(s) may simply be a random failure. I think Heisenberg's uncertainty principle may apply on a much greater scale in KSC.

6. This is not a bug, but . . . . those stairways are nauseating. Trying to keep orientation of Kerbal and keep orientation forward, maybe not the best time to try out physics warp.

Hint: for those working ground environment in KSC. The best sites are those close to paved entrances (such as drive ways). Fuel towers might be access by find corners underneath to slip into.