Anyone else who just plays career....

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

.25 is a blast in my opinion and I enjoy it greatly.

There has always been a lot of noise in the Forum from people that were unhappy how the new update had turned out for them.

Best thing would be to play it and to see for yourself

[bonyetty]

I am just playing career since .25 because I want to play the game IN the Kerbal universe but keep catching my too adult brain imposing rules and constraints that aren't IN the game. Don't get me wrong I'm loving it. My heart is pounding again with the new difficulty setting. It's making me want to be a kid again even more.

[Las-pen]

I'd like to know, is there anybody who plays sandbox?

[ArmchairGravy]

I've been playing career mode exclusively since .22 came out. I like the strategies in .25 as I'm over grinding out the tech tree. While I ignored asteroids in .24, I'm now capturing/deflecting impactors. Since these can be fairly expensive (420k for my Class E interceptor) I'm much more focused on my finances. With each iteration of career mode I've found/created a fresh way of playing. BTW, the only mods I use are KER and KAC.

[Superfluous J]

I'd like to know, is there anybody who plays sandbox?

A few. Find them over here.

[Pecan]

I'd like to know, is there anybody who plays sandbox?

As above. Or read a few of the posts here.

I play sandbox almost exclusively - only career to check how it affects the designs I make.

[fat4eyes]

New guy here, and just coming in to say that career mode is great for the new player experience. It's basically an big extended tutorial.

I like funds too because it keeps rocket designs sane. Remember: "An engineer is someone who can build for one dollar what any fool can build with two." You get a constant stream of funds from contracts anyway one you have orbiter probes around Kerbin, Mun and Minmus.

[Nedal]

I always play career. .25 has reinvigorated my interest with the difficulty settings, playing full hard mode is a whole new experience. I also impose a few rules upon myself to make it even a little harder.

No leaving kerbals on bodies just to spam flags. Or probes to spam 0 science contracts. Also no boring mun\minus biome hopping. Just go if I have contracts, and return.

I feel building mission specific ships with fund constraints is a big part of the challenge.

So far I haven't lost a single kerbal, although came very very close a few times. Had to rescue Jeb from duna, and once from the mun, dumb mistakes and all.

I almost went bankrupt early testing a landers shock absorption abilities and blowing up the launchpad 120Grand?!

the most devestating recently I was randezvouing the final fuel pod on a jool 5 craft, being sleepy and not fully paying attention ended up smashing into my 1.5 million fund ship knocking off the lab. Thankfully it didn't explode and I was able to recover the kerbals from the lab. But man, the look of horror on my face must have been priceless.

I abandon the jool 5 mission and sent a tylo only craft to recoup funds which was wildly successful and profitable. And just completed the jool 4 craft with a nice kerbodyne test pod destined for bop, which should finish the tech tree and provide much funds.

It's been a fun ride.

I just don't find sandbox as interesting, perhaps I just lack creativity.

My personal endgame is basicly returning surface samples from all bodies and having the tech tree completed. I find it more challenging in career.

[Benno]

i play career as a way to get a little spice into sandbox, which is what happens after a few missions to unlock all the parts anyway.

Ditto. What could be more rewarding than sending your starship to land on Laythe with just enough fuel, water, oxygen, scanning satellites, communications arrays and robotic miners to safely bring them seven kerbals home again? Knowing that you did it the hard way, that you discovered the necessary research, and now that you worked hard and saved up enough moolah to build that starship in orbit. I couldn't resist a snappy of the Joolian:

[Axelord FTW]

I tried Science when I came back to KSP in late 24.2 and immediately switched to Career.

With FinePrint, I don't think I'll ever look back.

[DunaRocketeer]

Most definitely a career fan here! I love starting from nothing and building up your capabilty bit by bit. Some of the contracts are a little strange (yay for fine print!), but the sensible parts testing contacts just add to the impression that you're immersed in a developing space program, ditto on the science data contracts. The funds system has forced me to think about my rocket designs more, and has resulted in much more rewarding flying experiences.

[malkuth]

Only way I can play now. I always need a challenge, why I started MC and made it harder to some degree.

+ I played for over a year well before MC and any type of career so been there done that. Also play with Deadly reentry, far, Tac Life support, etc...

[HarvesteR]

One thing I find strange from threads like these (or the other one, whichever way), is that it seems very obvious to me that the consensus should be that it's all good, because all game modes are still available.

If we had removed sandbox and imposed Career mode, sure, I'd be peeved if I were in team sandbox too, and understandably so. Same if I were on the Career team. In fact, so loath were we to replace a game mode with the addition of new features, we created Science mode to preserve the pre-0.24 style of career gameplay. The idea here is to cater to all sides.

Personally though, I'm on neither side. I play all modes more or less evenly. Sandbox is nice when you get that urge to build something ludicrous and see where you can go with it (also very useful for dev testing), and Career provides the much needed structure a game needs so it can be called a game.

Sure, Sandbox reached a state of completion first, so we now have devoted a lot of dev time into Career. Does that mean we consider Career as a superior game mode? Of course not! It's merely a matter of timing, and that Career depends on an existing sandbox to work (going the other way around would have been quite awkward, to say the least).

I get the feeling this is something like the discussion among rollercoaster enthusiasts about wooden vs steel coasters... It's kind of pointless, since there is quite enough room for both.

But before I go here, consider this: About a year ago, if you went out on the internets to gauge opinions of non-players (those can't be found in the forums), as to why they didn't want to get into KSP, the main arguments were that it was either too hard to get into (too high an entry barrier), or that they didn't care for a game without goals to pursue (lack of structure). However, if you go out today to gauge those same opinions, you'll find that those arguments are very largely gone. I'd say as far as the primary purpose of Career Mode goes, in a single-purchase standalone game that is still under development, it seems to be doing its job very well.

Cheers

[Pecan]

...Sure, Sandbox reached a state of completion first, so we now have devoted a lot of dev time into Career. Does that mean we consider Career as a superior game mode? Of course not! It's merely a matter of timing, and that Career depends on an existing sandbox to work (going the other way around would have been quite awkward, to say the least).

...

Be assured we're all fans anyway HarvesteR - thanks to all the team.

I hope I was saying much the same thing in my first post in this thread:

While I don't play career mode at the moment, and the recent updates haven't had much for sandbox players, I can see, understand and support what Squad are doing with the game.

...

- So I'm very happy, even if 0.24 and 0.25 didn't add much for me personally.

[smart013]

One thing I find strange from threads like these (or the other one, whichever way), is that it seems very obvious to me that the consensus should be that it's all good, because all game modes are still available.

But the ugly truth imho is that lots of people - at least this is my summary of their activities on forums and such - want the game mode they prefer AND ONLY THIS MODE to be the norm for everyone. I am good at juggling with vintage 1923 red wine bottles? Make it a discipline at the olympics, and kick this bloody dressage out that i hate.

[Franklin]

As a sandboxer, as updates to career roll out that aren't "meant for sandbox mode" I just start a new career and max out my tech tree immediately and play it like a sandbox. Squad could do away with the Science Mode completely if they provided unlimited funds/unlimited rep toggles in the difficulty panel (they may already, I haven't played with it much).

That way I'm not neglected the new features that are designed for career mode exclusively, but not pigeonholed into a progressive/semi-linear mode that, honestly, is kinda limp.

[Engineer of Stuff]

The mod Fine Print really improves the career mode and makes it more fun.

[LABHOUSE]

Used to play only sandbox but when they added money I played career and now I have my sandbox deleted. I actually couldn't learn well with all those extra parts.

[Jouni]

I completed the career mode once when I started playing KSP back in 0.22. Since then, I've restarted the career mode 5-10 times, but I always grow bored with flying the same missions around the time I unlock nuclear engines.

Now I play sandbox with different mods, trying to find new challenges to beat. I'll probably give the career mode another chance, when there's a balanced game in it with default options and no self-imposed restrictions.

[SorryDave]

I am now a career mode fan with the latest update. I keep starting over as I try new things on "hard" setting.

I recently played through using the admin functions to quickly raise rep and then science. In this way I unlock the tech tree before reaching orbit, but not all the parts.

I then collect science to raise funds. I enjoy unlocking the tech tree early so that I can use the parts to build more interesting vehicles to explore the planets.

Unlocking the tech tree is no longer the goal of the game, and there are now different ways to progress.

I do not subscribe anymore to the theory that you should have to travel outside the Kerbin system to unlock the tech tree. It did not seem reasonable that unlocking the tech tree was a good reason to travel to other planets.

As tech points can be converted to funds, I look forward to more biomes as I will be able to generate funds by exploring different areas of the planets.

[Franklin]

Unlocking the tech tree is no longer the goal of the game, and there are now different ways to progress.

What's another way to progress? 100%ing science? maxing out rep? Making up your own goals isn't really progress in the sense of a built career mode, it's just personal roleplaying.

[architeuthis]

If you're craving a little perspective try to pretend you are playing Kerbal Space Program for the very first time. It's so easy to become jaded when you have time to mentally acclimate to each little incremental release. Try to see the big picture. It's revealing I think.

I really enjoy career mode. I particularly enjoy the new difficulty settings. No reloads is a form of shock therapy for staging errors. In the past I would just revert for each tiny design mistake, slip of the mind or pilot's error. These days I have to think about what I'm doing because there are now actual consequences.

That said, after a while career mode and sandbox seem to converge. I don't understand when people speak of 'winning' career mode. Am I doing it wrong? How do you win career mode?

[Franklin]

That said, after a while career mode and sandbox seem to converge. I don't understand when people speak of 'winning' career mode. Am I doing it wrong? How do you win career mode?

You win career mode when it becomes sandbox mode.

[SkyHook]

I exclusively played sandbox until Career recently became to my liking in version 0.24. Because the next update will finish up career, I am switching back to sandbox for this update. Before 0.24, I was expressly anti-career.

[Dizzle]

I personally like having a career save that evolves into sandbox. It always felt weird to me that the Kerbals would start off with all technology unlocked, and could launch anything with no restrictions. In my current career, I've set up my strategy so that the science I gain is open-source and I just worry about budgets.